Untangling SaaS sprawl: strategies for efficient and secure software management

Across organizations, every team is driven by the desire to innovate and perform, adopting its own set of SaaS tools to help drive growth. But without a centralized strategy, suddenly you’re faced with mounting costs, redundant software, and security vulnerabilities. 

On today’s episode, co-host Aaron Brooks meets with John Harden, Director of Product SaaS Management at Auvik, and Raksha Matthias, Director of Software Asset Management Strategy at Softchoice to unravel the complexities of SaaS sprawl, offering practical solutions and strategies for businesses leaders to regain control and drive efficient, secure, and innovative software usage. 

Featuring: John Harden, Director of Product – SaaS Management at Auvik and Raksha Matthias, Director, Software Asset Management Strategy at Softchoice 

This episode is brought to you by Softchoice SAM+ To learn more, visit softchoice.com. 

The Catalyst by Softchoice is the podcast dedicated to exploring the intersection of humans and technology.

Transcript

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This episode is brought to you by Soft Choice SAM Remove the risk and realize the rewards of subscription licensing. Reach out to a SAMplus expert at Softchoice today, or visit softchoice. com to learn more. You're listening to The Catalyst by Softchoice, a podcast about unleashing the potential in people and technology. I'm your host, Aaron Brooks. What could your business achieve if you didn't have to pay for all that unneeded, unmanaged software? What would you do with that money? Add it to the bottom line? Invest in new business? Well, in today's episode, we're going to address that very question. And joining me are two guests with deep experience in SaaS management. John Harden, the Director of Product for SaaS Management at Auvik, and Raksha Mathias, the Director of Software Asset Management Strategy here at Softchoice. Together, we'll uncover how SaaS sprawl can lead to shadow IT, financial waste, security vulnerabilities, and of course, the impact it has on human and employee experience, and we'll explore actionable strategies to manage and control your software ecosystem effectively. Hey, welcome to the show, Jon and Raksha. Thanks for having us. This is one of those rare podcasts I do where I get blessed with multiple guests. So very excited for this conversation. Why don't we get grounded a little bit in just who you are and what it is that you do today in your lives, your work? Sure. I'll go first, Raksha Mathias. Um, I am the Director of Software Asset Management Strategy for SoftChoice. And I've been at the company, I started in 2010. So a lot of experience and been in this role for about a year and a half and really enjoying it. So happy to talk more about it in a little bit. Awesome. John. John Harden, Director of Product SaaS Management over here at Auvik. Uh, excited to be on the podcast, Aaron. I'm really interested in this topic, obviously. And, um, I've spent about 15, 16 years of my life in the managed services industry and fast products. So I've been around the block when it comes to this track. So I'm excited to share what I've got. That's awesome. Always love somebody who's got a lot of background in a topic that we can dive deep in as we do in our podcast all year. We love to start off our conversation around something that's very deep and important to soft choice. And that is understanding purpose. What drives us? What makes us human? What makes us do the things we do? You talked about 15 years in the managed service business. Why? Like What's your purpose that makes you wake up in the morning and go, this is my thing. This is what I love doing. So I'd love to hear a little bit from both of you on what your individual purposes are and what drives you. All right. Um, so it doesn't work in progress. I feel like it's ever evolving when it comes to your purpose statement as it should. Um, so this is where I'm at right now. My purpose is to create an inclusive and supportive environment where diverse perspectives are valued and celebrated. I tend to work in cross functional roles, so it's really important to me to have active listening, empathy, encouraged curiosity between the different groups that I work with, and I really want to create an environment of collaboration that connects people and ideas across teams, and as a connector, I think that's always been one of my superpowers. Promote knowledge and nurture collective growth and create lasting and positive impacts within our organization and obviously externally as well. And having known you for a long time, I would say that is so spot on. Totally described yourself well and how you show up. So that's awesome. How about yourself, John? Kind of wish I'd gone first now. I'm the entrepreneur in the room. I just want to build great things that change the way people run their day to day businesses. Nothing's more exciting. You know, I'm an engineer at heart. So nothing is more exciting than building amazing technology that changes the way people do their jobs and is something that people get excited to use. There's so much software out there and we'll get into this topic here in a little bit that has kind of a purpose, but there's so few of those softwares that really change the way that you work. And for me, my purpose is just designing and building software that changes the way that people work for the better. I love that. That sounds like a tagline of a multibillion dollar company. So good on you. That was a great purpose. So I gotta be honest. I want to start off today with a little bit of vulnerability. So I woke up this morning and I said, all right, I'm going to go relook at my notes as I prepared for this conversation today, and I could not find my notes. And why is that you ask? Well, I am one of those people that uses Evernote. One note, Apple notes. I also text myself when I'm out on the road and I need to remind myself of something. I'll email myself stuff. I'll use teams. I have no clue where I put anything anywhere. And so I personally have succumbed to sass sprawl. Like it is a problem for me. As you can imagine, I can't find anything. I'm unproductive. And I'm spending money on some of these tools and I'm just one person and that's just note taking. I won't even get into how I manage recipes I find online on my social media platforms, but it is a problem for me personally. So I can't even imagine what this looks like in organizations that have thousands of errands. So why don't we start with that? Sass sprawl. How bad is it really? And share a little insights from both of you on what this looks like today. Yeah, I'll jump on that topic. I love talking about, um, you know, Sass sprawl is continuing to become a big challenge and fundamentally has lots of inputs, but really one of the key things that we found about Sass sprawl on the ecosystem is that. Um, a lot of it comes in as shadow it, but a lot of it comes in, you know, I have this ethos around SAS. Nobody just signs up for SAS just for fun. I don't, you've done that in the last couple of years, but it's always to serve a purpose, right? Like you, you texted yourself to serve a purpose. You used email to serve a purpose. Like all of these methods in which you maintain your tasks and notes. Or overall objectively to serve a purpose. And fundamentally, that's how Sass Brawl got to where we are. Go Google a business problem that you've got, and there's going to be four ads at the top of it. And it's going to be four different vendors fighting to get your click to solve that niche little problem. And while note taking and productivity tools can all have their niche values and benefits, Sass Brawl, obviously is a challenge because you've got so many tools and so many things to get your job done, even in your personal life. Then you step into that work life and it creates an even bigger friction, an even bigger disparity between all the different tools in use. And so, you know, I'd say SaaS Brawl really stems from the root of people just trying to solve business problems. And that comes in fundamentally in lots of forms and factors, but there's metrics that support the average employee sometimes switches between SaaS apps 180 times a day between one app and the other app and Average users switching between anywhere from 20 apps to 30 apps a day, depending on their role and responsibility. And it just becomes one of those daunting things that if you just stop and try to think about it, like think about the SaaS apps you've used in the last week, you can never even remember it. You would forget so many because you just use so naturally and Sass Bar really just stems from people solving business problems, but it's the outcomes and I'm sure we'll get to that next. Would that really be complicated? Yeah. And to add to that, it really also stemmed from ourselves, right? How we become used to being able to get information and have access to anything we want at any time, all those recipes that you're looking at from all these different sites and different platforms. We're used to that in our personal lives, and that's definitely extended into our work lives. So if I have a need and strategy versus RevOps versus finance versus enablement, We all have great intention of acquiring this app that we think is going to really solve our issue and make us more productive and help us do our jobs and make us shine in our work. And those two have come together in a way so quickly, and that's really, I think, another real issue for IT teams, but it's also an amazing thing for being able to enable your employees to decide. what works for them and what they need to do their jobs in the best way they know how. So I think it's another big piece of it. So my challenge to both of you, and I'd be curious what your thoughts are on this. And you, you actually mentioned this in your purpose statement, Raksha, where it's about being inclusive and allowing people to bring their full self to work. So how do you balance somebody who wants to do it their way With this whole construct of what you said, John, that when you go and Google a solution to a business problem, there's 20, 000 different options. It's like, well, wait a second. I'm going to work my way. I want, I want to use this one. So, so how do you navigate or what's the impact that that's having in the decision making process when you do have Sass Brawl? So I think in a few different ways, I think number one is having the organization at the highest levels, like feeling that they want to make sure they're empowering their people to work their way. And with that, having an open mind that you might have some redundant tools, right? That may happen. Adoption is so important. So as we're rolling out tools, ensuring our users know what the features and benefits are, versus like, we're going to do this without actually getting an opinion. Right. So I think that's number one is from the top, really wanting that for your employees for that, you know, ex since even the customer experience will obviously be improved if the employees are happy with the tools to do their jobs. Um, so I think that's, you know, one real way to really think about having that mental shift. And then bringing that into the business and giving the users out some autonomy over here's your five options and not just this one option for you based on business group that you're in, right? So I think that's one. And then secondly, is checking in with your employees more. How are you using this? Has it helped? You know, the intention in which we have deployed this was to help you with X, Y and Z. We don't do enough check ins, so I think then you start to feel like we have wasted resources when it could really be an education gap or something that those who deployed it aren't aware of. It sounds like everything you just talked about makes a ton of sense, and it actually goes to what John mentioned a little earlier that he said, well, maybe we'll talk about this in a few minutes. And that's outcomes like this has to be grounded somewhere around the outcomes that the business is trying to drive, but being mindful of where the employees are at and then bringing them along for that journey. So maybe John, you can share a little bit about your perspective on that and how outcomes tie into this. Thank you. Yeah, Raksha hit it right on the nose. The employee experience is really important, right? We've seen this shift with work from home hybrid environments. Shadow IT is probably one of those things that you're going to need to build a policy or a practice or a program around. And because people are using it, the fundamental important part from an IT perspective is knowing what's there. It's not blocking the behavior. It's not preventing the behavior. It's not creating rifts cause employees, you know, they're kind of like water in a Creek, they're going to take the path of least resistance. So yeah, you might block the Evernote. So Aaron can't send those messages out, but he's going to skim text himself. It's true. From an IT perspective, it's about visibility because the outcomes that can really come with shadow it and their SAS brawl is the systemic thing. So if I'm using shadow it to. Analyze data to make a business decision. I've now created what I would call shadow analytics. They're data points that aren't in our ERP or not in our CRM. And I've created my own layer of data that I'm making decisions off of. And you've got that happening. You've got shadow application data where you're missing data in the corporate assets. And then you have those assets out there that it doesn't know about that poses a pretty big risk where if you're an it manager and you don't know where the data sits and some of these shadow analytics and shadow applications. You don't know where your attack surface lies, and so there's a security angle, there's that operational and cost angle that I know Raksh is really passionate about too, and all of them really come together to be kind of a 1 2 3 punch on that management of SaaS sprawl. It's not just one vector. So this doesn't feel like a new conversation. I remember Rockshaw when I first joined, we started talking about our SAS cloud, if you remember way back when. So this has always been a topic and shadow it has always been there. So what makes it different now and so much more compelling or important for a company to address it? Cause this isn't necessarily something that's happened over the last few years. What's your take on why now? Why the importance? There's a couple things, number one, I think very quickly as the SaaS stores and the marketplaces have become much more mainstream, we have seen the costs have quickly risen, right? So I think as they started to happen, okay, we're getting them some autonomy and but the control of cost is what really I think is becoming a driver. Our average customer in 2019 was probably working with 20 to 30 vendors. And now, 50, 60, up to the hundreds. And they weren't able to keep up with that, and they haven't hired headcount to support that, because that was never part of the plan. So it's two different areas where the cost of SaaS is one thing, but it's also being able to continuously keep it secure and run it, and have the people to be able to support it, right? So I think those are some of the things that have made it really important in the last year and 18 months as I meet with customers. It's, I don't know what I have anymore. And I don't have someone to actually track it and give me the visibility of when my renewals are coming up or if we're actually utilizing and who's using what. So that's where we're really starting to lean into that conversation and those pains because it's becoming much more prevalent than it did when it just started to bubble up. Now, 20 years ago, you called IT, they deployed it on all your computers, they deployed all the software. They were the point. For deploying and managing software now it's become where line of business leaders are the point and line of business leaders have objectives that change and quarterly objectives. And so. You know, focus on this, then onto the next thing, onto the next thing, onto the next thing and leave a trail behind them. And so Raksha made the point, but quantitatively we've went from an organization that would have in 2015, probably had about eight SaaS apps to now we're looking at that same organization having about 136. So it's a critical mass of spend. And then it's critical mass of that security risk, right? The whole world's kind of realizing, Oh my gosh, we need to get these things under control. We're seeing breaches. We're seeing those vendors being part of breaches and then putting that data at risk. It's this whole amalgamation of, Oh my gosh, we've let it grow, but now it's time to kind of manage it. And I think what it probably boils down to is the fact that it wasn't a problem and it was 10 or 15 or 20 apps. And now it is a problem. We did a study that said out in the world, about only 19 percent of the organizations that we surveyed across thousands here at Avik, 19 percent have a solution to this problem and only 20 percent don't have it in their near term top three objectives in the next two years. And I think it's just that everybody knows the product adoption curve. It's just, we finally hopped the chasm. People are educated on the problems. People are understanding the need to solve the cost and the security and the operational losses here. So I just think we've hit a critical mass where we can't allow that autonomy to rain. It is gonna have to bring things in to keep it under control. Hey, IT leaders. Are you ready to cut SaaS, bloat and unnecessary costs? Softchoice can help you save time and boost your budget with Sam plus a software asset management solution designed specifically for subscription licensing, Softchoice Samus can help you evaluate your current SaaS application stack. Turn data into actionable plans. Introduce new software seamlessly and ensure efficient long term deployment and adoption. Their comprehensive service portfolio meets you exactly where you are on your SaaS journey. Why choose SoftChoice? With three decades of licensing expertise, advanced technologies, and partnerships with major software publishers like Microsoft, Cisco, Adobe, VMware, and AWS, Soft Choice empowers you to implement a strategic and proactive software asset management strategy. With the right approach, expertise, and data, your SaaS investments will be cost effective, secure, and deliver value to your business. Managing your ever growing SaaS estate alongside your IT wishlist isn't easy, but you don't have to do it alone. Contact a soft choice representative today or visit soft choice.com to get started. I'm gonna flip the perspective here for a second and, 'cause we've been talking a lot about business, a lot about companies and IT and how they're dealing with it, and I think there's something you mentioned earlier, raksha, that was interesting around adoption and the catalyst for all these problems. Yes, it's shadow it, but it's being perpetrated by the person. The end users, the employees, the team members. So why should they care? Like we talk about this being a soft impact to the company and the bottom line and their dollars, but to them, they're like, I just want to use something that I'm comfortable with. So how do you address that in the people perspective and let them know why this is important for us to consolidate and get. Streamlined in the tools we use. What's that language sound like that actually gets the stakeholders that are causing the problem to help solve. I think the root of it boils down to education. Um, fundamentally, I don't think the majority of folks using shadow IT are going into this and saying, my intent is to increase the tax surface for my company. My intent is to, you know, you know, waste money for my company. And fundamentally I have boiled it down, you know, shadow IT comes in kind of three ways. I've yet to find a fourth. So take it for what it's worth. I always love the challenge, but one it's I've got a brand new business problem. I need to solve. Two, it's I've got a brand new business to solve, but I wasn't educated that we already have a solution. So that's where the overlap and the sprawl starts to hit. And then the third is kind of a, of a malicious type. If you educate folks that. New tools really only fall in those buckets and you focus on saying, we already have an existing solution and we educate you on what solutions are out there and we educate you when you join a company, what exists, I think that's one of the barriers that really breaks down folks join a brand new company, they have no idea what to use, so they start to use their own thing. And we educate people on the risk and we educate people that the risk that they're accepting on behalf of the company. Okay. By putting data into a third party platform that isn't vetted by IT, you're not only putting risk to the company, but to your role and responsibility in your job. We can't allow folks to not accept a level of their own risk if they're introducing shadow IT into a company. So a bit of a carrot and a bit of a stick, right? You know, let's educate you on what's out there so that you know you have tools so you can spend less time getting faster to your business objectives, but also know that you can have that autonomy, but you'll have to accept some risks and you'll have to follow some policy. Microsoft Mechanics www. microsoft. com It can't just be the Wild West with the business data and the cloud, because it's so easy to Put it everywhere and all that data, not just the SAS. Yeah. Makes a ton of sense. And I'm going to take a shot at something because I want to move to the solution. So when we think about what good looks like, and obviously each one of you have a lot of background and experience in what good looks like from a customer perspective, I was taking some notes actually on a piece of paper, not in one of the many thousand apps that I used at the beginning of this discussion on what you all said. Things customers need to think about. So I'm going to try to read them back from what I heard from you. And let's just discuss if there's something I've missed here. And so the frame of this is you're talking to a customer and you're like, here's what good looks like to address this sprawl issue. So I've got the first of which is insights. You need to understand how big the problem is, what's out there, what's being used, what's not being used. Then you need to think about policy. What are we trying to drive? What are the things that we want to base as good and not good within our organization? Then you have to think about governance. So how am I going to govern that policy and ensure that the things that I said need to happen are happening. We need to think about security. So how do we remain compliant and stay secure from our data and our end users? Then we need to think about our data. Where is it living? How much access do I have to it when I wanted to start doing cool things to get insights on the business? And lastly, how are you going to support this moving forward? Is there anything that I missed? I think one of the chief things I'd add along that journey is the cost control component, right? It's just ensuring policy and all that's wrapped around the usage. But, uh, fundamentally somebody's going to have to bite the bill. And, uh, there has to be an ROI on a introduction of something like this and cost controls where you really can ROI 25 percent of the SAS ecosystems waste 28 percent of Microsoft D5 licenses are waste. Think about how much bloat is out there. So, you know, IT folks listening here and going, wow, I really want to leverage a SAM plus, but I don't have the budget. What you have to look at is you probably do have the budget. You just have to take this in and frame it with some cost control mechanisms. So you get the best of both worlds, save money and increase security. What CFO is not going to love that? How about you, Raksha, do we miss anything if we add in the cost control? Wrapping it all up. Also, so all of those stages and all of those, those phases and those pillars that you just went through, and obviously cost control is a huge part of that. Wrapping it all up and trying to figure out how, right. So what is that roadmap to meet each of those and what are the tools right, that we should be looking at? I think that is really important.'cause what we're also seeing is help with the issues. All these new tools are being introduced to help with . So it's, that's right. Also about creating like, okay, these are all of the pillars and things to think about. How do I wrap that into one overall view and really like that life cycle? It makes a ton of sense. And it's actually a great segue to John, your company and what you do. So maybe you can share a little bit about the role that your organization plays in all those wonderful pillars we talked about and what it is that you do to help organizations figure out Sass Brawl. Yeah, absolutely. So, um, you know, Auvik is an I. T. company focused on visibility and monitoring. The pillar of business that I run over here is around our SaaS management division. And that division is super focused on a lot of what we talked about today. It's about visibility. It's about understanding and optimizing what's going on in the environment. And the pillar of every, uh, I. T. program is knowing what's out there. The pillar of every security program is knowing what's out there. And fundamentally, that's where we step in. We bring light to all of the things in use so that you can make organizational decisions. We bring light into how they're being used, and we bring light into the risks that potentially are exposed out there. And it's a magnifying glass into all of the things that you don't know, that you need to know before you can start thinking about things like operating and cost control, which is a perfect segue into the relationship here with Rockshaw. Yes. So, at Softrace, we have what we call SAM And that's really our entire portfolio. So all of those pieces that Aaron, you just went through is within our portfolio and five different pillars. And we really created it and went to market with it earlier this year. Developing and expanding on our very long history managing complex licensing. Knowing we had to evolve, right? As you mentioned earlier, some of our poor, um, enterprise software partners are moving to subscription and consumption models. And our customers need to. Make that move with them and really take this shift. So we wanted to create something that would meet customers no matter where they were in their journey and really help them make informed decisions. Taking data that Auvik, for example, can provide and turn that into the roadmap and decision making and really help them stay ahead of new developments that may be occurring with our partners as well as avoid surprises. And really gain that leverage with negotiations and make sure they have the right approach, right, to how they're managing SAM. And a lot of our customers don't have SAM teams in house, so we want to be that extension of their team, right? We have so many advisors and an extensive resource pool, industry leading partnerships that we can really support our customers, so. All together with our partnership with Auvik, where we're getting really rich data down to the user and really giving them, we're able to bring these insights and help our customers understanding their business goals, matching it with what we can see in their environment and bring it all together. I think what I love about what both of you said is that there's no like magic bullet. And I think that there's an element that the customer has to be serious about it. They have to assign resources to wanting to solve the problem, to define the outcomes that they try to accomplish. And then they need to look at this holistically. And it's not a point in time. It's an ongoing thing that they're going to have to manage. Things change. Employees change, priorities change, tools change. It is not a clean your garage and it's clean forever. Trust me, I have two older boys. It stays clean for five minutes. It's a gong show. So one more question before we start getting into futures and wrap up. Um, can't have a podcast though, talking about generative AI. Like, you just can't. And so you think about the amount of tools that have been just over the last couple years just seem to show up out of nowhere to make your lives easier. How's this showing up in the SaaS sprawl conversation? Is it making it better? Is it making it worse? What's the general impact on this conversation? I love this topic. I believe that there's two approaches here. One, lots of AI tools. There's a ton of generative AI technology out there, and there's a ton of, they're really features mostly on core platforms like A CRM or an ERP or something like that. So you need to keep your eye on, of course, generative ai. We've seen a massive explosion, right? BER of 22. When chat GPT kind of hit the shelf and that it was there before for the people that were really watching it, but then it went mainstream last year at the beginning of the year and that we saw 400 percent growth whenever they started releasing their chat GPT model within a four month period. So maintaining visibility on AI, but I have a unique other take here, which is I believe we're moving into another golden era of SaaS in the next 12 to 18 months. And my take on that is that you have. Founders who can build SaaS tools at an absurdly fast rate. You are a founder and have AI, you can build something really quick. You can build a website, marketing material, content, and the software with AI. And so what I think the thing to watch out there is, you're going to get a lot of newer entrants in the market here, not only with AI solutions, but AI built solutions. And you really need to keep a fine tooth comb on what's coming out there because, You're going to see a ton of new SaaS coming out in the next 12 to 18 months with these AI backed companies. And you need to know what models they're using, not just if it's an AI tool, but what models they're using, what data they're intaking, what data they're out taking, how are they anonymizing the data? It's no longer, is it an AI tool? It's a further thumb press down on it and saying, what are you doing with all of this? And I think 2024, 25 is going to be a really interesting year when it comes to SAP and founders. You've got a really great point there around it's not actually the AI tool or the SAS application created from that tool. That's the problem. It's the consumption of the data and the use of that and where it ends up, which has got the most people concerned about the move to generative AI. The other Challenge that I've seen even internally here at soft choice is we're pretty good at technology here. So we've got some AI experts and, uh, don't think they're not trying to think about cool software they can create for themselves to make their jobs easier. That's not even a SAS app. That's like a homegrown application that they're trying to use to do things. So I do believe you're right. That's a really good take on it. I love that. Any other predictions either of you see, whether it's around generative AI or Or just this environment in general around SAS and SAS sprawl that you can foresee coming over the next couple of years that our audience should be mindful of. I think companies are moving into really focused strategies around their people. So creating these world class cultures, right. And improving their customer experience, meeting their business goals, meeting their growth goals, whatever it may be. It's really going to be grounded in the world class culture they're building within their own doors. So implementing software and the right software and technology strategies I think is going to be even more important to meet that need. So, you know, the new decision makers I touched on this earlier have grown up with technology. They're used to having a lot of information without any human intervention. All of us are at this point. So changing the way we approach our employees, the way we approach our customers, the way we sell, the way we inform, is really important. All of that is gonna really change the strategy, right, of how we all go to market and help our customers make decisions that would be core to their success. So I think that's something that's gonna become really important in messaging. As well as a tool that our customers are investing in. I love that. So just in terms of where we could get more information from either one of you on this topic, it was a great dialogue. I would ask each one of you to maybe share your parting thoughts on this topic and anything you want to share to summarize and then where people can get ahold of you if they want to. Talk to you directly and understand a little bit more about what you do in this topic in general. First of all, thank you for the time. This is, it was a lot of fun sitting with John and yourself and just talking about this very passionate topic. We're very passionate about, obviously. My final thought really on software asset management, SaaS for all is it's going to continue to evolve. And. We're building a very strong portfolio. We're continuously investing in at SoftChoice and I'm really excited about the many moves that we're making and the things that we're building. So to stay on top of that and stay connected to it, you can learn a lot more on softwares. com under Software Asset Management and then on LinkedIn, if you want to connect, I would love that. It's just Raksha Mathias. I'm just almost going to echo you here, Raksha. I think the key thing here, right, is 23 percent of IT leaders said that this isn't on their priority 77 percent of them. Of the industry has this on their priority list. This isn't an if problem, it's a when problem. And it's about if you're OKRs and blocks, getting it on your near term discussions, figuring out ways that you can prioritize this. You can't just let the bloat continue to grow. It's more of a problem later. At least identify maybe a strategy internally, whether you're ready to implement it or not. And I think the offering that Soft Choice is bringing to the table is a great one that can solve the problem. So I just think, uh, think about it. If I can leave you with anything, think about it. If you want to reach out, I mean, we've got great information on our website as well, all that. com and I'll have the same sentiment with Raksha. Reach out on LinkedIn, message me. I love having conversations around this topic. And so more than happy to keep the discussion going. If somebody is interested. Awesome. I appreciate you both sharing and my takeaway and my message to the audience is focus on culture based outcomes. And that leads with insights and rationalizing your environment, making policy and governing that policy, making sure you understand the data, that's where it sits, where it lies and how you're using it and always, always, always think about security and support. So I appreciate you both. This was a great dialogue and looking forward to future discussions with both of you. Garen. Thank you. It's clear that understanding your SaaS inventory is like mapping uncharted territory, essential for spotting redundancies and finding opportunities for consolidation. We also learned that data driven approach can act as your compass, guiding you to better visibility and control over your SaaS usage. And finally, the delicate balance between fostering innovation and maintaining security. Proves to be a vital strategy, ensuring that employees can thrive with the right tools while keeping the enterprise secure. Well, thank you so much for listening. And if you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review anywhere you get your podcasts. And we will see you again in two weeks. The Catalyst is brought to you by Softchoice, a leading North American technology solution provider. Written and produced by Angela Cope, Braden Banks in partnership with Pilgrim Content Marketing. This episode is brought to you by Softchoice SAM Remove the risk and realize the rewards of subscription licensing. Reach out to a SAMplus expert at Softchoice today, or visit softchoice. com to learn more.