Certero targets Shadow IT with new SaaS Discovery solution

Certero, the only Customers’ Choice in the 2024 Gartner Peer Insights SAM Tools Report, targets Shadow IT with new SaaS Discovery solution.

May 2024 – Warrington, UK and Chicago, US.

Innovative new ‘SaaS Discovery for Shadow IT’ addition to the Certero platform promises to give IT teams the power and agility to regain visibility and control over business software in the modern world, with a recent Gartner report stating that ‘by 2027, 75% of employees will acquire, modify or create technology outside IT’s visibility – up from 41% in 2022.’

Certero today launched Certero for SaaS Discovery (Shadow IT) on their Certero platform, increasing the scope of the solution to truly be able to bring visibility and control to customers’ IT hardware and software everywhere – whether on the network, off the network, delivered as SaaS or in the cloud. 

Optimizing SaaS software usage and costs is not new to Certero. Customers report significant, rapid cost-savings through being able to see and reduce over-licensing with tier 1 SaaS vendors like Microsoft 365 – One Certero customer case study details how a customer reduced their M365 costs by $1.6m. 

Shadow IT describes the hidden IT costs and security risks that exist because IT and the business are not aware of them. Cloud and SaaS delivery models are available to business stakeholders who no longer need the help of in-house IT teams to enable them. These IT investments therefore fall outside of IT governance and procurement practices, resulting in uncontrolled cost and data security risks. 

Analysts at Gartner suggest that Shadow IT accounts for 30-40% of IT spending. A major contributor to this is shadow SaaS; applications that are accessed by users through web browsers and leave little evidence on users’ machines for traditional IT discovery and SAM solutions to find. 

It is here that Certero has once again demonstrated a thorough and innovative approach to solving this problem, by creating a new way to gain visibility of what SaaS applications are being accessed by users without the privacy and security concerns caused by adding an extension to a user’s web browser.

Certero licensing consultant and certified FinOps Practitioner, Dan Whitefield explains:

Up until now, SaaS discovery tools have tended to rely on using web browser extensions to try and capture evidence of SaaS usage. Whilst interrogating browsers is a logical point to capture activity, security teams need to be aware of the level of permissions these extensions require and how they broaden the attack surface to increased security risk. They have potential to capture way more than security teams would be comfortable with allowing… keystrokes and passwords for example. Not to mention the fact that they’re a moving target – browsers are constantly updating, and you would have to stay on top of constant changes and conflicts. Given the increased risk and overhead, I’m really pleased that Certero has found a way to capture and automate the processes of making sense of SaaS activity, without using browser extensions.

Dan WhitefieldCertero licensing consultant and certified FinOps Practitioner, Certero

Certero has successfully completed testing of the new Certero for SaaS: Discovery solution with enterprise-scale customers. One customer, a License Manager within the Transport & Logistics sector commented:

“With the new SaaS discovery module, Certero is proving the whole circle of discovery of Shadow IT – for any size of company/business, it completes the full control of all software usage. 

Certero adds lots of value when chasing down redundant usage of Cloud Software and Websites – allowing more efficient identification of undesired software for removal.“

License Manager, Transport & Logistics Sector

Automated SaaS categorization 

Certero for SaaS Discovery (Shadow IT) finds SaaS applications that are accessed by users and includes a ‘SaaS categorization database’ of well over 30,000 known SaaS apps, that will automatically recognize and apply industry-standard definitions to your discovered SaaS. This helps to reduce the overheads around understanding what discovered SaaS apps are for and what levels of data security risk they present.  

Simple to Set Up, Simple to Use 

Being part of the Certero platform, Certero for SaaS Discovery like all of Certero’s ITAM & SAM products, can be simply activated and will all work holistically together with a consistent user interface and logical way of working across all of Certero’s solutions. 

This includes unrivalled data visualization, as Certero reporting dashboard capabilities make it easier to represent SaaS discovery data in meaningful ways. 

Certero has also just been recognized as the only ‘Customers’ Choice’ in the 2024 Gartner® Peer Insights™ Voice of the Customer for Software Asset Management Tools report, noted for a reported ‘100% customer satisfaction’ score and industry-leading implementation times. The new Certero for SaaS Discovery follows suit, offering a mature and feature-rich SaaS discovery solution, straight out of the box.  

A Big Picture Shadow IT Solution with Active Controls 

In addition, Certero offers a solution for Shadow IT that’s not isolated from more traditional on-premises IT hardware and software asset management, enabling ‘big picture’ management of software on an enterprise scale. 

For example, Certero would have the ability to identify and enforce a corporate policy over web browsers, so that unauthorized web browsers could be not just identified but actively restricted from users, using Certero’s unique AccessCtrl functionality. This would help to prevent Shadow IT at an even earlier level and would make sure that web activity is tracked through an approved and secure method that’s future-proof.