A Guide to Effective SaaS Governance

SaaS governance involves management processes that organizations establish and employ to manage their SaaS portfolio. Effective SaaS governance ensures data security, productivity, and efficient organizational operations. It ensures that every SaaS tool within your business' SaaS ecosystem supports organizational goals and complies with necessary regulations. Here's a simple step-by-step guide to effective SaaS governance:

Establishing Ownership and Accountability

To effectively manage your SaaS portfolio, assign specific employees to oversee each application with clear roles. This fosters accountability and aligns responsibilities with organizational goals, preventing chaos in your SaaS ecosystem.

Manually assigning roles can be hectic, so use a SaaS management platform like Josys. Josys helps assign tasks, track accountability, and clarify roles, improving efficiency and governance.

Access Management

Set access permissions based on assigned roles and responsibilities to ensure employees have the access to what they need while protecting sensitive data from unauthorized use. Josys also offers robust tools for managing access permissions. Its user-friendly interface lets you quickly assign roles and manage access, ensuring only authorized users can access certain applications. This improves security and reduces admin work.

Defining Usage Policies

Ensure SaaS applications meet company standards by setting clear rules for buying, using, and accessing them. These guidelines prevent unauthorized use and align applications with business goals and compliance needs.

Josys also helps surface shadow IT, or unsanctioned applications. It delivers a risk score so your IT team knows which apps to take action on first.

Implementing Security Controls

To keep sensitive data safe, use strong security measures like encryption, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and access management. They create extra layers of protection and enhance access management, helping you meet security requirements and protect sensitive information.

Monitoring and Compliance

You must consistently ensure that all applications follow company rules and meet regulatory requirements by monitoring your SaaS usage and compliance. You can also leverage Josys for monitoring as it provides tools for real-time monitoring and tracking of SaaS usage and the apps’ known compliance certificates. Josys helps IT teams flag non-compliant apps or security risk issues, helping you avoid regulatory penalties or security breaches.

Continuous Improvement in SaaS Governance

Regularly review and update your strategies, procedures and policies based on new insights, feedback and reviews to stay effective and relevant. You can easily employ Josys' versatile management tools to adjust governance policies and procedures. The platform's analytics capabilities help IT managers evaluate current governance strategies and find areas for improvement.

Conclusion

Effective SaaS governance is a multifaceted process that ranges from establishing clear ownership to continuous monitoring and improving your strategies. A platform like Josys streamlines these processes with tools for access management, policy enforcement, and compliance monitoring.

Consider how Josys can transform your SaaS governance practices, streamlining your IT operations and enhancing organizational agility. Contact us for a demo and discover how you can take your SaaS governance to the next level with Josys.