Introduction

The degree to which computing has become a part of everyday life and everyday business has forced a change in the way business approaches how they manage the finances, the tasks and the systems within an organisation. IT is becoming an important factor in business.

As computing becomes more widely used within an organisation and takes a more prominent vital within the vital processes of that business, it is important to make sure that an appropriate level of attention is applied to this technology.

Technology have come a long way during the past few years and are now seen as essential elements 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 once you have spent a substantial amount of your budget on developing an IT network and seen the requirements of your company 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 large amount of money?

This is the function by IT management software and procedures.

Every company and every situation will have different specifications and will present different problems. To satisfy these requirements there are a number of different technologies and approaches that can be implemented to help manage the IT infrastructure of your company.One of these approaches is discussed below.

Software Asset Management

Software Asset Management (SAM) is built to do exactly what it says on the tin – monitoring and maintaining the deployment and usage of software suites within your business. It is a business process rather than a distinct skill and is becoming a more essential part of the modern corporate environment, particularly for businesses operating in the field of Information Technology.

SAM is not simply an aid for support staff rolling out software across a large corporate network, but can be a critical tool to help improve performance at many levels of a organisation. The aims of SAM include controlling of the IT infrastructure within a business, negating legal threats associated with incorrect software license usage and maintaining 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 SAM 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 going with 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 software asset management becomes self evident.

Financial benefits are still the most motivating commercial factor when choosing to operate software asset management technology within a business. Every corporation needs to make money after all and profitability is a very measurable figure. The financial benefits of SAM do certainly exist however.

An increasingly large percentage of a business’ IT budget is spent on software licensing so there is a real need to invest to correctly handle this spending. As businesses grow and spread, their software requirements can change greatly and equipment and software can swiftly become out of date. There is no requirement to spend money to maintain the licenses on this outdated software, which is where software asset management really delivers an edge.

SAM is not restricted to simply the IT department of your company 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 efficiently as possible. It is a process that does not need to follow regular.

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Why follow a SAM Strategy?

Having seen the multiple advantages of employing a SAM solution, how do you know that it would be appropriate for your organisation? Each company is different and has its own unique set of challenges and advantages, so any strategy you will use needs to be tailored to these specific traits. The benefits of SAM do cover the fundamental aspects of IT management.

There are more than just cost advantages that can be made through the control of licensing and maintenance agreements across a businesses IT network. Productivity can be vastly by ensuring that employees have the newest versions of software available under current licenses held, and communication inside the business is aided 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 before, perhaps the most persuading reason to implement software asset management within your business is the potential financial savings that can be made. 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 expenses is one that should be evaluated.

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 necessary. 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.

By removing these items of software that are no longer a benefit to the running of your company you are streamlining a large portion of your IT system. Paying for unnecessary software licenses and maintenance agreements means that more finance can be spent on the essential parts of your IT infrastructure. Focusing your finances on these critical components will improve the overall performance of your IT department.

Mitigate Risk

A surprising proportion 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.

Unlicensed 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 originally purchased although the initial software licenses may have expired. Without the correct control policies in place, users may also be able to install their own software onto the system. Operating a corporate IT system in this unmanaged way will almost certainly lead to trouble.

The danger of running unlicensed software on your network is clear. When anything goes wrong with the hardware or software platform behind your vital processes, how do you manage the situation? Operating a complex software system without the correct 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 advantages to utilising a good SAM strategy within your business, both financial and otherwise. It is therefore important to determine which parts of SAM you should deploy first since certain 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 primary areas that have to be undertaken to truly build an informative picture of the usage of software assets within your business. These are:

Inventory

Inventory is the most fundamental stage of the discovery process. It is crucial that an accurate audit of IT assets within your organisation is created to aid your IT department to maintain baselines regarding your IT system.
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 software assets regardless of their geographical location or computing characteristics.

Capture

The second step in the discovery process is the capture of the license entitlements that manage the software programs discovered in the inventory. The capture process should gather entitlements regarding all of the software that exists on your network, even if the software is not currently in use. Without this information the inventory would be almost useless.

The element of human error can be mitigated by using automatic tools that are specifically created to create a library of license entitlements. Tools that are currently employed are very efficient at gathering accurate data. These tools will also maintain databases containing up to date information from software vendors.

Identification & Validation

The third process is to match up your software inventory to the repository of licensing data that were built in the previous two stages. Errors may have occurred anywhere from the original invoices for software to the latest audits performed on your IT network.

One critical factor in the validation step is the ability to combine the license entitlements within your system 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.

Once these three steps have been undertaken you will have built an incredibly detailed picture of how your IT network is delivering software packages to its users. It will be much easier to identify any trouble areas on your network, or sections of software use that are no longer of any practical benefit to your operations. This detailed image can be used for future reference as well.

You can now start a period of reconciliation upon your system. You can compare the software packages that are actually employed on your network against the licensing and support contracts that you are paying for and bridge any gaps between the two.

The software distribution within your system may include many hundreds or perhaps 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 essential to automate the reconciliation period, using one or more programs to apply intelligent rules to the process.

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Compliancy and Flexibility with Software Asset Management

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 details a number of principles and best practices that should be followed for successful management of IT functions.

This library is a changing entity and is often updated with new ideas and policies that cater to the constantly 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 needs of the company within which it is actively utilised. This is an essential requirement of effective software asset management

The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has created a standard that applies directly to SAM practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an exceptionally 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 adhered to when designing a SAM strategy for your own organisation, although the level of detail included within can quickly 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 hinder it. Industry standards cannot simply be copied when it comes to applying them to your company.

Creating a full and comprehensive software asset management strategy for your own company may actually never come to fruition. Your plan must be flexible enough to adapt and mature as your organisation does, and it must allow for updates to your daily activities, no matter how small or fundamental they might be. This really is the key to a successful software asset management strategy.

Conclusion

It is clear to see that as the scope and importance of IT systems within your organisation grow, so does the need for good and effective monitoring of these systems. Gone are the days when an IT branch was a luxury that would sometimes forward the business. IT networks are now vital to the modern organisation.

As with other branches of any company, a number of separate plans should be considered and used in order to ensure the smooth running of day to day 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 policies used to control the system as a whole.

So if you feel that your business is currently suffering from a lack of structured monitoring and management over its IT network, or that the possible benefits described in this article could manufacture a critical market edge over your competitors, then it would be worth investigating how software asset management could be used within your business. There might be no time to lose.

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