Category: SAM Series

SAM Maturity Assessment: What Is It & How Is It Measured? 

We all have things we like to put off for as long as possible, such as laundry, unread emails, or getting back into jogging. For many companies, software asset management is treated the same way: exhausting and hopeless while constantly being put off until it is too late. But a mature SAM environment is far easier to maintain once it’s done, much like household chores. Taking the time now to understand SAM maturity can save you time and money in the long-run. 

First, understand that your Software Asset Management program takes time to mature. As with everything else, not being very good at something is the first step to mastering it. The same is true about your Software Asset Management; it takes time for your company to get organized and start being effective with your Software Asset Management. 

So, how can a SAM maturity assessment help to improve your SAM effectiveness?  

At MetrixData360, we know you’ll see better results if you have a firm understanding of Software Asset Management, so we’ve put together this outline that answers what the 5 stages of SAM maturity are and how to reach each milestone along your SAM journey.

What is SAM Maturity?

Having a mature SAM simply means that you are running an optimized SAM program< and you figure out just how mature your SAM process is by conducting a SAM Maturity Assessment, which provides companies with a sample view of their software asset management in present time. This allows them to have a starting point to work their way up towards total SAM optimization. 

5 Stages of SAM Maturity

Chaos

In the early stages of Software Asset Management, the data you collect will be scattered, unreliable, and incomplete. Your environment, as the name implies, is chaotic. 

SAM teams at this point are dealing with undocumented assets, calling help desks, and an inventory system that leaves the company open to paying out huge amounts should they receive an audit. Companies here are in trouble because their data is often spread across multiple spreadsheets and owned by different people (who often don’t talk). The good thing is, if a company recognizes it is in a chaotic state, it can begin to fix the situation.  

The primary job of a Software Asset Manager in this stage is simply getting a handle on what they have and understanding what quality of data they are working with. Companies at this stage are often either completely lacking in quality data, or they have insufficient policies in place to govern their IT environments, meaning this clean-up process can be time-consuming.

Reactive

An organization at this stage of SAM maturity has set up their most basic SAM environment.  

With a discovery tool implemented to collect software inventory, a company in the Reactive stage can really begin to start drawing the map of their environment. Many software asset management tools in the market today give the impression that full compliance and complete visibility into their environment is gained after you install the product.  

However, this vastly oversimplifies how long the process will take and the type of effort that is involved in getting your software environment under control. The next step from here is to collect license data to compare against the software inventory that has been gathered. 

Receiving an audit from a software vendor in this stage will seem more like damage control, with your company scrambling to collect data and struggling to present it in a way that challenges the auditor’s findings.

Compliance Plus

Congratulations! You’ve made it to compliance! Now that a company has their licensing information as well as the software inventory, the real fun can begin as licenses and software are paired. 

At this point, a company should have the info necessary to defend themselves from an audit and the larger picture of their software environment should be getting clearer. The next steps are to apply automated reporting of software inventory and license entitlements to ensure continued compliance. 

Optimize

Now that you’re up to date with your licensing, it’s time to find some savings. Once automated reports are set up, finding spaces where your organization can save money is key. 

At this point, you should have the full view of your software environment and your focus should be on optimizing your licenses by applying the correct sized licenses to your end users, identifying unused licenses, and leveraging your existing inventory when negotiating new contracts. 

Software asset management can now prove a tool for the IT department to track the use and overall value of software assets. This will give them the data they need to advocate for needed software, retire software that no longer has value and project future usage.

Amplify Value

Your software environment is ticking along and saving you money. Now, it’s time to take those savings and make them grow. 

This stage of SAM maturity is focused on the future. Often, we have seen companies buy their software simply based on what they have purchased before but now that you have reached this stage, you can focus on where you want your software profile to go.  

Your SAM team should be reaching out to vendors and building relationships to help maintain compliance, negotiate better deals, and planning for end-of-lifecycle events. 

The savings in this stage are reaped over time – they are the cumulative year-over-year savings from knowing exactly what your organization needs by planning for the future. Once you have reached this stage, your company can make calculated spending decisions when it comes time for contract negotiations and renewals.

Benefits of a SAM Maturity Assessment

It is nearly impossible to set up an effective SAM program without knowing how mature your program already is. Each step of SAM maturity leads you to the next step, eventually guiding you to full compliance and huge savings. 

Running a SAM maturity assessment is an excellent way to mitigate risks associated with a chaotic SAM environment, such as surprise audits, large true-up fees, and production slowdowns due to improper licensing.

Implementing an Effective SAM Maturation Plan

These goals might all sound wonderfully optimistic but how are you supposed to get to that seemingly impossible goal of having your entire software estate under control? 

Getting your SAM team to a mature position is a large undertaking and can take several weeks to complete. In fact, don’t be surprised if it takes two or more years to get to the Amplify Value stage across your entire software footprint.  

According to ITAM Review’s article, Six Stages to Building a SAM Practice, one of the most common mistakes that companies fall prey to when trying to get their SAM under control, is trying to do too much too fast, leaving people feeling overwhelmed, confused, and discouraged from continuing. 

To keep you organized during the process, below are the three crucial steps to building your way to a mature SAM strategy.

Plan

The first step to bringing your SAM team to maturity is to plan. This sounds simple, but having a step by step process laid out keeps your team on track and focused on what needs to be done next. Often SAM teams just begin pulling data and trying to assign licenses without a plan, which ends up causing an already complex process to become more complex. 

Sit down with your team and draw up a roadmap to success that everyone can access. This map should detail the steps required to hit each milestone of SAM maturity, and each team member’s role in reaching them. 

Build

Now that you have your plan laid out, it is time to start building the SAM machine that will keep your organization in compliance. 

Each member of your team needs to know exactly what needs to be done. This is where you should be implementing tools to get the cleanest data you can get your hands on. 

Remember the golden rule of data during his period: garbage in, garbage out.  

The better the data your team is collecting about your instances, software editions, devices, and license types, the better your position will be once you come into compliance. Make sure that you get a SAM tool in place that can effectively monitor your software estate. If you’d like more information on making an informed decision about buying your SAM tool, visit our article What are Software Asset Management (SAM) Tools: Functions, Advantages, and Disadvantages.

Maintain

Now that your SAM team has brought your organization into compliance, it’s time to set up a maintenance program. Luckily, now that your environment has been cleaned up, maintaining compliance and a strong ELP is much easier than working from a chaotic state. 

Focusing on the future is imperative for good SAM maintenance. Preparing for end-of-lifecycle by beginning negotiations early, planning for growth in the company and the licenses that will be necessary for new employees, and creating positive relationships with vendors are all imperative to good SAM maintenance. 

Within your company, foster a strong software awareness mindset, since SAM isn’t a one time thing; it must be an ongoing demonstration of discipline and dedication.

A Better SAM Solution

We know that building a mature SAM position is a daunting task; there are many stages that need to be handled accurately since mistakes at one stage can cause further disruptions down the line, and the amounts of money at stake can reach into the millions of dollars. 

Fortunately, MetrixData360’s SAM Compass program can help to ease that burden. Our robust Software Asset Management as a Service offering is perfect for organizations that need the expertise of a licensing team, without the headache of training.  

While crafting a mature SAM position is no overnight task, an experienced team can do it in a fraction of the time due to the steep learning curve faced by any new people to the field – license agreements are complex contracts, often spanning across several documents. Luckily, our team here at MetrixData360 has experience with all major licensing formats from the major software publishers. 

If you would like any more information about building a SAM team or maturing your SAM strategy, please read through the educational materials in our learning center, or feel free to reach out to our Director of Client Success and we’ll get back to you in 24 hours.

These are scary times we live in; toilet paper is hard to come by all of a sudden, we’re all staying home if we can, and washing our hands for at least 20 seconds (although that one you probably should have been doing already). The Software publishers are showing a lot of grace towards their customers and prospective clients during this time; they have not been aggressive in their sales, they are delaying renewals, and have limited their audits.

Despite their leniency now, the long-lasting effects that COVID-19 could have on our global market could means that software publishers may be desperate to make up for their loss of sales during this pandemic. In these uncertain times, many of our customers are asking what will this mean for their software budgets? We know that the organizations that come out of these messes with minimal damage are the ones that act fast and work twice as hard. At MetrixData 360, we like to keep you informed about how you can curb the damage of this crisis.

Areas to Reduce Software Costs During a Crisis

• Maintenance Contracts

At a time when it is necessary to be wise with our spending, examining your maintenance contracts is a great place to start. If you are running old versions of the software in question, your maintenance is nothing but an expensive support policy. Remember, software publishers make 80% margins on Support/Maintenance, so be sure it is something you need. We have seen more than one customer paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to run a version that is five years old, with no plans to upgrade, and having placed only two or three support calls on the product in a year, as opposed to once per quarter.

• Subscription Contracts

The devil is in the details, so read your contract over to see how and when you can reduce your license counts. If the timing isn’t right for your contract to be rearranged, brainstorm ways to get your vendor to negotiate with you. It is likely that they will only become more unwilling to reduce counts as the crisis nears the end.

• Pre-Committed Cloud Spends (Particularly with AWS/Azure)

Heading to the Cloud? Since being able to work remotely is more important than ever before, it may be tempting to rush any Cloud deployment your company may be planning. However, rushing to the Cloud is how many of our clients wind up with wasted spending, which is the last thing your company needs right now. Since the transition to the Cloud has often resulted in unforeseen spikes in cost, see if you can put off any scheduled Cloud deployment to prevent you from paying for any unforeseen Cloud costs during this time of crisis. Tell the vendor that you would like to move your deployment to next year or the year after, to free up your business to focus on more short-term cash flow. If your company is already situated in the Cloud, make sure you are only paying for what you need, if you discover anything you are not using, shut it off, so that you can stop paying for it.

• Consider Renewing and/or Extending Your Contracts Now

Contract negotiations are expected to get tougher following this crisis, as software vendors struggle to recover lost sales. Therefore, it’s important to get ahead of this, open-up a negotiation of new terms and conditions with your software vendors as soon as possible to see if they are not willing to renew, or at least extend your contract, given the tumultuous nature of the situation. In order to conduct a successful contract negotiation, you will need to have accurate inventory data and the ability to determine the future needs of your company (as best you can, given the circumstances). This is achieved through following an effective software asset management process.

• Look at Maintenance Costs Compared to Rebuy Scenarios

Sometimes it is better to rebuy a whole new license compared to paying for upkeep – especially when it comes to old support contracts that have annual increases. After several years, simply rebuying the license can give you greater value.

• Look for Spots that IT Can Re-Architect to Save License Costs

The internet is currently speckled with articles for how to keep yourself busy at home and organizing is one of them. The same thing can be applied to your IT Infrastructure. Clearing out all the clutter and reorganizing your space to be more cost-effective right after your return to the office is a great way to realize potential savings. See if you cannot create a dev cluster, or group older versions on the same hosts/clusters, for example.

• Review Contracts and All Clauses that Speak to Licensing or Costs

While you are self-isolating or social distancing, you can review your software contracts. Perhaps you can save money on Disaster Recovery, or on a dev/test product that you’re paying for full production licenses for. There may easily be alternative licensing types that can save you money that you never even thought of before or perhaps you can negotiate a special use clause for this situation.

• Unneeded Licenses Under Support

If you have licenses that are supported by your company that aren’t needed or used, you can negotiate a one-time trade in. This can get you things you can use or will need in the future.

• Review Your IT Environment for Duplicate Functionality

Look for areas where you have two products serving the same function such as security software, consider using the Security licenses from MS instead of Symantec/McAfee, for example. Now is a good time to start consolidating vendors to streamline your licensing structure.

• Review Usage / Metering / Functionality

Now is the time to reclaim licenses and put them back in stock for future needs. See if you can negotiate out unused subscriptions or licenses from maintenance contracts or consider moving employees from Advanced to Standard suites to decrease costs. It’s more important than ever that you pay for only what you need.

BONUS – Annual Price Increase in Support

If you have an annual price increase, try your best to negotiate it out of your contract. If you signed a multi-year deal with increasing year over year prices, negotiate for the current year’s price, given the situation.

Software Asset Management to Save Your Business Money

During this time of crisis and the time of recovery that will be necessary afterwards, software asset management for your business might seem like an expensive luxury, but in fact, it has the potential of granting your company massive Return on Investment. Now is not the time to have an under-licensed or over-licensed software environment, which with any way you tip it, you will risk losing money either through paying heavy auditing fines or through paying for too many licenses. By successfully implementing software asset management you gain the following:

1. 1. • Control Over Your Software: your spending is no longer dictated by what the software publishers tell you, whose primary motivation is for you to spend more and more money with them. Instead your spending is dictated by your company’s needs and growth plans. This means no more wastage as companies without a proper software asset management process implemented are expected to have roughly 30% of their software licensing environment be either wasted or underutilized.
      • Reduced Security Risk: Could you imagine a security breach right in the middle of this chaos? That would be quite the when-it-rains-it-pours situation. As we covered in our article, How SAM can Improve Your Cyber Security, Software Asset Management can reduce the risk of your company facing exposure to a software breach, since hackers will often use old, unaccounted for software as a way to wriggle into your environment. Software asset management can be a valuable asset for your IT security by providing visibility into your licensing and usage, exposing any malicious activity.
      • Accuracy and Peace of Mind: These troubled times can lead to a lot of uncertainty and software asset management can at least take your software off of your mind. If you know what is in your software environment, and you know that it is doing its job in the most effective way possible, then you will be ready and capable should you be faced with an audit.

For more information on what Software Asset Management can do for your company, check out our article, What is Software Asset Management?

A Message From MetrixData 360

We recognize that it is important that we do what we can to get through this. We need to slow the spread of the virus by staying home whenever possible and by practicing social distancing.

At MetrixData 360, we take this pandemic quite seriously and we extend our deepest gratitude to public health officials, researchers and team members on the front lines and to the world governments who have taken extensive action to battling this pandemic. It is important for businesses to be aware of the long-term effects that this virus could have regarding your software licensing environment. Software asset management can save your company money at a time when it is important to be responsible with how funds are allocated. For more information on how MetrixData 360 can support your business through this economic turmoil, you can contact us and we’d be happy to answer any of your software licensing related questions.

Implementing Software Asset Management for Beginners

Implementing a strong software asset management strategy into your company can have massive long-term benefits in savings and overall software visibility.

When you are just beginning your software asset management journey however, all the individual data points can be overwhelming and often discouraging for companies with a large and complicated software profile.

At MetrixData 360, we teach our clients how to implement a strong software asset management program. So at glance, what does it take to get your company on track to an optimized and cost-effective software profile?

Why Implement Software Asset Management?

The first thing you need to do on your journey to a fully realized software profile is convincing your department and possibly your senior management that SAM is a good idea. There are many benefits that can be recognized in a strong software asset management solution, such as:

• Having a strong software profile in place will mean that you will be better equipped to defend your company from any unwarranted software penalties.
• Software audits have proven immensely profitable for the software vendors, so there’s nothing stopping them from coming back over and over again for another audit. It’s not a matter of if you’ll be audited, it’s a matter of when and how often.
• You will be in a position where you can verify the accuracy of your data and you will have better visibility into your spending and your usage, which means you will be able to eliminate waste and deal with potential compliance issues before they are brought up in an audit. Software Asset Management puts you back in the driver’s seat when it comes to your software.
• With SAM, you can check in on your software health and security. Hackers will often use old and unmonitored software as a means of breaching your security system.

Having an organized software estate and eliminating any redundancies will give your IT security less to manage and more visibility into what has been patched and what hasn’t. If you’d like to know more about the security benefits of SAM, check out our article How SAM can Improve your Cyber Security.

Software Asset Management empowers your IT department, as it gives them the ability to track the value of deployed software. SAM gives them the hard data that they need to advocate for the implementation of much needed software and to retire software that is no longer of value.

Where Do You Start To Implement Software Asset Management?

After you’ve been given the go-ahead to implement SAM, you will find that your software environment is a vast and overwhelming landscape, especially if no form of software asset management has been attempted in the past. How do you even begin to get organized?

• Determine Your SAM Maturity Levels

Software asset management isn’t a switch you can flick on and off. Although many SAM tools market themselves as offering complete SAM maturity immediately upon installation of their product, this is hardly ever the case.

You gain visibility slowly over an extended period of time. Depending on the size and state of your software profile, reaching full SAM maturity could take anywhere from a few months to a little over a year.

The first step in developing a strong Software Asset Management profile is simply determining where you are in the process. This means that you will be able to map out a plan to get you to where you want to go. There are several stages to SAM maturity (it’s most often presented in five stages but Certero only counts four):

1. 1. • Chaotic, which is exactly what it sounds like. There is no semblance of software visibility present. Your only goal at this stage is to figure out what you have.
      • Reactive is where you have a sense of what is in your profile and your goal from here is to determine what licenses you have and compare that against what is in your system.
      • Compliance Plus means that you have reached full compliance; your data is visible, and you can properly defend yourself against any audit should one arise. From here you can work towards automating the process, so that this level of compliance is assured to continue.
      • Optimization means that once you have your licenses in order, and you’ve reached full visibility, you can begin to find ways your company can save money and increase the value of what you have in your network.
      • Amplified Value, now that you’ve been able to save money, you can reinvest that money back into your software environment to help it grow.

• Determine What Processes You Should Implement

It is important to figure out which of the many processes software asset management implements is right for your business. There are a few core processes that gathers vital information into your SAM visibility. According to ITAM Reviews’ An Introduction to Software Asset Management, these processes include:

1. 1. • Determining Software Use – Establish what users are permitted to do with the software they have installed on their machines.
      • Software Procurement – How do you properly purchase a new software instance?
      • Software Authorization and Deployment – How is new software requested and what is the process for approval and deployment?
      • Recycling with Starters, Movers, and Leavers – How is software given to new employees? What happens when an employee moves departments or offices? What happens to an employee’s software when they leave the company? How is it redistributed back into your company’s infrastructure?
      • Disaster Recovery – Should an unexpected incident occur, how will critical IT services be maintained until the incident has passed?
      • License Compliance – How does your company determine that license compliance is met and how do you guarantee that non-compliance issues are addressed?

• Find the Right Tools and People for the Project

The next thing you need is the right equipment to get the job done. When choosing a SAM tool for your company, according to ITAM Reviews’ article: An Introduction to Software Asset Management; as well as conclusions drawn from our own experience, there are many things to consider, such as:

1. 1. • A tool won’t give you complete visibility immediately, software asset management is a process
      • Tools can easily apply duplicates, especially if your network has unique naming conventions
      • Tools struggle to account for Cloud Mobility, different License Metrics, or bundled purchases
      • Tools can accidentally mark your test environments as full production deployments
      • Tools are great for inventory data, but they will often fail to account for circumstantial data such as Edition types
      • Check the compatibility of the SAM tool with your environment or any other SAM tools you already have implemented
      • How will the tool impact the user experience, if at all?
      • Is your infrastructure strong enough to support the tool?
      • How does the tool vendor issue updates or patches? How will those changes affect the tool and its performance in your system?
      • How does the tool gather data? Is there any downtime that is experienced as a result of the tool gathering data?
      • Does the tool vendor offer any support?

Ensure that you keep this in mind when purchasing your tool, as often companies with an insufficient SAM tool will resort to either buying another SAM tool or supplementing any missing information manually and both solutions are far from ideal.

Next, you’ll need to find someone who can own the project. SAM is not something that can be simply thrown at procurement,for example. Software Asset Management is a full-time job. You have a few options at your disposal when it comes to hiring the right people:

Hire a Software Asset Management Team

While hiring a team of full-time software asset managers offers you a team that shares your company values, adding to your company’s headcount is expensive in the long run and offers less expertise and diversity of experience than a software licensing consultant.

Third-Party Software License Consultants

Perhaps their expense can seem more costly upfront, but software license consultants bring instant expertise and the ability to scale their team according to your demands. The savings that they can bring to your company can be huge.

Hybrid Solution

This popular option offers the best of both worlds. Companies who opt into this hybrid solution will have their own tools installed onto their network but will outsource the management of it to a software license consultant. This setup is ideal for companies with highly sensitive data or companies who have their day-to-day management under control but would like assistance with a large project such as an audit or a contract renewal.

For more information on the options available to you, check out our article Hire a Software Asset Management Expert or Do it Yourself? The Pros and Cons of Each.

Want to Get Started?

Software Asset Management is quickly becoming an essential element of any strong business strategy.

There are audits to defend against, software licenses to optimize, money to save, and asset management can give you all of that.

Getting a handle on your software estate means less time scrambling for data, less money being wasted by untracked resources, and less of being at the mercy of your software vendors.

At MetrixData 360, we empower our clients with the tools they need to make smart spending decisions when it comes to their software. We have helped hundreds of clients save millions of dollars in their software estate

If you’d like to learn more about how we can get you started on the path to a fully mature Software Asset Management Strategy, check out our SAM as a Service Page. As you begin this journey please remember, you don’t have to do it alone!

Book a Meeting With Your New SAM Expert

A security breach in your infrastructure doesn’t just mean monetary loss but the tarnished reputation incurred by having your clients’ information exposed. A breach in cyber security could have serious negative effects on the future growth of your business.

It may seem on the surface that IT Security and Software Asset Management (SAM) don’t have that much in common – but they do!

Your company’s IT security team is usually worried about detailed levels of information, such as ensuring all products have necessary security patches and that there are no tampered files that might contain malware. The software asset managers, on the other hand, will not usually be interested in such details and instead will be focused on determining the usage of specific software or software access rights, something that would be considered minute and trivial to someone from security.

For this reason, IT security often overlooks software asset management as a potential resource in eliminating exposure to cyberthreats.

At MetrixData360, we take the security of your data seriously and know that Software Asset Management can not only save you money but help keep your data safe with increased visibility of your software environment.

Software Asset Inventory Means Cyber Security Visibility

Few successful hackers would attempt to butt heads with the firewall of a company’s infrastructure. Their approach is usually more opportunistic, going after weak points in a company’s structure such as unapproved apps, unmanaged devices, and poor password protection, according to Microsoft’s article Minimize Cyber Security risk with Software Asset Management.

Not knowing what is in your software estate (having unaccounted devices whose usage and activities are not being tracked) gives hackers the opening into your infrastructure that they’re waiting for. However, accurate tracking of what you have in your software profile is one of the many services that Software Asset Management brings to the table.

With Software Asset Management inventory tools in place, you will be able to know what you are using and contrast that against what you’re paying for. Traditionally, this has been seen as a way to save money (and it is!). But it also adds visibility into your software estate, including the ability to match machine to user and location, which can prove vital information for the security of your software profile.

Software Updates, Security Patches, and General Software Health

Software Asset Management can help reduce your security vulnerability by making sure that the software you have installed in your estate is healthy and up to date.

According to IDC’s article The Business Value of Software Asset Management, cybercriminals will often take advantage of devices left exposed due to end-of-life IT systems and software that is no longer receiving product updates and security patches from their vendor sources.

Failure to keep software up-to-date can leave your devices exposed to hackers. However not every patch that a software vendor offers is provided as a free add-on to their software, and software asset management can help determine what you are at liberty to install and what you are not.

According to Deloitte’s article Minimizing the Threat Landscape Through Integration of Software Asset Management and Security, having strong software asset management in place will keep rogue malware from worming its way into your system. Formal requests may prevent but not completely eliminate the threat of such an event occurring.

Security tools need to be in place to control access, while SAM discovery tools can provide a deeper look into your software estate by evaluating what is installed in your software environment, including what employees might download from the Internet onto their work computers without the permission of the IT department. Software Asset Management can also give you the data to ensure that if you have deployed an anti-virus software, it has been deployed everywhere.

While both Security tools and SAM tools provide different types of data, each tool can provide valuable information to secure your infrastructure from outside attackers.

Saving Money and Cutting Damages Through Software Asset Management

According to Security’s article, 6 Ways Software Asset Management Can Help Minimize Security Risk, SAM’s main goal is to cut your spending with software, whether that is through knowing where you are liable to receive a software audit, or if it is areas where you are overspending by purchasing too much software compared to what you’re using.

By cutting extra waste, you allow your IT security team to manage a smaller software estate that is devoid of redundancies. Having a more organized software estate will mean that patch management can be conducted quickly and efficiently. According to Microsoft’s article Minimize Cybersecurity Risk with Software Asset Management, even in the event of a security breach, software asset management can help create a quick response to threats and ensure that your security system has an effective defense strategy against an attack by having an accurate picture of what is in your system.

According to Phara McLachlan, the collaboration between the IT security and software asset management teams can greatly improve the speed of your IT network. IT security has information that could help the SAM team do its job, such as standards and data on blacklist, software white lists, and a user’s last login information. Software asset management also has their own information that IT security can make use of, such as information on software installations, versions and editions, ownership, location, entitlement, assets and CIs.

How MetrixData360 Can Help Your Cyber Security

At MetrixData360, we understand the priority of cyber security when it comes to your data. Making sure that your software is clean of all threats could mean the difference between thriving in your industry and going down in history as the unfortunate victim in a hacker scandal.

The SAM Compass package provides you with an accurate licensing position and shows where you are overspending to optimize your software profile. It also gives you the ability to monitor your new applications and detect threats that enter your environment. If you’d like to learn more about whether SAM Compass is right for your company, click the link below to head over to our SAM Compass page.

Things You Should Consider Before You Buy A Software Asset Management Tool

Software Asset Management (SAM) tools offer tremendous value. According to BCS the Chartered Institute of IT, 20 to 30% of an overall IT budget goes to software licenses and maintenance fees that can be minimized with the use of an effective SAM tool. Before you buy a SAM tool, however, there are a few questions you should ask yourself.

The first question you need to ask is do you even need a SAM tool? While at MetrixData360, we advise companies to have some sort of SAM tool in their environment, we understand that it might not be the best financial move for everyone.

Here are five key factors to consider before you purchase your Software Asset Management tool.

1. The Size Of Your Company

According to OMTCO’s Six Questions that Managers Should Ask About Software Asset Management, if you are a small company with only a few servers to keep in check, then you’re already at fairly low risk of receiving a software audit. Vendors use software audits as a means of inflating their revenue, so they only have eyes for the big fish from whom they can squeeze a profit from.

If you have a small software estate, your licensing will also be small and easily manageable, and you can keep things organized with just a couple of spreadsheets in case that you do receive a software audit. If that is the case, then a SAM tool probably won’t provide that much assistance.

2. How Complex Is Your Infrastructure?

Complexity is a breeding ground for human error. If your company has any of the following attributes then it might be time to consider whether or not you buy a software asset management tool:

3. What Will the Function of Your Software Asset Management Tool Be? Inventory or Software License Management?

SAMsource Library’s article Do You Need SAM Tools talks about how in the SAM tools market, you’ll probably come across SAM tools with a primary focus in one of the two following areas:

With inventory tools, your SAM tool will track what you have installed on your system. It might sound unnecessary, but there are many software estates out there that have old accounts from past employees or old servers locked away in storage that are still licensed and considered active in the eyes of your software vendor. Inventory tools can also be an excellent way to monitor your security, which can prevent viruses or malware to name a few benefits.

While there are many tools that offer inventory data, it is not the only important data point as license management is equally important, so you need SAM tool that can do both. If you buy a software asset management tool that lacks the ability to manage licenses, it will be harder to configure the tool to meet your needs.

Inventory tools will usually come with an add-on feature that offers license management, but their effectiveness might be lacking since license management is more of an afterthought behind inventory collection. What is worse, some of the older SAM tool models were not equipped to the ability to track multiple forms of licensing metrics effectively and struggle with Cloud-based systems, which is something you should be aware of while purchasing your tool.

4. Will the SAM Tool Easily Fit Into Your Existing System?

Before you contact any SAM tool vendors to talk about a purchase, BCS points out in their Guide to Selecting a SAM Tool that it is important to consider if the process is worth the effort or if the only thing you’ll get out of the deal is a migraine. It’s important to establish if the SAM tool in question can even be integrated into your system easily.

Consider your IT asset inventory tools, your procurement systems, your HR, and all the other systems that interconnect with one another throughout your business and ask if the SAM tool in question can be effectively incorporated. Take time to consider if the SAM tool that is being installed is also compatible with any other SAM tools in your system.

You also need to establish that the tools that you are thinking of purchasing meet the demands presented by your software’s unique environment. This requires that they communicate with IT landscapes and offer information on features and pricing as well.

5. Will You Also Need to Put Someone in Charge of Your SAM?

Merely purchasing the tool might not be enough if you want to obtain full control over your software estate. Making sure that everything is organized in the case of a software audit might mean hiring someone who can own your SAM tools. Software asset managers will ensure the tools are running properly and gathering the data you need to create an accurate Estimated License Position.

Software Asset Managers, or third-party software consultants like MetrixData360, have quite the versatile role, according to the Vector Network’s article Back to the Basics: Roles of The Software Asset Manager. The job entails managing the SAM tool, handling software requests, purchasing and deploying new software, ensuring that the company is ready for an audit, and utilizing reporting and documentation tactics. If you feel like your company can offer enough of these types of tasks to fill a workday, consider if a SAM manager would be a useful addition to your workforce.

Along with a Software Asset Manager or Software Consultants, you will also need to consider what sort of systems and procedures will be set in place that will determine how data will be collected, analyzed, and verified.

If your company is large enough, hiring a whole team might be in order to help you remain within compliance and to maximize efficiency with your software licensing, as EY says in their article Software Asset Management: 3 basics all companies should get right.

How to Verify if the SAM Data is Accurate

If you do end up purchasing SAM tools, they will do you little good if you cannot prove that they are accurate. According to the ITAM review’s Verifying Asset Accuracy, the best way to validate the data your SAM tools collect is by doing the following:

For More Information

SAM tools are so important to making sure you are within compliance with your software vendor and to make sure that any software audits are conducted as painlessly as possible. For that reason, you’ll need to make an informed decision about your purchase. All that matters is that you have a strategy in place before the next auditor darkens your doorway. At MetrixData360, our goal is to save you money and to make sure you make the smartest spending decision for your company.

Fostering CFO and CIO Collaboration in Software Asset Management

As a CIO, you’re trying to make sure your company stays ahead with the latest technology, and you recognize software asset management is vital for the health of your IT budget. Not only can Software Asset Management track your inventory and make sure that you remain compliant with your licenses, it can also decrease your software spend by 20% or more over an extended period. But how do you sell SAM to your CFO?

According to a survey performed by Gartner and the Financial Executives Research Foundation, 42% of IT departments answered to the CFO and 26% of all IT investments were approved by the CFO as opposed to the CIO, who only approved 5% of all investments.

So, the question remains, how can you convince your CFO of SAM’s importance?

At MetrixData360, the decision-makers we frequently speak with are in both finance and the IT departments, and so we are familiar with how to effectively communicate with both. Here are some benefits and talking points to use when go to sell SAM to your CFO.

Digital Transformation Makes Technology Important to the CFO

A CFO’s job isn’t simply to horde as much money as possible, they’re not a dragon. Their job is to see the company grow through smart investments.

One of the reasons why the CFO and the CIO have often butted heads in the past has been due to conflicting goals. A CIO’s job is to enhance the business through monitoring the technological systems that are in place and deploying more effective ones. Therefore, a CIO would appreciate technology and the need to upgrade older systems. Meanwhile, the CFO would see such an upgrade as an unnecessary investment when compared to the outlay of capital, if the current system performed the job adequately.

Finances and technology are now the two most important departments in the modern business world, and many CFOs, if they want their company to succeed, need to understand the value of technology.

In fact, creating a mentorship relationship between the CFO and the CIO is one way in which the CFO can gain knowledge about the importance of technology in the company’s operations, despite technology not being their field of expertise. If the CFO understands the value of technology, they can often become an advocate for it, instead of a form of adversity.

Plan How You are Going to Present Your Request to the CFO

There are actually many benefits that software asset management can bring to a CFO if you present it in the right manner. Auditboard’s article 7 Ways to Win the Budget Argument with Your CFO offers the following suggestions:

Keeping these factors in mind will help you create the type of argument that will win the CFO over.

Don’t Expect the CFO to Understand the Importance of SAM

A CFO has to worry constantly about the return on investments. For SAM, that return doesn’t seem to exist because SAM done effectively seemingly does nothing at all. A strong SAM strategy means that your business isn’t disrupted by a software audit and your department’s days aren’t wasted by data retrieval projects or long drawn out negotiations.

Most importantly, there isn’t a massive sum of money that the company suddenly needs come up with to pay off penalties for unlicensed software. In short, business carries on as usual. Such a non-tangible return might seem uninspiring to a CFO.

Before you attempt to sell SAM to your CFO, consider their role in a software audit: damage control. They’re brought to the meeting for two reasons:

Imagine what sort of thoughts might be racing through your mind having that hot mess dropped in your lap. You’d probably be wondering how things could go so sideways so fast, and now you have what feels like someone else’s mess to clean up. Since they’re not involved in most of the process, they might not understand what role software asset management has in the IT Department’s ability to control software costs or within a software audit.

CFOs Want as Little Risk as Possible with High Return Value and SAM Can Give Them That

Despite how they want a company to grow, budgets are based on the ability to plan, so unforeseen risks and surprises are factors that make CFOs nervous.

Of course, despite how much SAM can appear on the outside to be nothing but expensive tools with difficult-to-explain returns, SAM is a perfect tool for lowering compliancy risks and avoiding a huge payout that CFOs would hate to deal with.

Here are just a few more points that can be used to sell SAM to your CFO:

Getting the CFO on board with the software asset management strategy of a company can prove critical for its implementation. Regardless of what method you choose, you need a SAM strategy in place in order to ensure compliance and software efficiency. At MetrixData360, we have spent seven years managing risk and optimizing software licensing spending. If you’re ready to cut costs in your software asset management, then visit our Contact Us page to get a free consultation today!

Why Hiring the Right SAM Expert Matters

While it’s true Software Asset Management might not be the mostly widely understood industry, it is no less important to the impact on your IT Budget. When you hire a SAM expert that knows what they’re doing, you will ensure that your software environment is in compliance with any software vendors you have contracts with, your organization’s IT infrastructure is compliant and up to date, and, if done correctly, will return money to your IT Budget by decreasing your overall year-over-year software spend through optimization.

At Metrixdata360, our eighty years’ experience in this industry has left us knowing exactly what a quality Software Asset Manager should look like. If they perform their job correctly, you will rest easy knowing your compliance against your software contracts is backed by solid data and you are getting the most out of your software budget.

The Choices for Picking your Software Asset Management Expert

At the helm of an organized Software Asset Management project you will need a strong SAM expert, and there are three options you can select from: you can install an internalized team, you can hire an external source, or you can select a hybrid of the two. In this blog post, we will go over the three types of resources in depth so that you can decide which one is right for you.

Role of a Software Asset Management Expert

Before you hire a SAM expert, it’s important to understand what a SAM expert does. Their role doesn’t end simply with the deployment of software. They also track a software’s usage to make sure that you remain compliant with the vendor and to optimize a software’s cost efficiency. This means they are the ones who will find where your spending with a vendor can be cut, and will negotiate for these better terms during your next contract renewal.

They keep your licenses in order using SAM tools and IT assistance, and they will also play a vital role should you be audited. The software auditors will come after your data to prove that you are out of compliance and for that you will need your Software Asset Manager to oversee the collection of that data and the proper use of your SAM tools.

Hiring an In-House Software Asset Management Expert

Hiring an in-house software asset manager can be a great investment for your company. They can really own the project of software assets and can get to know your architecture inside and out. Usually a software asset management team is extremely valuable for the daily management of software assets. The first thing you want to look for in your future software asset management expert is their experience.

ITAM’s article Software Asset Management Analyst Job Description talks about how typically, software asset managers have a history in finance, business, risk management, or following the more obvious route, Senior IT and/or software development. Moving on to their experience, according to KPMG’s SAM expert training outline, Software Asset Managers need to have a proven track record of handling a project’s setup and management while balancing stakeholder relationships.

They will need to know software licensing in and out, from license agreements to metrics and scenarios, so a history in the legal field of software compliance should also be considered an asset. Your future SAM expert will need to be a master at the verbal and written communication required to conduct vendor relations and contract renewals effectively. Lastly, a strong SAM expert will serve you very little without having an effective SAM tool on their side along with the ability to harness that SAM tool.

Therefore, the skills to learn and manage your software environment should be considered a strong personality trait. If you have a member of your staff already in mind for the task of your new SAM expert but they lack the education, training for Software Asset Management is also available through ITIL and ISO 19770 training courses, which educate on the relevant standards and legislation that govern the industry.

Outsourcing Your Software Asset Management

As covered in from the ITAM Review with an internalized team, you save time and resources that would have otherwise been spent coordinating with the third-party team. However, few companies have the resources and knowledge needed to build their own internalized team to manage their software assets and that is why many companies opt into a partnership with a third-party SAM expert like us.

If you’ve decided on a third-party SAM expert that looks promising, you will want to examine the vendor to make sure that they can deliver value for the costs of their services. Powerhomebiz.com’s article How to Hire an Expert or Consultant recommends checking their past records to make sure that they can deliver you the results they offer. Their education and experience should be like the ideal SAM expert stated above.

At Metrixdata360, for instance, we are made up of legal experts, ex-auditors, IT experts, and former software vendor employees. Inquire into the SAM tools that your vendor will be using – a SAM expert that aims to get the job done with just a spreadsheet will be of little value to you. Start a dialogue with them and see how well they listen and incorporate your stated requirements into their strategy. Make sure that the consultant team is willing and able to work within the budget you lay out for them but most importantly, go with what feels right and trust your instincts.

For more information about Hiring a SAM Expert, check out our article 4 Signs It’s Time To Hire A SAM Professional.

Hybrid Software Asset Management

Rolling the SAM Dice: In-House vs. Managed from the ITAM Review brings up the third option for hiring a SAM expert that has become a popular choice amongst businesses. This hybrid solution is buying the SAM tools yourself, having it installed in your environment, and hiring a third-party SAM expert to manage your SAM tools.

This allows you to control the methods used while also being assured that your assets are being properly managed. This is ideal for either companies who are effective in managing their daily software usage but need help with the sudden arrival of an audit, or companies whose data is too sensitive to be let outside their environment.

Regardless of what you pick, make sure that you find something that matches your unique profile before the software auditors are at your door. SAM, if conducted correctly, can save you up to 30% of your current software budget while also allowing you to maintain your relationship with your software vendor. At Metrixdata360, we offer a variety of services including audit preparation, contract negotiation and SAM tools to help you on your journey to full SAM coverage. So don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter so you can keep up to date with the newest developments across the SAM industry. All the best in your SAM hunt!

Book a Meeting with a SAM Expert Today and See How Much You Can Save

There might not be many kids who want to grow up to be experts in Software Asset Management and there’s a couple obvious reasons for that, namely because Software Asset Management (SAM) is so confusing. So today we are going to tackle some of the most frequently asked questions about Software Asset Management and concerns that we run into from our clients.

At Metrixdata360, we’ve had plenty of people come to us with the same questions for our software consultants over and over again, so we thought in this blog post, we’d share some of the most commonly asked questions, along with their answers.

How Much Money Can Software Asset Management Save Me? 

Software Asset Management can have a huge cost saving potential if the right effort is put in. According to CDW’s article 5 Ways Software Asset Management Reduces Costs Software Asset Management allows for your company to plan better, to optimize contract management, and to re-harvest software licenses to avoid penalties. SAM experts like MetrixData360 can shrink your compliance gap down to what you actually owe, and better data awareness will mean that large compliance gaps are less likely to happen in the future. Software Asset Management won’t provide you with over-night awareness and perfect coverage, but it can provide you those things in the long run. Software Asset Management is a journey, after all, and it will take time before you have a complete handle of your software profile and SAM experts like MetrixData360 can help you get there.

SAM will help you get better data awareness when it comes to your inventory, contracts, IT roadmap, etc. And so, it will also mean that when your contract is up for renewal, you’ll be meeting the software vendor on equal grounds. You won’t have to go into a negotiation feeling as if the vendor has better data on your organization than you do.

In the past the scales were tipped in the vendor’s favor; they had a better understanding of your data than you did and that gave them the upper hand in negotiations. If you don’t have full visibility into your data and you don’t know what your company needs, how will you know that you are overspending by 60% purchasing the bundles they want you to purchase? It is not uncommon for a vendor to offer a 20% discount but sell you 40% more than you need, negating the discount savings and costing you more than simply buying what is necessary at regular price.

So, while software asset management may seem to gather no immediate returns, it is a tremendous investment that can save you money in the long run. We estimate that on average most organizations are over-licensed by 60% but are under-licensed in other areas by 30% at the same time, with an accurate SAM program, that’s money that you can save.

We’re Too Busy for SAM!

One of the most frequent objections to a SAM program that we run into is “we’re too busy!” Unfortunately, software vendors don’t care how busy you are. In fact, if you’re too busy to maintain your SAM, you’re a prime audit target and vendors will see you as a potential cash cow. If you have a manual or multiple system, then you’ve surely faced the pain of having to try and understand what your requirements are. Trying to pull together an accurate inventory of a single software publisher in your environment, a seemingly simple task, can be so exhausting, frustrating, and ultimately fruitless if the data pulled from each source renders different results. But not making time for SAM leads to a messy environment with plenty of compliance gaps for auditors to exploit.

What people don’t understand about Software Asset Management is that by hiring a SAM expert all that pain is lessened and, if done right, over time it goes away completely. Your team may be asked to take 30 minutes to run a report and then the consultants will do the heavy data analysis. You only get involved again when the data doesn’t line up and needs to be refined. The rest of the process is handed off to us. To add some perspective, we have spent a year and a half working with one of our clients while their company faced a heavy software audit. During that year and a half, their team has put in less than forty hours of work pulling inventory data and answering questions while we took care of the rest.

Why is Software Licensing so Complicated?

Software licensing is quite difficult to understand. According to Seattle Pi’s article Why is Microsoft Licensing so Complicated? there are plenty of explanations that software vendors will give to account for that hyper complexity. For example: customer’s unique profiles and the ever-changing nature of technology could require constant and complicated updates to licensing.

Whatever the reason, if a vendor’s software is already highly integrated into your company, what are you going to do if the latest license changes add an extra 10% to your software spending? It’s not like you can just up and leave. It’s like having a restaurant where the guests are chained to their chairs. Licenses that are too complicated to understand and are subject to change, which only aggravates the imbalance in an already uneven relationship. Getting a handle on your software assets is where you can take back control.

What Value Can SAM Bring our Company When Only We Know our Systems? 

Perhaps you have industry specific software that only a handful of companies worldwide use, and it is tailored to serve the niche your company thrives in. If that is the case, then how can a software consultant possibly help? To this problem, we usually have a single response: what is the licensing metric that your vendors are using? The exact nature of the contract or vendor does not really matter, all that matters is the licensing metric and the software contract language that we’re dealing with.

The metric is what we can accurately report on, regardless of who the contract was written for or by. At the end of the day, we know understand how software contracts work, we understand licenses and we know how to count; those three skills are the critical skills that are needed to cut your software costs and lower your compliance gap during an audit.

What Does a Software Consultant Do?

Software Asset Management is a journey. SAM tool vendors will often sell themselves as being the end of your software troubles and you instantly have control over your data as soon as the tool is finished installing so you can promptly forget about it. That’s hardly the case. Depending on how far your company wants to get into software asset management, your SAM journey can take anywhere from 2-48 months.

MetrixData360 helps you along in this journey by developing SAM programs that are broken down into three tiers:

• Tier 1- Trustworthy Data:

During this stage, we’re most invested in getting you to the point where you know what you have so that you can effectively manage it. This includes having reasonable assurance about your software inventory and license-compliance.

• Tier 2- Life Cycle Integration:

Here we strive to achieve a greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness in your IT Asset Lifecycle. Utilizing things like roadmaps and support cycles to determine not only what you have but what you need in the future.

• Tier 3- Optimization:

The last stage is where you achieve greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness through cost-cutting focus. Imagine knowing exactly what you have and what you need in the future and utilizing the power of that information to beat your software vendor on your next contract renewal?

Of course, this is not a rigid course outline. If we are working to achieve the first tier, we will also be gathering data that will help achieve both the second and third tiers during the process. We can also adjust our approach based on your time frame, your team’s internal goals, and where you are positioned in your SAM journey. A good example is you may have a big Microsoft Enterprise Agreement that is coming up for renewal and you want to just mature your Microsoft processes to Tier 3 in order to win that negotiation: we can do that while working to mature the rest of your software estate over-time.

For more information on a Software Asset Manager compared to doing it yourself, visit our article Hire a Software Asset Management Expert or Do it Yourself? The Pros and Cons of Each.

We’ve Been Trying to do This Job Ourselves for Years, What Makes MetrixData360 Different?

This is the question we hear most often. Companies come to us feeling as though managing their software is just impossible and they wonder how we can give them different results. We’ve been doing this for seven years with 20-30 engagements each year and our licensing experts collectively have eighty years of experience on our side. We maintain our ambitious standards by following five key principles:

1. Transparency:

Because we understand the sensitivity of this engagement and the data involved in it, we maintain a policy of pure transparency in our methodology and the technology we use.

2. Fact-based:

Our findings are completely fact-driven and if the data is insufficient to draw any conclusions, then all assumptions will be highlighted for you, along with the ramifications of using those assumptions.

3. Collaborative:

Despite having a mature engagement process, we always seek to work with your existing processes and data availability to ensure increased engagement efficiency. >

4. Solution-Driven:

It’s important for us to highlight the risks and challenges in your software Licensing solution and portfolio, but we know it is even more important for us to support you in creating potential solutions to your unique challenges.

5. Articulation:

We know software licensing is complex and we will ensure that our findings and recommendations are well explained so you can act accordingly.

Methodology: We draw from multiple sources of data to give you a handle of your licensing. For instance, if we are trying to determine the number of users or devices you have, we might pull data from your Active Directory, SCCM, and/or your IT security tools (all of which could easily give you different numbers). Based on this data, we can figure out a strategy that best suits your needs based on the overlap of information. Often, we find that elements of the process that were a huge roadblock for client companies are really no problem for our tools and processes to overcome.

Our main concern is your timeframe. If your company is not in an audit, we’ll have a chance to chase down the data that you’re missing, but if you are in an audit and you’re pressed for time, we can accommodate, troubleshoot, and automate as much as possible to get accurate data quickly in order to ensure you pass the audit.

How Do I Start Getting My Software Assets Under Control?

Software Asset Management can be such an overwhelming task but if you want to get a handle on your software, start by looking at your contracts that are coming up for renewal – that’s always an opportunity if approached with the right data. Next look for the risks, see if there’s any outstanding issue that could crop up if you are audited later (e.g. if you know Oracle is poking around asking questions, go look at your Oracle environment before they do). These two places can act as starting points, and you can work out from there to address issues that might come up.

A lot of the time, we take inventory from an organization’s tools and put it into our internal SAM Tools. We are able to review our clients’ data and provide them with great starting points for implementing SAM and identifying immediate savings opportunities to provide some quick wins and ROI for a SAM program. Knowledge is your best defense against unfair contracts, costly audits, and inflated software expenses. Putting off knowing will only hurt your budget in the long run.

Having a strong understanding of software asset management shouldn’t be harder than finding the secrets of the universe. Clicking the button below will take you to a booking page, where you can get in contact with MetrixData 360 CEO Mike Austin, to launch your Software Asset Management process.

Schedule a SAM Meeting