Introduction
The degree to which technology has become a part of everyday life and day-to-day business has seen a change in the way management approaches how they manage the money, the tasks and the assets within a business. Technology becoming an increasing factor in business.
As computing becomes more widespread within an organisation and takes a more prominent critical within the vital functions of that organisation, it is necessary to make sure that an appropriate level of attention is applied to this computing. Technological systems that may have previously been overlooked are now important elements in the decision making process.
IT departments have come a long way over the past few years and are now seen as essential parts of any organisation. As such, they receive greater budgets but must also be able to manage a greater amount of work. There is an eternal race between business needs and IT capabilities.
But once you have spent a large amount of your budget on developing your IT system and seen the circumstances of your company change, how do you ensure that the IT 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 systems.
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 network of your organisation.
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 suites within your business. It is a business process rather than a distinct area of expertise and is becoming a more essential part of the modern business environment, particularly for companies operating in the field of Information Technology.
SAM is not simply a tool for support staff installing software across a large corporate network, but can be a crucial tool to help improve performance at multiple levels of a company. The goals of SAM include monitoring costs 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 thought of 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 done. Once existing problems have been identified however, the use of software asset management becomes self evident.
Financial benefits are still the most motivating business factor when choosing to employ software asset management software within a business. Every company needs to make money after all and profitability is a very measurable figure. The financial benefits of software asset management do certainly exist however.
An increasingly large proportion of a company’s IT bank roll 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 software can swiftly become outdated. There is no requirement to spend money to maintain the licenses on this outdated software, which is where software asset management really delivers an advantage.
software asset management is not restricted to simply the IT department of your business either. As a management process it will often include 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 standard.
IT managers and staff with decision making authority should consider Centennial Discovery at meetings regarding the implementation of IT resource management.
Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having heard the various benefits of deploying a software asset management solution, how do you know that it would be appropriate for your organisation? Every business is different and has its own separate set of problems and advantages, so any plan you will undertake needs to be catered to these specific traits. The benefits of software asset management do cover the basic aspects of IT management.
There are more than just monetary benefits that can be gained through the management of licensing and maintenance agreements across a companies IT system. Productivity can be greatly by ensuring that employees have the latest editions of software available under current licenses held, and communication within the business is helped when support staff know exactly what is in use on every computer under their control. The benefits of software asset management are not confined to the technological hardware of your business.
Financial Savings
As discussed before, perhaps the most convincing reason to implement SAM within your business is the potential financial 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 improve this profitability by reducing expenses is one that should be evaluated. Money can be saved in a number of ways.
The most direct way that SAM can help to lower costs is by identifying any software running on your corporate network 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.
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 contracts means that more finance can be spent on the critical 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 currently used in the corporate environment is either licensed incorrectly or not licensed at all. Running any amount of uncontrolled software on your IT system is ill advised, because when left unchecked it can become incredibly unpredictable. This is becoming an increasingly frustrating factor for IT managers.
Rogue software programs can be introduced into an uncontrolled IT environment in a number of ways. Software may have been included when your IT hardware was originally bought 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 system. Running a corporate IT system in this wild way will almost certainly lead to trouble.
The danger of running unlicensed software on your network is clear. When something goes wrong with the hardware or software platform behind your vital 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 unforeseen events.
If you are willing to do business with the best Centennial distributor your business will be well placed to achieve the maximum potential from software asset management.
Implementing Software Asset Management in your Organisation
As previously mentioned, there are many potential advantages to employing a good software asset management strategy within your organisation, both financial and otherwise. It is therefore important to consider which branches of software asset management you should deploy first since certain benefits will be achieved more speedily than others.
The discovery process can be seen as three fundamental stages that have to be undertaken to really build an accurate picture of the deployment of IT assets within your business.
Inventory
Inventory is the most fundamental function of the discovery cycle. It is important that an accurate audit of software assets within your organisation is created to help your IT department to maintain baselines for your IT network. This inventory process must be performed before carrying on with discovery.
Fortunately, this process can now be automated and even the largest of infrastructures can be investigated and analysed in a relatively short period of time. Inventory should be able to identify your software assets regardless of their geographical location or computing characteristics.
Capture
The second step in the discovery cycle is the capture of the license entitlements that manage the software programs identified in the inventory. The capture process should gather entitlements for all of the software that is installed on your system, even if the software is not currently in use. Without this step the inventory would be almost useless.
The risk of human error can be mitigated by using automated tools that are specifically created to build a library of license entitlements. Packages that are currently employed are very efficient at gathering accurate information. These tools will also maintain databases containing up to date information from software vendors.
Identification & Validation
The third 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 been made anywhere from the original invoices for software to the most recent audits performed on your IT network.
One critical factor in the validation step is the ability to link the license entitlements on your network to your organisation’s proof of entitlement. This will be vital if any arguments with software resellers arise as a consequence of the discovery process. You want to be as informed as possible in these circumstances.
After these steps have been undertaken you will have built an incredibly rich picture of how your IT system is delivering software programs to its users. It will be much easier to identify any trouble spots on your system, or sections of software use that are no longer of any particular benefit to your activites.
You can now start 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 contracts that you are paying for and close any gaps between the two. This is when the financial benefits of SAM start to take effect.
The software distribution within your system may include many hundreds or even thousands of individual instances, and there are any number of rules that may be associated with the licensing agreements you have in place. It is therefore essential to automate the reconciliation stage, using one or more programs to apply smart rules to the process. These rules can be catered to the specific needs of your organisation.
The IT industry is in vital need for plenty of Centennial vendors that can provide the right IT management products.
Compliancy and Flexibility with SAM
Many of the fundamental 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 management of IT functions. The ITIL can be found online.
This library is a changing entity and is often updated with new ideas and policies that reflect the ever changing IT environment of modern business. A good SAM strategy should be fluid enough to follow the guidelines set out in the ITIL whilst meeting the changing requirements of the company within which it is actively used. This is an essential requirement of successful SAM
The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has created a standard that applies specifically to software asset management practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an incredibly comprehensive collection of guidelines that are designed to ensure that software asset management is utilised in such a way as to “satisfy corporate governance requirements”. Standards of this kind play an important part in realising standardisation across an industry.
The ISO standard should really be followed when planning a SAM strategy for your own organisation, although the level of detail included within can quickly become a daunting challenge. It is important to remember that no matter what recommendations you follow when planning a software asset management strategy, whatever you decide to implement must aid your business rather than stifle it.
Designing a complete and comprehensive SAM strategy for your own business might actually never come to fruition. Your plan must be flexible enough to adapt and mature as your organisation does, and it should allow for updates to your daily activities, no matter how small or fundamental they might be.
Conclusion
It is easy to see that as the scope and importance of computer systems within your company grow, so does the requirement for good and effective monitoring of these systems. Gone are the days when an IT branch was a luxury that would occasionally progress the business. Computer systems are now vital to the modern organisation.
As with other branches of any company, a number of separate plans should be considered and utilised in order to ensure the smooth running of daily tasks. SAM should not be the only tool used to manage technological resources within your organisation, but rather one of a number of complimentary policies used to manage the system as a unit.
So if you feel that your organisation is currently 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 crucial market edge over your competitors, then it would be well worth investigating how software asset management could be employed within your organisation.