The SaaS explosion has shifted organizations from buying standalone software to managing sprawling webs of licenses and subscriptions. The average enterprise now uses an average of over 660 different solutions.

CIOs have become strategists who must balance innovation and business needs with fiscal responsibility. You’re expected to equip employees with the best tech, control spend, drive ROI, eliminate redundancy, and support business outcomes—all while maintaining compliance and security.

The CIO’s guide to optimizing software spend offers practical strategies for balancing software costs, adoption, and business outcomes.

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Smarter cleanup with a strategic approach to software

Redundant or unused software doesn’t just drain your budget. It saps productivity and creates invisible, but noticeable, friction across your organization.

Frequently, companies don’t have a clear picture of what tools are being used and which are underused or just taking up space. Instead, there’s just a fragmented collection of use cases and needs. This leads to a few big problems:

  • Support ticket overload: More tools lead to more training, troubleshooting, and maintenance requirements, which in turn creates a tidal wave of support tickets and an overwhelmed IT support team.

  • Confusion and efficiency: When employees spend time bouncing between tools, trying to figure out which one applies to the current task, they aren’t working efficiently. And they’re dealing with confusion and frustration that can lead to burnout and attrition.

  • Silos and duplication: Disparate apps across an organization will inevitably lead to the fragmentation of your data and your software… and your employees will feel the friction.

One way out of this mess is to evaluate it through the lens of the Keep, Cut, Consolidate matrix:

  • Keep: Tools that support an important workflow and deliver value for the people who need them. Where adoption is low, investigate whether training or access is the issue before deciding to remove the tool.
  • Cut: Tools with verified low use, no necessary business role, and a viable exit under the contract. Confirm coverage and employee needs before cancelling.
  • Consolidate: Tools with overlapping use cases where a shared option can meet the affected teams’ requirements. Account for migration, training, and contractual costs before counting the savings.
Keep

What apps bring real value to the organization?

Which one is actually used regularly and effectively by employees?

Cut

What apps are redundant or without value?

Are any applications completely, or mostly, unused?

Consolidate

Do several apps serve the same purpose?

If so, does one piece of software offer more than the other?

Can you eliminate apps to reduce the number of vendors you partner with?

Pendo Command Center brings app usage, licenses, and costs into a portfolio view, giving IT and business systems teams a starting point for spend reviews. Use it to prioritize apps for closer examination, then work with app owners to understand the business context.

Before budgeting a saving, check whether cost data is verified or estimated and validate it against your contracts. Usage data helps focus the conversation; it does not replace the decision about which tools employees need.

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Underused and overlapping tools
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Apply the same test to AI subscriptions

Suppose two departments pay for separate AI assistants while an existing enterprise suite also includes AI features. Start with software usage data, then ask app owners which tasks each tool supports. Keep a specialist tool when its capabilities or data-handling requirements justify it. Review unused seats before renewing. Consolidate only when the shared option meets both teams’ needs and the expected savings outweigh migration and training costs. Measure what changes afterward: adoption, workflow outcomes, and actual spend—not simply the number of subscriptions removed.

Why this guide, and why now?

Throughout The CIO’s guide to optimizing software spend, you’ll learn to take cost management one step further and understand that software ROI is measured in outcomes, not just dollars.

First, we share a more nuanced ROI framework that prompts critical questions like:

  • Is this tool improving employee performance?
  • Is it tied to measurable business outcomes?
  • Is it enhancing morale and user experience?
  • Are there hidden support and compliance costs?

Then, we turn to onboarding. Without proper onboarding, even the best tools will be underused. Using Pendo Guides, your team can create contextual onboarding, including real-time in-app walkthroughs tailored to user behavior. It’s a key driver of software ROI.

Finally, the guide shows how support and compliance costs are often the hidden killers of ROI. With too many apps in play, your team can easily get buried under software support tickets and compliance risks.

Start your own transformation

If you’re ready to untangle your web of SaaS software, this guide is for you.

Download The CIO’s guide to optimizing software spend and build a leaner software stack.