IT Trends Weekly — a curated, citation-first roundup for busy IT leaders.

SaaS Sprawl, Real Numbers: How to Cut 20–30% Before Renewals

Context. This week we’re tackling SaaS license waste and SaaS sprawl — the quiet budget leak that CFOs ask about every Q4. Fresh benchmarks show portfolios keep growing (Okta’s average customer now runs ~100 apps globally; large orgs 200+), while unused seats and overlapping tools drive eye-watering waste.^{[Okta][Zylo-Index]} One SaaS study pegs 53% of licenses as unused or under-used, and 2024 data suggests the average enterprise leaves **millions** on the table annually — with shadow IT still making up a sizable slice of stacks.^{[Productiv][Zylo-Shelfware][CFO Dive]} This issue gives you a 48-hour truth audit and a 7-day playbook to claw back cash before renewals hit.

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Table of contents

• What changed (and why sprawl accelerated)
• Why it matters beyond “cut some seats”
• First 48 hours: your SaaS truth audit
• Operational realities (what breaks, what doesn’t)
• Evidence leaders want this week
• 7-day plan: from analysis to savings
• AI trend (blurb)
• FAQ
• Sources & citations

What changed (and why sprawl accelerated)

App counts keep climbing. Okta’s latest Businesses at Work reports show the global average number of apps per customer has crossed the 100 mark, with enterprises running 200+ on average — a restart after several flat years.^{[Okta-2025][Okta-2024]} Even mid-market firms routinely carry triple-digit portfolios, and best-of-breed add-ons (e.g., Teams and Slack; M365 and Google Workspace) are common.^[Okta-2024]

Waste is persistent (and measurable). Productiv reported per-employee SaaS spend near $10K in 2023 with 53% licenses unused — a startling utilization gap that matches multiple SaaS management studies.^{[Productiv][Zylo-Shelfware]} Zylo’s 2024/2025 benchmarks echo the picture: enterprises leave an average of **$18M** in unused licenses annually, and shadow/departmental spend remains a major driver of redundancy.^{[Zylo-Index][CFO Dive]}

Good news: the levers are known. Gartner has long said organizations can shave **up to 30%** of software costs by doing three boring things consistently: recycle licenses, right-size configurations, and use software asset/SaaS management.^[Gartner]

Why it matters beyond “cut some seats”

• Renewal math favors vendors. Auto-renewals and growth clauses lock in over-provisioned tiers. Without usage proof, you negotiate in the dark.
• Duplicate tooling hurts adoption. Two chat platforms means two half-adopted platforms. Rationalization improves both cost and productivity.
• Shadow IT distorts security & compliance. Finance sees the bill late (or never); IT can’t enforce DLP/retention if it doesn’t know the app exists.^{[CFO Dive]}

First 48 hours: your SaaS truth audit

• Pull the authoritative lists. Export from SSO/IdP (Okta/Azure AD) to get all app integrations; pull expense card exports for 12 months; export current vendor contracts and renewal dates. Cross-match for “apps in finance but not SSO” (classic shadow IT).^[Okta-2025]
• Measure active use, not just logins. For each app, compute: last 30/60/90-day activity; power-user distribution; and % of provisioned users with zero activity (license reclamation candidates).
• Build a duplicate-app map. Typical overlap zones: storage (Drive vs. OneDrive vs. Box), chat (Slack vs. Teams), notes (Notion vs. OneNote vs. Confluence), project tools (Asana vs. Monday vs. Planner), meeting tools (Zoom vs. Teams). Mark the canonical choice per category.
• Flag quick wins. (a) reclaim never-used seats, (b) downgrade premium to standard where features aren’t used, (c) cancel month-to-month personal-card tools that duplicate enterprise apps.
• Draft your renewal calendar. For each vendor, note auto-renew date, notice period, and “must-have” vs. “nice-to-have.” No negotiation without usage & alternatives.

Operational realities (what breaks, what doesn’t)

• Seat reclamation ≠ user revolt. If your policy says “inactive for 60 days triggers reclaim,” users can request re-provision in hours. Put the SLA in your comms.
• Don’t rip and replace the one team that’s 100% onboarded. Consolidate where adoption is shallow across two tools; leave alone where a single tool is deeply embedded.
• Beware compliance traps. If you deprecate a tool of record, ensure retention, legal hold, and export pathways are solved before you turn off access.
• SSO ≠ full coverage. Expense-card apps and “free trials” often bypass SSO. That’s where license waste hides — and where DLP/retention also disappear.^{[CFO Dive]}

Evidence leaders want this week

• Waste baseline: % of provisioned seats with 0 activity in 90 days; $ value by vendor.
• Duplicate reduction: # of tool categories with overlap → # consolidated; list of canonical tools.
• Savings booked: reclaimed seats × unit price; downgrades × price delta; cancellations × annualized run-rate.
• Governance shift: % of SaaS spend under IT/Procurement control (target: up and to the right). Benchmarks show IT often controls only a fraction of SaaS spend; get a line of sight and close the gap.^[Zylo-Stats]

7-day plan: from analysis to savings

• Day 1–2: Run the audit. Pull SSO + expense + contracts; compute 90-day inactivity; identify duplicates; build the renewal calendar.
• Day 3: Reclaim & downgrade. Issue batch de-provision for “90-day inactive,” with an auto-reprovision SLA. Downgrade premium SKUs where features aren’t used (e.g., E5→E3 with a targeted premium add-on).
• Day 4: Consolidate overlaps. Decide canonical tools by category (e.g., Teams for chat/meetings, OneDrive for storage). Schedule migration plans for shallowly adopted alternatives.
• Day 5: Negotiate with usage in hand. For vendors renewing in the next 60–90 days, bring: current active seats, peak concurrency, feature usage, and alternatives. Your ask: right-sized tiers, price protection, and flexible add/drop terms. Remember Gartner’s long-standing guidance: license recycling + configuration tuning + SAM/SMP can cut up to **30%** of software costs.^[Gartner]
• Day 6: Close shadow IT routes. Require SSO for net-new apps; block corporate card charges for software outside procurement; set up a lightweight request flow with pre-approved vendors.
• Day 7: Publish the scoreboard. Show “seats reclaimed,” “$ saved,” “tool categories consolidated,” and “% of spend under control.” Keep it executive-friendly (one slide).

AI trend (blurb)

OpenAI’s $38B, 7-year AWS deal signals multi-cloud AI at scale. The newly reported OpenAI–AWS agreement underscores how fast capital is concentrating around AI infrastructure — and why vendor dependency is now a board question. For IT, expect more multi-cloud conversations, new finops guardrails for GPU spend, and fresh questions from buyers about data boundaries.^{[Reuters][The Verge]}

FAQ

Sources & citations

1. Zylo — 2024 SaaS Management Index (waste, $18M avg.). :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}
2. CFO Dive — SaaS license waste tops IT spend challenges. :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}
3. Okta — Businesses at Work 2024 (app averages, overlap). :contentReference[oaicite:2]{index=2}
4. Okta — Businesses at Work 2025 (100+ app global avg.). :contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3}
5. Productiv — 2023 State of SaaS (53% licenses unused; $/employee). :contentReference[oaicite:4]{index=4}
6. Zylo — Shelfware explained (53% unused/underused). :contentReference[oaicite:5]{index=5}
7. Gartner — Cut software costs by up to 30% (recycle/right-size/SAM). :contentReference[oaicite:6]{index=6}
8. Zylo — Key SaaS stats 2025 (IT controls ~26% of spend). :contentReference[oaicite:7]{index=7}
9. Reuters — OpenAI–AWS $38B deal (context & implications). :contentReference[oaicite:8]{index=8}
10. The Verge — Deal details and multi-cloud angle. :contentReference[oaicite:9]{index=9}