It's always important to maintain and manage the tools you use for work. Nowadays, this includes the software your business uses each day. Let's go over some tips for doing so properly.

Avoid Shadow IT

Without being provided the tools they need to complete their assigned tasks, your employees are likely going to seek out an alternative that allows them to do so. While their initiative might be admirable, the results can be quite regrettable. If software is added to your business' network without your awareness (and certainly without your approval), you have what is known as shadow IT. 

There are a litany of problems that shadow IT can contribute to, so it is best to keep it off your network entirely. The simplest way to do so is to simply ensure your team has all the tools they need to do their jobs, whether that entails a single software title or a full suite of business applications.

Carefully Manage Your Subscriptions 

Today, it's becoming rare to find business software that isn't offered as a subscription service. While this is a good option for long-term use cases, it can create a challenge if a certain software is only needed for a single project but the subscription is never canceled once the need for it has passed. This can quickly become expensive for a business, so we recommend that any organization using any subscription-based software titles regularly carries out an internal audit to weed out ones that are no longer needed.

Patch and Update Your Software

As threats are developed and mistakes are discovered in software, software developers will release updates and patches to resolve these deficits. This, however, is often where their responsibility ends—it is up to the user to actually apply these fixes, at the risk of opening up the business to a security threat.

This is another reason that many businesses now utilize Software-as-a-Service subscriptions. SaaS gives businesses the option to embrace a more cost-effective means of doing business. With the scalability that SaaS brings, a business can more precisely shape their subscriptions to fit their actual needs with the capability to change their preferences on the fly.

A good add-on to consider along with SaaS is a software management platform. With one, you can get a bird's eye view of your infrastructure and see what applications are actively being used.

Whatever your software needs may be, we can help you find the SaaS option that fits them. Find out more by calling (415) 295-4898 today.