# Article Name The SaaS Rationalization Playbook for Post-Merger IT Teams # Article Summary SaaS rationalization playbook guides post-merger IT teams to cut costs, unify governance, score apps, and renegotiate contracts # Original HTML URL on Toriihq.com https://www.toriihq.com/articles/post-merger-saas-rationalization # Details Mergers fuel growth but instantly double the company’s SaaS footprint. Without a quick, shared plan, IT, finance, and security teams can spend months sorting duplicate tools, conflicting contracts, and shadow usage that bleeds cash. The group needs a clear line of sight before renewal emails arrive or side-door apps become entrenched habits. Everyone wants savings; no one wants to slow sales or frustrate end users. Converting that push-pull into a smooth rationalization effort takes clean data, firm guardrails, and no-nonsense negotiating, all moving in lockstep. The process looks easy in a slide deck, yet every step hides traps that can wipe out synergies or open security holes. The playbook lays out six focused moves that trim spend, tighten oversight, and help the merged business start acting like one. ## Form a Joint SaaS Governance Team Day one after a merger, every SaaS invoice still lands even as the org chart reshapes itself. Newly combined teams often rush to rebrand and sync sales, yet the subscription meter never pauses. A cross-functional SaaS governance task force can stop silent cost bleed before it explodes into headlines. Begin by naming co-leads from IT, security, finance, and procurement on both teams. Block calendar time and hand them budget sign-off the moment the deal closes; a two-week wait will see renewals auto-roll. Clear decision rights matter more than job title, so document who can green-light tool retirements, who approves spend exceptions, and who owns the email rollout. Write it down, share it, and revisit weekly while trust is still forming. Once roles are locked in, the group sets measurable targets everyone can repeat on cue. Cutting the SaaS run rate by 20 percent and hitting 100 percent license compliance within twelve months keeps the goal visible and concrete. Choose a single system of record, then wire every KPI dashboard to it so email threads never become the audit trail. A few visible governance victories in the first month quickly build momentum: - Use one app-naming convention so Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Sales Cloud roll into a single parent line item. - Agree on data-classification tiers that flag HIPAA or PCI workloads for later consolidation talks. - Publish a shared renewal calendar with 90-day alerts for every contract, even no-cost trials. - Map an escalation path up to the CIO and CFO to break deadlocks when tool owners dig in. Expect turf wars; the product manager who loves Miro may hate moving to Confluence whiteboards. The posted escalation ladder keeps arguments brief and strips out personal bias. Meeting minutes should capture action items and owners, not philosophical side trips. A steady beat of small decisions delivered on schedule proves the task force model works. By the time inventories merge in step two, the team already shares one governance language, making deeper analysis faster and far less political. ## Build a Unified SaaS App Inventory Day one after close, no one can explain what isn’t captured in a single list. Start by stitching together data from cloud access security broker logs, SSO dashboards, and corporate card exports; each source covers gaps the others miss. Security spots shadow sign-ups in Netskope [https://netskope.com], Finance flags rogue charges in SAP Concur [https://concur.com], and Okta [https://okta.com] shows which identities launch each app. Each entry needs context, or the inventory turns into another abandoned spreadsheet. Record the business owner, renewal date, contract value, payment terms, SSO coverage, data-residency zone, and required attestations such as SOC 2 or HIPAA. A quick sweep of the vendor master file often uncovers invoices for forgotten pilots that never crossed IT’s radar. Duplicate rows slow momentum, so build a plain-language taxonomy before de-duping. - Collapse branded suites first: Microsoft 365 workloads share one line unless they carry distinct SKUs. - Normalize naming conventions like “SFDC,” “Sales Cloud,” and “Salesforce” into a single identifier. - Keep metadata that differs (license tier, department, region) in separate columns, not separate records. - Flag freemium versions that ride under personal email domains; they create surprise renewal risk later. Last, tag each service by business criticality so leaders can skim, not sift. One common model groups apps into mission-critical, operational, and nice-to-have tiers; anything that keeps revenue flowing lands in the first bucket. This quick sort shaves weeks off later consolidation debates, because teams arguing Asana versus Jira already know where the CFO will focus. ## Analyze Usage and Feature Overlap Seat data reveals which SaaS tools employees use. Once the merger closes, connect every major platform to its admin API and pull the last 90 days of activity. Gartner pegs average license waste near 25 percent, so savings usually sit in plain sight. Examine the identity systems you already run today in-house. Okta, Azure AD, and Google Workspace logs show log-ins per user, while Splunk [https://www.splunk.com] or a SIEM surfaces deeper event details for security-sensitive apps. Feed everything into a simple dashboard that flags accounts showing zero usage or tier features never touched. Export that data once a week until consolidation ends because numbers shift quickly as teams blend. Lay out direct competitors in a simple feature matrix. Put Zoom [https://zoom.us] meetings, Microsoft Teams [https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-teams] calls, and dial-in costs side by side so stakeholders see overlap, not logos. Stakeholders skim columns faster than dense reports, so keep scores binary: feature present, missing, or premium. Layer license counts and per-seat price on top. A red cell where two tools do the same job for double the cost sparks instant debate. Numbers alone won’t close every case, so add context from business owners. Marketing might need Salesforce Marketing Cloud integrations that finance overlooked, or engineering may keep Jira [https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira] because workflows are heavily scripted. Hold quick interviews or run a one-question survey asking, “What breaks if we shut this off tomorrow?” Edge cases surface quickly without a weeks-long questionnaire. Convert overlap into real money before you walk it to the CFO. Multiply unused seats by contract rate, then fold in redundant feature spend. Apps with under 30 percent active seats or more than 20 percent feature duplication go to the chopping block by default. If exceptions survive, document why: regulatory need, client mandate, or pending migration date. A clean audit trail quells pushback when savings targets surface in the next board meeting. - Pull these data sources first - SSO login reports for seat activity - Admin APIs for tier-level feature usage - Expense cards for uncaptured shadow IT - SIEM events for compliance-critical logs ## Score and Prioritize Consolidation Solid math, not instinct, keeps post-merger app debates from drifting into politics. By translating every option into a single 0-to-100 score, the task force shows executives why Zoom survives while five niche webinar tools hit the scrap heap. An objective model also lets IT hit the 20-percent savings KPI without sparring over personal favorites. Kick off the evaluation by building a simple multiplier table everyone can read. Assign each criterion a weight that reflects business risk or savings potential, then feed in clean data from the inventory and usage analysis. A sample model might give cost per active user 35 percent of the total score, security posture 25 percent, integration depth 20 percent, roadmap fit 10 percent, and change-management effort 10 percent. Because each factor rolls up to one number, finance can compare a $50,000 marketing plug-in to a seven-figure CRM without mental gymnastics. Ask every app the same set of questions, score it, and move on. - What does one active seat cost compared with the benchmark median? - Does the vendor support SAML or SCIM for lifecycle control in Okta [https://www.okta.com]? - Will removing the tool break any core workflow or revenue stream? - How many built-in controls meet our target framework, such as SOC 2 Type II? - How many training hours per user will a switch require? Color-code the results in a heat map and sort into three buckets: keep, migrate, retire. Anything above 75 stays, anything below 40 goes, and the gray middle heads to a quick proof-of-concept before a final call. Loop in the data protection officer for any app that stores customer data in regions still under evaluation. That single checkpoint stops a green-scored tool from sneaking through and creating a GDPR headache later. Document every input and publish the raw sheet in the shared workspace. Transparency quells the “my tool is special” argument because anyone can trace a low score back to the numbers. Gartner pegs redundant SaaS waste at roughly 30 percent of spend, and a clear rubric gives leadership confidence the same dollars won’t leak out as the new company scales. ## Renegotiate and Modernize Contracts Now that the shortlist is locked, the real savings surface at the negotiation table. With redundancies erased, your head-count and spend numbers shout louder than any pitch deck, and vendors realize the merged firm might expand or walk away. Timing matters: start talks 120 days before the first renewal while the rep still has quota room and legal still has breathing room. - Pull a single “proof pack” that combines admin-portal activity, finance-ledger spend, and seat forecasts. - Add two competitor quotes for every must-keep platform; Vendr publishes live SaaS benchmarks you can cite. - List the security gaps flagged by the merger task force so you can ask for concrete fixes instead of vague pledges. - Attach a one-page roll-up of integration maps to press for API support or push back on shelfware modules. With that evidence in hand, push for co-terming every legacy contract to a single anniversary date because scattered renewals weaken leverage and muddle budgets. Insist on elastic license pools that float seats across business units; Microsoft’s enterprise agreement and Atlassian’s cloud plans already allow this, so rivals seldom refuse. In your draft contract, red-line the clauses that quietly siphon money later. Termination for convenience should be thirty days, not ninety. Price increases must cap at the lower of CPI or three percent. Ask for merger, acquisition, and divestiture language that lets you transfer licenses without fresh minimums because the board may spin off a unit next quarter. If the vendor sells add-ons such as advanced analytics, demand “most-favored pricing” so new modules stay inside the primary discount band. Loop legal in once commercial terms hit a rough draft, not after signatures are queued. Counsel will harmonize liability caps, bounce conflicting data-processing addenda, and check that indemnity matches the higher-risk workloads revealed in earlier security reviews. The back-and-forth may feel slow, yet one missed cap can erase a year of savings. Capture each signed template in your SaaS management platform so future renewals start from vetted paper, not a sales PDF lost in email. ## Deprovision and Manage Change With contracts renewed and tools ranked, it’s time to power things down. Deprovisioning waits until the end because a rushed cut can undo months of work and goodwill. A simple phased plan keeps everything running while licenses quietly vanish. Most teams aim for a 90-day cutover, starting small and widening the blast radius only after things look stable. - Weeks 1–2: Move a pilot group to the target platform, flag blockers, validate SCIM off-boarding via Okta [https://okta.com] logs. - Weeks 3–6: Auto-provision remaining departments, sync calendars, redirect integrations, and freeze new project creation in the legacy app. - Weeks 7–12: Disable login, export billing data, and schedule the final account deletion one day before the next invoice. Each gate includes a rollback plan, and Go/No-Go calls run daily during the cutover weeks. Before flipping any switch, lock down data so auditors can pull reports without dragging the old service back online. Export encrypted workspace archives to cold storage, capture chain-of-custody receipts, and set retention periods that match SOX or HIPAA rules. Connect the HRIS so new hires show up in the right platform from day one. Teams worry less about savings than about whether tomorrow’s meeting link still opens. Post a 60-second explainer video and a bite-size FAQ in Slack; early adopters fielding questions in public channels often cut help-desk tickets by around 25 percent. Track progress with three numbers: reclaimed licenses, shadow-IT incidents, and support volume after thirty days. After the smoke clears, gather the task force for a blunt retro so the next acquisition moves faster. Keep the metrics that mattered, note the missteps, and drop both into a living runbook inside your SaaS management platform. ## Conclusion Merging companies inherit a tangle of overlapping SaaS apps and duplicate license fees. The first move is to create a shared governance team that sets clear targets and decision rights. The team builds a single inventory that standardizes app names, owners, renewal dates, and compliance requirements. Usage data and feature matrices expose dormant seats and redundant tools, turning overlap into line-item savings that the finance team can track. A weighted score then drives keep, migrate, or retire decisions, and combined purchasing power strengthens vendor negotiations before final cutovers free up seats. Run the sequence above, and the post-merger IT crew will trim costs, tighten governance, and operate from a single SaaS roadmap. ## Audit your company's SaaS usage today If you're interested in learning more about SaaS Management, let us know. Torii's SaaS Management Platform can help you: - Find hidden apps: Use AI to scan your entire company for unauthorized apps. Happens in real-time and is constantly running in the background. - Cut costs: Save money by removing unused licenses and duplicate tools. - Implement IT automation: Automate your IT tasks to save time and reduce errors - like offboarding and onboarding automation. - Get contract renewal alerts: Ensure you don't miss important contract renewals. Torii is the industry's first all-in-one SaaS Management Platform, providing a single source of truth across Finance, IT, and Security. Learn more by visiting Torii [https://www.toriihq.com].