“We’ve got a new hire starting next week. Can you make sure they have access to Notion on day one?”

Wait a minute—we use Notion?

If you’ve ever been blindsided by the discovery of an unsanctioned app in your organization, you’re not alone. Your app count is constantly growing. Teams adopt tools without approval, and new employees bring their own preferences and opinions about your existing stack. While fresh ideas can spark innovation, they often lead to severe tool bloat.

In this article, we’ll show you how to streamline your SaaS stack by cutting redundant tools and managing overlap. You’ll learn how to identify the apps that truly add value, handle tough decisions about what to cut, and achieve a leaner, more efficient tech ecosystem. The payoff? Lower costs, improved security, and the best possible technology for your organization.

Sometimes, being an IT professional feels like parenting—trying to keep up with what “the kids” are into these days. Except in this case, the “kid” is Terrance, the 46-year-old VP of Marketing who keeps testing out the latest AI tools.

It Starts With Visibility

Before you can pick your winning app, you need to figure out which apps are competing. Today, there are many ways to uncover shadow IT, but the most successful methods are SaaS Management Platforms (SMP). While other methods might give you partial insight, SMPs are the only tool designed to spot all your apps. 

Test Torii’s App Discovery for 14-days. No credit card needed. 

Identify Your Competing Applications

Every app in your organization should serve a purpose. Some are cornerstone contributors to key business outcomes—think Git or Docker for DevOps, or Expensify or NetSuite for Finance. Others handle business administration, collaboration, or communication, such as Slack, Jira, or Zoom.

While overlaps exist in the first group, most competing apps fall into the second category. This can get messy because these tools often have a long list of features they do somewhat well, typically lumped under the nebulous term “business productivity.”

To simplify your comparison work, you can input lists into an AI language model (like ChatGPT or Claude) and ask it to group tools by primary feature or use. The result won’t be perfect, but it provides a starting point for your research.

App Comparison in Torii

If you use Torii for application discovery, you can leverage its app comparison feature to perform side-by-side comparisons of any apps in your ecosystem.

Torii uses AI to automatically pair commonly overlapping apps and allows you to view them side by side. Here’s how it works:

Access the Compare Tab

Log in to Torii and navigate to the “Compare” tab on the Applications page. Here, you’ll find a list of similar applications that Torii has automatically paired based on app similarities, usage patterns, and license overlaps.

Review Recommended Comparisons or Create Your Own

Torii suggests comparisons that deserve your attention. However, you can select your own apps that you would like to compare. You can review up to four apps at a time. 

Click the “Compare” button next to any app pair to see a detailed, side-by-side analysis. Alternatively, if you have specific apps in mind, use the “Create custom comparison” button to select up to four apps you’d like to evaluate.

Analyze the Summary Table

At the top of the comparison page, you’ll find a summary table displaying key metrics for each app:

  • Contracts: Check for any active contracts that might affect your decisions.
  • Spending: See how much you’ve spent on each app over the last 12 months.
  • Data Sources: Find out where the app data is sourced from
  • Security Risks: Identify any potential security concerns, especially for apps connected to platforms like G Suite, Azure AD, or Slack.

Examine Usage Trends

Scroll down to the “Active Users” chart. This visual shows how many employees have been using each app over time. Look for trends to indicate which apps are gaining traction within the company and which are losing ground.

Assess User Overlap

The User Overlap diagram visually represents how many employees use multiple apps simultaneously. Overlapping circles mean overlapping users.

  • High Overlap: If many users are on both apps, consider consolidating to one and deprovisioning licenses on the other to save costs.
  • Low or No Overlap: If different teams use different apps for the same purpose, it’s an opportunity to standardize tools across the organization, enhancing collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Click on any overlap area to see a list of affected users. You can sort this list by usage to identify who is most active on which platform. You can also filter overlapping users by department, role, and other key attributes to spot redundancies within the same teams.

Engage with Stakeholders

While data is powerful, it doesn’t tell the whole story. To fully understand how tools are used and whether consolidation is feasible, talk with the people who depend on these apps. Communicate with app owners, team leaders, security teams, and finance teams. These discussions can uncover insights that numbers alone might miss.

  • Understand Team Needs: Speak with team leaders to learn how their teams utilize specific apps. Are there unique features they rely on? Would switching tools disrupt their workflow?
  • Assess Security and Compliance: Consult your security team to evaluate each app’s compliance with company policies and industry regulations. Some tools may pose risks that aren’t immediately apparent and might make consolidation a necessity.
  • Evaluate Financial Implications: Work with the finance team to understand the cost structures, contracts, and any potential penalties for early termination. This helps in making economically sound decisions.

If you’re using Torii, you have all the data you need to initiate these discussions—user lists, security and compliance postures, costs, contracts, and more. Armed with this information, you can have meaningful dialogues that pave the way for effective streamlining.

Make Informed Decisions

With all this data at your fingertips, you’re equipped to:

  • Deprovision Duplicate Licenses: Save money by eliminating unnecessary subscriptions.
  • Consolidate Applications: Choose the app that best fits your organization’s needs and move all users to that platform.
  • Establish Best Practices: Build a plan for future overlap, spot the emerging apps early, and allow a framework to evaluate new tools, which is especially critical when renewing a legacy tool.
  • Become Ruthless at Contract Renewals: The greatest opportunity for cost savings is during the contract renewal. Identify your winners and cut the fat to avoid paying for multiple tools to fill one need.

Wrapping Up

Your bloated app stack is unsustainable. But by conducting a ruthless comparison, you can streamline your stack to devise the best possible suite of tools. And, if you want to make data collection automatic, consider implementing a SaaS Management Platform like Torii. 

Test Torii’s App Discovery for 14-days. No credit card needed.