Share of spend for sales tools increased from 21% to 28% between Q1 and Q2, 2023, meaning that sales software now accounts for more than a quarter of total software spend in the average organization.
Share of spend for sales software applications increased from 21% to 28% between Q1 and Q2 of 2023, according to new data from Vertice. This means that the tools used by sales employees now account for more than a quarter of a company’s total software spend, far higher than any other type of software.
Access the full data here: https://www.vertice.one/inside-saas/saas-purchasing-insights-june-2023
With organizations continuing to feel the impact of unfavorable macroeconomic conditions, cost reduction remains a high priority for finance leaders. As a result, many are becoming increasingly selective about the contents of their software portfolios.
This is evident in the declining share of spend seen across SaaS categories such as HR and marketing - a possible result of reduced headcount and budget cuts.
The proportion of total SaaS spending being invested in sales software does, however, signify the perceived importance of these tools in helping companies either sustain growth or ultimately scale.
While the increase in share of spend between the first two quarters of 2023 has been significant, it had already increased from 18% to 21% between January and February, further confirming the crucial role these tools are playing in what is an incredibly challenging time for many businesses.
Despite this, the utilization of these sales software licenses remains a huge challenge for many, for the simple fact that they have the lowest utilization rates.
Just 51% of the licenses for these tools are actively used, according to additional data from Vertice, meaning that close to half are either barely used or not used at all by the intended employees. Despite utilization being marginally better than it was in Q1 (48%), the fact these tools now represent a far greater amount of an organization’s total SaaS spending means that it could be contributing to an even greater amount of wasted spend.
Given that companies spend an average of $9,000 on software for every sales employee, which is almost double what is spent on employees in other departments, and that 49% of these licenses are going unused, this could represent as much as $4,410 of wasted SaaS spend per employee, per year. For a sales team of 100, this is close to half a million dollars in wasted software licenses.
For organizations, it is therefore crucial to have total visibility and control of each and every application that is being subscribed to. Get a better understanding of how this can be achieved and how an effective SaaS management approach can deliver both time and cost savings: https://www.vertice.one/saas-management
Vertice exists to tackle this problem, by not only providing organizations with complete oversight of their software spend, but also visibility into how these tools are being used across the organization. This includes flagging any instances of over-licensing, as well unused or duplicate applications.
Combined with extensive vendor pricing intelligence, Vertice can deliver maximum savings across all software contracts. Learn more about Vertice’s Usage Analytics and Discovery capabilities here: https://www.vertice.one/product/usage-analytics-discovery
