Where ITAM and Your Business Needs Meet

Hand on heart, do you really know what software is running on your systems, and how much of it is paid for?

Do you know how much software you've bought that never gets used?

The fact is that most companies struggle to maintain control over their software licences. Some may use unlicensed software, leaving themselves open to fines and public ridicule at the hands of software vendors. Others may over-compensate and buy extra licences to be on the safe side. Most firms end up doing a combination of both: under-licensing on some products, and over-paying on others. While some IT costs, such as hardware, storage and processing power, have fallen, software costs have risen, which also makes cutting and managing costs in this area a high priority.

There is an answer

Implementing a holistic Software Asset Management program can turn these inefficiencies to your advantage - and help you realize cost reductions of around 30%. We know this is possible, because we have made it happen.

The challenge is that software assets such as database, applications and middleware are notoriously complex to manage, due to factors including:

• The significant variations in deployment - from desktop to datacenter.

• The multitude of metrics ¬- from named user to processor core.

• The huge number of product types - from middleware, applications and business intelligence tools to development environments.

• Increasingly complexity of the technology environment, for example, Virtualization, Cloud computing, SaaS and multi-processors.

But there's more to SAM than cutting costs

While IT Governance initiatives and legislation, such as Sarbanes Oxley (SOX), have increased the recognition and uptake of SAM, the two most common reasons for it are still IT cost reduction initiatives and the mitigation of compliance risk from vendor audits.

IT audit and SAM tools are often seen as the panacea, but in our experience they rarely result in benefits on their own. To give optimum benefit they need to be implemented within an integrated SAM rollout with a proven SAM project methodology. And that's precisely what we can help you do.

It's really about optimizing value, the rest follows

ESI focuses its license management expertise in optimizing software licenses and driving value to gain and maintain critical Executive buy-in.

Cost reductions are just one of the benefits of taking control of enterprise software, others include:

• Reducing Compliance risks and the mitigation of audit threats.

• Effective long term budgeting and planning for software spend.

• Better planned vendor management initiatives.

• Support for business cases for change such as roll-outs and data centre consolidation.

• Managing the cost and impact of merger and acquisition activity.

We've been pioneers in enterprise It Asset Management and Software Asset Management since 1988. In that time SAM has begun to mature and we are supporters of the emergence of industry standards such as ISO/IEC 19770, a framework for best practice launched in May 2006 with ITIL integration.

It's about the bigger picture

ISO/IEC 19770 and other emerging standards for SAM can provide a useful framework for greater control and can be a holistic platform for cost reduction and compliance management. But this alone won't deliver real benefits. Optimum results come from truly understanding your situation and creating viable SAM and license optimization programs which focus on your key goals.

It's a challenge and one that many organizations can't handle alone. That's why it's good to know we're here to help to optimize not just the value of your software licensing, but also the business benefits it offers.

About reducing compliance risks and the mitigation of audit threats.

Vendor audits can have serious implications for your organization in terms of cost, disruption and unplanned consequences.

If you're faced with an unplanned vendor audit don't panic but do take advice.

Take matters into your own hands

A successful SAM implementation can help reduce the chances of an unplanned audit. In our experience - based on working with many organizations - the vendor will rarely want to tie up their own resources in an audit exercise if you have the matter in hand.

So, if you demonstrate self-audit capability, licensing expertise around the product set in question, and a strong grasp of your own situation, the chances of a vendor audit are reduced.

We can help you achieve this. Contact us by clicking here.