The other report I want to highlight today is one sent to me by a listener (Thanks, William!). It’s from December, yet it is precisely what I’d been looking for. A market guide for SaaS management platforms from Gartner.
Some notable quotes.
SaaS management platforms (or SMPs) provide central admin console capabilities to discover, manage, automate, optimize, govern and enable SaaS used by employees. SMP also enhances protection of identities and data while using SaaS. Only SMPs offer all of these capabilities, but other adjacent tools, such as software asset management, SaaS security, and office productivity governance, can provide complementary support for this work.
Here’s another key passage.
SaaS spending continues to grow by 15 to 20% annually, as organizations maintain an average of over 125 different SaaS applications totaling $1,040 per employee annually.2 Despite this growth, the five-year-old SMP market remains immature and fragmented. It is often confused with software asset management (SAM) and SaaS security tools such as cloud access security broker (CASB), security service edge (SSE) and SaaS security posture management (SSPM). Gartner client interest in SMP, measured by inquiry volume and Gartner.com search activity, remains low.
Gartner also lists some vendors in this space – Augmentt, Auvik (via Saaslio), Beamy, BetterCloud, LeanIX, Lumos, Oomnitza, Productiv, SailPoint, Torii, Trelica, Zluri, and Zylo.
And, finally, this passage:
Over the next 12 to 18 months, Gartner anticipates these supply-side market changes:
- More SMP vendors will expand capability to offer all seven categories of functionality.
- SAM, SaaS security and adjacent market vendors will expand their capabilities and become SMPs.
- Continued investor interest in and contribution to SMPs.
- Less distinction between base capabilities of SMPs.
- Increased partnerships, as well as mergers and acquisitions, among SMP and adjacent tool vendors.
- Introduction of managed services offerings from SMP, consulting and outsourcing vendors to address skills gaps. Few SMPs offer managed services today.
So, seven key capabilities. Discover, manage, automate, optimize, protect, govern and enable. I’d been looking for a set of requirements around this product space, and Gartner delivers.
It’s early days here, as noted by the cited “interest is low” as well as the emerging nature of the vendors, although five years is a significant amount of time.
Your homework. If you care about managing SaaS, familiarize yourself with the base capabilities using this reference model. Gartner has provided it. Next, you can start tracking the vendors to see what they do and how they engage. You may find a solution that matches you or start understanding what’s possible. In my mind, this space is the future of IT.
For the record, the acronyms and product categories are awful. Just sayin’.