User surveys in SaaS management: How to uncover real license needs and cut costs
Are we paying for more SaaS licenses than we actually need – and how can we find out without spending weeks in Excel? This is a question many in IT, finance, and management roles are asking themselves.
Hvad mener vi med brugerundersøgelser i licensstyring?
Most people know that there is licence evasion within the organisation, but few have a precise answer as to where it occurs, why it occurs – and what can actually be done about it.
It is here customer surveys proves to be a crucial, yet often underestimated, part of modern SaaS and license management.
By user surveys, we mean short, targeted surveys sent to actual license users to determine whether – and why – a license is necessary. Instead of basing decisions solely on technical signals such as logins and assignments, the business gains insight into:
- If the license is critical for the role
- Whether the need is temporary or permanent
- If the licence is even necessary
This provides a basis for decision-making that combines data and context.
A full overview of licences is harder than it looks
Where complexity actually arises
In theory, license management should be straightforward. In practice, businesses have to deal with many different SaaS vendors and complex, ever-changing product catalogues (particularly with Microsoft and Adobe).
With varying pricing models, renewal dates, and contracts, it's challenging to keep track of users who start, change roles, and leave. This often results in licenses being unnecessarily retained.
For businesses that Elkem and cheek meant that the information was spread across different places for a long time. With Otheo Did they get the control and overview they needed.
For suppliers who are not directly partnered with all systems, it is not a given that all data will be available at all times.
Why manual solutions don't last in the long run
Excel spreadsheets and manual reports can provide a snapshot, but they have clear limitations:
- They are never quite up-to-date
- All my insights require manual labour
- Automating license changes is not possible
- Scales poorly as the organisation grows
Additionally, they lack the most important thing: insight into actual need.
Figures show what – user surveys explain why
Without user surveys, you know what's been used. With user surveys, you understand if it should be used.
Technical signals such as purchased vs. assigned licenses, logins and roles provide valuable information. But they say little about future need, criticality or context. When users themselves classify their licenses as:
- Mission critical
- Essential
- Important
- Supportive
- or not necessary
This gives the business a completely different basis for decision-making than with pure usage data.
Therefore, user surveys are an important corrective.
Automation alone does not capture context. User surveys augments usage data with human insight – and leads to better licensing decisions.
Offboarding: The license release occurs most often
Offboarding is one of the areas where licence leakage occurs most frequently – and where the consequences often go unnoticed.
When an employee leaves:
- Does the user disappear from certain systems, but the licenses remain?
- And no one has a complete overview of where
The reason is rarely a single mistake, but a lack of coherence between systems, departments, and processes. The result is unused licenses that are carried forward month after month.
With a consolidated system for user and license data, this will be much easier to detect – and to sort out.
Technically speaking: What makes user surveys possible?
For user surveys to provide real value, more than an email form is required.
The system must have an updated overview of users, licenses, roles, and groups. Once the overview is updated, it must be linked to the correct license, user, and manager. A good user survey also allows for precise filtering before dispatch and lets you structure the answers so they can be used operationally.
Otheo retrieves data from Microsoft and Adobe, among others, and updates the information daily. This makes it possible to send out surveys based on actual license status – not assumptions.
In practice, this means administrators no longer have to guess, manually compile data, or send out general mass surveys. Questions are only sent to the correct users – based on the actual licensing situation.
From assumptions to control
When technical usage data is combined with user surveys, organisations gain a much better basis for decision-making: not only what is being used, but what is actually needed.
This is where many experience the major shift – from manual assessments and uncertainty to structure, overview, and control. Not by automating everything, but by asking the right questions to the right people, based on real data.
The next step is not more reports, but better insight.
Would you like to see how this can work in practice?
Explore how Otheo helps businesses gain control over SaaS licenses, costs, and decisions – from onboarding to offboarding.