As the number of B2B SaaS used by companies continues to increase, it sounds reasonable and natural to say that management has become so important. If the management of dozens and hundreds of B2B SaaS environments is poor, money can go in as much as money, and the risk can increase in terms of company policy and compliance.

This is why the board surrounding SaaS management services is growing. Companies such as Torii, BetterCloud, and Intel are already working on SaaS management as their main specialty, and existing software asset management solution companies are also gradually expanding to SaaS.

In the meantime, Lumos, an overseas startup that was recently in the veil, also attracted $30 million worth of investment and jumped into the SaaS management platform race.

I thought it was because several companies have already entered the SaaS management market, but when I looked closely, the places that participated in the investment were big names, and the approach seemed different from the existing ones, so I would like to share the related information.

In addition to Andersen Horowitz, a leading venture investment company (VC) in Silicon Valley, Lachy Groom, Neo, Google Cloud CISO Phil Venables, and OpenAI CTO Greg Brockman also participated in the investment round.

Why Self-Service Portal instead of IT Ticket

Lumos is advocating an end-to-end solution that can manage all SaaS applications used by employees in the company. Considering that the term end to end is used too much from one side to the other, it is difficult to feel what is different from Lumos’ existing companies with just this.

More specifically, the Lumos platform aims to provide app stores based on self-service portals instead of IT tickets for corporate employees.

IT tickets refer to special documents or records that indicate incidents, alerts, requests, or events that require IT department action. Tickets are typically generated by employees, but tickets can be automatically generated when certain incidents occur.

Lumos believes that removing IT tickets and providing a self-service environment can be a shortcut to strengthen internal control over access management while maintaining high employee productivity in the B2B SaaS era. Lumos points out that if the number of IT tickets increases, the IT team and the security team will spend less time on core tasks.

According to the company, as more and more SaaS applications are used within the company, the process of internal http://54.254.57.212/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/twx33i9v6eu-1.jpgs securing access to services itself has emerged as a factor that increases the bureaucratic aspect of IT management. There is also a scene where people who do not use the SaaS service or who have already left the company using SaaS fees.

As employees attempt to bypass these IT departments, it is also becoming difficult for IT and security teams to respond to the inevitable shadow of IT. Shadow IT refers to a situation in which field managers, not IT departments, purchase IT solutions and the IT department cannot systematically identify and manage them. Amid the spread of cloud and SaaS, the problem surrounding shadow IT is growing.

You’ll be the problem solver to stop the spread of shadow IT

Lumos emphasizes that SaaS management and identity governance have been combined to solve shadow IT-related problems and that IT and security teams can focus on strategic aspects instead of wasting time on operational issues. If a http://54.254.57.212/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/twx33i9v6eu-1.jpg stops using Saas, he or she can recognize it and de-provision the account to help reduce licensing costs.

According to the company, the Lumos App Store combines the role-based access control IT departments need, the self-service capabilities that corporate employees want, and the cost report that finance departments need, and the closure of unused accounts. Through the self-service portal, employees can choose the apps and permits they need.

Investors also seem to have judged that this approach taken by Lumos is useful in solving shadow IT problems.

According to a TechCrunch article on the Lumos news, Peter Levine Andreessen Horowitz, general partner, said, “As the world moves from BYOD (bring your own device) to BYO (bring your own app), and now BYOO (bring your own office), the challenges surrounding shadow IT continues to be complicated. I’m excited about working with the Lumos team. They are developing a tool that lights up this darkness (which Shareow IT has),” he praised.

Lumos is said to have been inspired by a SaaS management platform based on a self-service portal from smartphones. Usually, new phones have many pre-installed apps. Afterward, consumers can look at and download pre-validated apps through the App Store. Lumos explains that this process is not much different from self-service provisioning.

It is also notable that Lumos developed a SaaS management service platform relatively easily without having a separate team in charge of the partnership.

According to the company, most services provide open APIs, so they can support the creation and deletion of various service accounts without special cooperation. Lumos systems also support services such as Octa, One-Login, Google, and Azure AD for identification and access management. It also provides an environment where account provisioning for services such as Zoom, Salesforce, AWS, and Datadog is easy.

In developing SaaS-related solutions, it can be seen as an example that can create new value even if resources are effectively utilized without having to create everything from scratch.

Lumos currently has more than 30 employees. In addition, BuzzFeed, DialPad, MixPanel, SkyDio, and Vox Media use Lumos to manage SaaS.

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by Sasquachi