Welii has enabled us to put in place an accomplished and structured purchasing process that allows us to make the right choices at each negotiation in terms of tools, security and price!
Welii has enabled us to put in place an accomplished and structured purchasing process that allows us to make the right choices at each negotiation in terms of tools, security and price!
Shadow offers cloud-based solutions that allow users to stream an entire PC on any device, enabling them to work, play, and create from anywhere. As Head of Legal and DPO, Nicolas Bodin Guittard had the responsibility of ensuring that the use, management, and purchasing of SaaS adhered to Shadow's legal, regulatory, and compliance standards, while effectively mitigating associated risks. Given his positive past experience with Welii during his tenure at a previous company, Nicolas decided to partner with Welii again after encountering challenges during negotiations with a ticketing tool.
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Before partnering with Welii, Shadow grappled with managing over 300 SaaS applications, reflecting the challenges of SaaS management in a growing tech landscape. Previously, teams independently purchased tools and negotiated prices, involving legal, finance, and IT departments only at the final validation stage, leaving little room for further negotiations and failing to optimise the process. Additionally, their subsidiary Genymotion, utilising its own SaaS solutions, also faced duplicate tool issues.
A critical issue for Shadow was the lack of a structured approach to purchasing and negotiation. Even when Nicolas entered negotiations early and was equipped with negotiation techniques, this wasn’t enough due to a lack of benchmark knowledge and market data. This prevented him from ensuring the best deals in every negotiation.
In addition, negotiations consumed significant time, posing a challenge amid concurrent project management.
There are certain levers I don’t have, specifically a comprehensive understanding of market pricing practices and publisher pricing strategies. This absence of information inevitably affects my negotiation process, hindering it significantly and making it more time consuming.
This decentralised decision-making led to missed competitive negotiating opportunities and suboptimal contract terms, hindering Shadow from fully leveraging market insights for better pricing. Additionally, ad hoc management practices introduced security and compliance risks, particularly concerning data security and privacy. The commitment to data sovereignty and European data protection standards was compromised by insufficient vetting of new SaaS tools, heightening security vulnerabilities.
The key to Shadow's transformation was establishing a structured decision-making process and accessing strategic insights and benchmarking through Welii's Procurement team. With Welii’s comprehensive information, Shadow could align its SaaS purchases with company-wide goals and compliance standards, replacing previous disjointed and improvised Procurement methods.
Moreover, Welii provided invaluable information enabling Shadow to negotiate more effectively. For instance, during a CRM renewal, discussions with Welii's buyers revealed better financial, legal, security, and operational conditions than initially offered.
With Welii’s extensive knowledge of rates proposed by various vendors under different circumstances, Shadow's team now know they consistently secure the best deals for both new purchases and renewals.
One of Welii's assets is the fact that we're dealing with buyers who are all experts, and who have a really good knowledge of the editors they're negotiating with.
These strategic changes led to notable operational and financial improvements, including a significant increase in savings, with more than €200,000 accumulated as a partial result of these initiatives. Moreover, Welii’s platform, which centralises contracts and associated critical information, streamlined the elimination of redundant tools and enhanced the alignment of the SaaS portfolio with operational requirements. Moreover, the platform's renewal alerts consistently enable them to anticipate upcoming contracts and strategically leverage them. This approach not only leads to cost savings but also enhances operational efficiency.
Welii's platform enables me to visualise all the SaaS tools used by the teams, but above all, to easily manage my contracts. With this tool, I have easy access to the information I need to manage my contracts properly: I can find out when my contract ends and how much room I have to negotiate. These are key legal issues, and Welii does them perfectly well!
Having a Procurement team to help with negotiations and a centralised platform gave Shadow the structure they needed when purchasing SaaS as it enabled them to anticipate their needs more thoroughly and smoothly implement a solution. This anticipation not only provides each team with more time to handle the file on their to-do list but also enables us to secure the best possible conditions.
Are you unsure if you’re achieving the best deals on your SaaS? Try our SaaS savings calculator to find out!
Shadow IT is present for a company of any size and we always identify 3x more tools than our customers thought. If you spend less than $400k annually on SaaS tools, we'll identify fewer saving opportunities than a client who spends millions, but we'll help you quickly implement a data-driven buying strategy to prevent this wasteful situation from occurring and keep you focused on your business.
The security of your data is our primary concern. Which is why we have taken appropriate measures to protect your business.
You are free to add any budget owners or anyone involved in SaaS purchasing to streamline your procurement buying process at no additional cost to our platform.
Managing users and identities is a separate business that we don’t do. However, to bring you value and help you with this process, we have partnered with industry leaders like Okta and Auth0 so that we can help you in your Zero Trust Identity process.
We have developed a simple and intuitive solution allowing you to analyze all your SaaS inventory data through dashboard and dynamic list views based on search criteria and filters.
Spendesk is an enterprise expense management solution that allows all employees to pay for SaaS tools. Welii will provide you with insight and support to help you optimize your spending, add leverage to your negotiations, and remove the headaches associated with SaaS purchasing.
