Software Asset Management (SAM) Blog

Over the past 5 years revenues for all technology companies in mature markets such as the UK has slowed. This is mostly due to cuts in IT investment within organsisations and the view that current technology is “good enough”.

So as software vendors traditional sources of revenue dried up, software vendors have been looked for new areas to generate revenues. One approach is to pursue organisations they believe to be out of compliance.

So how do software vendors target organisations?

They compare their records of licence sales against public information including the published number of employees organisations have. Then look for discrepancies between these numbers.

They would then either conduct audits themselves or through audit Partners. A licence reconcilliation report will be generated showing software that is installed against licences that the organisation has entitlement to use. Any non-compliance will be expected to be addressed with immediate effect.

Generally organisations do not have an understanding of their software entitlement or the software that is in use in their organisation and without this knowledge there will always be not only a risk of non-compliance but a risk of overspending on software.

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The Telegraph Media Group has won the Techworld Award for ‘Governance Project of the Year’ following a SAM and ITAM project which identified more than £100,000 in potential savings. By using Centennial Discovery to find and track all asset on the network, the national publisher found many software titles that were not in current use - thus preventing new purchases being made where existing licenses already existed.

Speaking about the project, Lorrie Dannecker commented: “In addition to the hard facts about what software is installed and where, we have been able to look into how frequently individual applications are used and when they were last opened,” said Dannecker. “In many instances there were applications that had not been used for months or even years. We have been able to remove these from the workstations and cancel licences that previously would have been automatically renewed.”

Maxwell Cooter, Techworld’s Editor, said that the project had been selected as the winner as it combined intelligent use of technology with a clear business case and return on investment.