As the use of SaaS in the enterprise explodes, LeanIX is the first Enterprise Architecture company to offer automated SaaS discovery and management to global customers
Bonn, Germany and Boston – May 18, 2021 – LeanIX the platform to plan and manage the Continuous Transformation journey, today introduces LeanIX SaaS Intelligence (SI), becoming the first Enterprise Architecture company to offer both Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) management and Application Portfolio Management (APM). IT leaders can now gain visibility and governance of all applications in use across the entire IT landscape, as SaaS increasingly plays a critical role in digital transformation initiatives.
LeanIX will demonstrate its new offering to more than 1,000 IT professionals at EA Connect Day Americas 2021, a virtual event on Thursday, May 20, 2021. For more information and free registration, visit www.eaconnectdays.com.
“Our work with CIOs and CTOs revealed that a secure and well-managed cloud architecture is crucial, and modern Application Portfolio Management must now include automated SaaS discovery and cataloging,” said André Christ, LeanIX CEO and co-founder. “SaaS now represents more than 50 percent of software investment for enterprises, and it continues to accelerate due to digital transformation and remote work. With our acquisition of Cleanshelf and the addition of LeanIX SaaS Intelligence, we are redefining how automatic and unified discovery for SaaS and Application Portfolio Management can accelerate the effectiveness of IT operations.”
Whether Zoom, Slack or HubSpot, SaaS applications have become an indispensable part of the corporate world. Experts estimate the current SaaS market at more than 15,000 providers and counting. While SaaS brings flexibility, cost efficiency and scalability, its promise is in danger of turning into the opposite. With freemium and low-barrier product-led growth business models, SaaS providers now bypass traditional IT procurement processes. This independent access to licenses is now a growing challenge for finance and IT managers. Today, many companies know only half of their existing SaaS applications and accounts, resulting in rising and unclear costs, increasing security risks and compliance violations.
LeanIX SaaS intelligence uses machine learning and the most integrations available on the market, more than 3,800, to automatically capture, analyze, and report all SaaS applications within the enterprise. It automatically identifies unmanaged contracts, duplicate licenses and wasted cloud software subscriptions. For IT managers and finance teams, it provides SaaS discovery and cataloging, utilization and user engagement metrics, cost and subscription optimization, access, vendor management and security, and renewal management.
LeanIX acquired Cleanshelf in March 2021. “The same vision unites us: we make companies capable of acting in the future with the right tools,” said Dusan Omercevic, founder of Cleanshelf and now VP Product/SaaS Intelligence for LeanIX. “With LeanIX, we have re-engineered SaaS management to meet the needs of some of the largest enterprises in the world, such as Adidas, Bosch, and Volkswagen. Now that we are part of the LeanIX family, our customers will receive the best product and technology offering in the industry.”
LeanIX SaaS Intelligence will be available to companies as a standalone solution of the LeanIX Continuous Transformation Platform®. Cloud-native startups and scaleups will benefit from managing their SaaS applications just as much as large corporations with mature infrastructures. Enterprise architects will have the SaaS discovery and cataloging functionality available as a free component of the LeanIX Application Portfolio Management module in July 2021.
“In the future, there will be no enterprise architecture management without automated support for managing SaaS applications,” said Christ. “We enable companies to make their IT landscape fully visible and easily manageable and thus establish smart governance - instead of erecting new barriers with restrictions. Independent access to software has positively changed the working world and accelerated processes. Companies need precisely this agility to be fit for the future - it’s part of the continuous transformation we’re seeing.”
About LeanIX
LeanIX’s Continuous Transformation Platform® is trusted by Corporate and Product IT for hundreds of enterprises that require comprehensive visibility and superior governance. Global customers organize, plan and manage IT landscapes with LeanIX’s automated and data-driven approach. Offering Enterprise Architecture – with SaaS-, Cloud- and DevOps Management, LeanIX helps organizations make sound decisions and allocate resources with complete confidence. The company is headquartered in Bonn, Germany, with offices in Boston, San Francisco and around the world.