Dashlane — Vendr Case Study

Introduction

Dashlane is a password management tool that uses state-of-the-art encryption to secure sensitive data for over 15,000,000 users. The platform’s zero-knowledge architecture and VPN features ensure security for customers surfing the web, as well as dark web monitoring features that provide alerts when sensitive data appears in breached or compromised data caches.

The Challenge

Small, global, high-growth companies face unique challenges in administering their tech stack and procurement process. Often, these entities resort to a decentralized, department-based procurement process where each group sources and manages its tools individually. This approach reduces cost efficiency for the organization’s most-used tools and increases legal and security risk.

General Counsel Davison Paull encountered this scenario when he joined Dashlane in 2018. The team, split among France, Portugal, and the United States, had a decentralized purchasing process and individual tech stacks across departments and locations. Teams purchased tools using corporate cards and expense reporting.

While this approach helps young companies move quickly, it reduces stack visibility and negotiation on pricing and terms. It also opens the door to auto-renewing contracts and shelfware. This lack of process and organizational awareness also increases legal and security risks—an important consideration for any entity, but especially so for a security-focused company like Dashlane.

Davison was responsible for conducting due diligence for the company’s SaaS purchases and ultimately assumed primary responsibility for the organization’s global procurement processes.. While Davison increased security within the company’s purchasing process, conducting manual due diligence, negotiation, and renewal maintenance is time-consuming. He needed support to bring order to the stack, so he began investigating inbound contract maintenance solutions. During that research, he discovered Vendr, and quickly realized he’d found a solution to both of the issues facing procurement across the company.

The Solution

Dashlane onboarded with Vendr in 2020, and began leveraging Vendr’s capabilities to control costs and identify opportunities to consolidate services.

As Vendr’s capabilities expanded, Dashlane leveraged the expanding platform and integrations to capture and contextualize the tech stack. Native integration with NetSuite allowed Davison to see every SaaS-related expenditure as it happened. This visibility allowed him to make the appropriate legal and security reviews for existing SaaS tools to ensure security and identify and capitalize on opportunities to reduce expenses and simplify the tech stack.

“We exposed things that were sitting on credit cards,” explains Davison. “They tend to be nickel and dime deals, but they still exist. It's helping us clean out the underbrush.” Stakeholder education is an important component of adopting better systems, so Davison set up resources through the company’s Confluence intranet to guide buyers through the process of acquiring and renewing SaaS through the new intake process.

With Vendr, users simply click on the link to Vendr, fill out a detailed intake form for their needs. Vend takes care of routing the approvals through legal and security approvals. Vendr buyers negotiate the deal and route the negotiated price to Finance for final approval. Engaging a procurement partner offered stakeholders an important benefit: freedom from managing deals independently.

The ability to fill out an intake and send a deal out for approval and fulfillment removed the responsibility for negotiating deals. This was a welcome change for most buyers who, like many, don’t feel confident in discussing pricing and terms.

Vendr also helped the Dashlane team consolidate its tech stack by highlighting the tools and apps already available internally. Streamlining to one or two tools for a specific purpose makes SaaS spending more efficient by increasing the opportunity for volume pricing.

For Davison, it also presented a security opportunity. “From my perspective, anytime I can reduce a third-party vendor, I'm removing a breach risk. Every endpoint is a risk. If I can do it while also saving money, it's a double win for me,” explains Davison.

The Result

Partnering with Vendr allows Dashlane to increase visibility into the stack dramatically, realize considerable savings, improve security in its SaaS contracts, and reduce manual procurement activity. Procurement captures spending through NetSuite integration, giving Dashlane 90 to 95% spend visibility, according to Davison’s estimates. This allows him to evaluate the efficacy and need for each tool before renewal and create an adequate runway to fully research deals. It dramatically reduces the occurrence of “quiet auto renewal” occurring on corporate cards within each department.

And with Vendr’s access to thousands of deals and valuable data points, every deal is competitively priced. With a procurement partner flagging shadow deals and data support for high-value contracts, Davison was able to put his attention where it was most needed: ensuring security and contract performance for Dashlane’s SaaS purchases. For smaller deals, the Vendr team is able to confirm minimum contract requirements are in place. This saves valuable time while maintaining high contract standards. “It's shortened the total amount of internal effort at Dashlane, with a better price outcome on a per-deal basis,” says Davison.

The move to Vendr has allowed Davison to streamline the procurement process for Dashlane while reducing his direct involvement in deals dramatically. “Before, I had to do everything for every deal,” Davison explains. “I’m now doing five to 15% of the work I used to do. It saves a lot of time for me, especially as the tech stack increases.” With automation, stakeholders kick off the buying process independently, and automated workflows route approvals without the tedious back and forth in email. He can now focus on furthering vital company initiatives, like securing ISO certification and improving the overall legal position for Dashlane.

The above outcomes are a win for Dashlane even before savings. Add in Vendr’s promise of fair pricing and guaranteed savings, and the value proposition is even more compelling. Dashlane has saved close to $1M on its $5.8M in negotiated spend. While the upfront savings are an exciting part of the equation for any company, the ongoing partnership gives Davison and Dashlane the resources needed to support growth for many years to come.