Introduction
The extent to which computing has become a part of everyday life and day-to-day commerce has seen a change in the way management approaches how they manage the money, the tasks and the systems within an organisation. IT is fast becoming an important factor in business.
As technology becomes more widespread within a business and takes a more prominent role within the vital processes of that company, it is necessary to make sure that an appropriate level of attention is applied to this computing. Technological systems that may have once been overlooked are now key in the decision making process.
Technology have come a long way during the past few years and are now seen as essential parts of any company. As such, they are allocated greater budgets but must also be able to handle a greater amount of responsibility. There is an eternal race between business demands and computing capabilities.
But after you have spent a large amount of your budget on developing your IT network and seen the requirements of your business change, how do you make sure that the systems 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 carried out by IT management software and procedures.
Every organisation and every situation will have different requirements and will offer different challenges. To satisfy these requirements there are a number of different technologies and approaches that can be used to help control the IT network of your business.One of these solutions is discussed below.
Software Asset Management
SAM ( Software Asset Management) is built to do exactly what it says on the tin – monitoring and controlling the deployment and usage of software suites within your business. It is a business process rather than a distinct discipline and is becoming a more critical part of the modern corporate environment, particularly for companies operating in the field of IT.
SAM is not simply a program for support staff rolling out software across a large company network, but can be a crucial tool to help improve performance at all levels of a business. The objectives of SAM include controlling 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. As IT usage in an organisation grows, so do the potential benefits of SAM.
The practice of software asset management 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 going with a SAM solution is not always obvious until a complete of the software infrastructure of a company has been undertaken.
Financial benefits remain the most driving commercial factor when deciding to use SAM software within a business. Every business needs to make profit after all and expenditure is a very measurable metric.
An increasingly large amount of a business’ IT bank roll is spent on software licensing so there is a vital need to invest to correctly monitor this spending. As companies grow and spread, their software requirements can change radically and equipment and software can quickly become outdated. 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 operation it will often include many of the departments within a company, including Finance Human Resources, to ensure that it runs as efficiently as possible.
IT managers and staff with decision making authority should discuss Centennial Discovery in meetings about the implementation of IT resource management.
Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having seen the multiple benefits of employing a SAM solution, how do you know that it would be right for your organisation? Every company is different and has its own unique set of challenges and advantages, so any strategy you will undertake needs to be tailored to these specific characteristics. The benefits of software asset management do cover the fundamental aspects of software management.
There are more than simply cost advantages that can be gained through the control of licensing and maintenance agreements across an organisations IT network. Productivity can be hugely improved by ensuring that users have the latest versions of software available under current licenses held, and communication inside the company is aided when support staff know exactly what is in use on every computer under their control. The benefits of SAM are not confined to the technological hardware of your business.
Cost Savings
As discussed previously, perhaps the most convincing reason to implement software asset management within your business is the potential cost savings that can be achieved. The profitability of your business is always going to be the bottom line so any system that can help to increase this profitability by reducing costs is one that should be evaluated. Money can be saved in a multitude of ways.
The most direct way that SAM 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 very outdated to be of use or it may be duplicated on your system. SAM can be used to remove this unnecessary overhead.
By removing these items of software that are no longer a help to the running of your business you are streamlining a large chunk of your IT infrastructure. Paying for unnecessary software licenses and maintenance contracts means that more money can be spent on the critical parts of your IT infrastructure. Focusing your attention on these vital components will improve the overall performance of your IT department.
Mitigate Risk Factors
A surprising amount of software that is currently used in the corporate environment is either licensed incorrectly or not licensed at all. Running any amount of unmonitored software on your IT system is ill advised, because when left unchecked it can become very unpredictable.
Rogue software programs can be introduced into an unmonitored IT system in a number of ways. Software may have been bundled when your IT hardware was originally purchased although the original software licenses may have expired. Without the correct control policies in place, users may also be able to load their own software onto the network. Running a corporate IT system in this unmanaged way will almost certainly lead to trouble.
The risk of running unlicensed software on your system is clear. When something goes wrong with the hardware or software platform supporting your critical processes, how do you recover the situation? Operating a complex 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 always outweigh the cost of prevention when it comes to data systems.
Many companies have reported increases in efficiency since Centennial consultants planned alongside their current IT support staff.
Implementing SAM in your Organisation
As previously mentioned, there are many potential advantages to utilising a good software asset management strategy within your company, both monetary and otherwise. It is vitally important to determine which parts of software asset management you should deploy first since certain 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 phases that have to be performed to truly develop an informative picture of the deployment of software assets within your organisation.
Inventory
Inventory is the most fundamental function of the discovery process. It is important that an accurate inventory of IT assets within your business is created to aid your IT department to maintain baselines regarding your IT system.
Fortunately, this process can now be made automatic and even the grandest of networks can be searched and analysed in a relatively short period. Inventory should be able to identify your software assets regardless of their physical location or computing characteristics.
Capture
The next step in the discovery process is the capture of the software license entitlements that concern the software programs discovered in the inventory. The capture stage should collect entitlements for all of the software that exists on your system, even if the software is not currently in use.
The risk of human error can be avoided by using automated tools that are specifically created to create a library of license entitlements. Tools that are currently employed are incredibly efficient at gathering accurate information.
Identification & Validation
The third process is to match up your software audit to the repository of licensing information that were built in the previous two stages. Errors may have occurred anywhere from the original paperwork for software to the most recent audits undertaken on your IT network. These errors can now be rectified.
One critical factor in the validation step is the ability to combine the license entitlements on your network to your organisation’s proof of entitlement. This will be essential 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.
After these three steps have been performed you will have created an incredibly rich image of how your IT network is delivering software assets to its users. It will be a lot easier to identify any trouble spots on your network, or areas of software use that are no longer of any particular benefit to your activites. This detailed map can be used for future strategies as well.
You can now start a period of reconciliation on your system. You can compare the software packages that are actually installed on your network against the licensing and support contracts that you are paying for and bridge any divides between the two. This is when the financial benefits of software asset management start to take effect.
The software distribution within your network may include many hundreds or perhaps thousands of individual installations, and there may be any number of restrictions that may be associated with the licensing contracts you have in place. It is therefore a necessity to automate the reconciliation period, using one or more programs to apply intelligent rules to the process.
The IT industry is in dire need of many Centennial vendors that will supply the right IT monitoring products.
Compliancy and Flexibility with Software Asset Management
Many of the basic practices of a modern SAM strategy are based upon the concepts laid out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library details a number of principles and best practices that should be adopted for successful control of IT functions. The ITIL can be found online.
This library is a changing entity and is often updated with new ideas and techniques that reflect the constantly changing IT backdrop of modern business. A good SAM strategy should be flexible enough to comply with the guidelines set out in the ITIL whilst meeting the changing needs of the company within which it is actively used. This is an essential requirement of successful SAM
The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has published a standard that applies directly to software asset management practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an incredibly comprehensive set of guidelines that are built to ensure that software asset management is utilised in such a way as to “satisfy corporate governance requirements”.
The ISO standard should really be followed when planning a software asset management strategy for your own business, although the level of detail included within can quickly become a daunting prospect. It is important to remember that no matter what recommendations you follow when planning a SAM strategy, whatever you decide to implement needs to aid your business rather than hinder it. Industry standards cannot simply be copied when it comes to applying them within your company.
Designing a complete and comprehensive SAM strategy for your own business might actually never come to fruition. Your strategy must be flexible enough to change and grow as your business does, and it should allow for modifications to your daily activities, no matter how trivial or fundamental they might be. This really is the key to a worthwhile software asset management strategy.
Conclusion
It is easy to see that as the extent and importance of IT systems within your organisation grow, so does the need for correct and efficient management of these systems. Gone are the days when an IT department was a bonus that would sometimes forward the business. Computer systems are now vital to the modern business.
As with other parts of any organisation, a number of different strategies should be considered and utilised in order to ensure the smooth running of daily tasks. SAM should not be the only tactic used to manage computing resources within your organisation, but rather one of a number of complimentary techniques used to control the system as a unit.
So if you feel that your organisation is really suffering from a lack of planned monitoring and management over its IT infrastructure, or that the possible benefits described in this article could provide a crucial market edge over your competitors, then it would be well worth researching how software asset management could be employed within your business. There may be no time to lose.