I’ll be talking SaaS a bit more in my 2023 predictions series – out next week – but I spotted two data sets to round out the year.
According to research from security vendor, Axonius focused on SaaS usage, 74% of businesses have more than half of their applications in the cloud, and 66% are spending more on SaaS applications now than a year ago. However, most organizations said SaaS security lagged in urgency and priority. Of those surveyed, 60% ranked SaaS security fourth or lower on their list of current security priorities, pointing to limited time and resources (28%), pressure to focus on other issues from the C-Suite (23%), and staffing shortages (15%).
According to a recent ChannelPro reader survey, roughly half (48%) of respondents believe securing SaaS applications is more complex than securing the network and endpoints. Moreover, in the Axonius research, 66% of organizations agreed that the increase in SaaS applications has resulted in more complexity and increased security risk in their organizations.
Why do we care?
SaaS is harder. That’s a good thing if you’re in the business of managing complexity. I’d expect this audience to be in that business. Lean into this, and lean into expertise on making SaaS more productive. Yesterday, I cited data on the lack of systems around customer experience, and here there’s more complexity to focus on. There’s a lot of need out there.