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Topic starter
11/06/2026 11:24 pm
TL;DR: As SaaS adoption outpaces IT visibility, software asset management is shifting from licence tracking to identity governance, renewal control, and lifecycle enforcement, according to Zluri. The practical issue is not just spend leakage but unmanaged access and offboarding gaps across SaaS apps, vendors, and internal users.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Zluri: SaaS Management How to Manage Software Assets
By the numbers:
- Zluri says its app library covers 225000+ apps across nine discovery methods.
- Only 5.7% of organisations have full visibility into their service accounts.
- 96% of organisations store secrets outside of secrets managers in vulnerable locations including code, config files, and CI/CD tools.
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should teams govern SaaS licences as part of identity management?
A: Teams should treat SaaS licences as entitlements, not just assets.
Q: Why do spreadsheets break down for SaaS asset management?
A: Spreadsheets break down because they rely on manual updates and periodic reconciliation, while SaaS access changes continuously.
Q: What should organisations prioritise before SaaS contract renewals?
A: Organisations should prioritise usage review, entitlement ownership, and offboarding validation before renewal.
Practitioner guidance
- Centralise SaaS entitlement inventory Replace spreadsheet-based tracking with an authoritative inventory that records app ownership, assignment, renewal date, and revocation status for every licence.
- Tie SaaS approval to joiner-mover-leaver workflows Require provisioning and deprovisioning to trigger from HR or identity workflow events so licences are added, changed, or removed with role movement.
- Review dormant and underused licences before renewal Use usage data to identify apps with low activity, then downgrade, reclaim, or terminate licences before the renewal date to cut unnecessary spend.
What's in the full article
Zluri's full article covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- How Zluri structures SaaS discovery across MDM, SSO, finance, HRMS, directories, and browser-based sources.
- How the platform handles license tracking, renewal alerts, approval calendars, and vendor metadata in practice.
- How its onboarding and offboarding workflows automate requisition and revocation across employee roles and short-term access needs.
- How the app store model supports internal requests, renewals, and revocation decisions at scale.
👉 Read Zluri's article on managing SaaS software assets →
SaaS asset management and the governance gap teams are missing?
Explore further
12/06/2026 8:02 am
SaaS asset management is now an entitlement governance discipline, not just an inventory exercise. Once software buying happens outside IT, each licence becomes an access decision that must be controlled through lifecycle, review, and revocation. The article is useful because it shows how cost leakage and governance failure share the same root condition: uncontrolled assignment. Practitioners should treat SaaS asset management as part of identity governance, not a separate procurement workflow.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 96% of organisations store secrets outside of secrets managers in vulnerable locations including code, config files, and CI/CD tools, according to Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
- 79% of organisations have experienced secrets leaks, and 77% of those incidents resulted in tangible damage.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Who should own SaaS licence revocation when employees leave or change roles?
A: Identity and access teams should own the control, with HR or workflow signals triggering the action. SaaS revocation needs to happen as part of the leaver or mover process, not as an afterthought in procurement. That ensures access is removed when business need ends, which limits waste and reduces residual exposure.
👉 Read our full editorial: SaaS asset management is becoming an identity governance problem
