The shift to SaaS has supercharged transformation. It’s faster to implement, easier to scale, and opens up new ways of working. But there is a flipside.
Many businesses now rely on software they don’t own and can’t recover if it vanishes. When a SaaS supplier shuts down, gets acquired, or quietly retires a product, the consequences are real, and often immediate.
This isn’t scaremongering. It’s a real risk that every IT and operations leader needs to manage. Because when your SaaS vendor disappears, the fallout touches everything from service delivery to compliance, data access to customer trust.
IT directors and CTOs are under pressure to modernise fast. That often means replacing legacy systems with nimble SaaS platforms. It works until the vendor behind your most critical application goes quiet.
You don’t manage their infrastructure. You don’t have access to their codebase. And if they go bust or walk away from a product line, you’re left scrambling to respond.
This isn’t just an IT issue. The impact cuts across the organisation. A single point of failure in your application stack can stall business continuity, blow up forecasts, and leave you out of step with your regulatory obligations.
That’s why SaaS continuity needs to be part of the bigger picture. Uptime, resilience, and contingency planning should be treated as core business risks, not just technical ones.
Let’s talk about what this actually looks like.
A fintech firm using a third-party onboarding platform failed a regulatory audit because it couldn’t demonstrate any continuity plans. A logistics business had to rebuild an entire routing tool at short notice when the supplier discontinued the product. An e-commerce company spent over £400,000 recovering a core module when their vendor went into administration.
These aren’t outliers. The more businesses build transformation around specialist cloud platforms, the more exposed they become to supplier disruption. And the costs—financial, operational, reputational—can be steep.
It’s not just about losing access. It’s about the knock-on effect. Revenue disruption. Productivity loss. Frantic firefighting to rebuild something that never should have collapsed in the first place.
Traditional business continuity planning was built around things you controlled. Servers. Offices. People. But that no longer reflects reality.
Now, your most critical workflows often sit outside your perimeter. That changes the rules.
Good continuity planning should cover your entire SaaS stack. That means knowing which applications are business-critical, understanding what happens if access is lost, and building practical, tested ways to respond.
Ask yourself:
This is where vendor risk management moves from procurement checkboxes to real-world resilience.
This is not about insurance. It’s about having the legal right and technical means to keep your business running if your SaaS supplier can’t.
Software escrow services make that possible. An escrow agreement is a three-way contract between you, your supplier, and a neutral third party. It gives you access to the supplier’s source code, data, and technical documentation under specific conditions. For example, if the vendor goes into bankruptcy, fails to meet performance obligations, or ceases to support the software.
With a well-structured escrow agreement in place, you are not left helpless. You have a path forward.
Some businesses hesitate over escrow because they imagine it’s a legal formality. Something for the procurement file.
That misses the point. A modern software escrow agreement should do more than store source code. It should actively support business continuity planning.
This includes:
It’s also essential that the escrow material is verified. That means it is tested and proven to work. Because if the worst happens, you don’t want a pile of code. You want something that gets you back online fast.
Verification is the unsung hero of a strong escrow agreement. It confirms that what’s being held is complete, usable, and ready to deploy. You get clarity on what’s included. You know it works. You know what’s missing, if anything. And you can plan accordingly.
This is what turns a reactive process into a proactive advantage. Verification doesn’t just protect against the worst case. It helps you meet regulatory expectations, demonstrate due diligence, and reduce risk across transformation programmes.
If you are a CIO, COO, or CISO, you know the tension between agility and assurance. You want to move fast and innovate. But you also need to manage supplier risk, meet audit expectations, and protect operational delivery.
Escrow doesn’t slow you down. It enables transformation with the safety net of preparedness. It lets you partner with niche SaaS providers without compromising your ability to act if they disappear.
This matters. Because resilience isn’t about locking everything down. It’s about being ready to respond when things change. That is the foundation of continuity, compliance, and customer trust.
You can’t predict when a SaaS vendor will fail. But you can control how prepared you are. And that preparation could make all the difference.
Start by reviewing your critical applications. Understand what failure looks like. Then take steps to build resilience, with contracts, planning, and where appropriate, escrow agreements that give you the tools to act.
Staying in control when your supplier disappears is not just smart. It’s essential.
Download our Escrow Readiness Checklist to assess risk across your vendor portfolio.
Use our expert-designed checklist to assess risk across your vendor portfolio and make the case for software escrow.
