Introduction
The extent to which computing has become a part of normal life and everyday business has prompted a change in the way management approaches how they manage the finances, the processes and the systems within a business. Technology becoming an increasing factor in business.
As technology becomes more widely used within an organisation and takes a more prominent vital within the vital processes of that company, it is necessary to make sure that an appropriate level of attention is given to this computing. Technological systems that may have previously been overlooked are now important elements in the decision making process.
Technology have come a long way during the past few years and are now seen as vital elements of any organisation. As such, they receive larger budgets but must also be able to manage a greater amount of work.
But once you have spent a substantial amount of your budget on developing an IT system and seen the circumstances 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 organisation and every environment will have different specifications and will present different issues. 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 company.
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 area of expertise and is becoming a more essential part of the modern business environment, particularly for businesses operating in the field of IT. Despite the many benefits of SAM, there are still a great many companies that are not utilising it to its full potential.
SAM is not simply an aid for support staff installing software across a large company network, but can be a critical tool to help improve performance at all levels of a company. The goals of SAM include monitoring costs of the IT infrastructure within a organisation, negating legal risks associated with incorrect software license usage and preserving 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 abstract 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 broad inspection of the software infrastructure of a company has been carried out.
Financial benefits remain the most motivating commercial factor when deciding to employ software asset management software within an organisation. Every company needs to make profit after all and profitability is a very measurable metric. The financial benefits of software asset management do certainly exist however.
An increasingly large amount of a organisation’s IT budget is spent on software licensing so there is a vital need to invest to correctly manage this spending. As businesses grow and diversify, their software requirements can change greatly and hardware and programs can swiftly become out of date. There is no requirement to spend money to maintain the licenses on this outdated software, which is where SAM really delivers an advantage.
software asset management is not limited to simply the technology of your organisation either. As a management cycle it will often involve many of the branches within a business, including Finance Human Resources, to make sure that it runs as cost-effectively as possible.
Software asset management can easily be achieved within your organisation through a feasible Centennial Discovery strategy that is tailored to your requirements.
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 correct 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 catered to these specific characteristics.
There are more than just financial advantages that can be made through the management of licensing and maintenance agreements across a companies IT system. Productivity can be hugely boosted by ensuring that staff have the newest editions of software permitted under current licenses held, and communication inside the business is helped when support staff know exactly what is in use on every computer under their control.
Cost Savings
As discussed before, perhaps the most convincing reason to implement software asset management 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 system that can help to increase this profitability by lowering expenses is one that should be evaluated.
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 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 support and maintenance agreements means that more finance can be spent on the critical sections of your IT system. Focusing your attention on these critical components will improve the overall performance of your IT department.
Mitigate Risk
A surprising amount of software that is actively 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 not advised, because when left unchecked it can become very unpredictable.
Unlicensed software programs can be introduced into an uncontrolled IT environment 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 control policies in place, users may also be able to install their own software onto the system. Operating a corporate IT system in this wild way will almost certainly lead to trouble.
The risk of running unlicensed software on your network is clear. When something goes wrong with the hardware or software platform behind your critical processes, how do you recover the situation? Running a complicated 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.
Of the many products and services available from a national Centennial distributor SAM is only one solution that can be utilised.
Implementing SAM in your Organisation
As previously mentioned, there are many potential benefits to employing a good SAM strategy within your organisation, both monetary and otherwise. It is vitally important to determine which parts of SAM you should deploy first since some benefits will be realised more speedily than others. Some may take a period of years to be fully felt.
This discovery process can be viewed as three fundamental areas that have to be performed to really develop an accurate picture of the deployment of IT assets within your business. These are:
Inventory
Inventory is the most basic stage of the discovery cycle. It is vital that an accurate audit of IT assets within your business is created to help your IT managers to maintain baselines regarding your IT network.
Thankfully, this process can now be made automatic and even the grandest of networks can be investigated and analysed in a reasonably short period. Inventory should be able to identify your IT assets regardless of their physical location or computing characteristics.
Capture
The second step in the discovery process involves the capture of the software license entitlements that cover 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. Without this information the inventory would be almost useless.
The risk of human error can be avoided by using automated tools that are specifically created to build a library of license entitlements. Packages that are currently employed are incredibly efficient at gathering accurate information.
Identification & Validation
The third process is to match up your software inventory to the repository of licensing data that were created in the last two stages. Errors may have been made anywhere from the original paperwork for software to the most recent audits undertaken on your IT system.
One critical factor in the validation stage is the ability to associate the license entitlements on your network to your company’s proof of entitlement. This will be vital if any disputes with software vendors arise as a consequence of the discovery cycle. You want to be as informed as possible in these circumstances.
Once these steps have been performed you will have built an incredibly rich picture of how your IT network is delivering software programs to its users. It will be a lot easier to identify particular trouble areas on your network, or areas of software usage that are no longer of any particular benefit to your activites.
You can now commence a period of reconciliation upon your network. You can compare the software programs that are actually installed on your network against the licensing and support contracts that you are paying for and bridge any divides between the two.
The software distribution in your network may include many hundreds or perhaps thousands of individual installations, and there may be any number of restrictions that may be involved with the licensing contracts you have in place. It is therefore a necessity to automate the reconciliation period, utilising one or more programs to apply intelligent rules to the process. These rules can be catered to the specific needs of your business
Employees who have previous experience working with a Centennial specialist firm might be able to provide an early insight into how software asset management can benefit your organisation.
Compliancy and Flexibility with SAM
Many of the basic practices of a successful software asset management strategy are based upon the concepts 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 operations.
This library is a changing publication and is often updated with new ideas and techniques that reflect the ever changing IT backdrop of modern business. A good SAM strategy should be fluid enough to follow the guidelines laid out in the ITIL whilst matching the changing needs of the business 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 suggestions 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 important part in achieving standardisation across an industry.
The ISO standard should certainly be adhered to when designing a SAM strategy for your own business, although the level of detail covered within can quickly become a daunting challenge. It is important to remember that no matter what recommendations you follow when planning a SAM strategy, whatever plan you decide to employ needs to help your organisation rather than stifle it.
Designing a full and comprehensive SAM strategy for your own business might actually never come to fruition. Your strategy must be flexible enough to adapt and mature as your business does, and it must allow for modifications to your daily tasks, no matter how small or fundamental they might be.
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 times when an IT branch was a bonus that would occasionally progress the business. Computer networks are now critical to the modern organisation. Critical systems need to be maintained to an appropriate level.
As with other branches of any business, a number of separate strategies should be evaluated and utilised in order to ensure the efficient running of day to day activities. software asset management should not be the only tool used to manage computing assets within your organisation, but rather one of a number of complimentary policies used to control the system as a whole. software asset management can go a long way toward aiding your business but should be helped by other techniques.
So if you think that your business is really suffering from a lack of planned monitoring and control over its IT infrastructure, or that the potential benefits described in this article could manufacture a critical market advantage over your competitors, then it would be well worth researching how SAM could be employed within your company.
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