Most IT companies depend on their Software Asset Management (SAM) team to improve visibility, reduce risk and save time and money. Sometimes it can get overwhelming trying to sift through all the aspects of Software Asset Management that your company needs to address. So as the new year begins, what are the most important steps your SAM team should take in order to make a difference in your bottom line?
From experience, here’s what we found as the best way SAM can benefit your company in the coming year!
1. Make Your Company a License Zombie & Ghost Free Zone
First of all, your SAM team must kill off the ghost and zombie software assets in your company. You may be wondering, what are ghost and zombie assets? Ghost assets are dormant assets that are on your books but no longer being used, while zombie assets are being used but are not on your books. Both of these monsters threaten the security and financial well-being of your company.
It is imperative to get rid of dormant assets and user accounts that are a financial drain on resources that, if saved, could instead be applied towards other growth areas in the company. This will also increase your company’s productivity as less time will be wasted managing ghost assets that are going unused. Killing off ghost assets is equally important as you make sure all of your fixed assets are tracked.
2. Plan for Renewal Management
Renewal inventory is one of the key ways your company can save money. Before renewing software license agreements, it is important for your SAM team to know whether or not doing so is in the company’s best interest. Here are some points to consideration before renewing inventory:
- Be sure to renew unused software assets. How often and how many licenses are being used?
- Inventory your assets and make sure what you have fits with the company’s strategy. Does the software currently meet your IT needs?
- Make a decision on what licenses to renew based on potential new hires or any planned acquisitions. How will any upcoming plans affect your license commitments?
Renewal inventory is one of the key ways your company can save money. Before renewing software license agreements, it is important for your SAM team to know whether or not doing so is in the company’s best interest. Here are some points to consideration before renewing inventory:
- Be sure to renew unused software assets. How often and how many licenses are being used?
- Inventory your assets and make sure what you have fits with the company’s strategy. Does the software currently meet your IT needs?
- Make a decision on what licenses to renew based on potential new hires or any planned acquisitions. How will any upcoming plans affect your license commitments?
3. Safeguard Against Auditing
Another important step to take is to make audit preparedness a part of your SAM team’s priorities. In order to avoid auditing by a license vendor, invest in programs that track your company’s license use. This will not only ensure compliance with vendor licensing requirements, but also save money through license harvesting.
4. Harvest Those Licenses
License harvesting is another part of good SAM procedures that tracks which licenses are being used and relocate versus the ones that are not. Instead of manually tracking licenses, use automated software for this to save time and you will also have real-time results available for license vendors. Automated license harvesting increases your company’s efficiency and prevents unused licenses from being a drain on your finances.
5. Consider a Cloud Consumption Data Model
Finally, this year might be the year for your company to transition to a cloud consumption data model. Moving your data consumption to the cloud can help you avoid overspending on hardware and also avoid underutilizing resources that traditional data management models require.
There are multiple models of cloud consumption, so your SAM team can investigate and decide which is the best fit for your company. Some of these models include:
- paying per-minute for data consumption
- paying per-hour for data consumption
- purchasing long-term subscriptions
- or on-demand data center purchases
If you are worried about the security of your data in the cloud versus a traditional hardware solution, there is no reason to fear. Data protection has received an increased amount of government support across many nations, with regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which puts into place laws that protect data and addresses the export of personal data. Ensuring compliance with the GDPR no doubt increases customer satisfaction as both national and international customers feel like their data is more secure.
Enterprise Integration, in our partnership with Eracent, can help customers manage and configure licenses from discovery to harvesting to renewals. ITMC DiscoveryTM and Continuous License ReconciliationTM (CLR) provides comprehensive lifecycle management including usage data, optimization recommendations, license allocations and reconciliation, and alerts. This solution also generates reports allowing your organization to perform continuous internal compliance audits. With Enterprise Integrations’ Service Delivery IntelligenceTM (SDI) combined with Eracent’s Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring having data in the cloud has never been safer.
Make sure your company has a better and brighter year by using these SAM solutions to save money and time, and increase productivity!
