The IT Leader’s Guide to SaaS Optimization and Identity Security

Rethinking IT Strategies: Tackling Identity and SaaS Sprawl

IT and security leaders face a daunting challenge—how to stay ahead of the rapid proliferation of SaaS applications while keeping identity management airtight. During our time at Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2024, this issue was front and center. The event served as a pivotal opportunity for IT professionals to rethink their strategies, focusing on key areas that can make or break IT operations—identity management and SaaS sprawl.

The problem is clear: the explosion of SaaS tools promises flexibility and innovation but introduces a tangled web of platforms and user identities. Over time, this web grows unmanageable. Every new app adds a new layer of complexity to access controls, security policies, and compliance measures. IT teams are now tasked with securing operations across a sprawling, disconnected portfolio of services—without slowing down the business.

With all that complexity, the question is: how do IT leaders streamline and secure their operations in the face of such sprawl?

Streamlining Identity and App Management: Why It’s Essential

Managing identities and SaaS applications has become one of the biggest headaches for IT and security leaders today. The sheer number of tools in use—across every team and department—means your environment is likely scattered, leaving you with fragmented visibility into who has access to what. The result? A lack of centralized control, increased security risks, and a growing operational overhead that drains IT resources.

• First off, there’s the issue of fragmented access management. With SaaS applications spread across different silos, most IT leaders can’t get a clear picture of which users have access to which applications—or even whether those users still need the access they were granted. This lack of clarity creates significant security vulnerabilities, particularly in larger organizations where the volume of users and apps can be overwhelming.

• Then, there’s the challenge of app sprawl. Every department has its favorite tools, and the number of SaaS apps in use often balloons beyond what’s sustainable. Each new addition introduces more access points, more potential for shadow IT, and more complexity for IT teams to manage. Without a unified strategy, you end up with a tangle of disconnected services that’s difficult to secure and even harder to optimize.

• Lifecycle management is another area where many organizations struggle. Without automation, onboarding and offboarding processes can be slow and error-prone. This inefficiency leads to security risks, like when employees leave and still retain access to critical systems, as well as operational bottlenecks that consume IT bandwidth. Inconsistent license management only adds to the chaos, with many companies lacking the ability to accurately track app usage, which leads to wasteful spending on unused licenses.

App rationalization and tool consolidation are top priorities for many enterprises right now, and for good reason. Reducing the number of tools in your stack helps cut costs and streamline workflows, but it also significantly reduces the security and compliance risks associated with managing multiple, fragmented SaaS apps. By optimizing your portfolio, you can gain control over who has access to what, while also improving the overall security posture of the organization.

So, ask yourself: “Are you struggling to keep track of access, permissions, and usage across your SaaS portfolio?” If the answer is yes, you’re not alone—but there are solutions that can help you take back control.

SaaS Management Simplified: Gaining Control Over Your App Portfolio

In an era where every team has its preferred set of tools, SaaS sprawl is no longer a hypothetical risk—it’s a reality that most IT and security leaders are wrestling with daily. A whopping 70% of business software is now SaaS-based, highlighting the significant sprawl of SaaS tools across organizations. The more SaaS applications you onboard, the more you invite cost overruns, shadow IT, and security blind spots into your environment. Optimizing your SaaS portfolio isn’t just about saving a few bucks on unused licenses. It’s about gaining complete control over your app ecosystem to reduce risks, streamline operations, and ensure you’re getting the most out of the tools your teams actually use.

One of the biggest challenges in managing a sprawling SaaS portfolio is visibility. With different teams acquiring and managing their own tools, IT often has little to no insight into which apps are being used—or worse, which apps are being abandoned but still being paid for. This lack of transparency leads to wasteful spending, with unused or underused licenses accumulating as part of the operational overhead.

SaaS license management is another area where chaos tends to creep in. Without a centralized system to track renewals, you run the risk of missing contract deadlines, which can lead to automatic renewals for apps that may no longer be needed or are no longer compliant with your security policies. This is often compounded by the fact that different departments are negotiating their own contracts, making it even harder to maintain control over costs and compliance requirements.

A comprehensive platform for SaaS management simplifies the process by consolidating all applications, licenses, and usage data into one place. This allows IT teams to gain real-time visibility into their SaaS ecosystem, showing exactly which apps are in use, who is using them, and how much each app is costing the organization. With access to this centralized data, IT leaders can make informed decisions about eliminating redundant apps, reallocating underused licenses, and trimming unnecessary spending.

Consider the challenge of managing hundreds of SaaS applications, each with its own contracts and user base. Without a unified system, IT teams must manually track license usage, negotiate renewals, and monitor security risks across fragmented tools. A centralized solution automates this process, providing insights into which licenses are underutilized, helping streamline renewals, and ensuring that apps comply with security standards.

The real question is: “Could such a tool help your team reduce SaaS costs while improving security and visibility?” For IT teams struggling with managing an ever-growing app portfolio, adopting a platform that simplifies management and provides critical insights can optimize your SaaS stack while enhancing operational efficiency.

Optimizing SaaS Portfolios and Reducing Operational Overhead

When managing a growing SaaS portfolio, identifying inefficiencies can feel like chasing ghosts—especially when there’s no clear visibility into what’s being used, how often, and by whom. Without optimization, underused apps and redundant licenses pile up, contributing to unnecessary operational overhead and inflated costs. For IT leaders trying to keep security airtight and budgets lean, optimizing SaaS portfolios is no longer optional—it’s critical. 

Identifying Underused or Redundant Apps

The first step to optimizing a SaaS portfolio is knowing which apps are essential and which ones are dead weight. Unfortunately, most organizations lack the tools to easily identify underused or redundant software. Teams sign up for tools independently, without IT oversight, leading to a bloated app landscape with multiple tools that do the same job, or apps that were once critical but have since fallen out of regular use.  

A SaaS management platform addresses the issue of app sprawl by offering real-time visibility into the entire ecosystem. It shows exactly which apps are being used, how often, and by whom. This insight allows IT teams to identify underused or redundant tools, preventing budget waste on applications that only a handful of users access infrequently. By pinpointing these inefficiencies, IT teams can take decisive action—whether that means cutting unnecessary licenses, downgrading subscription tiers, or eliminating redundant solutions altogether—resulting in optimized costs and improved operational efficiency.

Providing Actionable Insights for Cost Savings

Knowing which apps are underused is just the first step; turning that knowledge into tangible cost savings is where the real value lies. A SaaS management solution goes beyond surfacing data by providing actionable insights. By analyzing app usage, license allocations, and spending patterns, it highlights areas where costs can be cut without affecting productivity. IT teams can reallocate licenses from underused applications to higher-demand tools or consolidate overlapping apps to streamline the software stack and enhance efficiency.

Without these insights, many organizations overpay for licenses, renew contracts for unnecessary software, or keep unused apps due to poor visibility. A robust management platform enables IT leaders to make smarter, data-driven decisions, maximizing the return on their SaaS investments and ensuring that resources are allocated where they are most needed.

Centralizing Management to Reduce Operational Overhead

Managing a sprawling SaaS portfolio also takes a toll on IT resources. With multiple apps come multiple contracts, renewals, security risks, and compliance requirements—none of which are easy to manage when everything is fragmented across different teams or systems. The operational overhead from trying to track everything manually or through spreadsheets is a huge drain on time and energy. 

A centralized SaaS management platform alleviates this burden by automating key tasks such as license tracking, renewal management, and enforcement of security policies. This reduces the manual workload for IT teams, allowing them to focus on more strategic initiatives. With all app data consolidated into a single system, IT leaders gain real-time, accessible insights into app usage, permissions, and costs, ensuring they no longer have to scramble for information before renewal deadlines or struggle to track who has access to what.

This centralization streamlines SaaS management, making it easier to maintain compliance, optimize spending, and enforce security policies across the organization.

Where Traditional SaaS Management Falls Short

Traditional SaaS management approaches often struggle to scale effectively. Many organizations rely on fragmented solutions such as spreadsheets, manual audits, or siloed tools that only address part of their SaaS landscape. These methods leave IT teams constantly in reactive mode, scrambling to deal with issues like unexpected renewals, untracked licenses, or security vulnerabilities after they’ve already emerged. They also lack the comprehensive, cross-functional visibility that modern IT environments demand.

Another major shortcoming is shadow IT. Teams across the company often procure their own SaaS tools without involving IT, creating blind spots in security and compliance. This unmonitored software increases the risk of data breaches and non-compliance with regulatory frameworks, as IT is unaware of many apps running in the environment.

Without a centralized SaaS management platform, organizations face the dual risk of wasting money on unused licenses and exposing themselves to security and compliance risks. Centralizing management and automating key processes allows organizations to cut down on operational overhead, reduce unnecessary spending, and ensure better control over security and compliance—ultimately leading to a more efficient and secure SaaS environment.

Access Requests and Reviews Made Simple

Managing access across a sprawling SaaS portfolio isn’t just about security—it’s about efficiency and compliance, too. For IT and security teams, handling a constant flow of access requests, reviews, and audits can turn into a logistical nightmare. But the alternative—leaving access unmanaged—opens up a host of security risks, from over-provisioned users to non-compliance with regulatory standards.

Self-Service Access Requests to Reduce Administrative Burden

One of the biggest bottlenecks in identity management is handling access requests. Every new SaaS app added to your portfolio comes with its own set of permissions and workflows, requiring IT teams to manually approve and provision access. As app sprawl increases, so does the administrative workload—leading to delays, user frustration, and, ultimately, shadow IT as employees bypass formal channels to get the tools they need.

Lumos simplifies this process by introducing self-service access requests. Rather than submitting a ticket and waiting for IT to manually grant access, users can request access to apps through a centralized portal. The system routes these requests based on pre-set policies, ensuring they are approved by the right stakeholders without IT needing to play gatekeeper for every single request. This not only reduces the administrative burden on IT but also empowers users to get what they need faster and more efficiently, reducing the temptation to go rogue.

Automated Access Reviews for Compliance and Least-Privilege Enforcement

Granting access is only part of the equation. The real challenge lies in maintaining compliance with security frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27001, or internal least-privilege policies. Manual access reviews are time-consuming and often riddled with errors, especially in large organizations where hundreds of users may have access to sensitive systems. If users are over-provisioned or continue to retain access long after they’ve moved on from a role, it opens the door to security vulnerabilities that could lead to breaches or failed audits.

Automating the access review process is clutch here. Regularly scheduled access reviews allow IT teams to ensure users have the correct level of access, minimizing the risk of unnecessary exposure. Managers and relevant stakeholders are automatically prompted to review and validate permissions for their teams, ensuring least-privilege access policies are consistently enforced. This level of automation not only keeps your environment secure but also frees up your IT and security staff from the monotonous task of tracking down access manually. In fact, with Lumos, Code42 was able to deploy time-based access for their most critical applications, ensuring employees got the right level of access for a limited period of time, helping to reduce privileged access by 67% across their tech stack.

Simplifying Audits and Compliance

Audits are another area where traditional access management approaches fall short. Manually gathering records of who has access to what—and ensuring that access was provisioned and reviewed according to compliance requirements—can eat up a huge chunk of your team’s time. Multiply that by the number of apps in your portfolio, and it’s no surprise that audits are one of the most dreaded tasks for IT and security teams.

With Lumos, the process of gathering and verifying access logs is fully automated. Access records are centralized and up-to-date, providing an auditable trail for every permission granted, modified, or revoked. Compliance teams can easily pull reports showing which users have access to specific applications, when access was last reviewed, and who approved it—without IT having to scramble for data across multiple systems.

Imagine the hours saved by removing manual reviews and automating audit preparation. It’s not just about speeding up the process—it’s about reducing human error and ensuring that your access management practices are airtight. So, the question is: “How much time could your team save with an automated access review process?”

By automating both access requests and reviews,you’ll ensure that access is not only provisioned quickly but also regularly audited for compliance, helping IT teams maintain security standards with minimal operational overhead. It’s a smarter, faster way to handle access management in an environment where both speed and security are critical.

Proactive SaaS Management for the Modern IT Team

Managing SaaS and identity more than reacting to issues as they come up. It’s about anticipating security risks, streamlining operations, and ensuring compliance before they become problems that threaten your organization. For IT teams, staying ahead of the game requires a proactive approach to SaaS management—one that doesn’t wait for security gaps or inefficiencies to surface before acting.

Anticipating Security Risks Before They Arise

In most organizations, the sheer number of SaaS applications in use creates security blind spots. When teams add apps independently, shadow IT proliferates, and before long, sensitive company data is being accessed through unmonitored and unvetted platforms. This problem is compounded by the constant churn of employees, where users may retain access to apps long after their role changes—or after they leave the company entirely.

Traditional methods of managing these risks are reactive, kicking into gear only once an issue is flagged by an audit or a security breach. But by then, the damage may already be done. Lumos offers a more forward-thinking approach, proactively identifying access risks before they spiral out of control. Through continuous monitoring of SaaS usage and identity permissions, areas of over-provisioning, outdated access, or unauthorized app usage are highlighted, giving IT teams the ability to act on these issues before they result in breaches.

For example, imagine a user who was given access to a sensitive financial platform while working in finance but has since moved to a different department. Our approach can automatically flag that access as potentially problematic and notify the relevant teams to review or revoke it—ensuring least-privilege policies are enforced in real time, without waiting for a manual review cycle. The same goes for unapproved apps that pop up through shadow IT; this option identifies them early and gives your team the insight needed to mitigate the risks.

Empowering Teams with Real-Time Insights

While reacting to issues after they arise is one way to operate, it’s far from efficient. By the time bottlenecks or inefficiencies become obvious, they’ve already caused disruption. IT teams need to be empowered to act on real-time insights, optimizing operations before they slow down workflows or inflate budgets. 

Consider the challenge of managing app usage and licenses. Without real-time data, IT teams often realize too late that they’ve been paying for apps no one is using or that certain tools are being underutilized. Providing ongoing insights into app usage patterns allows you to identify underused apps and reclaim those resources before the next billing cycle or contract renewal. This kind of visibility not only saves costs but also ensures that teams are using the best tools for their jobs, without the distraction of redundant or outdated software.

Additionally, enabling proactive app rationalization by surfacing insights on app overlap—such as when different teams are using separate tools that perform the same function is key. Rather than waiting for an annual audit to uncover these inefficiencies, we’re all about giving IT the data to consolidate apps early and optimize spending across the entire SaaS portfolio.

What if You Could Eliminate SaaS Sprawl and Security Blind Spots Before They Became a Problem?

The beauty of a proactive SaaS management strategy lies in its ability to prevent issues before they escalate into costly or risky problems. By anticipating challenges such as SaaS sprawl, access management gaps, and potential security vulnerabilities, a proactive approach enables IT teams to tackle these issues early on.

With full visibility into the SaaS ecosystem, IT teams can not only see which apps are being used but also assess their effectiveness, ensure permissions are correctly aligned with security policies, and identify redundant apps *before* they waste resources or introduce security risks like shadow IT. This level of foresight allows IT teams to address inefficiencies and security gaps before they become critical.

By adopting this proactive strategy, IT leaders can maintain stronger control over their SaaS portfolios, enhancing security, optimizing costs, and streamlining operations without waiting for problems to emerge. Whether it’s curbing unnecessary SaaS spending or ensuring that access rights remain secure and up-to-date, this approach provides the insights needed to stay ahead and run a more efficient and secure operation from the start.

How Lumos Provides Complete Visibility and Lifecycle Automation

For IT and security leaders, maintaining control over access rights, app usage, and user permissions across a sprawling SaaS environment is a monumental challenge. Without full visibility, the risk of over-provisioning, unauthorized access, and inefficient app usage grows exponentially. Enter Lumos—our platform is designed to bring order to this chaos by providing complete visibility into your SaaS landscape while automating key aspects of the user and app lifecycle. The result? A more secure, streamlined, and efficient IT operation.

Visibility Across the Entire Organization

At the heart of Lumos’s value proposition is the ability to see the full picture: who has access to what, when, and why. Most organizations struggle with this level of transparency. Apps are spread across multiple teams, each with its own set of permissions, making it nearly impossible for IT to have a centralized view of access rights and usage. Without this visibility, it’s all too easy for users to slip through the cracks, retaining access to sensitive systems long after they’ve moved on to different roles or even left the company.

Lumos provides a centralized, real-time view of app usage, user permissions, and access rights, ensuring that IT can track exactly who is using which apps and whether those permissions are still appropriate. This means no more digging through spreadsheets or manually auditing each department's SaaS subscriptions. Instead, Lumos aggregates all this data into a single dashboard, allowing IT teams to manage access holistically. With complete visibility, security risks like shadow IT and over-provisioned users can be identified and addressed before they cause damage.

Lifecycle Automation: The Backbone of Efficient SaaS Management

Gaining visibility is only part of the equation. To truly optimize SaaS and identity management, IT teams need to automate the user lifecycle—from provisioning to deprovisioning—while ensuring access is continuously aligned with security policies. This is where Lumos excels, offering lifecycle automation that reduces manual workloads and tightens security.

Automated Provisioning and Deprovisioning

Manual provisioning is not just time-consuming; it’s risky. When new users join a team, access is often granted ad hoc, leading to inconsistencies and the potential for over-provisioning. At the other end, deprovisioning is often overlooked entirely, leaving former employees or team members with lingering access to critical systems. These gaps create major security vulnerabilities and increase the likelihood of insider threats or data breaches.

Lumos automates the entire provisioning and deprovisioning process, ensuring users are granted the right level of access from day one and have their permissions removed the moment they no longer need them. With Lumos, the moment an employee’s role changes or they leave the company, their access is automatically adjusted or revoked based on predefined policies—eliminating the guesswork and reducing the burden on IT.

Streamlined Access Requests and Reviews to Enforce Least-Privilege Policies

Maintaining least-privilege access is one of the most effective ways to reduce security risks, but without automation, enforcing this principle is a massive undertaking. It requires regular access reviews to ensure that users only have the permissions necessary to perform their current roles, and every access request must be carefully vetted.

Lumos streamlines both access requests and reviews with a self-service model and automated workflows. When users request access to a new app, the system automatically routes the request to the appropriate manager for approval, ensuring it aligns with least-privilege policies. Once access is granted, Lumos continuously monitors user permissions, flagging any deviations from least-privilege standards and prompting automated access reviews at regular intervals. This process ensures that access is both controlled and auditable, without requiring IT to micromanage every permission change.

Imagine a World Where App Access and User Permissions Are Not Just Visible, but Fully Automated

The key to next-gen SaaS management lies in automation—eliminating the manual, repetitive tasks that drain IT resources and increase security risks. Lumos not only makes app access and user permissions visible; it automates the entire lifecycle, from provisioning and access requests to deprovisioning and periodic reviews.

Imagine an environment where every access request is automatically routed for approval based on security policies, every new user is provisioned with the correct app access from day one, and every departing employee’s permissions are revoked in real time. With Lumos, this vision of fully automated, secure access management becomes a reality. IT teams can finally shift from reactive management to proactive optimization, focusing on high-level strategy instead of getting bogged down in tedious, manual processes.

By providing real-time visibility and lifecycle automation, Lumos helps businesses not only tighten security but also reduce the operational overhead of managing sprawling SaaS environments. It’s a future where IT teams are empowered to do more with less—securely, efficiently, and with full confidence that every app and user is accounted for.

Transforming SaaS and Identity Management

Managing a growing SaaS portfolio while maintaining tight control over user access can feel like an uphill battle. But with Lumos, companies are finding a better way. By streamlining identity and app management, Lumos helps IT and security leaders gain complete visibility into their SaaS ecosystem, eliminate redundant apps, and automate lifecycle processes like provisioning, deprovisioning, and access reviews. The result? Reduced operational overhead, optimized costs, and a more secure, compliant environment.

Lumos isn’t just solving today’s challenges—we’re giving your team the tools to proactively manage and secure your SaaS portfolio for the future. Interested in learning how Lumos can help your team gain control over its SaaS apps and identity management? Book a demo today and take the first step toward transforming your IT operations.