How CloudEagle.ai Augments Your Flexera In SaaS Management

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As enterprises increasingly rely on SaaS applications to streamline business operations and drive efficiency, effective SaaS and license management have become critical.

Since SaaS apps are so easy to acquire, employees with a corporate credit card often purchase them without IT approval, resulting in an inflated portfolio of sanctioned and unsanctioned SaaS tools.

Managing these cloud-based applications can be challenging, especially when using traditional software asset management tools like Snow and Flexera.

Initially built for on-premises software, these platforms lack what is needed to manage SaaS apps and licenses. This gap leaves organizations struggling with inaccurate data, cumbersome processes, and missed opportunities for cost savings.

CloudEagle.ai, an AI-powered SaaS management platform, is designed to address these challenges head-on.

In this blog, we’ll explore why CloudEagle.ai outperforms Snow and Flexera in terms of SaaS management, focusing on key differentiators such as connector availability, data accuracy, ease of use, and advanced features like AI-driven insights and procurement capabilities.

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TL;DR

• This blog highlights the limitations of traditional software asset management tools like Snow and Flexera when it comes to SaaS management.
• CloudEagle.ai offers 500+ integrations with feature-level usage insights, whereas Snow and Flexera struggle with noisy, incomplete data due to limited integrations.
• CloudEagle.ai provides detailed insights into app usage at both feature and user levels, unlike Snow/Flexera, which only offer high-level license usage data.
• CloudEagle.ai automates reclaiming underutilized licenses through workflows, whereas Snow/Flexera relies on manual processes, delaying cost-saving opportunities.
• CloudEagle.ai ensures accurate, real-time data collection via extensive integrations, whereas Snow/Flexera's outdated connectors often lead to inaccuracies.‍
• CloudEagle.ai provides AI-driven procurement, automated renewal workflows, and real-time collaboration through Slack, while Snow/Flexera lack built-in procurement features.

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Addressing Pain Points Snow and Flexera Can't Solve

When it comes to managing SaaS applications, SAM tools like Snow and Flexera often fall short in addressing the unique challenges that enterprises with a big SaaS portfolio face.

Let's dive deeper into the specific pain points that Snow and Flexera struggle to solve.

1. Incomplete Discovery of All Applications

One of the most critical aspects of SaaS management is the ability to discover and monitor all applications used within an organization. However, Snow and Flexera often fall short in this area.

Snow’s discovery capability relies on browser plugins, desktop agents, and limited integrations to track application usage, which can be incredibly noisy and generate overwhelming amounts of surface-level data.

This data is often complex to decipher, leading to incomplete or inaccurate discovery of applications. For example, the tool may capture every instance of a web-based application being accessed but struggle to distinguish between active use and passive browsing.

This creates a confusing situation where it's difficult for IT teams to clearly understand which applications are being used, making it hard to get a clear view of their software environment.

IT teams will still lack visibility into which applications are actively used by different teams, and unauthorized applications might continue to go unnoticed, leading to the increase of shadow IT.

2. Lack of Deep Telemetry on Known Applications

Even when Snow and Flexera manage to identify the SaaS applications in use, they often fall short of providing deep telemetry, which provides detailed insights into how these applications are being used.

For instance, Snow might provide basic usage data indicating that licenses are being utilized for an application like Zoom using SSO tokens, but it falls short when it comes to offering granular insights into how those licenses are being used across different departments or by individual users.

This lack of detailed visibility means you won't be able to drill down into specific usage patterns within the organization. For example, Snow might tell you that a license is active, but it won’t explain how various teams or departments leverage Zoom for their specific needs.

Without this depth of detail, it becomes nearly impossible to track critical metrics such as the number of meetings held on Zoom, the average duration of these meetings, or the specific features being used—like screen sharing, breakout rooms, or webinar hosting.

This lack of deep telemetry can lead to several issues. You might be paying for premium features that are not needed or maintaining more licenses than necessary simply because the platform cannot dig deeper into the actual usage data.

3. Difficulty Realizing Savings

Identifying potential savings is one thing; realizing those savings is another challenge entirely. Snow and Flexera can point out underutilized licenses, but they often leave the next steps up to you.

This means manually contacting vendors to renegotiate contracts, chasing down users over unused licenses, or using manual deprovisioning processes, all of which take time and effort, delaying the realization of savings.

This manual approach often leads to significant delays in cost optimization and can result in missed opportunities to cut expenses.

Additionally, the lack of automation in these platforms means that organizations must rely heavily on their internal teams to take action, which can be resource-intensive and prone to error.

4. Challenges in License Harvesting

License harvesting is the process of reclaiming unused or underused licenses and reallocating them to new users, and this is another area where Snow and Flexera struggle.

These platforms often lack the automation necessary to harvest licenses effectively, relying instead on manual tracking and intervention. This can lead to inefficiencies, such as licenses sitting idle while new users go without or the organization unnecessarily purchasing additional licenses because existing ones were not properly managed.

IT teams cannot manually review each application and license, identify users with low usage, and deprovision them to reallocate licenses to other users.

Without an automated license harvesting capability, organizations face the risk of overspending on new licenses or under-utilizing the licenses they already have, which can significantly impact their software budget.

5. Lack of workflow

Snow and Flexera's lack of procurement workflows creates significant inefficiencies for organizations. Without built-in procurement processes, teams are forced to rely on separate procurement applications besides Snow and Flexera.

This not only adds complexity but also increases costs unnecessarily, especially when full-stack SaaS management platforms are available that cover the entire SaaS lifecycle, from management to procurement.

Procurement teams are forced to chase stakeholders for approvals during new purchases and renewals, impacting productivity.

While Snow and Flexera might alert you when a renewal is approaching, they fall short in automating the renewal process. They can't automatically extract metadata from contracts to create a renewal calendar, which is crucial for staying on top of deadlines.

This gap forces teams to track these details manually, increasing the risk of missed renewals and last-minute scrambles, which often result in higher renewal rates.

The lack of integration with tools like Slack amplifies these challenges. Without real-time updates or progress tracking, teams are stuck in long email threads trying to get approvals, chasing down stakeholders, making the process even more disjointed.

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Why CloudEagle.ai is a superior alternative?

When it comes to managing SaaS, here's a success story of how CloudEagle.ai helped a leading full service media company augment their ITAM strategy to streamline SaaS management and optimize their licenses.

1. Built for SaaS

One of the most significant advantages of CloudEagle.ai is its foundation in SaaS management. Unlike Snow and Flexera, initially designed for on-premise software asset management (SAM), CloudEagle.ai was built with SaaS at its core.

This differentiator is crucial because managing SaaS applications requires capabilities different from those of traditional software.

CloudEagle.ai is purpose-built for SaaS management, asset management, and procurement, designed to meet the needs of enterprises that rely heavily on cloud-based applications. It offers industry-leading 500+ integrations, enabling deep integration and visibility into the actual usage of software licenses across your entire SaaS portfolio.

These connectors enable enterprises to monitor real-time usage, identify underutilized licenses, and optimize costs effectively. In contrast, Snow and Flexera struggle in this area, offering limited connectors that often fail to provide the granular insights needed for effective SaaS management.

2. Centralized visibility

One of the significant challenges that enterprises face in managing SaaS applications is the data silos and poor visibility. With data stored in disparate systems: financial records in one place, user data and contract details in another, and usage metrics scattered across multiple tools, it becomes a challenge to get a bird's-eye view of your software portfolio.

CloudEagle.ai eliminates these concerns by bringing all relevant data under one roof. It provides a single pane of glass view by combining data from SSO, HRIS, finance systems, contracts, and direct integrations, enabling enterprises to manage their SaaS portfolio efficiently.

By bringing all this data together in one centralized platform, CloudEagle.ai ensures you get a bird's eye view of your SaaS portfolio and the detailed insights you need to make informed SaaS management and cost optimization decisions.

Eric Silver, AVP, Head of Procurement, shares his success story where he recalls working with CloudEagle.ai and how the platform helped them achieve a 3x ROI, which exceeded their expectations.

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3. License Management With Actionable Insights

Unlike Snow and Flexera, CloudEagle.ai offers deep-level telemetry on licenses through its direct integrations with SaaS applications, providing more accurate and actionable insights.

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It provides a comprehensive view of purchased, provisioned and utilized licenses on a single dashboard. Deeper integrations enable real-time logins and feature-level usage tracking across all SaaS applications, enabling you to allocate licenses effectively.

This is a significant advantage over Snow and Flexera, where license tracking is often shallow, missing out on deeper insights required for effective optimization. For example, while Snow might show whether a license is in use, CloudEagle.ai looks further into specific feature usage within apps like Zoom or DocuSign.

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CloudEagle.ai can track specific activities like how many meetings were held in Zoom, including their durations, or how many envelopes were sent through DocuSign, which Snow or Flexera cannot do.

This level of detail allows enterprises to make informed decisions about software usage and license management, reducing unnecessary costs.

4. AI-powered contract metadata extraction

Moreover, CloudEagle.ai’s AI-driven contract metadata extraction ensures that all purchased licenses are meticulously tracked at both the vendor and application levels. This automated organization of licenses eliminates the need for spreadsheets and manual tracking, a common frustration with Snow and Flexera.

Instead of drowning in surface-level data provided by Snow, users receive clear, actionable insights on license usage from CloudEagle.ai that can lead to meaningful actions, such as license downgrades or user deprovisioning to save costs.

In addition, CloudEagle.ai’s AI-driven extraction tracks purchased licenses at the vendor and application levels and streamlines contract management.

With CloudEagle.ai, there's no need for manual data extraction, as the AI automatically pulls key contract metadata—such as contract value, renewal dates, and more—and organizes everything in one centralized dashboard.

It also creates an automated renewal calendar, helping you stay ahead of renewals without the hassle of manual tracking, a common issue with tools like Snow and Flexera.

5. Data Quality: Accurate vs. Error-Prone Data

One of the most significant challenges with Snow and Flexera is the accuracy of the data they provide. Since these platforms were not built for SaaS, the data collected is often riddled with inaccuracies.

These inaccuracies arise from outdated connectors, poor data synchronization, or a lack of integration with key SaaS applications.

CloudEagle.ai’s extensive integration library ensures that the data collected is both accurate and actionable. By connecting directly with SaaS applications, CloudEagle.ai can capture real-time usage patterns down to individual feature and user levels, providing organizations with reliable data to optimize SaaS costs.

This accuracy is critical in identifying unused or underused licenses, enabling businesses to optimize their software spend effectively.

6. Advanced Intelligence: Identified vs. Realized Savings

Snow and Flexera can identify potential savings by highlighting unused or underused licenses. However, turning those identified savings into realized savings can be challenging.

CloudEagle.ai goes a step further by not only identifying savings but also enabling users to act on this data immediately.

For instance, it can show which licenses are underutilized or users who haven’t logged in over a specific period and enable you to configure workflows to downgrade or remove them, thus converting identified savings into realized savings efficiently.

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License harvesting capability of CloudEagle.ai makes the difference, as you can set up license reclamation workflows to deprovision users from licenses due to low usage. You can harvest and assign those licenses to the next user, ensuring optimal utilization and ROI.

For instance, with Office 365, CloudEagle.ai can identify unused licenses, track the adoption of products like Teams or OneDrive within the Office 365 suite, and recommend license downgrades or license harvesting with workflows to save costs.

Snow and Flexera, however, offer a more shallow view, lacking the depth needed to make informed cost optimization decisions.

RingCentral faced similar challenges with unused licenses and here's how CloudEagle.ai helped them reclaim unused licenses, harvest them, and reassign them to new users, ensuring optimal resource utilization.

7. Procurement and Renewal management

Earlier, we saw how Snow and Flexera primarily focus on asset management and do not offer extensive procurement features. These platforms lacks the advanced procurement features that CloudEagle.ai offers.

CloudEagle.ai goes beyond SaaS management by incorporating procurement and renewal management workflows. These include AI-driven contract management, renewal reminders, intake to procure, and negotiation support. This ensures that you’re not just managing your SaaS licenses but also optimizing every stage of the procurement process.

AI-driven contract management

CloudEagle.ai can integrate with contract management systems and bring all contracts and other sensitive documents under one roof for easy management, tracking, and auditing.

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It uses AI to automatically extract key information from your contracts, such as renewal dates, payment terms, and usage caps, and sets up a renewal calendar based on the renewal dates.

now might remind you of an upcoming renewal but doesn’t provide the deeper analysis and proactive negotiation insights, buyer guides, and price benchmarks that CloudEagle.ai does.

Renewal management

Based on the renewal calendar, you can configure renewal workflows and initiate the process 90 days in advance, ensuring prompt approval from relevant stakeholders. No more missing out on renewals, as you’ll receive reminders on Slack and email, ensuring you stay ahead of renewals.

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Another aspect of CloudEagle.ai’s renewal capabilities is that you don’t need to switch between platforms for renewals. Jira, Ironclad, and other integrations will let us meet where you are so that you can handle renewals from your preferred platform.

No more long email threads; Slack integrations will enable you to create dedicated Slack channels for effective collaboration. You can raise renewal requests, approve them, and manage the entire renewal process from Slack.

Procurement

CloudEagle.ai’s procurement feature accelerates the procurement process through automated workflows and enhanced visibility. The platform's no-code workflow configurations allow organizations to design tailored procurement processes that automate the routing and handling of purchase requests.

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This automation reduces delays and manual errors by ensuring that requests are directed to the appropriate stakeholders for quick approval and processing.

Customizable intake request forms adapt to various procurement needs, capturing only relevant information and streamlining the approval process. By centralizing procurement activities on a single dashboard, CloudEagle.ai provides real-time visibility for requesters and stakeholders, making tracking request status and updates easy without constant follow-ups.

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Integration with Slack further enhances efficiency by enabling stakeholders to review and approve intake requests directly within the communication platform.

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Conclusion

In the rapidly evolving world of SaaS management, enterprises need a specifically designed platform to meet the unique challenges of managing SaaS applications.

When it comes to SaaS management and license management, CloudEagle.ai clearly outperforms Snow and Flexera. With its extensive integration library, automated workflows, accurate data, user-friendly interface, and actionable insights, CloudEagle.ai provides a comprehensive solution that is purpose-built for the challenges of managing modern SaaS applications.

With CloudEagle.ai, enterprises can discover, optimize, govern, and renew SaaS applications from one platform and optimize SaaS investments.

Book a demo now to see how this platform can streamline SaaS management, procurement, and access governance for you.

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