Introduction
The extent to which computing has become a part of everyday life and everyday business has prompted a change in the way management approaches how they manage the money, the processes and the assets within a business. Computing becoming an increasing factor in business.
As computing becomes more widely used within an organisation and takes a more prominent role 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 previously been ignored are now important factors in the decision making process.
IT capabilities have come a long way during the past few years and are now seen as essential elements of any business. As such, they receive larger budgets but must also be able to handle a larger amount of responsibility.
But after you have spent a substantial amount of money on developing your IT network and seen the circumstances of your company change, how do you ensure 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 organisation and every environment will have different specifications and will present different challenges. To satisfy these requirements there are a range of different solutions and approaches that can be used to help manage the IT assets of your business.
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 programs within your organisation. It is a business process rather than a distinct discipline and is becoming a more critical part of the modern commercial environment, particularly for companies operating in the field of Information Technology.
SAM is not simply an aid for technicians installing software across a large company network, but can be a crucial tool to help improve performance at many levels of a business. The goals of SAM include controlling of the IT infrastructure within a business, 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.
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 financial case for employing 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 identified however, the use of software asset management becomes self evident.
Financial benefits are still the most driving business factor when choosing to use software asset management software within an organisation. Every company needs to make money after all and revenue is a very measurable figure.
An increasingly large amount of a business’ IT budget is spent on software licensing so there is a real need to invest to correctly handle this spending. As organisations grow and spread, their software requirements can change radically and equipment and programs can swiftly become outdated. There is no need to spend money to maintain the licenses on this outdated software, which is where software asset management really delivers an edge.
SAM is not limited to simply the technology of your company either. As a management operation it will often involve many of the branches within a company, including Finance Human Resources, to make sure that it runs as efficiently as possible. It is a process that does not need to follow established corporate models.
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Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having seen the various benefits of utilising a SAM solution, how do you know that it would be right for your company? Each company is different and has its own unique set of problems and advantages, so any plan 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 cost advantages that can be achieved through the management of licensing and maintenance agreements across a businesses IT network. Productivity can be hugely boosted by ensuring that employees have the latest versions of software available under current licenses held, and communication inside the company is helped when support staff know exactly what is in use on every workstation under their control. The benefits of software asset management are not confined to the technological hardware of your business.
Cost Savings
As discussed before, perhaps the most convincing reason to utilise SAM 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 plan that can help to improve this profitability by reducing expenses is one that should be considered.
The most direct way that SAM can help to lower 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 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 help to the running of your organisation you are streamlining a large chunk of your IT network. Paying for unnecessary software licenses and support and maintenance agreements means that more finance can be spent on the vital parts of your IT infrastructure.
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. Running any amount of unmonitored software on your IT system is not 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 bundled when your IT hardware was originally bought although the original software licenses may have expired. Without the correct security policies in place, users may also be able to load their own software onto the network.
The danger of running unlicensed software on your network is clear. When anything goes wrong with the hardware or software platform behind your critical processes, how do you handle the situation? Running a complex software system without the appropriate support can create a metaphorical minefield when it comes to disaster recovery and can seriously inhibit your responsiveness to unpredictable events. The cost of recovery will always outweigh the cost of prevention 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 organisation, both financial and otherwise. It is therefore important to determine which parts 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.
The discovery process can be seen as three basic stages that have to be undertaken to truly build an informative picture of the deployment of software assets within your company.
Inventory
Inventory is the most fundamental stage of the discovery cycle. It is important that an accurate audit of IT assets within your business is created to aid your IT department to maintain baselines for your IT system.
Thankfully, this process can now be automated and even the largest of networks can be investigated and analysed in a reasonably short period. Inventory should be able to identify your IT assets regardless of their geographical location or computing characteristics.
Capture
The second step in the discovery cycle involves the capture of the software license entitlements that manage the software assets discovered in the inventory. The capture stage should gather entitlements for all of the software that exists on your system, even when the software is not currently in use.
The risk of human error can be avoided by using automated tools that are specifically created to build a library of license entitlements. Tools that are currently available are incredibly efficient at capturing accurate information.
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 invoices for software to the latest audits undertaken on your IT system. These errors can now be rectified.
One critical factor in the validation step is the ability to associate the license entitlements within your network to your company’s proof of entitlement. This will be vital if any arguments with software vendors arise as a consequence of the discovery cycle. You want to be as informed as possible in these circumstances.
Once these three steps have been undertaken you will have created an incredibly detailed image of how your IT network is serving software assets to its users. It will be much simpler to identify any trouble spots on your system, or areas of software use that are no longer of any particular benefit to your operations.
You can now begin a period of reconciliation on your system. You should compare the software packages that are actually used on your system against the licensing and support entitlements that you are paying for and bridge any gaps between the two.
The software distribution within 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 essential to automate the reconciliation process, utilising one or more tools to apply intelligent 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 practices of a modern software asset management strategy are based upon the principles set out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library defines a number of ideas and best practices that should be followed for successful management of IT functions.
This library is a dynamic publication and is often updated with new concepts and policies that reflect the constantly changing IT environment of modern business. A good software asset management strategy should be flexible enough to follow the guidelines laid out in the ITIL whilst meeting the changing requirements of the company within which it is actively utilised.
The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has published a standard that applies specifically to SAM practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an incredibly comprehensive collection of suggestions that are designed to ensure that SAM is utilised in such a way as to “satisfy corporate governance requirements”. Standards of this kind play an essential part in achieving standardisation across an industry.
The ISO standard should certainly be followed when designing a SAM strategy for your own company, although the level of detail covered within can quickly become a daunting prospect. It is vital to remember that no matter what guidelines you follow when designing a SAM strategy, whatever plan you decide to implement needs to help your organisation rather than stifle it.
Designing a complete and comprehensive software asset management strategy for your own business might actually never come to fruition. Your plan must be flexible to change and grow as your organisation does, and it should allow for updates to your daily tasks, 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 scope and importance of IT systems within your organisation grow, so does the need for correct and efficient management of these systems. Gone are the times when an IT department was a luxury that would sometimes progress the business. IT networks are now critical to the modern business. Critical systems need to be controlled to an appropriate standard.
As with other branches of any business, a number of different plans should be evaluated and used in order to ensure the smooth running of day to day activities. software asset management should not be the only tactic used to manage computing assets 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 company is really suffering from a lack of planned monitoring and management over its IT network, or that the possible advantages outlined in this article could manufacture a crucial market edge over your competitors, then it would be worth investigating how software asset management could be used within your company. There might be no time to spare.
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