How to Operationalize Your SaaS Renewals with Zylo

Thom McCorkle: I'm Thom McCorkle, director of product marketing at Zylo. Welcome to our Customer Tips series. Today we're focused on how you operationalize your SaaS renewals with Zylo. Let's face it, managing software renewals is complex and time-consuming. Missed renewals can lead to unexpected costs and disruptions, while poorly negotiated renewals can result in overspending. That's where Zylo comes in to help. Follow this tried- and- true timeline to transform your SaaS renewals from reactive to proactive, maximizing your savings and efficiency.

Thom McCorkle: All right, let's start. We're 120 days out from renewal. What are we going to do? First, we're going to proactively review those terms. Look for things like auto- renewals. Look for any other clauses in there. Are there discounts that are going away? All of these are things that are going to be really good context as you start to build out your plan. You're also going to proactively send alerts to your stakeholders, letting them know that these renewals are coming up. If they're mind thinking about this tool, they're probably not thinking about this app renewing. Do they want to keep it? Do they have needs to grow and expand, or is this something that they might want to look for another solution? Stakeholders need time if they are looking for another tool to make sure that they can source that and migrate off. Provide context. Let them know things like usage, which is going to be really important in the next step, if there's any expense spend or other things that are out there that we need to account for. Ultimately, at this stage, you're kicking off collaboration.

Thom McCorkle: 90 days before the renewal, this is all about optimizing and reviewing your data. You're going to send your next alert with some more information with things like usage data. If you don't have usage data for an application because there's not a direct integration or it's not behind your SSO, or even if you need a little bit more information than what SSO is providing, take a look at Usage Connect. There's documentation and best practice inside of the knowledge base, but Usage Connect is going to allow you to bring in usage data from any SaaS application. Then we're going to run a workflow to reclaim licenses. Don't renew shelfware, make sure that you're reclaiming those inactive licenses ahead of those renewals so you're driving the best outcome for your business.

Thom McCorkle: Now, 60 days out, this is all about negotiating with confidence. Get your benchmarks ready. Use Zylo benchmarks to ensure that at the skew level you are getting the best price for the quantity of licenses that you're purchasing. Especially if you decreased licenses with the workflow, the vendor's probably going to try and increase that per unit rate. Benchmarks are going to let you know what is a fair deal, what is a great deal, and what is a bad deal. Knowing where you fall on that spectrum is really, really important. If you're getting a great deal, awesome. That's not something that you need to really focus on and spend your time trying to improve, but if you're getting a bad deal, now you know what your targets are. Hold your ground and secure the best outcome for the business.

Thom McCorkle: Once your renewal's finalized, that's where Contract Concierge comes in, docs@zylo.com. Just send the contracts over to Zylo, we have it from there, we'll capture all the important detail that you need to keep your account up to date. You're always willing to self- serve those, but I highly recommend, just send those off and make sure that your account is in great shape. So how do you get started? Check out the knowledge base for best practices, and if you have additional questions, reach out to your CSM, they're here to help. Stay tuned for a deeper dive on each of these renewal milestones throughout the series.