Visibility Is Clarity: Navigating the Growing Software Stack

Technology merchants are steadily growing because SMBs are relying on SaaS more than ever. In fact, in the United States alone, new B2B apps hit an all-time high in 2020. While the benefits and disruptions of software and technology have been a great advantage for businesses, SMBs are suffering from ‘information overload’ with the overwhelming number of buzzwords in the SaaS landscape.

How can small and medium-sized businesses manage their growing software stack? How can they ensure that their SaaS investments are generating returns? The answer is clarity and visibility.

The Digital Transformation of SMBs

SMBs have digitized various aspects of their operations over the past decade– from accounting to human resources to customer relationship management. SaaS tools brought forth diverse solutions, integration, cost-effectiveness, and maximum scalability. Businesses can now better focus on their core activities and allow SaaS tools to take care of the rest.

While SaaS solutions have simplified modern business operations, your tech stack can easily get out of hand and may only do more harm than good.

Challenges of Managing Multiple Tools

Without proper software subscription management, your business may face the following critical challenges:

• Operational Overhead: Time and resources spent managing subscriptions, user access, and integrations.
• Financial Complexity: Tracking costs, managing renewals, and preventing unnecessary expenses from unused or redundant software.
• Security Concerns: Each additional software introduces another potential vulnerability or point of data breach.
• Decision Making: Clarity on which tools are providing value and which aren't.
• Budgeting: Clear insights into software-related expenses and future budget forecasting.
• Operational Efficiency: Streamlining user access and training and ensuring software tools are in sync.

The Importance of Visibility

Manually managing SaaS will take time and resources, not managing it well can lead to wasted SaaS spend in the form of underutilized tools, forgotten subscriptions, and redundant apps. The average company uses around 123 SaaS applications. With everyone busy with their core activities, managing SaaS can be left on the back burner, sneakily eating up your precious SaaS budget month after month.

How Talisman Enhances Visibility

To gain full visibility of your growing tech stack, you can use a subscription management tool like Talisman. How can Talisman make SaaS management a total breeze? You can enjoy the following features:

• Unified Dashboard: A centralized view of all your SaaS tools, their costs, user access, etc. No more spreadsheets that you need to update and monitor. With Talisman’s dynamic dashboard, everything is in sync and all the details you need to know are gathered in a single page. You get full visibility of all the tools you have subscribed to over the years. You can even check which ones your team is not really utilizing, so you can cancel those unnecessary expenses or enforce adoption within the team. Decision-making and optimization become effortless and efficiency is guaranteed.
• Proactive Alerts: Receive prompt notifications about renewals, unused software, or potential cost-saving opportunities. Talisman hates wasted SaaS spend as much as you do and we’re here to add all the crucial features you need to ensure that you’re only paying for what you need– nothing more, nothing less.
• Collaborative Features: Talisman has also launched collaborative features to allow proactive discussions among various departments like IT, Finance, and Operations. That way, all SaaS-related decision-making can be further streamlined and your team can build a stronger and more efficient tech stack that can drive your business forward.

Case Study

Let’s cite the case of OneSeven Tech, a growing digital product studio. As their business and team expanded, they also had to grow their tech stack to keep up and innovate. Before they used Talisman they did their SaaS audits manually. To do that, they had to sift through bank transactions, Quickbooks, and multiple emails, not to mention running details through various team members across the company to verify if a subscription was still active and useful.

With the cycles of questions and communication gaps, not only did they find it hard to come up with accurate results but the process also killed the team’s productivity.

They came across Talisman and they never looked back. In just a matter of minutes, Talisman gathered all the key details they needed in one centralized dashboard including the list of subscriptions, the costs, renewals, purchasers, and levels of usage.

They realized how many forgotten or underutilized tools they’ve been paying for all these years and they were blown away when they learned that the cost savings amounted to a whopping $14,000. They put the saved-up resource to better use and hired their first sales executive to support growing their business.

Try running your own SaaS audit with Talisman and see how many costs you can cut down and put to better use. Save time, energy, and money by simply optimizing how you manage your tech stack.

When it comes to making your SMB operations efficient and successful, you can work smarter by eliminating time-consuming manual processes and maximizing opportunities for cost savings. Start with your software portfolio and use tools like Talisman to ensure that your SaaS budget is wisely spent.

Sign up for a quick call to get started with Talisman today.

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