By John Emmitt
I recently came across this TEDx talk by Jeet Banerjee, a 20 year old serial entrepreneur! He talks about answering the question—when is the right time to start pursuing your dreams? It turns out that the right time is apparently when you are exactly 25 years old! (You have to view the video to get this joke). I’ve missed that window of opportunity, unfortunately—I’m not saying how old I am, but let’s just say I’m a bit north of 25.
Actually, as you might imagine, the right time is always—right now. And it occurred to me that this same concept should apply to the question—when is the right time to start implementing a robust software asset management (SAM) program? Many organizations have delayed implementing a SAM program because there are many other priorities. In fact, the list of top CIO priorities for 2015 included the following, according to this Forbes article—The Top 10 Strategic CIO Issues for 2015, from February of this year:
Figure 1: The Top 10 Strategic CIO Issues for 2015
Of course, Software Asset Management could be considered to be included in a couple of these areas, such as—Accelerate insights, decision-making and operations. With the right SAM tools and processes in place, organizations have the information they need, at their fingertips, to make faster and better decisions related to their hardware and software assets, including making better procurement decisions and having the ability to negotiate better software license agreements.
There are really at least five areas of business benefit that organizations can realize from implementing a software asset management and license optimization program, as shown in the diagram below:
- Software Maintenance Cost Reductions—reduce maintenance costs based on the collection of software usage data and proactive contract management capabilities
- Mitigation of Software Audit Risk—by maintaining license compliance and remediating compliance issues before the vendor audit letter arrives; eliminate the costs associated with audit true-ups
- Negotiated Hard Dollar Savings—realize savings on software contract renewals by knowing your current license position, usage trends and accurately predicting future software needs; leverage unused assets to gain trade-in credits for new products and delivery models (e.g. Cloud, SaaS)
- Reductions in Purchases Through Reuse—leverage application usage data to reclaim licenses for unused apps and defer new license purchases
- Productivity Gains—reduce the time and effort required to perform SAM tasks through automation. Reduce helpdesk tickets and costs through efficient processes that utilize an enterprise app store that is integrated with your license management and ITSM systems.
Figure 2: Software License Optimization Areas of Benefit
So, for 2016, make Software Asset Management and License Optimization a priority and start realizing these business benefits.