How Moonpig uses SaaS management to keep IT Ops efficient and compliant

Moonpig is the leading online card & gift company specializing in personalized greeting cards, gifts, and flowers, and uses a wide range of productivity applications to support its business. Until recently, these apps were difficult to track and manage effectively - offboarding leavers from their productivity apps was a complex and time-consuming process. In order to get full visibility of all SaaS applications and licenses and to improve compliance for employee offboarding, Moonpig deployed Trelica’s SaaS management platform.

Information technology supports all aspects of Moonpig’s business. In addition to the customer-facing apps and services for creating and buying personalized cards and other gifts, the company relies on a large number of enterprise systems and productivity tools, from finance and marketing systems, to Google Workspace, which employees use to send and receive emails and store files.

Before Moonpig went public in 2021, a number of measures were put in place to audit SaaS app usage and to ensure access compliance. To build on this work, the IT team was keen to operationalize these initiatives and ensure SaaS usage remained secure, compliant, and efficient on a continuous basis - all with as much automation as possible. 

Bill Penberthy, Head of IT at Moonpig, says, “We needed to achieve greater visibility across our IT estate as a way to manage apps, licenses and related costs more effectively. Not only that, but we wanted to improve our operational and security compliance by ensuring that all leavers are ‘offboarded’ quickly and efficiently from our enterprise systems, with no exceptions.”

Increasing SaaS visibility and control with Trelica

When looking for solutions to these pressing IT management challenges, Moonpig decided to leverage its existing investment in Trelica, which was already being used to discover Shadow IT and to track SaaS spending.

The team realized there was immediate value to be gained by using Trelica’s extensive set of app connectors to integrate far more of Moonpig’s primary IT tools. “With Trelica’s integrations, we were able to bring in up to 90% of our core apps immediately, which meant there were only a couple that had to be managed manually,” says Bill. “We now have a definitive directory, with full visibility of the SaaS apps and licenses we’re using.”

"With Trelica’s integrations, we were able to bring in up to 90% of our core apps immediately, which meant there were only a couple that had to be managed manually"

Bill Penberthy, Head of IT at Moonpig

Fast, automated offboarding for company leavers

With the SaaS inventory in place, the Moonpig IT team began to explore opportunities for automating employee offboarding in Trelica. “Okta was covering some of our employee offboarding needs for a subset of apps, but often by removing access only and not actual accounts & licenses - this left significant cost and compliance gaps,” says Bill. “Trelica workflows operate seamlessly with Okta and our ITSM (Zendesk) to reclaim leavers’ software licenses, allocate them to other employees as needed, or drop them to reduce our overall licensing costs.”

Trelica workflows also make it possible to redirect emails and transfer leavers’ files stored in Google Workspace to their line managers or other designated colleagues. “Employees build up a wealth of useful information during their time at Moonpig, and this can now be transferred to the right people to ensure that no vital data or opportunities are lost when they leave the business.”

Automating employee offboarding in these ways using Trelica has helped the IT team to improve its performance and efficiency. “Automated offboarding increases our operational efficiency and compliance, which is a huge benefit for us,” says Bill.

"Trelica replaced up to three hours of manual work per leaver with just 25 minutes of auditable, repeatable processes, allowing us to focus on value-added projects and supporting our end users in the best way possible."

Bill Penberthy, Head of IT at Moonpig

Licensing cost reductions

As well as improving compliance around employee offboarding, Trelica is helping Moonpig optimize SaaS licensing costs. “Trelica gives us great insight into the license entitlements we have with software providers, as well as measuring their utilization,” says Bill. “That means we can identify unused licenses and retire them from our estate for significant licensing savings.”

By leveraging Slack, Trelica enables collaboration between IT and other teams. “We can send messages to employees regularly to check if they still need and use their software licenses,” says Bill.

"This new way of collaborating with teams ensures that we all have the tools we need to work productively without paying for excess licenses we don’t need."

Bill Penberthy, Head of IT at Moonpig

By optimizing licensing for Microsoft 365, Miro, Adobe, and other key business applications, Moonpig is using Trelica to deliver direct cost savings for the business. “Trelica has more than paid for itself by helping us optimize licenses for just three apps - that’s in addition to the efficiency gains and security benefits,” says Bill.

"...more than paid for itself by helping us optimize licenses for just three apps - that’s in addition to the efficiency gains and security benefits"

Bill Penberthy, Head of IT at Moonpig

Winning the day with pragmatism

Through the process of working with Trelica, the Moonpig IT team has learned that perseverance and pragmatism are essential when it comes to streamlining and optimizing SaaS management. 

“We took a pragmatic approach to tackling SaaS management challenges,” says Bill. “In our case, this has meant getting as many core apps as possible into Trelica as quickly as we could and working hard to prioritize and implement the workflows that deliver the greatest benefits in the shortest time. 

“My advice to other IT leaders is to start by focusing on quick wins rather than trying to automate everything - in other words, don’t let perfectionism limit your progress. It’s also important to choose a vendor (like Trelica) that will truly partner with you to understand your priorities and offer input that goes beyond basic technical support,” adds Bill.

"It’s also important to choose a vendor (like Trelica) that will truly partner with you to understand your priorities and offer input that goes beyond basic technical support"

Bill Penberthy, Head of IT at Moonpig