BY SANDRA GUY

Tech B2B marketplace G2 is launching a product to help finance and operations leaders navigate the new complexities of the coronavirus pandemic business landscape.

The product — G2 Track — is free for 90 days, and is aimed at eliminating a budget-squeezed company’s unused or underused software while integrating software best suited to compete in today’s remote workforce reality and its sprawling SaaS environment.

G2Track syncs with accounting and financial systems to show all software applications in use. It analyzes SaaS products, licenses and provisions. G2 Track then pinpoints opportunities to save money on unused software and to optimize an organization’s software stack.

“These are unprecedented times for all organizations – shifting priorities, remote workforces, and shrinking budgets are pushing businesses to analyze what software tools they’ll need the most to stay competitive,” said Tim Handorf, G2’s co-founder and president. “Due to the complexity of enterprise software, businesses historically make poor software purchasing decisions, have unused licenses, and duplicate software across different teams – with no easy way to manage and optimize their spend. 

G2’s data, collected from more than 1,000 organizations, pinpointed these software-stack issues:
• 30 percent of software tools are idle or underused – productivity and time management software lead the pack.
• 10 to 15 percent of a company’s software stack has no clear owner, contract or approval (Shadow IT).
• 25 percent of software spend is on products with similar or overlapping functionality.
• 18 percent of products that a company uses have a user satisfaction rating lower than 4. 
• The majority of software contracts (69 percent) have an auto-renew clause and a notice period for cancellation (between 30 and 90 days).
• Fewer than 10 percent of SaaS contracts are under a money-saving, multi-year contract.