Introduction
The extent to which technology has become a part of normal life and everyday business has forced a change in the way management approaches how they manage the money, the processes and the assets within a business.
As technology becomes more widespread within a company and takes a more prominent critical within the critical processes of that company, it is important to make sure that an appropriate amount of attention is applied to this technology.
Technology have come a long way over the past few years and are now seen as critical parts of any business. As such, they receive grander budgets but must also be able to deal with a larger amount of responsibility.
But once you have spent a substantial amount of money on developing your IT system and seen the requirements of your company change, how do you make sure that the IT you are using can keep up with demand? Moreover, how can you achieve this without spending a large amount of money?
This is the role undertaken by IT management software and systems.
Every company and every environment will have different needs and will offer unique issues. To satisfy these requirements there are a number of different solutions and approaches that can be used to help manage the IT network of your company.One of these options is discussed below.
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 programs within your business. It is a business process rather than a distinct skill and is becoming a more critical part of the modern business environment, particularly for businesses operating in the field of Information Technology.
SAM is not simply an aid for technicians rolling out software across a large company network, but can be a crucial tool to help improve performance at many levels of a organisation. The aims of SAM include monitoring expenses of the IT infrastructure within a organisation, 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 abstract nature of what it is designed to deal with, and the commercial case for using a SAM solution is not always obvious until a broad audit of the software infrastructure of a company has been carried out.
Economic benefits are still the most driving commercial factor when choosing to use SAM software within an organisation. Every business needs to make money after all and revenue is a very measurable figure. The financial benefits of SAM do certainly exist however.
An increasingly large amount of a company’s IT budget is spent on software licensing so there is a real need to invest to correctly handle this spending. As companies expand and spread, their software needs can change radically and equipment 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 company either. As a management operation it will often involve many of the departments within a company, including Finance Human Resources, to make sure that it runs as cost-effectively as possible. It is a process that does not need to follow standard.
SAM can easily be achieved within your business through a operable companystrategy that is tailored to your requirements.
Why follow a SAM Strategy?
Having heard the various benefits of employing a software asset management solution, how do you know that it would be right for your organisation? Every company is different and has its own separate set of problems and advantages, so any plan you will use needs to be tailored to these specific characteristics.
There are more than simply cost advantages that can be achieved through the management of licensing and maintenance agreements across an organisations IT network. Productivity can be greatly by ensuring that users have the latest editions of software permitted under current licenses held, and communication within the corporation is aided when support staff know exactly what is in use on every computer under their control.
Cost Savings
As discussed before, perhaps the most persuading reason to implement SAM within your business is the potential financial savings that can be made. The profitability of your business is always going to be the bottom line so any strategy that can help to increase this profitability by lowering expenses is one that should be considered.
The most immediate way that SAM can help to reduce costs is by targeting any applications running on your corporate network 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.
By clearing these items of software that are no longer a benefit to the operation of your business you are streamlining a large portion of your IT network. Paying for unnecessary software licenses and support and maintenance contracts means that more finance can be spent on the critical sections of your IT infrastructure. Focusing your finances on these critical components will improve the overall performance of your IT department.
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 uncontrolled software on your IT system is ill advised, because when left unchecked it can become very unpredictable. This is becoming an increasingly annoying factor for network managers.
Unlicensed software applications 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 initial 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. Running a corporate IT system in this unmanaged 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 recover the situation? Running a complex software system without the correct support can create a metaphorical minefield when it comes to disaster recovery and can critically limit your responsiveness to unpredictable events.
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Implementing SAM in your Organisation
As previously discussed, there are numerous potential benefits to utilising a good SAM strategy within your business, both financial and otherwise. It is therefore important to determine which branches of software asset management you should implement first since some benefits will be realised more speedily than others.
This discovery process can be viewed as three primary phases that have to be undertaken to truly develop an accurate picture of the deployment of software assets within your organisation. These are:
Inventory
Inventory is the most basic function of the discovery cycle. It is crucial that an accurate inventory of software assets within your organisation is created to help your IT department to maintain baselines regarding your IT system.
Thankfully, this process can now be automated and even the largest of infrastructures can be searched and analysed in a relatively short period. Inventory should be able to identify your software assets regardless of their physical location or technological characteristics.
Capture
The second step in the discovery cycle is the capture of the software license entitlements that manage the software assets identified in the inventory. The capture process should gather entitlements regarding all of the software that exists on your system, even when the software is not currently used.
The element of human error can be avoided by using automatic tools that are specifically created to build a library of license entitlements. Tools that are currently available are very efficient at gathering 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 your software inventory to the repository of licensing data that were created in the last two stages. Errors may have occurred anywhere from the original paperwork for software to the latest audits performed on your IT network.
One crucial factor in the validation step is the ability to associate the license entitlements on your system to your company’s proof of entitlement. This will be vital 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 rich image of how your IT network is serving software packages to its users. It will be a lot simpler to identify particular trouble spots on your system, or sections of software usage that are no longer of any practical benefit to your activites.
You can now start a period of reconciliation on your network. You should compare the software programs that are actually employed on your network against the licensing and support entitlements that you are paying for and bridge any divides between the two.
The software spread in your network may include many hundreds or perhaps thousands of individual installations, and there may be any number of rules that may be involved with the licensing contracts you have in place. It is therefore a necessity to automate the reconciliation stage, using one or more tools to apply intelligent rules to the process.
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Compliancy and Flexibility with SAM
Many of the basic practices of a successful SAM strategy are based upon the principles laid 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 control of IT functions.
This library is a changing entity and is often updated with new ideas and techniques that cater to the ever changing IT environment of modern business. A good SAM strategy should be fluid enough to comply with the guidelines set out in the ITIL whilst meeting the changing requirements of the business within which it is actively utilised. This is an essential requirement of successful software asset management
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 suggestions that are designed to ensure that SAM is used 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 really be adhered to when designing a SAM strategy for your own company, although the level of detail included within can quickly become a daunting prospect. It is vital to remember that no matter what guidelines you follow when creating a software asset management strategy, whatever plan you decide to employ needs to aid your business rather than stifle it. Industry standards cannot simply be copied when it comes to applying them within your company.
Creating a complete and comprehensive software asset management strategy for your own company may actually never come to fruition. Your plan must be flexible to change and mature as your business does, and it must allow for modifications to your daily activities, no matter how small or fundamental they might be. This really is the key to a successful software asset management strategy.
Conclusion
It is easy to see that as the extent and importance of computer systems within your organisation grow, so does the need for good and efficient monitoring of these systems. Gone are the days when an IT department was a luxury that would sometimes progress the business. IT systems are now vital to the modern organisation.
As with other branches of any business, a number of different strategies should be considered and used in order to ensure the smooth running of day to day tasks. SAM should not be the only tool 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 think that your organisation is currently suffering from a lack of structured monitoring and management over its IT infrastructure, or that the possible benefits described in this article could manufacture a crucial market advantage over your competitors, then it would be well worth researching how software asset management could be employed within your organisation. There may be no time to spare.
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