Global SAM Leader, Flexera, Acquires Meta SaaS to Offer Most Advanced SaaS Spend Management Capabilities on the Market

The game has changed for companies everywhere. They’re finally demanding more from their technology assets and suppliers.  They expect – and deserve – faster time to value, more complete solutions and trustworthy data to drive better business outcomes. Flexera is achieving its promise to meet these needs by rapidly building or buying the best technology, like Meta SaaS.

“The number of SaaS apps in use is skyrocketing – especially among small and mid-size companies.  As much as a third of those applications aren’t even being used,” said Tom Canning, Vice President of Strategy at Flexera.  “And, because companies can’t see or manage SaaS apps in use across the enterprise, cost and risk are out of control.  We’re now able to help customers rein in SaaS spend on more than 32,000 SaaS applications – vastly exceeding the capabilities of any other SAM supplier.”

32,000+ SaaS Apps in Catalog, and Direct Integration with 250 More

As a result of today’s acquisition, Flexera now dwarfs all other SAM suppliers in terms of SaaS spend management depth and breadth.  Customers can leverage Flexera’s technology to identify more than 32,000 SaaS applications and intelligently manage contract renewals through proactively generated, easy-to-read reports.  In addition, Flexera can now monitor license utilization for more than 6,200 of those SaaS applications.

Moreover, with direct product integrations to more than 250 widely used SaaS applications, Flexera now provides best-in-industry business intelligence about when and how users interact with the most critical SaaS products on the market.  Customers can understand their true SaaS ROI, and the true impact of SaaS application usage for popular SaaS apps like Salesforce®, Office 365®, Slack™ and Box®, to name a few.

Unparalleled Visibility: Know What SaaS Apps Employees Are Using

To gain control over SaaS spend, organizations have to answer foundational questions like, which SaaS apps are running in their environment, and who’s using them.  But, usually they don’t have the proper tools in place to answer these basic questions.  Flexera can now give customers instant visibility across the enterprise into more than 32,000 SaaS apps running, regardless of whether they were procured through official channels or unofficial ones (Shadow SaaS).  Using proprietary technology, Flexera can securely connect with expense, accounting, and payment systems to identify and consolidate all SaaS apps in use into a single dashboard – shining a light on Shadow SaaS.  Once organizations know what SaaS apps they’re running, they can take the next steps of optimizing, managing and securing them.

“In one example, a telecommunications company leveraged Meta SaaS – now Flexera SaaS Manager – to scan just one year’s worth of Concur expense reports,” said Canning. “They discovered $10 million worth of Shadow SaaS in their environment – 295 unsanctioned products from 266 different vendors.”

The SaaS Blind Spot: Who Can Access SaaS Data that Shouldn’t?

As employees come and go and roles change, companies struggle with securing corporate data from those that shouldn’t have access.  Many use tactics ranging from checklists and emails to single sign-on (SSO) technology.  But SSO only works for the SaaS apps it’s connected to.  Most organizations don't deploy SSO for all their SaaS vendors – especially when Shadow SaaS is rampant and employees are using SaaS apps the company doesn’t even know about.

A SSO system can also be out of sync with the HR system and/or user account information in the SaaS application itself.  This can occur, for instance, if an employee has been given direct access privilege outside of an organization’s SSO processes.  Having this blind spot exposes companies to regulatory compliance risk, like GDPR, which requires them to understand which systems contain personally identifiable data, and who has access.

Through today’s acquisition, Flexera can now better help customers resolve the SaaS management and security blind spot.  Augmenting current SaaS security processes, Flexera can connect the HR record to SaaS vendor records, producing intelligent, accurate checklists identifying exactly what each employee truly has access to.  This lets IT compare its records against hard data when creating secure SaaS accounts.

“We’re thrilled to be acquired by Flexera because of their superior solutions and leadership in the SAM industry.  Just as important to us, however, is Flexera’s broad commitment to help customers optimize all their cloud assets – from infrastructure and software running in the cloud, to SaaS.  No other SAM vendor comes close to Flexera’s vision and ability to execute,” said Arlo Gilbert, Meta SaaS’s co-founder and CEO.  “In addition, while companies of all sizes use SaaS, small and midsize organizations in particular now have a single, go-to SAM provider they can rely on to optimize all their technology asset spend – including SaaS as well as software used on premise and in the datacenter.”

For more information about Flexera’s SaaS spend capabilities, companies should reach out to their Flexera account rep, or contact Flexera here.