Introduction
The extent to which computing has become a part of everyday life and day-to-day commerce has prompted a change in the way management approaches how they manage the finances, the processes and the assets within an organisation. IT is fast becoming an important factor in business.
As technology becomes more widespread within an organisation and takes a more prominent critical within the vital processes of that business, it is important to make sure that an appropriate level of attention is applied to this technology. Technological systems that may have once been overlooked are now important elements in the decision making process.
IT capabilities 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 greater budgets but must also be able to deal with a greater amount of responsibility. There is an eternal race between corporate demands and computing capabilities.
But after you have spent a substantial amount of money on developing your IT system and seen the requirements of your business change, how do you ensure that the IT you are using can keep up with demand?
This is the function by IT management software and procedures.
Every business and every situation will have different specifications and will create different challenges. To satisfy these requirements there are a range of different solutions and approaches that can be implemented to help manage the IT infrastructure of your company.
Software Asset Management
Software Asset Management (SAM) is designed to do exactly what it says on the tin – monitoring and maintaining the deployment and usage of software packages within your company. It is a business process rather than a distinct skill and is becoming a more essential part of the modern commercial environment, particularly for companies operating in the field of IT.
SAM is not simply a tool for support staff deploying software across a large company network, but can be a crucial tool to help improve performance at all levels of a organisation. The aims of SAM include managing of the IT infrastructure within a company, negating legal threats associated with incorrect software license usage and preserving 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 seen as an unnecessary evil due to the abstract nature of what it is designed to deal with, and the financial 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 SAM becomes self evident.
Financial benefits are still the most motivating business factor when choosing to employ software asset management software within a company. Every corporation needs to make profit after all and profitability is a very measurable metric.
An increasingly large percentage of a company’s IT bank roll is spent on software licensing so there is a real need to invest to correctly monitor this spending. As companies grow and spread, their software requirements can change greatly and hardware and programs can quickly 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 organisation either. As a management operation it will often include many of the departments within a organisation, including Finance Human Resources, to ensure 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 heard the many benefits of employing a SAM solution, how do you know that it would be correct for your company? Every business is different and has its own unique set of problems and benefits, so any plan you will use needs to be catered to these specific traits.
There are more than just cost benefits that can be achieved through the management of licensing and maintenance agreements across an organisations IT system. Productivity can be hugely improved by ensuring that users have the latest editions of software permitted under current licenses held, and communication inside the corporation is aided when support staff know exactly what is deployed on every computer under their control. The benefits of software asset management are not confined to the technological hardware of your organisation.
Cost Savings
As discussed previously, perhaps the most convincing reason to implement SAM within your company is the potential cost 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 improve this profitability by descreasing costs is one that should be considered. 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 software running on your corporate IT system 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.
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 infrastructure. Paying for unnecessary software licenses and maintenance contracts means that more money can be spent on the vital parts of your IT system. Focusing your attention on these critical components will improve the overall performance of your IT department.
Mitigate Risk
A surprising proportion 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 network is ill advised, because when left unchecked it can become very unpredictable.
Unlicensed software applications 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 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 system is clear. When anything goes wrong with the hardware or software platform supporting your critical processes, how do you handle the situation? Operating a complex software system without the proper support can create a metaphorical minefield when it comes to disaster recovery and can seriously limit your responsiveness to unpredictable events. The cost of recovery will always outweigh the cost of prevention when it comes to IT systems.
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Implementing SAM in your Organisation
As previously discussed, there are numerous potential advantages to employing a good SAM strategy within your business, both monetary and otherwise. It is therefore important to consider which parts of software asset management you should deploy first since some benefits will be realised more speedily than others.
This discovery process can be seen as three primary stages that have to be performed to really develop an informative picture of the deployment of IT assets within your business.
Inventory
Inventory is the most fundamental stage of the discovery cycle. It is vital that an accurate inventory of software 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 of time. Inventory must be able to identify your IT assets regardless of their physical location or computing characteristics. Modern inventory processes are capable of this.
Capture
The second step in the discovery cycle involves the capture of the software license entitlements that manage the software assets identified in the inventory. The capture stage should gather entitlements for all of the software that exists on your network, even when the software is not currently in use. Without this information the inventory would be almost useless.
The factor of human error can be mitigated by using automatic tools that are specifically designed to create a library of license entitlements. Tools that are currently employed are incredibly efficient at gathering accurate data. These tools will also maintain databases containing up to date information from IT vendors.
Identification & Validation
The third process is to match up the software audit 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 latest audits undertaken on your IT system.
One crucial factor in the validation stage is the ability to link the license entitlements within your network to your company’s proof of entitlement. This will be essential if any disputes with software vendors arise as a consequence of the discovery process.
Once these steps have been undertaken you will have built an incredibly detailed picture of how your IT system is delivering software packages to its users. It will be much simpler to identify particular trouble areas on your network, or areas of software use that are no longer of any practical benefit to your operations.
You can now begin a period of reconciliation upon your network. You should 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.
The software spread in your network may include many hundreds or perhaps thousands of individual installations, and there are any number of rules that may be involved with the licensing agreements you have in place. It is therefore a necessity to automate the reconciliation process, using one or more tools 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 Software Asset Management
Many of the basic principles of a modern software asset management 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 followed for successful control of IT functions. The ITIL can be found online.
This library is a dynamic publication and is often updated with new concepts and techniques that reflect the ever changing IT backdrop of modern business. A good SAM strategy should be fluid enough to comply with the guidelines laid out in the ITIL whilst meeting the changing needs of the company within which it is actively utilised.
The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has published a standard that applies directly to software asset management practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an exceptionally comprehensive set of guidelines that are designed 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 business, although the level of detail covered within can quickly become a daunting prospect. It is vital to remember that no matter what recommendations you follow when designing a SAM strategy, whatever you decide to implement must aid your organisation rather than hinder it.
Creating a full and comprehensive software asset management strategy for your own business may actually never come to fruition. Your plan must be flexible to change and grow as your business does, and it must allow for updates to your daily activities, no matter how small or fundamental 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 requirement for correct and effective management of these systems. Gone are the days when an IT department was a luxury that would occasionally forward the business. IT systems are now critical to the modern company. Crucial systems need to be maintained to an appropriate standard.
As with other branches of any organisation, a number of different plans should be considered and used in order to ensure the smooth running of day to day tasks. software asset management should not be the only tactic used to manage computing resources within your organisation, but rather one of a number of complimentary policies used to manage the system as a whole. SAM can go a long way toward helping your business but should be helped by other techniques.
So if you feel that your business is really suffering from a lack of planned monitoring and control over its IT network, or that the potential advantages outlined in this article could manufacture a critical market edge over your competitors, then it would be well worth investigating how software asset management could be employed within your company. There may be no time to spare.