So here, we’ll go over:

• The definition of time to value and why it’s crucial
• How to evaluate a SaaS management platform’s time to value
• What helps BetterCloud customers speed time to value to quickly achieve a positive return on investment.

Defining time to value and why it’s important in SaaS

Let’s start off with making sure we have a common understanding on this key metric.

Time to value is simply a measurement of the amount of time from purchase to when you start deriving value. The faster a SaaS management solution solves your problems, the sooner you realize value. 

It’s as easy as that. 

But it can be complicated. 

Why? 

The reason is because to develop time to value calculations, you need a definition of value. And value, of course, is usually unique to each organization. For example, some need a SaaS management platform for:

• Higher productivity
• Speed user lifecycle management
• Improved security
• Reduce operating costs

However, if you’re like most organizations looking to automate SaaS operations with a SaaS management platform, you’ll likely define value in terms of improved productivity.

Evaluating a SaaS management platform’s time to value

When it comes to using a SaaS management platform to increase productivity, there’s a lot that goes into making sure there’s a fast time to value. 

Specifically, there are two main components to time to value– one is related to the product itself, and the second component is around deployment.

Product-related time to value is its ease of use

And, of course, regarding a SaaS management platform’s ease of use, it breaks down into how easy it is to: 

• Navigate and operate, and 
• Create automations.

Deployment-related time to value is ease of setup process

In the world of SaaS management platforms, the ease of setup process breaks down into:

• Certification programs and training
• Knowledge base and active user community
• Professional services packages
• Customer success and support

Some SaaS management platform vendors are better than others. And, according to our customers, BetterCloud delivers on the time-to-value promise.

How BetterCloud brings fast time to value for customers

A few of the key findings from our May 2023 SaaS Management Impact Report was about this very subject. We found that nearly 90% of customers get BetterCloud up and running in less than 6 weeks, with 24% getting the job done in less than a week.

More than half, at 53%, get value from BetterCloud right away, in less than a month.

Fast and painless implementation. No-code workflow creation simplicity. Easy to learn and use. Together, these factors help BetterCloud customers accelerate time to value and grow productivity to achieve fast return on investment.

So now let’s look at each one.

An intuitive UI for great usability and visibility

As soon as you log in to the platform, the BetterCloud dashboard shows the overview of your domain across all connected applications. In a single view, you can quickly see a real-time view of your domain’s status including:

• Critical alerts
• Workflow executions
• File metrics
• User metrics

No code automations available for more than 70 common, market leading SaaS apps

BetterCloud is built to ensure your team has fast time to value. Our SaaS management platform includes: 

• Pre-built integrations for more than 70 of today’s market leading SaaS apps that many organizations use
• Pre-configured workflow templates that leverage best practices in automating activities and policies across the SaaS environment
• Access to 1000+ essential actions and alerts – out-of-the-box – to meet the unique needs of your business

“The Integration Center just happened to match so perfectly to our needs. It checked off all the boxes of the wide umbrella of SaaS applications Ibotta has, so it was an immediate winner off the bat.”

^{Jon Aviles, Senior IT Identity Management Engineer, Ibotta}

In addition, our platform is purpose-built to make creating workflows easy. You can speed development of workflows using BetterCloud’s easy-to-use workflow builder. This way, anyone on your team can create workflows without the need for complex context or coding.

Using a drag and drop approach, your team member uses simple IF/THEN logic to build the workflows that maximize operational efficiency, scale IT impact, and deliver a quick time to value.

Easy extensibility for unique automation needs

As your organization travels the SaaS automation journey, you’ll uncover some unique processes ripe for automation. 

For example, you’ve automated both onboarding and offboarding processes for user lifecycle management. You’ve already automated some SaaS-related help desk tickets, like password or MFA resets or app access requests.

Now you’re ready to automate a unique or custom need. BetterCloud supports flexible workflows with extended triggers and complex arrays using the Platform API.

As for learning to write even the most complex workflows, you’re never alone. 

BetterCloud offers a plethora of resources to help you grow in your automation skills, and assure a fast time to value and quick return on investment.

Abundant training for every skill and budget level

When you become a customer, you get free access to the BetterCloud Flight School. Want to attend live training? Bring your questions because we’ve got you covered with a free, 90-minute overview session led by BetterCloud experts. 

If you prefer to learn on your own time, there’s nearly 5 hours of on-demand video instruction where you can pause and replay and truly learn at your own pace. 

And finally, if you want an intensive online training workshop, we’ve got that too. In just two days, you’ll learn everything you need to know to become an extraordinary BetterCloud administrator. 

These sessions are generally held a few times per month. Then to ensure each attendee gets individual attention, class sizes are limited. 

Our paid training is a great investment. It assures that your company has a fast time to value with the BetterCloud platform. In addition, it’s a valuable course for preparing to become BetterCloud certified.

Find answers using an extensive knowledge base and from a large and loyal SaaSOps Community

And since learning is always a life-long experience, BetterCloud has your back. There’s a large and searchable knowledge base. To particularly ensure a fast time to value, there’s even a section that focuses on getting started on BetterCloud.

Additionally, there’s a large community of experienced BetterCloud users who are always willing to help. Simply join the BetterIT Slack channel and get answers from your peers at other companies, as well as BetterCloud team members.

Acclaimed professional services for successful implementation and configuration

In addition to extensive training options, a detailed knowledge base, and active BetterCloud community, BetterCloud also offers first-class professional services. 

Thanks to BetterCloud’s Executive Advisory Group (EAG) and their professional services offerings, companies get a quick setup for the fastest time to value. Depending on the size of the new BetterCloud user, implementation is done together with a BetterCloud Solutions Consultant. 

For larger companies or those with a more complex SaaS environment, there may be an implementation project manager to keep the deployment tempo up to meet time to value requirements.

If your team has aggressive time to value requirements, BetterCloud professional services will quickly help get you up and running.

Fuel fast deployment with BetterCloud’s great customer success and support teams

Finally, to answer your questions and troubleshoot problems, you can rely on BetterCloud technical support. With an average chat response time of just 15 seconds, our extensive support team can quickly address your questions. Then to make sure you’re getting the most out of your BetterCloud investment, your BetterCloud Customer Success Team is dedicated to help you meet your goals.

Get Fast Time to Value with BetterCloud

At BetterCloud, achieving your maximum operational efficiency – as quickly as possible — is our highest priority. While the mission starts with BetterCloud’s ease of use, it continues by quickly helping your IT team to become BetterCloud experts. 

Take advantage of plentiful options that include:

• Free on-demand training videos
• Live free workshops
• Paid workshops
• Detailed and up-to-date knowledge base
• Active user community on Slack
• Top notch professional services
• Fantastic tech support
• Dedicated customer success teams

In no time, your IT team and entire organization will benefit from better productivity and a quick return on investment.

Do you need a SaaS management platform with a fast time to value? Reach out to get a demo now.

Managing the User Lifecycle

Your onboarding, mid-lifecycle, and offboarding workflows can now be triggered seamlessly and precisely with up-to-date and accurate data from BambooHR. This integration eliminates manual data entry and repetitive administrative tasks while ensuring the timeliness of critical processes, freeing up valuable time and resources for IT teams.

Wherever an employee is in the user lifecycle, BetterCloud’s BambooHR integration empowers you to automate processes while ensuring employee productivity remains intact and proper access is in place to reduce the risk of data exposure.

Gaining a Centralized View of Employees

With the User 360/Profile view, you have a comprehensive overview of your organization’s workforce, including newly onboarded employees. The User 360/Profile view displays essential user profile metadata, such as first name, last name, work email, department, status, job title, and manager.

Visit our Help Center or view our demo for more details on how to utilize the BambooHR integration. Log in today to get started.

File Repository Management

Law firms have been steadily modernizing their technology stacks over the past several years and a major component of this modernization is moving toward cloud-based document management systems (DMS). Cloud-based DMS – like DropBox, Google Drive, and O365 – offer significant advantages for remote workers and bring new levels of efficiency and productivity to legal professionals. Data from the American Bar Association shows that legal teams are adopting consumer DMS solutions much faster than specialized legal-specific solutions that were relied on in the past.

With the advent of these new technologies comes an increase in the velocity of sensitive content – both in creation and dissemination – that makes it difficult for centralized IT teams to adapt. This is an acute pain felt during offboarding when a legal professional leaves the firm or is reassigned from a matter and visibility into files is lacking. This forces the IT team to be responsible for finding, managing, and retaining critical documents in systems they have little oversight of.

BetterCloud addresses these challenges by empowering IT to gain comprehensive insights into document stewardship across integrated systems among the top cloud DMS providers. It offers robust reporting capabilities, enabling accurate and efficient management of these systems. BetterCloud also facilitates batch operations such as file transfers and file unsharing, streamlining content management during offboarding.

User Lifecycle Management

Law firms are undergoing rapid digital transformation and adopting numerous cloud-based software solutions. This introduces complexity as users require immediate access to multiple SaaS applications and the existing processes may not be mature enough to meet these new business needs, causing inefficiencies and delays.

BetterCloud’s no-code solution empowers lean IT teams to develop automated workflows for onboarding and offboarding processes. By automating these processes, BetterCloud improves time to delivery for IT, enhances adherence to service level agreements (SLAs), and provides an improved – and secure – employee experience. 

BetterCloud’s platform was designed with the most common alerts and templated zero-touch workflows to enable automatic resolution for common IT issues, like password resets and app requests. Customers of BetterCloud have been able to reduce up to 78% of these common IT tasks and deliver real results for their stakeholders.

Application Discovery

Law firms often work with clients who require the use of specific tools that may not be officially supported by the firm’s IT department. This results in users creating accounts and storing sensitive data in disparate systems beyond IT’s control. These environments often surface late in the engagement lifecycle, leading to additional overhead during offboarding processes.

BetterCloud’s application discovery capabilities empower IT teams to proactively identify shadow IT and remediate the usage of unsanctioned systems across the enterprise. Quickly identifying such instances allows the IT team to mitigate security risks and align applications with the firm’s approved solutions. This capability becomes particularly valuable during initiatives like application consolidation, where BetterCloud’s insights facilitate the transition to a more streamlined and controlled IT environment.

Efficient file management and IT operations are critical for law firms to ensure data security, regulatory compliance, and streamlined processes. BetterCloud offers law firms the tools necessary to enhance file repository management, user lifecycle management, and application discovery. By leveraging BetterCloud, law firms can improve accuracy, efficiency, and visibility across their systems, ultimately leading to better file management and data security. Request a demo today to learn more about how BetterCloud can help address the unique needs of your IT team.

So here, we review:

• The role of the CFO when it comes to buying SaaS management platforms and IT products
• The five main questions a CFO will ask
• How to prepare for making the business case with a CFO advocacy kit

The changing role of financial executives in 2023 IT purchases

With recent shifts in the economic environment, CFOs are increasingly involved in purchases – even at lower value thresholds. For example, during the roaring 2021/2022 IT investment boom, IT has more latitude to invest without the strong involvement of finance leadership. 

Now, those days are gone. 

According to early 2023 CFO magazine research, 84% said they expect to be more involved in developing technology strategy than they were in 2022. In addition, more than a third of those are expected to be “significantly” more involved.

So, while IT might expect more scrutiny from the numbers team, that same research also had some good news for IT regarding budgets. Most finance leaders expect to increase IT budgets, and Gartner agrees. 

Even though Gartner revised their 2023 projection downward, they still expect the average company IT budget to grow in the 4.5% range. As for software budgets, they are expected to grow by about 9%.

Thus, it’s clear that your next task is to make your great business case to the CFO. Without it, you probably won’t get too far. 

So now, let’s talk about how to build a winning case for a SaaS management platform.

Selling a SaaS Management Platform Investment to the CFO

Before you schedule a meeting, you need to prepare your answers for some important questions. Specifically, you should come with answers for:

1. Is a SaaS management platform currently budgeted? Or is it an upcoming budget item for our next fiscal year?
2. Why does your organization need a SaaS management platform?
3. How does this software map, directly and/or indirectly, to the company’s strategic imperatives? 
4. Why should we get one now? 
5. What would happen if we did not invest in a SaaS management platform?

So now, let’s take these questions one by one.

1. Make the CFO aware that you have a SaaS management platform in the budget

No one likes surprises. Especially financial leadership.

With technology purchases under renewed scrutiny, make sure you know the total required investment (including deployment and your expected time-to-value) and that your IT team plans for it. 

A SaaS management platform is critical enterprise IT infrastructure, and its automation is a competitive necessity for efficient operations. Therefore, if you don’t have it in this quarter’s budget, you most certainly should include it in your next quarterly budget cycle.

2. Tie the need for a SaaS management platform to your enterprise IT priorities

Some organizations might choose a SaaS management platform to scale IT impact by automating day-to-day operations or user lifecycle management. Others deploy one to improve visibility of the more than 130 SaaS apps the average organization uses.

Some organizations implement a SaaS management platform to improve SaaS spend management, improve security, and apply security policy consistently across the SaaS environment. Meanwhile, some companies might need one to improve their ability to prove compliance.

Finally, some companies benefit from all the SaaS management platform use cases (and eliminate 78% of the work along the way). Thus, to make a winning business case to the CFO, be clear on how much this crucial technology will benefit your organization.

3. Show how a SaaS management platform aligns with corporate strategic imperatives

Nearly all organizations buy a new IT product to save money, become more efficient, or more secure. Perhaps your company needs all three?

Before you approach your CFO, it’s necessary to know the organization’s financial and strategic goals and determine how a SaaS management platform best supports those goals.

4. Communicate why you need a SaaS management platform now

New efficiency is a heightened need in today’s inflationary times. If your company is rapidly growing, then without a SaaS management platform, manual work multiplies with each new employee. 

To manage, you must hire more expensive, hard-to-find, and harder-to-keep IT talent.

And if you’re not quickly adding headcount, surfacing new operational efficiencies by automating day-to-day SaaS-related help desk operations and user lifecycle management can help keep costs in line, and profit margins stable. 

So, the key piece of advice here is to know and share the near-term and longer-term gains from deploying a SaaS management platform now.

5. Explain how delaying a SaaS management platform keeps IT less efficient, more expensive, and impedes overall competitiveness

Invariably, your finance executives will want to know the impact of postponing SaaS management platform implementation.

Automating the SaaS environment is a journey. It exponentially grows organizational efficiency the more you automate, and the better your orchestrated workflows become. 

Every day you put it off, is a day where your competitor accelerates its own operational efficiencies. In a matter of months, your company could be suffering a serious competitive disadvantage.

To be successful, be prepared to make sure the CFO understands that there’s a steep cost of inaction.

Getting started on your winning business case to the CFO

Here at BetterCloud, we know how hard it is to articulate your business case. 

That’s why we created the SaaS Management Impact Report and our CFO Advocacy Kit. To help you make a winning business case to finance executive leadership, we created a comprehensive playbook on how to build a business case.

Our playbook goes into detail in how you can prove operational efficiency and cost savings that results from using a SaaS management platform. In addition, it provides step-by-step guidance quantifying the unique value automation would provide to your company.

Finally, The CFO Advocacy Kit also includes a short business case template that you can complete and present to your CFO, as well as a sample email to get the conversation on automating SaaS management off to a great start. Download yours now.

Scheduling an On-Demand Workflow

To schedule an On-Demand Workflow in BetterCloud, select the Target User and navigate to Actions > Workflows > Select the Target Workflow. You will then see the new “Schedule for Later” button, where you will be prompted to select the specific date, time, and time zone that you want the Workflow to run. Select “Schedule Workflow” to complete scheduling.

Activity Feed

Once a Workflow has been scheduled, head to the Activity Feed and select the “Scheduled” tab for a full view of Workflows scheduled to run in the future. This new tab provides visibility into who/what the Workflow is targeting and who scheduled it. Within the Activity Feed, you also have the ability to easily cancel or run individual Workflows should the need arise.

Scheduled on-demand Workflows provide you with the flexibility to set and forget time bound tasks. Current BetterCloud customers can log in today to start scheduling Workflows. For more details, check out this article in our Help Center.

Streamlining new hire onboarding and employee lifecycle management with BambooHR integration

A Human Resources Information System (HRIS) is like the main hub for handling important events related to employees in an organization. It covers various processes such as hiring new employees, giving promotions, managing temporary leaves, and handling employee exits. In the absence of automation, these processes depend heavily on manual input to progress. This manual reliance leads to wasted time on repetitive tasks and delays in new employees’ productivity. Moreover, there is an elevated security risk due to potential human errors.

Our new integration with BambooHR provides organizations with an additional option for efficiently managing the entire employee lifecycle. From onboarding new hires and managing promotions to handling temporary leaves and offboarding, customers are enabled to initiate, track, and manage HR-related events within a single, unified platform in a timely manner. It also helps to eliminate the need for manual data entry and reduce the risk of data discrepancies or errors and helps to maximize their efficiency and reduce the need for manual intervention, ultimately saving time and resources. Experience BambooHR native integration interactive demo video now!

“I can guarantee that someone has access to what they need on day one or when they transition to a new role. Employees have what they need faster than ever.” 
_{– Steve Foley,  Senior IT Automation Engineer at Seismic
Read our case study}

Schedule your on-demand workflows, then we will handle the rest!

With the new scheduled on-demand workflows, organizations are provided with the flexibility to initiate workflows at specific times. IT is enabled to schedule the full on/offboarding workflow to run on whatever date makes sense for their organization – whether that is the start date, today’s date, or somewhere in between. By leveraging automation, your IT teams can set and forget, focus on driving innovation and productivity. Experience our new Scheduled On-Demand Workflows demo video now! 

Complex Array support for extended triggers

With the enhanced ability to use data within complex arrays in extended triggers, customers now have the option to initiate workflows from a variety of providers, supporting a wider range of event formats.

What’s next: more flexible workflows with Branching

At BetterCloud, we prioritize innovation and strive to provide increased business value to our customers. That’s why we’re thrilled to introduce the upcoming IF/Else branching feature. This feature empowers IT teams to consolidate workflows and paths, apply conditions based on specific scenarios, and unlock new levels of flexibility. By leveraging this capability, businesses can achieve highly dynamic, efficient workflows that optimize processes and resource utilization. For BetterCloud customers, please contact your Customer Success Manager to gather further information on incorporating branching once it becomes available.

To thrive as future IT leaders, it is imperative to prioritize business innovation and process redesign. The 2023 State of the CIO survey highlights that 55% of participants actively engage in identifying business opportunities and providing technology and provider recommendations. As organizations continue to embrace digital transformation, BetterCloud remains at the forefront, providing innovative solutions to meet the evolving needs of modern IT management to drive ROI, maximize operational efficiency, and achieve business outcomes.

Discover how our comprehensive solutions can eliminate up to 78% of your SaaS management work. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to streamline your operations and unlock the full potential of your IT automation. Schedule a demo today!

Gaining Executive Buy-In

In order to gain executive buy-in to bring BetterCloud into BARK, Grossman calculated how long it took to onboard or offboard an employee manually at the precise moment it needed to be done. In order to complete all these tasks, he would require an additional full time employee on his team. This calculation proved true. BARK saved 2,747 hours of IT time using BetterCloud workflows to automate manual tasks.

“If you’re going to hire more people, it’s going to be a strain on your budget. BetterCloud can make life easy for everybody.”

Elliott explained how streamlining manual tasks with BetterCloud didn’t just satisfy IT needs. The executive team was pleased with the financial savings and the compliance team was relieved to have confirmation that users were being deprovisioned appropriately and in an automated system that avoids human error. Finally, the IT team was building capacity, without building headcount and getting time back to work on strategic projects and improve their knowledge in new areas.

Focusing on Security

Beyond automating manual IT tasks, BARK’s IT organization was focused on security compliance and combating shadow IT within the company. During the webinar Grossman explained that shadow IT occurs when a department invests in an application and manages it themselves, without the approval or knowledge of IT. 

As a public company with compliance top of mind, the IT team needs to ensure these applications are offboarded as well. However, IT often doesn’t have admin rights to these apps. With BetterCloud’s offboarding workflow, IT is able to automate an email that will get sent to the app admin saying that an employee has been terminated, and requests confirmation that access has been revoked. “We have passed compliance every single time on applications we don’t even have our hands in,” said Grossman.

Up-Leveling IT with Expanded Capacity

As an IT leader, Grossman takes on great responsibility for his team, ensuring they are building skills to advance in their career. So what did he have them do with all of their time saved? Gain knowledge in other areas of interest, participate in training, earn certifications, and become proficient through broader IT experiences.

“I want my team to succeed. Denying the opportunity for professional development hurts career growth and makes employees less valuable in the long-term,” Grossman said.

On a personal level, Grossman takes pride in making sure automations are compliant to pass audits, saving his team time, saving the company money, removing the need to hire additional headcount, and retaining the existing talent on his team of three by making sure they enjoy their work. 

“Right now BARK has over 800 employees. I’ve seen the company grow from 300 all the way up. Being able to keep the amazing people on my team around as we scale is key for me,” said Grossman.

Watch the webinar recording here to learn more about the BARK IT automation story.

Ready to learn more about BetterCloud? Request a demo with a BetterCloud product expert today.

After more than 10 years with employees only in the US, BetterCloud officially opened its first international office on June 6, 2023, in the beautiful Mexico City, Mexico (CDMX). This is a big milestone for the market-leading SaaS Management Platform. BetterCloud Mexico – or BCMX as it is already known within the company – is a strategic initiative for BetterCloud in order to continue the acceleration of its product delivery and R&D capabilities. 

Why Mexico?

In the early fall of 2022, we embarked on a project to figure out where it would make sense for BetterCloud to open its first international office. This journey led us to analyze in detail multiple potential destinations. Mexico was a dark horse during much of this diligence but ultimately emerged as the preferred choice due to multiple significant reasons.

Mexico is an amazing country and CDMX undoubtedly is one of the most vibrant, diverse, growing and interesting cities in the world. But we are not opening there just because of the amazing food and architecture (which definitely helps). We are opening there mostly because of the amazing and diverse tech talent that is continuously growing and being nurtured both by homegrown companies such as Kavak, Clip or Konfio to name a few, and by big international players which are untapping the potential of this talent.

If you add to the high-quality talent the logistical advantages for a US-based company of having an office in Mexico, the choice becomes obvious. CDMX is either in EST or MST time zones depending on the time of the year and the trip from most main cities in the US does not take more than 5 hours. As we have said, the talent pool is very attractive and well prepared. Let’s keep in mind that CDMX’s main university (UNAM) is the largest in Latin America with over 350,000 students!

BCMX opens its doors with the clear goal to become an important and key tech employer in CDMX. Our office is located in Paseo de Reforma 333, at the heart of the city and right next to the famous Angel de la Independencia. 

Taking our first steps

It took us a few months to get all the legal, accounting and banking work done to be ready to operate independently in Mexico. We debated using a PEO-type partner to help us accelerate this timeline. Thanks to the wise advice from our Board, we quickly realized that if we wanted to be true to our culture and values we needed to do this by ourselves to ensure the BCMX employees were set for success and had a complete sense of belonging. 

Our recruiting team then got hard at work. Ana, Andres and Damian were our first three hires and started working for us on May 2. Rodrigo joined on May 19 to become our engineering leader for the office. We all collaborated to make the opening of the office the success that it was and are very happy that other BetterCloud leaders were able to join us to celebrate this accomplishment. 

We are currently hard at work to hire multiple engineering and product positions in order to build our first BCMX engineering teams. We are off to a great start and the team couldn’t be more motivated.

What makes BCMX special?

It is too early to say whether BCMX will be truly special but what’s clear is that all the signs indicate that it can be. The founding team is extremely passionate and proud of the work we are doing. Spending some time together, we quickly realized that our motto would be no other than Rafa Nadal’s famous war cry “Vaaaaamooooossss!!!!”

I was reflecting upon this and came to the conclusion – very likely biased by my Spanish origins – that Nadal is the perfect example for BCMX principles:

• Be Bold and Resourceful: Nadal won Roland Garros in his debut at age 19. Talk about being bold!
• Care about the past and embrace the future: Nadal has always respected the game of the legends that preceded him but has at the same time blazed towards the future by charting his own course.
• Move fast: Does anybody move faster than him throwing balls back in a clay court?
• X-factor: Nobody would have predicted that Nadal was going to win a (very-likely-unbeatable) record 14 Roland Garros on his way to 22 majors.

That’s the Vaaaamoooos spirit that BCMX is building. 

Vaaammooooos a por todo equipo!!!!

A robust user life cycle management (ULM) strategy is essential for retailers to streamline this process and alleviate the burden on IT resources while enabling business productivity and a healthy HR-IT relationship. In this blog post, we will explore the benefits of automating ULM with BetterCloud for IT teams supporting retail seasonal staffing.

Five Benefits of Automated User Lifecycle Management for IT Teams Supporting Retail Seasonal Staffing

1. Streamlined Onboarding and Offboarding Processes: Automated ULM solutions simplify user account provisioning and deprovisioning, reducing administrative overhead and saving time during seasonal hiring in retail.
2. Enhanced Productivity and Reduced Friction: A well-implemented ULM strategy, supported by automation, improves seasonal worker productivity by ensuring seamless access to systems and applications in the retail industry.
3. Mitigated Security Risks: Automated ULM systems enforce consistent access controls and permissions, reducing the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches during retail seasonal staffing.
4. Optimized IT Resource Utilization: Automated ULM solutions optimize IT resource utilization by streamlining processes, allowing IT teams to focus on strategic initiatives and proactive security measures during retail seasonal staffing.
5. Improved Collaboration and Reputation: Efficient ULM strengthens collaboration between IT teams, human resources, and business leaders, building trust and credibility in retail seasonal staffing initiatives.

Streamline Seasonal Staffing with BetterCloud User Lifecycle Management

The rising importance of HRIS (Human Resource Information System) as the source of truth for employee data underscores the need for IT automation to align with the schedules of Human Resources (HR) and the broader business. By integrating systems, such as Workday and BambooHR, seamless connectivity is established between IT systems and the authoritative source of employee information. This integration ensures that IT automation operates on the schedule dictated by the business, creating a cohesive and efficient workflow ensuring business productivity.

BetterCloud not only eliminates manual errors and accelerates processes but also provides pre-built workflows and templates specifically tailored to retail use cases. This approach enables IT automation to onboard seasonal employees, address mid-lifecycle system changes and offboard seasonal employees, by seamlessly integrating into the schedule set by HR and the business.

In addition to aligning with schedules, BetterCloud prioritizes security and compliance, offering scalability, flexibility, and enhanced collaboration between IT teams and other departments, particularly during high-demand periods such as retail seasonal staffing. Leveraging their extensive expertise and experience in managing user lifecycles, BetterCloud has successfully identified 62 million content violations and discovered 883,000 applications while overseeing more than 3.8 billion assets.

Executing over 7 million actions and 3.4 million workflows monthly, BetterCloud consistently saves thousands of hours for its 1,000+ clients. By improving IT productivity and driving increased business value, BetterCloud exemplifies the value of IT automation operating in sync with the schedules and seasonal needs of retail businesses.

Starting and Maturing User Lifecycle Management

BetterCloud User Lifecycle Management is the optimal choice for retail organizations preparing for seasonal staffing. Leveraging BetterCloud’s retail-friendly features, automation capabilities, robust security measures, scalability, and enhanced collaboration, IT teams can efficiently manage the user lifecycle of temporary workers during periods of seasonal staffing, significantly reducing – and in some cases eliminating – the burden of repetitive, low value work on IT organizations. BetterCloud streamlines processes, maximizes productivity, and ensures seamless integration of seasonal staff into the digital infrastructure. BetterCloud has enabled thousands of customers to automate user lifecycle management tasks. As the leading SaaS Management Platform (SMP), BetterCloud has built a path to operational excellence and agility that helps organizations accelerate their IT automation maturity for the greatest operational efficiency and IT agility. Get started by assessing your own User Lifecycle Management maturity today.

Read on to learn:

• Overall productivity improvements your IT team gets from using a SaaS management platform
• How adding automation muscle becomes a true force multiplier in user lifecycle management
• How starting now pays off fast 

Take productivity to new heights

With an average of 130 SaaS apps, effective SaaS management is more important now than ever. 

Thanks to countless, never-ending user lifecycle tasks needed for protecting the ever-growing expanse of sensitive data, the effort for managing it all is accelerating.

With proper user lifecycle management and security controls in place, organizations can then:

• Maximize operational efficiency 
• Accelerate employee productivity 
• Scale IT impact

To achieve these benefits, organizations across all industries and sizes now rely on SaaS management platforms – capable of automation and purpose-built for IT, of course.

But just how much does this crucial technology benefit?

Let’s first consider two important data points:

1. 93% of BetterCloud customers say the primary business benefit of a SaaS management platform is improved operational productivity
2. By adopting a SaaS management platform, on average, customers experience a 49% increase in overall IT productivity

Such improvement results from getting the most out of a SaaS management platform. In fact, organizations that enjoy the highest levels of improved productivity automate routine tasks like user lifecycle management, as well as day-to-day operational tasks like app access requests or password/MFA resets to essentially create self-service portals for end users.

If your IT team faces these challenges, then, the sooner you adopt a SaaS management platform, the faster you benefit. 

To convince you, we’ll go into how a SaaS management platform impacts user lifecycle management, a key SaaS management task.

Improve productivity with automated user lifecycle management – while boosting security

Of course, boosting productivity means saving time, which then translates to saving money. 

Let’s look at how.

In BetterCloud research conducted in spring 2023, SaaS management platform users with a few hundred employees save about 1,700 hours – about 82% of a full-time team member – by automating user lifecycle management alone. 

Of course, it’s important to remember that time spent for onboarding and offboarding varies based on the actual numbers of employees added and removed from corporate resources. 

Thus, for a big company with thousands of employees, automating user lifecycle management will save that company many, many thousands of hours.

So now, time to examine the broader business case for a SaaS management platform.

Automating user lifecycle management delivers significant IT productivity gains

Let’s revisit the scenario of a company with approximately 300 employees. Specifically focusing on the offboarding process, let’s examine organizations that have already completed nearly all of it.

With 18% turnover, we assume that it takes 3 hours to offboard one employee, and over the course of a year, it requires 162 hours to complete the same, error-prone, boring tasks to offboard all departing users.

In conservative estimates of dollars and cents, an organization loses $10,000 worth of time in offboarding tasks that could be automated.

And that’s not all. 

In many cases, IT must onboard every replacement for departed users. And that’s another $10,000 of valuable time lost to the same old, error-prone manual tasks. 

Now, we’re up to a conservative estimate of $20,000 in time spent on onboarding and offboarding tasks that could be automated.

So, if your company struggles to provide Day 1 onboarding, find the right IT skills, or wants to provide a better IT employee experience, then automating using a SaaS management platform will provide big productivity gains. 

How, then, does the business case change when adding other benefits?

SaaS license reclamation and security strengthens the business case

As part of performing the actual lifecycle management tasks, IT must reclaim and redeploy all SaaS licenses. After all, an asset is only productive when it’s in use. 

In addition,  in order to ensure maximum security, IT must perfectly perform all manual steps. However, nothing, except automation, guarantees a mistake-free offboarding.

SaaS license waste is too high.

By failing to completely offboard a former user, SaaS license waste is bound to occur. 

Unused, unproductive licenses are an enormous cost, and we’ll illustrate it with an example.

If you pay $40 per month of 162 dormant licenses, then in just two months, you’re losing nearly $13,000. Over the course of a year, left untouched, those license fees mount, needlessly costing you almost $80,000.

Once again, unproductive SaaS licenses highlight the need for a SaaS management platform.

Security risk reduction makes the business case a slam dunk. 

One more cost heightens the need for a SaaS management platform now – security. 

After all, despite the best intentions, manual offboarding is a haphazard process and mistakes are easily made. And when they happen, former users can retain access to your apps and data, introducing enormous risk until the mistake is uncovered and corrected. 

Too many times, manual offboarding mistakes don’t surface until there’s a breach, and breaches are very, very expensive.

Using the 2019 Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report data, the average cost per breach per employee is $3,553. 

To be conservative, let’s estimate that it’s only $353 in per employee breach costs. A single breach from erroneous manual offboarding will cost that company of 300 employees more than $100,000.  

If we take that initial Verizon estimate of $3,553 into consideration, then a single breach could cost more than a million dollars. 

Thus, for risk reduction alone, your company needs a SaaS management platform now.

But for user lifecycle management alone, total up the potential:

• IT productivity boost
• Elimination of unproductive SaaS licenses
• Risk reduction

You can’t help but conclude that the costs of delaying automating with a SaaS management platform are simply too high and impede productivity.

You Need a SaaS Management Platform Now, Not Later

The costs of inaction are steep, particularly considering that a SaaS management platform is quickly operational. In fact, about 90% of customers are operational in less than 6 weeks. 

In addition, more than half of SaaS management platform users start seeing value in less than one month. 

The secret behind the speedy deployment and time-to-value is BetterCloud. 

BetterCloud’s easy-use, no-code workflow engine offers IT teams a quick way to start automating processes. To get your workflows off and running, there’s also: 

• An award-winning professional services team 
• Free on-demand training videos
• Live training and workshops

For initial deployment, a dedicated team of implementation specialists provide hands-on, tailored services and best practices from hundreds of successful engagements.

Operating without a SaaS management platform has a high cost, and with BetterCloud’s quick deployment and time-to-value, waiting doesn’t make sense. 

You need, and should, implement a SaaS management platform. Now. Request a demo.