Why SaaS Procurement Teams are Choosing CloudEagle in 2024

Did you know organizations still use outdated and broken procurement processes in 2024? They rely on spreadsheets and manual admin tasks to track approval requests. This leads to the procurement team spending most of their time chasing approvals rather than focusing on more productive tasks.

Additionally, companies face procurement delays due to manual processes, leading to operational inefficiencies and low productivity. To address these challenges, they use CloudEagle to streamline their outdated process and expedite SaaS purchasing.

CloudEagle is a SaaS management and procurement platform with workflows to automate your entire SaaS buying process.

Previously, our customer’s team spent 2000 hours handling procurement with outdated processes. And our automated workflows helped them reduce it to 1000 hours, saving time and increasing team productivity.

But what makes CloudEagle interesting? Why are companies choosing it? We will discuss the reasons so you can make the right decision about choosing CloudEagle as your next SaaS procurement services partner.

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What is a SaaS procurement platform?

The SaaS procurement platform is a tool that automates and streamlines the SaaS buying process. It consists of automated workflows, customizable intake forms, real-time notifications, etc, to expedite the procurement process.

Most mid and large-sized companies use a dedicated procurement team to handle their SaaS purchases, so what’s the point of using a procurement platform?

A dedicated team doesn’t mean the procurement process is streamlined. We are looking at organizations that are still using spreadsheets to track purchase requests.

You need a comprehensive procurement platform to handle all these requests without losing them in the long email threads and accelerate the process.

Challenges of the manual procurement process:

• Delays in approving requests and bottlenecks in process flow
• Inefficient and prone to human errors
• Intake requests require manual follow-ups, leading to duplicate requests
• Lack of visibility on requests and approval status
• Negotiation is based on vendor pricing alone and not backed by data
• Unable to keep up with buying and renewal requests as the team grows
• Difficulties in budgeting and forecasting before procurement

A manual procurement team is feasible for small teams with limited requirements. But as you grow, you cannot rely on such outdated methods.

This is where procurement platforms like CloudEagle can help streamline your entire process, irrespective of your company size.

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Reasons why SaaS procurement teams are choosing CloudEagle

1. Automated Procurement workflows

Automated workflows are available to fast-track your purchasing process. You can configure workflows for various purchases and include an intake form.

Raising a purchase request will trigger the respective workflows, notifying relevant stakeholders via Slack, email, and in-app notifications.

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The entire process is transparent; you can check the progress of your request in real time. This ensures the request doesn’t get lost and increases accountability.

If a stakeholder has yet to address the task, CloudEagle will automatically escalate it to the next person, ensuring that the request is approved on time. Once approved, your team can start researching vendors, analyze competitive prices, and prepare a negotiation strategy.

CloudEagle workflows don’t require manual intervention. The entire process, from workflow trigger to request approval, is automated. Your procurement team can focus on their strategic tasks and save time.

Workflow templates are readily available for various use cases like procurement, renewal, billing, etc, to help you immediately start with automation.

2. Customizable intake forms

What makes CloudEagle unique among its competitors is the versatility of its procurement module. While other platforms limit workflows to SaaS purchases, CloudEagle lets you create workflows for both SaaS and non-SaaS products.

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You can configure customizable intake forms for various purchase requests. This will help you collect the right data regarding SaaS and non-SaaS purchases from the requesters.

Configured the intake form, which users can fill out to raise an intake request. Once the request is raised, CloudEagle will take care of the rest, from notifying the stakeholders to getting their approvals.

Most procurement softwares provide static intake forms with purchase limitations. This is why most customers migrated to CloudEagle, as it has customizable intake forms for both SaaS and non-SaaS, like laptops, chairs, tables, etc.

3. Slack for Procurement

Slack integrations enable CloudEagle to send notifications when a workflow is triggered, including progress alerts, pending task reminders, and so on.

But it does more than just send basic reminders. CloudEagle’s Slackbot enables you to manage the entire procurement module on Slack.

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Users can raise purchase requests via Slack. Like the platform, the request will automatically be sent to relevant stakeholders for approval. You can create a private Slack channel for the particular workflow to streamline the SaaS procurement process further. Stakeholders can collaborate on the Slack channel and make the right purchase decision.

So, you don’t have to visit the platform every time to make a purchase request or to approve the request. You can do them all from Slack.

The same goes for renewals. You’ll receive Slack notifications for renewals 30, 60, or 90 days in advance. You can collaborate with the team regarding app usage, conduct market analysis, and prepare a negotiation plan to renew the contracts on time.

This ease of use and flexibility is what made our customers choose CloudEagle. You can simplify the repetitive process and focus on more critical tasks with the Slackbot for procurement.

4. Vendor research

How do you research vendors after the procurement request is approved? Before CloudEagle, our customer’s procurement teams spent hours researching for relevant reviews and testimonials on Google, G2, Capterra, etc.

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CloudEagle eliminates this time-consuming process with a built-in vendor research or recommendation engine. It is AI-powered and suggests vendors based on the pain point you’re trying to solve.

You can read relevant reviews, compare vendor prices and functionalities side-by-side, and connect with peers to validate your preferred vendor before selecting the right one.

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Instead of scrolling through the features provided by the vendors, only focus on the relevant features to your team. This will help you choose the right vendor that aligns with your needs.

You don’t have to leave the platform to select the right vendors. Every detail you need is embedded within CloudEagle to make SaaS purchasing easy, and that’s one of the many reasons to choose our platform.

5. Assisted buying and price benchmarking

CloudEagle is a leader in the SaaS management and procurement category. It is one of the few platforms offering Platform + Services to streamline procurement. If you want to optimize your spend and streamline procurement, you can use our platform. You can opt for our SaaS buying services for negotiation assistance.

Now that you’ve streamlined the request approval process using workflows, what happens after the request is approved?

Does your procurement team have the bandwidth to negotiate with vendors? Some organizations have lean procurement teams already stacked with critical tasks, so if your team lacks the time or bandwidth, you can seek assistance from our SaaS buying experts.

Our assisted buying experts will work as an extension of your team and help you ace your negotiations with vendors.

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They’ll analyze your requirements and budget constraints, conduct competitive analysis, and provide insights to help you negotiate better. Or you can let our experts handle your negotiations completely while your team can focus on their tasks.

Our experts will leverage relevant data, including the latest pricing benchmarking insights, and purchase the right product at the right price.

Here's a customer success story of how we helped Nowports save on spend with expert negotiation assistance.

Price benchmarking

CloudEagle has a SaaSMap, which is a mega-database of 100,000 SaaS vendors. It features publicly available information on vendors in the form of a map. You can find all relevant information about the vendors, and our AI and ML algorithms ensure that the data is up-to-date.

This will help you make the right decisions on vendor selection and provide valuable insights to help you ace your negotiation process.

Additionally, based on our $1 billion in transactions and trusted sources, we have the largest benchmarking repository in the market. You’ll get to know the accuracy of market prices and what your peers are paying for the same products and services.

By leveraging the benchmarking data, our SaaS buying experts will negotiate with vendors and ensure that you pay a price similar to what your peers are paying.

Our SaaS buyers will ensure no future cost overruns, guaranteeing you won't be overpaying for applications if you did in the past.

Here's Terry Larock, a seasoned procurement expert shares expert negotiation strategies with Nidhi Jain:

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6. 100% Application visibility and app usage details

CloudEagle is not just a procurement tool; it's a comprehensive SaaS management and procurement platform that can help you manage and optimize your portfolio and spend.

To gauge the effectiveness of SaaS solutions and to optimize SaaS spending, you need a better look into your SaaS stack. With zero or limited visibility, you cannot

• Identify SaaS and non-SaaS applications.
• Track license usage and duplicate applications
• Identify how much you’re spending on each application and vendor
• Track app usage insights and use them during renegotiation
• Identify the applications purchased without approval (shadow IT)
• Identify vulnerable applications from third-party vendors.
• Track department-level spend insights.

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CloudEagle provides 100% SaaS visibility thanks to its comprehensive integration capabilities. The platform can sync with 300+ applications. API connectors are available for:

• SSO integration
• Finance system integration
• HRIS integration
• Direct integration

These integrations help CloudEagle take a detailed look at your SaaS applications, vendors, and their relative spending.

So, how is this beneficial for procurement teams?

When a user raises a purchase request, the first step is to verify if there are other applications with similar functionality. This is one instance where visibility can help you out.

With SaaS visibility, procurement teams can

• Identify and control decentralized purchases
• Effectively renegotiate with accurate app usage data
• Identify user activity in the application so that you can renegotiate for more licenses
• Analyze usage patterns and spend for renewals

Our accurate app usage data and spending insights have helped SaaS procurement teams renegotiate better during contract renewals and cut down SaaS costs.

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Here's Diego Coria from Nowports, recalling his experience working with CloudEagle and how we secured 34% savings through renegotiations.

Conclusion  

SaaS procurement is a complex process; it involves multiple moving parts, numerous stakeholders, dozens of vendors, and negotiations.

SaaS procurement solutions like CloudEagle were built to simplify the process. Our customers have already increased their procurement team’s productivity using workflows and assisted buying services of CloudEagle.

However, procurement features are not the only reason to choose CloudEagle. As you read in the article, the platform is equipped with

• SaaS management
• Automated SaaS procurement workflows
• Latest benchmarking data
• Vendor management and research
• Assisted buying services.

Are you ready to streamline SaaS procurement and increase your team’s productivity?

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