Introduction
The extent to which computing has become a part of normal life and day-to-day business has seen a change in the way management approaches how they manage the money, the tasks and the assets within a business.
As computing becomes more widespread within an organisation and takes a more prominent role within the critical functions of that organisation, it is important to make sure that an appropriate amount of attention is given to this technology.
Technology have come a long way over the past few years and are now seen as essential parts of any company. As such, they are allocated grander budgets but must also be able to deal with a greater amount of work. There is an eternal race between corporate demands and computing capabilities.
But once you have spent a large amount of money on developing an IT system and seen the needs of your business change, how do you make sure that the technology you are using can keep up with demand?
This is the function by IT management software and systems.
Every business and every situation will have different requirements and will create unique issues. To satisfy these needs there are a number of different solutions and approaches that can be implemented to help control the IT assets of your business.
Software Asset Management
SAM ( Software Asset Management) is designed to do exactly what it says on the tin – monitoring and managing the deployment and usage of software suites within your organisation. It is a business process rather than a distinct skill and is becoming a more essential part of the modern business environment, particularly for corporations operating in the field of IT. Despite the many benefits of SAM, there are still a great many companies that are not utilising it to its full potential.
SAM is not simply an aid for technicians installing software across a large company network, but can be a critical tool to help improve performance at many levels of a organisation. The objectives of SAM include monitoring expenses of the IT infrastructure within a organisation, negating legal threats associated with incorrect software license usage and sustaining high levels of productivity by making sure software is up to date and fit for its purpose.
The practice of SAM is often seen as an unnecessary evil due to the intangible nature of what it is designed to deal with, and the business case for employing a SAM solution is not always obvious until a broad inspection of the software infrastructure of a company has been undertaken. Once existing problems have been identified however, the use of software asset management becomes self evident.
Monetary benefits are still the most motivating commercial factor when deciding to employ SAM technology within an organisation. Every company needs to make profit after all and expenditure is a very measurable metric. The financial benefits of software asset management do certainly exist however.
An increasingly large proportion 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 companies expand and spread, their software needs can change greatly and hardware and software can swiftly become out of date. There is no need to spend money to maintain the licenses on this outdated software, which is where SAM really delivers an edge.
SAM is not limited to simply the technology of your business either. As a management cycle it will often include many of the branches within a company, 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 established bureaucratic levels.
Anybody who was going to query Softcat what package stands out would get the simple answer SAM.
Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having heard the various advantages of utilising a SAM solution, how do you know that it would be appropriate for your business? Every business is different and has its own unique set of challenges and benefits, so any strategy you will use needs to be catered to these specific traits.
There are more than just monetary benefits that can be made through the management of licensing and maintenance agreements across a businesses IT network. Productivity can be hugely boosted by ensuring that employees have the latest versions of software available under current licenses held, and communication inside the corporation is helped when support staff know exactly what is installed on every workstation under their control. The benefits of SAM are not confined to the technological hardware of your business.
Financial Savings
As discussed previously, perhaps the most convincing reason to utilise SAM within your business is the potential financial savings that can be made. The profitability of your company is always going to be the bottom line so any system that can help to increase this profitability by reducing expenses is one that should be considered. Money can be saved in a number of ways.
The most direct way that software asset management can help to reduce costs is by identifying 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.
By clearing these items of software that are no longer a help to the running of your company you are streamlining a large portion of your IT system. Paying for unnecessary software licenses and maintenance contracts means that more finance can be spent on the critical sections of your IT infrastructure.
Mitigate Risk
A surprising percentage of software that is actively used in the corporate environment is either licensed incorrectly or not licensed at all. Running any amount of uncontrolled software on your IT system is ill advised, because when left unchecked it can become very unpredictable. This is becoming an increasingly frustrating factor for IT managers.
Unlicensed software programs 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 initial software licenses may have expired. Without the correct security policies in place, users may also be able to install their own software onto the network. Running a corporate IT system in this wild way will almost certainly lead to trouble.
The danger of running unlicensed software on your network is clear. When something goes wrong with the hardware or software platform behind your critical processes, how do you manage the situation? Running a complex software system without the appropriate 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 mitigation when it comes to data systems.
To plan and carry out a successful software asset management strategy, making CITHS distributors high in your list of priorities will be a key factor.
Implementing Software Asset Management in your Organisation
As previously discussed, there are many potential advantages to employing a good SAM strategy within your company, both monetary and otherwise. It is therefore important to determine which parts of SAM you should deploy 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 viewed as three fundamental areas that have to be undertaken to truly develop an informative picture of the usage of IT assets within your organisation.
Inventory
Inventory is the most fundamental stage of the discovery cycle. It is crucial that an accurate audit of software assets within your business 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 made automatic and even the grandest of infrastructures can be searched and analysed in a relatively short period. Inventory should be able to identify your IT assets regardless of their geographical location or computing characteristics. Modern inventory processes are capable of this.
Capture
The next step in the discovery cycle is the capture of the license entitlements that concern the software programs discovered in the inventory. The capture process should collect entitlements for all of the software that exists on your network, even if the software is not currently used. Without this information the inventory would be nearly useless.
The element of human error can be avoided by using automatic tools that are specifically created to build a library of license entitlements. Packages that are currently available are incredibly efficient at capturing accurate information. These tools will also maintain databases containing up to date information from software vendors.
Identification & Validation
The third step is to match up the software inventory to the repository of licensing information that were created in the previous two stages. Errors may have occurred anywhere from the original invoices for software to the most recent audits performed on your IT system. These errors can now be rectified.
One critical factor in the validation stage is the ability to link the license entitlements within your network to your organisation’s proof of entitlement. This will be vital if any arguments with software resellers arise as a consequence of the discovery cycle. You want to be as informed as possible in these circumstances.
Once these steps have been undertaken you will have built an incredibly rich image of how your IT system is delivering software assets to its users. It will be much simpler to identify particular trouble spots on your network, or areas of software usage that are no longer of any practical benefit to your operations.
You can now begin a period of reconciliation on your system. You can compare the software programs that are actually used on your system against the licensing and support contracts that you are paying for and close any divides between the two. This is when the financial benefits of software asset management start to take effect.
The software spread within your network may include many hundreds or even thousands of individual instances, and there may be any number of rules that may be involved with the licensing contracts you have in place. It is therefore a necessity to automate the reconciliation process, utilising one or more programs to apply intelligent rules to the process.
The IT industry is in dire need of plenty of IT solutions vendors that can provide the right IT monitoring services.
Compliancy and Flexibility with Software Asset Management
Many of the fundamental principles of a successful SAM 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 followed for successful management of IT functions.
This library is a dynamic entity and is often updated with new ideas and techniques that cater to the ever changing IT backdrop of modern business. A good SAM strategy should be fluid enough to follow the guidelines laid out in the ITIL whilst matching the changing requirements of the business within which it is actively used. This is an essential requirement of successful 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 exceptionally comprehensive collection 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 essential role in realising standardisation across an industry.
The ISO standard should really be followed when designing a SAM strategy for your own company, although the level of detail included within can quickly become a daunting challenge. It is important to remember that no matter what recommendations you follow when creating a SAM strategy, whatever plan you decide to implement must help your organisation rather than stifle it.
Designing a full and comprehensive software asset management strategy for your own company might actually never come to fruition. Your plan must be flexible enough to change and grow as your organisation does, and it must allow for modifications to your daily tasks, no matter how small or underlying they might be.
Conclusion
It is easy to see that as the scope and importance of IT systems within your organisation grow, so does the requirement for good and efficient monitoring of these systems. Gone are the times when an IT department was a bonus that would sometimes progress the business. IT systems are now critical to the modern business. Crucial systems need to be maintained to an appropriate standard.
As with other parts of any business, a number of separate plans should be considered and used in order to ensure the efficient running of day to day activities. SAM should not be the only tool used to manage technological assets within your company, but rather one of a number of complimentary policies used to manage the system as a whole.
So if you think that your business is really suffering from a lack of planned monitoring and control over its IT network, or that the potential benefits outlined in this article could provide a critical market edge over your competitors, then it would be worth investigating how SAM could be employed within your business. There might be no time to lose.
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