Introduction
The degree to which technology has become a part of everyday life and everyday business has prompted a change in the way business approaches how they manage the money, the tasks and the assets within a business. IT is becoming an increasing factor in business.
As computing becomes more widely used within an organisation and takes a more prominent critical within the vital functions of that company, it is important to make sure that an appropriate level of attention is given to this technology.
IT capabilities have come a long way during the past few years and are now seen as critical elements of any organisation. As such, they receive greater budgets but must also be able to deal with a larger amount of work.
But once you have spent a large amount of money on developing an IT infrastructure and seen the requirements of your business change, how do you ensure that the technology 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 business and every environment will have different requirements and will present unique problems. To satisfy these needs there are a range of different technologies and approaches that can be used to help control the IT infrastructure of your business.One of these solutions is discussed below.
Software Asset Management
SAM ( Software Asset Management) is designed to do exactly what it says on the tin – monitoring and maintaining the deployment and usage of software suites within your company. It is a business process rather than a distinct skill and is becoming a more critical part of the modern business environment, particularly for corporations operating in the field of IT.
SAM is not simply a tool for technicians deploying software across a large corporate network, but can be a crucial tool to help improve performance at many levels of a organisation. The goals of SAM include controlling of the IT infrastructure within a company, negating legal risks 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 a company grows, so do the potential benefits of SAM.
The practice of software asset management is often viewed as an unnecessary evil due to the intangible nature of what it is designed to deal with, and the business case for employing a SAM solution is not always obvious until a full of the software infrastructure of a company has been undertaken.
Economic benefits are still the most driving commercial factor when choosing to employ SAM software within a business. Every corporation needs to make profit after all and revenue is a very measurable metric. The financial benefits of SAM 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 monitor this spending. As companies expand and diversify, their software requirements can change greatly and hardware and programs can quickly 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 IT department of your company either. As a management process it will often include many of the departments within a company, including Finance Human Resources, to make sure that it runs as cost-effectively as possible.
Ironically, IT service firms themselves, such as the service vendor Centennial need equally as much IT management as their customers.
Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having heard the many benefits of utilising a software asset management solution, how do you know that it would be correct for your business? Every company is different and has its own separate set of problems and benefits, so any strategy you will use needs to be catered to these specific characteristics.
There are more than just cost advantages that can be gained through the management of licensing and maintenance agreements across a businesses IT network. Productivity can be vastly by ensuring that staff have the newest editions of software available under current licenses held, and communication within the corporation is aided when support staff know exactly what is installed on every computer under their control. The benefits of SAM are not confined to the technological hardware of your business.
Cost Savings
As discussed previously, perhaps the most convincing reason to implement SAM within your business is the potential cost savings that can be achieved. The profitability of your company is always going to be the bottom line so any strategy that can help to improve this profitability by lowering expenses is one that should be considered. Money can be saved in a number of ways.
The most direct way that SAM can help to lower costs is by targeting any applications running on your corporate network that is no longer needed. 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 benefit to the operation of your organisation you are streamlining a large portion of your IT infrastructure. Paying for unneeded software licenses and maintenance agreements means that more money can be spent on the vital sections of your IT system.
Mitigate Risk Factors
A surprising proportion of software that is currently 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 incredibly unpredictable. This is becoming an increasingly frustrating factor for network managers.
Unlicensed 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 purchased although the initial software licenses may have expired. Without the correct control policies in place, users may also be able to load their own software onto the system. Operating 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 behind your vital processes, how do you manage the situation? Running 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.
Software asset management is a leading product that is available from all up to date Centennial distributors selling IT products to a wide range of industries.
Implementing Software Asset Management in your Organisation
As previously mentioned, there are many potential benefits to employing a good SAM strategy within your company, both monetary and otherwise. It is therefore important to consider which elements of software asset management you should implement first since certain benefits will be achieved more speedily than others. Some may take a period of years to be fully felt.
This discovery process can be seen as three fundamental stages that have to be performed to truly develop an informative picture of the deployment of IT assets within your organisation. These are:
Inventory
Inventory is the most fundamental stage of the discovery process. It is vital that an accurate audit of IT assets within your business is created to help your IT managers to maintain baselines for your IT system.
Thankfully, this process can now be automated and even the grandest of networks can be searched and analysed in a reasonably short period. Inventory should be able to identify your software assets regardless of their geographical location or computing characteristics. Modern inventory processes are capable of this.
Capture
The second step in the discovery process is the capture of the license entitlements that concern the software assets identified 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.
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 employed are incredibly efficient at capturing accurate data. These tools will also maintain databases containing up to date information from IT vendors.
Identification & Validation
The next step is to match up the software audit to the repository of licensing data that were built in the previous two stages. Errors may have occurred anywhere from the original paperwork for software to the most recent audits undertaken on your IT network.
One crucial factor in the validation stage is the ability to associate the license entitlements within your network to your organisation’s proof of entitlement. This will be essential 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.
After these three steps have been performed you will have created an incredibly rich picture of how your IT network is serving software programs to its users. It will be a lot easier to identify any trouble areas on your network, or areas of software use that are no longer of any particular benefit to your operations.
You can now start a period of reconciliation on your system. You should compare the software packages that are actually used on your network against the licensing and support contracts that you are paying for and bridge any divides between the two. This is when the financial benefits of SAM start to take effect.
The software spread in your system may include many hundreds or even thousands of individual installations, and there are any number of restrictions that may be associated with the licensing contracts you have in place. It is therefore essential to automate the reconciliation stage, using one or more tools to apply smart rules to the process. These rules can be catered to the specific needs of your company
To learn more about the software asset management process you could utilise Centennial reseller resources via the web.
Compliancy and Flexibility with Software Asset Management
Many of the fundamental principles of a modern software asset management strategy are based upon the principles set out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library details a number of principles and best practices that should be adopted for successful control of IT functions.
This library is a dynamic entity and is often updated with new ideas and techniques that reflect 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 company within which it is actively used.
The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has created a standard that applies specifically to SAM practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an incredibly comprehensive set of guidelines that are built to ensure that software asset management is used in such a way as to “satisfy corporate governance requirements”. Standards of this kind play an essential role in realising standardisation across an industry.
The ISO standard should really be followed when designing a SAM strategy for your own organisation, although the level of detail covered within can easily become a daunting challenge. It is vital to remember that no matter what guidelines you follow when creating a SAM strategy, whatever plan you decide to employ must aid your organisation rather than stifle it.
Creating a complete and comprehensive SAM strategy for your own organisation might actually never come to fruition. Your strategy must be flexible enough to adapt and mature as your organisation does, and it should allow for modifications to your daily activities, no matter how small or underlying 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 correct and effective management of these systems. Gone are the times when an IT branch was a bonus that would sometimes progress the business. IT networks are now critical to the modern business. Critical systems need to be controlled to an appropriate level.
As with other parts of any company, a number of separate plans should be evaluated and utilised 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 number of complimentary policies used to control the system as a unit.
So if you feel that your organisation is currently suffering from a lack of structured monitoring and management over its IT infrastructure, or that the possible benefits outlined in this article could provide a critical market edge over your competitors, then it would be well worth investigating how SAM could be employed within your company. There might be no time to lose.