Introduction
The extent to which computing has become a part of normal life and day-to-day business has seen a change in the way business approaches how they manage the finances, the tasks and the systems within a business.
As technology becomes more widely used within an organisation and takes a more prominent critical within the critical functions of that company, it is necessary to make sure that an appropriate level of attention is given to this technology. Technological assets that may have once been overlooked are now important elements in the decision making process.
IT departments have come a long way during the past few years and are now seen as vital parts of any business. As such, they are allocated grander budgets but must also be able to deal with a larger amount of work.
But once you have spent a substantial amount of money on developing your IT system and seen the needs 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 prohibitive amount of money?
This is the role undertaken by IT management software and procedures.
Every organisation and every situation will have different requirements and will offer unique challenges. To meet these needs there are a range of different technologies and approaches that can be used to help manage the IT infrastructure of your organisation.
Software Asset Management
Software Asset Management (SAM) is built to do exactly what it says on the tin - monitoring and controlling the deployment and usage of software packages within your business. It is a business process rather than a distinct discipline and is becoming a more essential part of the modern commercial 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 critical tool to help improve performance at all levels of a organisation. The objectives of SAM include controlling of the IT infrastructure within a company, 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 SAM is often thought of 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 done. Once existing problems have been highlighted however, the use of software asset management becomes self evident.
Financial benefits remain the most driving business factor when deciding to employ software asset management software within a company. Every company needs to make profit after all and profitability is a very measurable figure. The financial benefits of SAM do certainly exist however.
An increasingly large percentage 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 greatly and hardware and programs can swiftly become outdated. There is no need to spend money to maintain the licenses on this outdated software, which is where SAM really delivers an advantage.
SAM is not limited to simply the IT department of your company either. As a management operation it will often involve many of the branches within a business, 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.
IT service professionals working for my company named softcat supply a range of IT management solutions including software asset management tools.
Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having heard the many advantages of utilising a SAM solution, how do you know that it would be correct for your organisation? Each company is different and has its own separate set of challenges and advantages, so any plan you will use needs to be tailored to these specific traits. The benefits of software asset management do cover the basic aspects of IT management.
There are more than simply cost advantages that can be gained through the control of licensing and maintenance agreements across a businesses IT network. Productivity can be hugely improved by ensuring that users have the newest editions of software available under current licenses held, and communication inside the corporation is aided when support staff know exactly what is deployed on every workstation under their control.
Cost Savings
As discussed before, perhaps the most convincing reason to implement software asset management within your company is the potential financial savings that can be achieved. The profitability of your business is always going to be the bottom line so any strategy 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 immediate way that SAM can help to lower costs is by targeting any software running on your corporate IT system that is no longer needed. The software might not be being used any longer, it may be too outdated to be of use or it may be duplicated on your system. SAM can help to remove this unnecessary overhead.
By removing these items of software that are no longer a benefit to the running of your business you are streamlining a large chunk of your IT system. Paying for unneeded software licenses and maintenance agreements means that more money can be spent on the essential sections of your IT infrastructure.
Mitigate Risk Factors
A surprising amount 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 annoying factor for network managers.
Rogue 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 access policies in place, users may also be able to install their own software onto the system. Running a corporate IT system in this wild way will almost certainly lead to trouble.
The risk 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 handle the situation? Running a complex software system without the correct support can create a metaphorical minefield when it comes to disaster recovery and can seriously inhibit your responsiveness to unforeseen events.
Recent years have seen a vast growth in the amount of dependable Centennial distributors around that are open for business.
Implementing Software Asset Management in your Organisation
As previously discussed, there are numerous potential benefits to employing a good software asset management strategy within your organisation, both financial and otherwise. It is vitally important to determine which branches of SAM you should implement first since certain benefits will be realised more quickly than others.
The discovery process can be viewed as three basic stages that have to be performed to truly build an accurate picture of the usage of software assets within your organisation.
Inventory
Inventory is the most basic stage of the discovery cycle. It is important that an accurate inventory of IT assets within your business is created to aid your IT managers to maintain baselines regarding your IT network.
Thankfully, this process can now be automated and even the largest of networks can be investigated and analysed in a relatively short period of time. Inventory should be able to identify your IT assets regardless of their physical location or technological characteristics.
Capture
The next step in the discovery cycle involves the capture of the license entitlements that concern the software programs discovered in the inventory. The capture process should gather entitlements for all of the software that exists on your network, even if the software is not currently in use.
The factor of human error can be avoided by using automatic tools that are specifically designed to create a library of license entitlements. Packages that are currently available are incredibly efficient at gathering accurate data.
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 been made anywhere from the original invoices for software to the most recent audits undertaken on your IT network. These errors can now be rectified.
One critical factor in the validation step is the ability to combine the license entitlements within your network to your company’s proof of entitlement. This will be essential if any arguments with software resellers arise as a consequence of the discovery cycle. You want to be as informed as possible in these circumstances.
After these 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 a lot simpler to identify particular trouble spots on your system, or areas of software use that are no longer of any particular benefit to your operations. This detailed map can be used for future reference as well.
You can now begin a period of reconciliation on your network. You can compare the software programs that are actually employed on your system against the licensing and support entitlements that you are paying for and bridge any divides between the two.
The software distribution in your network may include many hundreds or even thousands of individual installations, and there may be any number of rules that may be associated with the licensing agreements you have in place. It is therefore essential to automate the reconciliation process, using one or more programs to apply intelligent rules to the process. These rules can be catered to the specific needs of your company
Staff who have past experience working with any Centennial specialist firm may be able to provide an early insight into how SAM can benefit your organisation.
Compliancy and Flexibility with SAM
Many of the fundamental principles of a modern SAM strategy are based upon the concepts laid out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library defines a number of concepts and best practices that should be adopted for successful control of IT operations. The ITIL can be found online.
This library is a changing publication and is often updated with new concepts and techniques that cater to the constantly changing IT environment of modern business. A good software asset management strategy should be flexible enough to follow the guidelines set out in the ITIL whilst meeting the changing needs of the business within which it is actively utilised.
The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has created a standard that applies directly to SAM practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an incredibly comprehensive collection of guidelines that are built to ensure that software asset management is utilised in such a way as to “satisfy corporate governance requirements”. Standards of this kind play an essential part in realising standardisation across an industry.
The ISO standard should really be followed when planning a software asset management 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 plan you decide to implement must help your organisation rather than hinder it. Industry standards cannot simply be copied when it comes to applying them to your business.
Designing a complete and comprehensive software asset management strategy for your own business might actually never come to fruition. Your strategy must be flexible enough to adapt and grow as your organisation does, and it must allow for modifications to your daily tasks, no matter how small or underlying they might be. This really is the key to a successful software asset management plan.
Conclusion
It is easy to see that as the extent and importance of IT systems within your company grow, so does the need for correct and efficient monitoring of these systems. Gone are the days when an IT branch was a luxury that would sometimes progress the business. IT networks are now vital to the modern business.
As with other parts of any company, a number of separate strategies should be evaluated and used in order to ensure the efficient running of day to day activities. software asset management should not be the only tactic used to manage computing resources within your company, but rather one of a multitude of complimentary policies used to control the system as a unit.
So if you feel that your business 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 critical market advantage over your competitors, then it would be worth researching how SAM could be employed within your business.