Compliance. Efficiency. Agility.
Compliance. Efficiency. Agility. These are the key business benefits of Software Asset Management, but rolling out a SAM program can take months or even years depending on the size of the organization, and the resource available.
Providing full control over the complicated risks that come with managing software license spend, effective Software Asset Management gives the IT department full visibility of the software estate.
This means an optimized software-asset use, and should a software vendor send through an audit request, the IT department can be confident in their compliance, and timely in their response. As well as saving precious IT budget by not over-spending, the organization avoids a hefty fine for non-compliance and doesn’t require any extra resource to gather license and user data.
Almost 75% of SAM Managers spend the bulk of their time on transactional license management tasks…
- Learning the ins and outs of software agreement terms and the different licensing metrics.
- Creating a centralized software inventory for all existing software.
- Reconciling license entitlement to software utilization.
… when their valuable time could be better spent analyzing usage data and turning software inventory into real business intelligence. Outsourcing a software license management service means the responsibility of gathering and uploading discovery and license entitlement data lies elsewhere.
The IT department can proactively manage the estate so software isn’t over-deployed, there’s no unnecessary purchase of hardware, and usage and reconciliation results are more reliable, meaning unused licenses can be returned or re-issued.
SAM as a Key Component in Business Intelligence
SAM becomes a top priority within a business only when the business understands the financial gains that can be made with SAM.
The IT department should already be convinced of the benefits of knowing what’s been deployed and where, who is using what, and what is going unused. Having control and understanding of the entire IT estate and how it operates helps to formulate effective procedures for upgrading and releasing software. In short, it streamlines the entire department’s processes and harmonizes the relationship between IT and the rest of the organization.
The legal department, with full visibility of the IT estate, are in a stronger position to respond to an audit request from a software vendor. Without having to scramble for records through mounds of disorganized data, all documentation pertaining to software license terms will be to hand.
Procurement understanding the organization’s software usage means they’re readily equipped to effectively negotiate contract renewals with software vendors. To compare what is needed against what is being sold to them puts them in the driving seat, and could be of value should the organization be migrating to the cloud. Better budgeting, better forecasting, and more accurate spending.
The HR Team benefits from SAM while they monitor staff compliance toward company policies and regulations, which includes the use of IT. Software Asset Management builds for an organized and optimized resource for employees’ assets in an ever-changing, and hopefully growing, organization.
When is the best time to implement SAM?
With the potential to save up to 30% off software spend in the first year, you could argue that there’s no time to waste! However, organizations that take the time to evaluate their current SAM maturity, and outline the business goals they wish to achieve by its implementation will benefit most.
Instead of opting for multiple desktop applications, which are time-consuming to deploy and often complicated to run simultaneously, a single tool that has the capacity to gather data from multiple sources, through multiple discovery tools, and present reliable, real-time data will provide an accurate snapshot of the full IT network efficiently.
This paves the way for tailored, department-specific reporting, visualizing financial exposure, highlighting unused or dormant licenses, and underlining the risk of non-compliance. The SAM Manager manages risk and compliance, while ROI is communicated throughout the business.
Combining Lansweeper & License Dashboard for Complete SAM
License Dashboard and Lansweeper work together to provide a full end to end discovery solution and SAM technology platform. All the vital software and hardware inventory data discovered by Lansweeper links automatically into License Dashboard’s License Manager SAM platform. Here you can establish your licensing position quickly and easily as well as having a complete view of your IT estate for improved cybersecurity and procurement processes.