SaaS companies market their products to those who will benefit from using them, as opposed to marketing to a central buying function in the business. This makes total sense, as there’s little value in trying to market the benefits of, for example, an HR tool to IT in the hopes that they will pass on the message. The need, expertise, motivation, and money required to select and onboard such a tool is within HR.

Given this reality, it's perhaps not surprising that our research has found that, on average, 63% of applications "discovered" by IT in organizations are some form of 'shadow IT.' In other words, it is software that the IT organization does not manage or even know about.

Whilst this ‘democratization’ of technology adoption may sound great for innovation, it comes with downsides such as duplicative / overlapping tools in use, and InfoSec concerns. This trade-off becomes even less appealing when the adoption of new tools is owing to lack of clarity on the existing, approved tech stack vs. a considered preference to an alternative. All of which is to say that the lack of a clear approved app catalog creates the perfect conditions for shadow IT and SaaS sprawl.

We designed the App Hub to address this imbalance and tip the scales back toward IT teams - empowering them to create a central catalog of approved apps, available to all employees to browse and request access. 

Modern IT teams, like Trelica's customers, recognize their dilemma and the opportunity to combine the need for control without preventing the business from taking action, innovating, and beating the competition.

Tipping the balance starts with discovery

If you don't even know what software your organization uses, you don't stand a chance of controlling it. SaaS management platforms, like Trelica, are able to discover and catalog all of your apps within minutes and then continuously through monitoring.

Once you have this library of data about software usage across your organization, it's time to do something about it.

Will you tackle the big fish first, where you can save big bucks on unused licenses? Or will you seek out the risky apps with potentially dangerous levels of OAuth access? That all depends on your priorities at that time.

Everything I've mentioned up to now has been reactive—you're attempting to understand and then fix a problem that already existed.

Step in the App Hub—a proactive tool that, incidentally, all Trelica Enterprise customers have access to. It empowers IT to engage positively with the business and end-users while reinforcing your policies.

What is the App Hub?

The App Hub is available on the web and in Slack, where your employees can search your library of approved apps and request access. As an IT manager, you can expose all your managed apps or mark specific apps to show in the App Hub. 

Now, when Jane from operations realizes she needs a better way to manage her projects, she can check the App Hub to see what is available. She may find Asana or Smartsheet, decide which will fit her needs, and send an access request.

After all, Jane probably knows that if she goes it alone and chooses Monday, for example, that comes with its issues. Aside from the fact that IT has not authorized its use, she'll have created a small software island for herself in the company. It's unsupported by IT, not used by other people/departments, and may be challenging to get expense approval.

Why use the App Hub?

Having the App Hub in place tips the balance in favor of control with flexibility. Provided it's rolled out in the organization correctly (a topic for another post!), your employees and departments will know that IT retains oversight and responsibility for software access and licenses.

Without it, it's understandable why business units and individuals forge their paths, leaving IT in their wake. However, with the App Hub, the lines blur significantly - IT has provided a user-friendly tool to back up your policies, making excuses a little trickier.

Business managers and leaders will likely become advocates for the tool, too. Without Trelica and the App Hub, they might manually manage access to department-specific apps, including expenses. Managing all this at the department level can be a significant overhead with a huge scope for error - I'm looking at you offboarding!

They may also know that some of those licenses are redundant but cannot be optimized, directly impacting their bottom line.

Should you switch on the App Hub?

Still not convinced it's time to switch on the App Hub? Let me summarise a few of the reasons why we think it's great:

  • Employee-centric - Empowering employees to choose and manage their apps reduces the frustration that leads to using unsanctioned apps.
  • Improved efficiency—With access levels and policies, IT defines the playbook for granting app access. Employees have a clear and straightforward place to go to request access, and business managers can grant the proper access at the right time without needing to do the heavy lifting.
  • Risk mitigation - IT chooses apps for the App Hub that meet security and compliance requirements - not only operational needs - reducing the risks associated with shadow IT.

Addressing common concerns

The App Hub isn't suitable for every organization. Let's look at some common concerns:

  • Loss of control—Yes, the App Hub empowers employees to select their software, but only to the degree IT allows through access levels and policies. Access policies include optional approvals, so access will only be granted when a legitimate business case exists.
  • Complexity—The App Hub is accessible to all of your employees on the web or in Slack and does not require special implementation. The time-consuming aspect is the initial setup of the managed apps and their access policies. However, this can be improved incrementally, starting with manual tasks if app integrations aren't in place yet.
  • Culture—I must admit, this one is more tricky. Some organizations are opposed to this more balanced approach (possibly for good reasons) and prefer a strict top-down approach to software deployment. However, if discovery shows a huge underbelly of shadow SaaS in the organization, it may be a sign that a new approach is needed.
  • Security - Let's say you're a financial services or healthcare company with high security and compliance needs. Having an app store for your employees might seem unthinkable, but when you frame it as a tool in the armory against shadow IT, it starts to look attractive. After all, the apps you expose in the App Hub are the approved apps for which you set the access playbook. It is up to IT whether to grant access to newly requested apps.

Next steps

If you've read this far, thanks for stopping by. I hope you found it useful. Interested in learning more about Trelica? See a four-minute demo and book a live demo here. And if you're keen to experience the benefits firsthand, start a 14-day free trial with us — full access and no credit card required.