How to control your Software Licenses

Introduction

The extent to which technology has become a part of normal life and everyday commerce has seen a change in the way management approaches how they manage the finances, the processes and the assets within a business.

As technology becomes more widely used within a company and takes a more prominent role within the vital processes of that company, it is important to make sure that an appropriate amount of attention is applied to this technology. Technological systems that may have once been ignored are now key in the decision making process.

Technology have come a long way over the past few years and are now seen as vital elements of any business. As such, they receive larger budgets but must also be able to handle a greater amount of responsibility. There is an eternal race between business demands and computing capabilities.

But once you have spent a large amount of your budget on developing your IT network and seen the circumstances of your organisation change, how do you ensure that the technology you are using can keep up with demand? Moreover, how can you achieve this without spending a large amount of money?

This is the role carried out by IT management software and procedures.

Every company and every environment will have different specifications and will create different challenges. To satisfy these requirements there are a range of different technologies and approaches that can be used to help control the IT infrastructure of your organisation.One of these approaches is discussed below.

Software Asset Management

SAM ( Software Asset Management) is built to do exactly what it says on the tin - monitoring and maintaining the deployment and usage of software suites within your company. It is a business process rather than a distinct skill and is becoming a more essential part of the modern business environment, particularly for businesses operating in the field of Information Technology.

SAM is not simply a program for support staff installing software across a large company network, but can be a critical tool to help improve performance at multiple levels of a company. The objectives of SAM include managing of the IT infrastructure within a business, negating legal risks associated with incorrect software license usage and preserving high levels of productivity by making sure software is up to date and fit for its purpose.

The practice of software asset management is often viewed as an unnecessary evil due to the intangible nature of what it is designed to deal with, and the commercial case for using a SAM solution is not always obvious until a full of the software infrastructure of a company has been done. Once existing problems have been highlighted however, the use of SAM becomes self evident.

Monetary benefits are still the most motivating commercial factor when deciding to employ SAM technology within a company. Every business needs to make money after all and revenue is a very measurable metric.

An increasingly large percentage of a organisation’s IT bank roll is spent on software licensing so there is a critical need to invest to correctly monitor this spending. As businesses grow and diversify, their software needs can change greatly and hardware and software can swiftly become out of date. There is no requirement to spend money to maintain the licenses on this outdated software, which is where SAM really delivers an advantage.

software asset management is not limited to simply the IT department of your company either. As a management operation it will often involve many of the departments within a organisation, including Finance Human Resources, to make sure that it runs as cost-effectively as possible. It is a process that does not need to follow standard.

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Why follow a SAM Strategy?

Having seen the various benefits of employing a SAM solution, how do you know that it would be appropriate for your business? Every company is different and has its own unique set of problems and advantages, so any plan you will use needs to be tailored to these specific traits.

There are more than just financial advantages that can be gained through the control of licensing and maintenance agreements across a businesses IT system. Productivity can be greatly by ensuring that staff have the newest editions of software permitted under current licenses held, and communication within the corporation is aided when support staff know exactly what is deployed on every computer under their control. The benefits of software asset management are not confined to the technological hardware of your organisation.

Financial Savings

As discussed previously, perhaps the most persuading reason to utilise software asset management within your business is the potential financial savings that can be made. The profitability of your business is always going to be the bottom line so any plan that can help to increase this profitability by lowering expenses is one that should be evaluated.

The most direct way that software asset management can help to lower costs is by targeting any applications running on your corporate IT system that is no longer needed. The software might not be being used any longer, it may be very outdated to be of use or it may be duplicated on your system. SAM can be used to remove this unnecessary overhead.

By clearing these items of software that are no longer a help to the running of your company you are streamlining a large chunk of your IT network. Paying for unneeded software licenses and maintenance agreements means that more money can be spent on the essential sections of your IT system.

Mitigate Risk Factors

A surprising proportion of software that is currently used in the business environment is either licensed incorrectly or not licensed at all. Having any amount of uncontrolled software on your IT network is ill advised, because when left unchecked it can become incredibly unpredictable. This is becoming an increasingly annoying factor for IT managers.

Rogue software applications can be introduced into an uncontrolled IT environment in a number of ways. Software may have been bundled when your IT hardware was originally bought although the original software licenses may have expired. Without the correct access policies in place, users may also be able to install their own software onto the network.

The danger of running unlicensed software on your system is clear. When something goes wrong with the hardware or software platform supporting your vital processes, how do you manage the situation? Running a complex software system without the correct support can create a metaphorical minefield when it comes to disaster recovery and can seriously limit your responsiveness to unforeseen events. The cost of recovery will forever outweigh the cost of prevention when it comes to IT systems.

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Implementing Software Asset Management in your Organisation

As previously mentioned, there are numerous potential advantages to utilising a good software asset management strategy within your company, both monetary and otherwise. It is therefore important to consider which parts of SAM you should implement first since some benefits will be achieved more speedily than others. Some may take a period of years to be fully felt.

The discovery process can be seen as three primary stages that have to be undertaken to really build an accurate picture of the usage of IT assets within your company.

Inventory

Inventory is the most fundamental function of the discovery cycle. It is crucial that an accurate inventory of software assets within your organisation is created to aid your IT managers to maintain baselines for your IT system. This inventory process must be performed before carrying on with discovery.
Fortunately, this process can now be automated and even the grandest of networks can be investigated and analysed in a reasonably short period. Inventory should be able to identify your IT assets regardless of their geographical location or technological characteristics.

Capture

The second step in the discovery cycle involves the capture of the software license entitlements that manage the software programs identified in the inventory. The capture stage should gather entitlements for all of the software that is installed on your system, even when the software is not currently used.

The factor of human error can be mitigated by using automatic tools that are specifically designed to create a library of license entitlements. Tools that are currently available are very efficient at gathering accurate data.

Identification & Validation

The next step is to match up your software inventory to the repository of licensing information that were built in the previous two stages. Errors may have occurred anywhere from the original invoices for software to the latest audits performed on your IT system. These errors can now be rectified.

One critical factor in the validation step is the ability to combine the license entitlements within your system to your company’s proof of entitlement. This will be vital if any disputes with software resellers arise as a consequence of the discovery cycle. You want to be as informed as possible in these circumstances.

After these steps have been performed you will have built an incredibly rich image of how your IT system is delivering software assets to its users. It will be a lot simpler to identify any trouble spots on your system, or sections of software usage that are no longer of any particular benefit to your activites.

You can now start a period of reconciliation on your network. You should compare the software packages that are actually installed on your network against the licensing and support contracts that you are paying for and close any gaps between the two. This is when the financial benefits of software asset management start to take effect.

The software spread in your system may include many hundreds or even thousands of individual instances, and there are any number of restrictions that may be associated with the licensing contracts you have in place. It is therefore a necessity to automate the reconciliation stage, using one or more programs to apply smart rules to the process.

To see how SAM can directly help your business use an available Centennial consultant that can devise a SAM strategy suited to your needs.

Compliancy and Flexibility with Software Asset Management

Many of the fundamental principles of a modern software asset management strategy are based upon the principles laid out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library details a number of concepts and best practices that should be adopted for successful control of IT operations. The ITIL can be found online.

This library is a changing entity and is often updated with new ideas and policies that reflect the ever changing IT environment of modern business. A good SAM strategy should be fluid enough to comply with the guidelines set out in the ITIL whilst meeting the changing requirements of the company within which it is actively utilised. This is an essential requirement of effective software asset management

The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has created a standard that applies specifically to software asset management practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an incredibly comprehensive set of suggestions that are designed to ensure that SAM is used in such a way as to “satisfy corporate governance requirements”. Standards of this kind play an important part in achieving standardisation across an industry.

The ISO standard should certainly be followed when planning a software asset management strategy for your own organisation, although the level of detail covered within can quickly become a daunting prospect. It is vital to remember that no matter what guidelines you follow when planning a SAM strategy, whatever plan you decide to employ must aid your organisation rather than hinder it.

Designing a full and comprehensive SAM strategy for your own company might actually never come to fruition. Your plan must be flexible enough to adapt and mature as your organisation does, and it must allow for updates to your daily activities, no matter how trivial or underlying they might be.

Conclusion

It is clear to see that as the extent and importance of IT systems within your company grow, so does the need for correct and efficient management of these systems. Gone are the times when an IT branch was a bonus that would occasionally forward the business. IT systems are now vital to the modern company. Crucial systems need to be controlled to an appropriate standard.

As with other branches of any business, a number of different strategies should be evaluated and used in order to ensure the efficient running of daily activities. SAM should not be the only tactic used to manage technological resources within your organisation, but rather one of a multitude of complimentary techniques used to control the system as a whole. SAM can go a long way toward helping your company but should be supported by other strategies.

So if you feel that your organisation is really suffering from a lack of planned monitoring and management over its IT network, or that the potential benefits outlined in this article could provide a critical market advantage over your competitors, then it would be well worth researching how SAM could be employed within your organisation.