Introduction
The extent to which technology has become a part of normal life and everyday commerce has prompted a change in the way business approaches how they manage the money, the tasks and the systems within a business. Technology becoming an increasing factor in business.
As computing becomes more widespread within an organisation and takes a more prominent vital within the critical processes of that organisation, it is important to make sure that an appropriate level of attention is given to this technology.
IT capabilities have come a long way over the past few years and are now seen as critical elements of any company. As such, they receive larger budgets but must also be able to handle a greater amount of work. There is an eternal race between corporate demands and computing capabilities.
But once you have spent a substantial amount of money on developing an IT system and seen the circumstances of your business change, how do you make sure that the technology you are using can keep up with demand? Moreover, how can you achieve this without spending a prohibitive amount of money?
This is the role undertaken by IT management software and systems.
Every company and every environment will have different specifications and will create unique challenges. To satisfy these needs there are a number of different technologies and approaches that can be used to help manage the IT assets 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 discipline and is becoming a more critical part of the modern business environment, particularly for companies 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 support staff deploying software across a large company network, but can be a critical tool to help improve performance at many levels of a organisation. The goals of SAM include monitoring costs of the IT infrastructure within a company, negating legal risks 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 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 complete of the software infrastructure of a company has been undertaken. 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 business. Every business needs to make profit after all and revenue is a very measurable metric. The financial benefits of SAM do certainly exist however.
An increasingly large proportion of a organisation’s IT budget is spent on software licensing so there is a critical need to invest to correctly manage this spending. As companies grow and spread, their software needs can change radically and hardware and programs can swiftly become out of date. There is no need to spend money to maintain the licenses on this outdated software, which is where software asset management really delivers an advantage.
SAM is not limited to simply the IT department of your organisation either. As a management process it will often involve many of the departments within a business, including Finance Human Resources, to make sure that it runs as cost-effectively as possible.
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Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having heard the various benefits of utilising a SAM solution, how do you know that it would be appropriate for your business? Each company is different and has its own unique set of challenges and advantages, so any strategy you will undertake needs to be catered to these specific characteristics. The benefits of software asset management do cover the basic aspects of IT management.
There are more than just financial advantages that can be gained through the management of licensing and maintenance agreements across an organisations IT network. Productivity can be hugely improved by ensuring that staff have the newest versions of software permitted under current licenses held, and communication inside the company is helped when support staff know exactly what is installed on every workstation under their control.
Financial Savings
As discussed before, perhaps the most persuading reason to utilise SAM within your company is the potential cost savings that can be achieved. The profitability of your company is always going to be the bottom line so any plan that can help to improve this profitability by lowering expenses is one that should be evaluated. Money can be saved in a multitude 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 anymore, it may be too outdated to be of use or it may be duplicated on your system.
By clearing these items of software that are no longer a benefit to the running of your organisation you are streamlining a large chunk of your IT network. Paying for unneeded software licenses and support and maintenance agreements means that more finance can be spent on the critical parts of your IT system. Focusing your finances on these critical components will improve the overall performance of your IT department.
Mitigate Risk Factors
A surprising percentage of software that is actively used in the business environment is either licensed incorrectly or not licensed at all. Having any amount of uncontrolled software on your IT system is ill advised, because when left unchecked it can become very unpredictable.
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 first purchased although the initial software licenses may have expired. Without the correct control policies in place, users may also be able to load their own software onto the system. Running a corporate IT system in this unmanaged way will almost certainly lead to trouble.
The risk of running unlicensed software on your network is clear. When something goes wrong with the hardware or software platform supporting your vital processes, how do you manage the situation? Operating a complicated software system without the proper support can create a metaphorical minefield when it comes to disaster recovery and can critically limit your responsiveness to unforeseen events. The cost of recovery will forever outweigh the cost of mitigation when it comes to data systems.
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Implementing Software Asset Management in your Organisation
As previously discussed, there are numerous potential benefits to utilising a good software asset management strategy within your business, both monetary and otherwise. It is therefore important to determine which parts of software asset management you should implement first since some benefits will be achieved more quickly than others. Some may take a period of years to be fully felt.
This discovery process can be viewed as three basic stages that have to be performed to really build an informative picture of the usage of IT assets within your organisation. These are:
Inventory
Inventory is the most fundamental function of the discovery process. It is important that an accurate inventory of software assets within your business is created to help your IT department to maintain baselines regarding 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 infrastructures can be investigated and analysed in a reasonably short period. Inventory should be able to identify your IT assets regardless of their physical location or computing characteristics.
Capture
The second step in the discovery process is the capture of the software license entitlements that cover the software assets discovered 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 avoided by using automatic tools that are specifically created to build a library of license entitlements. Packages that are currently employed are very efficient at gathering accurate information.
Identification & Validation
The third step is to match up the software audit to the repository of licensing information that were created in the previous two stages. Errors may have been made anywhere from the original invoices for software to the latest audits performed on your IT network.
One crucial factor in the validation step is the ability to combine the license entitlements within your network to your company’s proof of entitlement. This will be vital if any arguments with software resellers arise as a consequence of the discovery process.
Once these steps have been performed you will have created an incredibly detailed image of how your IT network is serving software programs to its users. It will be a lot simpler to identify any trouble areas on your system, or sections of software usage that are no longer of any particular benefit to your operations.
You can now begin a period of reconciliation upon your system. You can compare the software programs that are actually installed on your network against the licensing and support entitlements that you are paying for and bridge any gaps between the two. This is when the financial benefits of SAM start to take effect.
The software spread in your network may include many hundreds or perhaps thousands of individual instances, and there are 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 period, utilising one or more tools to apply intelligent rules to the process. These rules can be catered to the specific needs of your company
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Compliancy and Flexibility with SAM
Many of the basic principles of a successful SAM strategy are based upon the concepts set out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library defines a number of concepts and best practices that should be adopted for successful management of IT operations.
This library is a changing entity and is often updated with new ideas and techniques that cater to the constantly changing IT environment of modern business. A good software asset management 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 used. This is an essential requirement of effective software asset management
The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has created a standard that applies directly to software asset management practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an exceptionally comprehensive collection of suggestions that are built to ensure that software asset management is utilised 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 really be followed when designing a software asset management strategy for your own company, although the level of detail included within can easily become a daunting challenge. It is vital to remember that no matter what guidelines you follow when designing a SAM strategy, whatever plan you decide to employ needs to help your organisation rather than stifle it. Industry standards cannot simply be copied when it comes to applying them within your organisation.
Designing a complete and comprehensive software asset management strategy for your own company may actually never come to fruition. Your plan must be flexible to adapt and grow as your business does, and it must allow for updates to your daily tasks, no matter how trivial or underlying they might be. This really is the key to a successful SAM strategy.
Conclusion
It is easy to see that as the scope and importance of IT systems within your organisation grow, so does the requirement for correct and efficient monitoring of these systems. Gone are the days when an IT department was a luxury that would sometimes progress the business. Computer systems are now vital to the modern business. Crucial systems need to be maintained to an appropriate standard.
As with other branches of any organisation, a number of separate plans should be evaluated and used in order to ensure the smooth running of daily tasks. SAM should not be the only tool used to manage technological assets within your organisation, but rather one of a number of complimentary techniques used to manage the system as a unit. software asset management can go a long way toward helping your business but should be supported by other techniques.
So if you think that your business is currently suffering from a lack of structured monitoring and control over its IT network, or that the potential advantages described in this article could manufacture a crucial market edge over your competitors, then it would be worth researching how SAM could be used within your company.