Smarter SaaS Spend: Steven Baker’s Three Playbooks for Optimisation

For our latest Strategic Software webinar, we were joined by Steven Baker, Founder of VendorSage. Steve works with organisations to uncover waste in their software portfolios and create disciplined practices for buying, managing, and adopting SaaS.

The challenge is real. Most organisations are overspending, underutilising, and struggling with visibility. As Steve noted:

“Businesses didn’t do a very good job of buying, managing and adopting software.”

On average, companies have only 30% visibility into their SaaS footprint, 88% are overpaying, and 70% of implementations fail to deliver what they were intended to. The impact goes beyond cost; an unmanaged stack slows teams down and drags on innovation.

Three Playbooks for Smarter SaaS Spend

Steve shared three clear playbooks to help businesses move from reactive procurement to a proactive, value-driven approach:

1. Rationalise

Treat software like employees. Give every tool a job description, measurable KPIs, and regular reviews. Tools without a defined role should be retired.

“Software is no different from people. We should have job descriptions for software.”

2. Consolidate

Fewer, better-fit platforms are more effective than dozens of overlapping point tools. By mapping technology against the customer journey and validating fit quarterly, businesses can streamline while maintaining performance.

3. Procure Smarter

Avoid the pitfalls of auto-renewals and reactive renewals. Begin negotiations 90–120 days out, use usage and outcome data to frame the discussion, and build in price-uplift caps to contracts.

“Seventy-five percent of software contracts are on auto-renew. Auto-renews result in fifteen percent worse commercial outcomes. That’s not up for debate.”

Quick Wins to Apply Now

Steve also highlighted a set of tactics businesses can use immediately to start driving savings and better outcomes:

• Reverse-engineer your stack using finance data to quickly improve visibility.
• Check currency pricing and leverage resellers, especially in smaller markets.
• Avoid multi-year commitments for new or untested tools until they prove their value.
• With AI tools, start with the problem, not the product. Define success criteria first.

These steps, while simple, can make an immediate difference in SaaS optimisation.

Q&A Insights

The interactive discussion gave participants the chance to test Steve’s thinking against common challenges:

• Mapping the stack: Asked about the easiest way to catalogue tools, Steve recommended finance data as the fastest starting point.
• Risk vs. consolidation: On whether diversification reduces vendor risk, Steve explained that portfolio decisions should flow from business goals, then be rationalised into logical buckets.
• Time to value: When asked how long VendorSage’s process takes, Steve shared that the goal is to limit executive involvement to two to three weeks.

The Bottom Line

For Steve, the opportunity is clear:

“You have the opportunity to optimise somewhere between twenty to forty percent of every dollar you spend on software. The businesses that do a better job with how they buy, manage and adopt software, they are the ones that are going to end up winning.”

By rationalising, consolidating, and procuring smarter, organisations can unlock meaningful savings while creating a leaner, more effective SaaS environment.

Want More?

If you missed the live session, the full recording is available on demand below. If you’re in Sydney, be sure to register for the final event in the Strategic Software series here. To learn more about how Elegance Group and VendorSage can help you bring discipline to SaaS spend, please reach out.