Introduction
The extent to which technology has become a part of everyday life and day-to-day business has prompted a change in the way business approaches how they manage the finances, the processes and the systems within an organisation.
As technology becomes more widely used within a business and takes a more prominent critical within the vital processes of that organisation, it is important to make sure that an appropriate level of attention is given to this computing. Technological systems that may have once been ignored are now key in the decision making process.
IT capabilities have come a long way over the past few years and are now seen as critical parts of any business. As such, they receive grander budgets but must also be able to manage a larger amount of work.
But after you have spent a substantial amount of money on developing your IT system and seen the needs of your organisation change, how do you make sure that the systems you are using can keep up with demand?
This is the function by IT management software and procedures.
Every business and every environment will have different requirements and will offer unique issues. To satisfy these needs there are a range of different solutions and approaches that can be implemented to help control the IT network of your organisation.
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 organisation. It is a business process rather than a distinct area of expertise and is becoming a more critical part of the modern corporate environment, particularly for businesses 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 a program for support staff deploying software across a large corporate network, but can be a critical tool to help improve performance at many levels of a business. The goals of SAM include controlling 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 SAM is often thought of as an unnecessary evil due to the abstract nature of what it is designed to deal with, and the commercial case for going with a SAM solution is not always obvious until a full of the software infrastructure of a company has been undertaken. Once existing problems have been identified however, the use of SAM becomes self evident.
Economic benefits remain the most driving business factor when choosing to use SAM software within an organisation. Every business needs to make profit after all and expenditure is a very measurable figure. The financial benefits of SAM do certainly exist however.
An increasingly large proportion of a company’s IT budget is spent on software licensing so there is a critical need to invest to correctly handle this spending. As businesses grow and diversify, their software needs can change radically and hardware and programs can swiftly 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.
software asset management is not restricted to simply the technology of your organisation either. As a management operation it will often involve many of the branches within a organisation, 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 standard.
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Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having seen the many advantages of deploying a software asset management solution, how do you know that it would be right for your business? Every business is different and has its own separate set of challenges and advantages, so any strategy you will undertake needs to be catered to these specific characteristics.
There are more than simply monetary 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 staff have the latest editions of software available under current licenses held, and communication within the company is helped when support staff know exactly what is deployed on every computer under their control. The benefits of SAM are not confined to the technological hardware of your organisation.
Financial Savings
As discussed before, perhaps the most persuading reason to implement software asset management within your company is the potential cost savings that can be achieved. The profitability of your business is always going to be the bottom line so any plan that can help to increase this profitability by reducing expenses is one that should be considered.
The most immediate way that SAM can help to reduce costs is by identifying any applications running on your corporate network that is no longer necessary. 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. 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 organisation you are streamlining a large portion of your IT infrastructure. Paying for unneeded software licenses and support and maintenance contracts means that more money can be spent on the essential sections of your IT infrastructure. Focusing your attention on these vital components will improve the overall performance of your IT department.
Mitigate Risk
A surprising amount of software that is currently 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 not advised, because when left unchecked it can become very unpredictable. This is becoming an increasingly annoying factor for IT managers.
Rogue software programs can be introduced into an uncontrolled IT system in a number of ways. Software may have been included when your IT hardware was first purchased although the original software licenses may have expired. Without the correct access policies in place, users may also be able to load their own software onto the network. Operating a corporate IT system in this unmanaged way will almost certainly lead to trouble.
The danger of running unlicensed software on your system is clear. When anything goes wrong with the hardware or software platform behind 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 seriously limit your responsiveness to unforeseen events. The cost of recovery will forever outweigh the cost of mitigation when it comes to IT systems.
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Implementing Software Asset Management in your Organisation
As previously mentioned, there are many potential benefits to using a good software asset management strategy within your company, both monetary and otherwise. It is therefore important to determine which branches of software asset management you should implement first since some benefits will be realised more speedily than others. Some may take a period of years to be fully felt.
This discovery process can be viewed as three basic phases that have to be undertaken to really develop an accurate picture of the deployment of software assets within your organisation. These are:
Inventory
Inventory is the most fundamental function of the discovery cycle. It is important that an accurate audit of IT 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.
Thankfully, this process can now be made automatic and even the grandest of infrastructures can be investigated and analysed in a reasonably short period. Inventory must be able to identify your IT assets regardless of their geographical location or technological characteristics. Modern inventory processes are capable of this.
Capture
The next step in the discovery cycle involves the capture of the license entitlements that concern the software assets identified in the inventory. The capture stage should collect entitlements for all of the software that is installed on your system, even if the software is not currently in use.
The risk of human error can be mitigated by using automated tools that are specifically created to create a library of license entitlements. Tools that are currently available are very efficient at gathering accurate information. These tools will also maintain databases containing up to date information from IT vendors.
Identification & Validation
The next step is to match up your software inventory to the repository of licensing data that were created in the previous two stages. Errors may have occurred anywhere from the original paperwork for software to the latest audits performed on your IT network.
One critical factor in the validation step is the ability to associate the license entitlements within your system to your organisation’s proof of entitlement. This will be vital if any disputes with software vendors arise as a consequence of the discovery process. You want to be as informed as possible in these circumstances.
After these three steps have been undertaken you will have built an incredibly rich picture of how your IT network is delivering software programs to its users. It will be much easier to identify particular trouble areas on your network, or areas of software usage that are no longer of any particular benefit to your operations.
You can now begin a period of reconciliation on your system. You can compare the software programs that are actually installed on your network against the licensing and support contracts that you are paying for and bridge any gaps between the two. This is when the financial benefits of software asset management start to take effect.
The software distribution within your system may include many hundreds or even thousands of individual installations, and there are any number of rules that may be associated with the licensing contracts you have in place. It is therefore a necessity to automate the reconciliation stage, utilising one or more programs to apply smart rules to the process. These rules can be catered to the specific needs of your business
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Compliancy and Flexibility with SAM
Many of the basic principles of a modern software asset management strategy are based upon the principles laid out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library defines a number of concepts and best practices that should be followed for successful control 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 environment of modern business. A good software asset management strategy should be fluid enough to comply with the guidelines laid out in the ITIL whilst meeting the changing requirements of the business within which it is actively utilised.
The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has published a standard that applies directly to SAM practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an incredibly comprehensive set of guidelines that are built to ensure that SAM is utilised in such a way as to “satisfy corporate governance requirements”. Standards of this kind play an important role in realising standardisation across an industry.
The ISO standard should certainly be followed when designing a SAM strategy for your own business, although the level of detail included within can quickly become a daunting challenge. It is important to remember that no matter what guidelines you follow when designing a software asset management strategy, whatever you decide to employ must aid your organisation rather than hinder it. Industry standards cannot simply be copied when it comes to applying them within your company.
Designing a complete and comprehensive software asset management strategy for your own organisation might actually never come to fruition. Your strategy must be flexible to adapt and grow as your business does, and it must allow for modifications to your daily tasks, no matter how small or underlying they might be.
Conclusion
It is clear to see that as the scope and importance of IT systems within your company grow, so does the need for correct and efficient monitoring of these systems. Gone are the times when an IT branch was a bonus that would occasionally progress the business. IT systems are now vital to the modern organisation. Crucial systems need to be controlled to an appropriate standard.
As with other branches of any company, a number of different plans should be considered and used in order to ensure the smooth running of daily activities. software asset management should not be the only tool used to manage computing resources within your company, but rather one of a multitude of complimentary techniques used to control the system as a whole.
So if you feel that your business is really suffering from a lack of planned monitoring and management over its IT infrastructure, or that the potential advantages described in this article could provide a critical market edge over your competitors, then it would be well worth investigating how software asset management could be employed within your organisation. There might be no time to lose.