Effective software asset management: Driving value in turbulent times

Fiscal fitness is a top priority for business survival today, leading most companies to pursue ways to trim budgets, especially Information Technology (IT) spending that often accounts for an organization’s second largest expense after labor.

IT executives would be wise to use current market conditions as an opportunity to re-position IT as they also respond to the urgent needs of the business. They can cut spending, but should be wary of applying an ax where an aggressive scalpel is needed. Too heavy a hand may damage business results, harm customer relationships, and cause years of catch-up investments once conditions improve.
Effectively managing IT assets, for example, may enable IT executives to achieve tactical improvements, without damaging service levels or harming critical development programs.

Taking such an approach can have a significant impact. Beyond just IT governance, an effective software asset management strategy and infrastructure optimization can improve costs, reduce risk and increase IT and end user efficiencies. Consider the results from a recent KPMG survey Software Asset Management: A Key to Infrastructure Optimization. The survey of over 1,000 organizations found that as organizations gain control by proactively managing their software assets, they realize software asset management-related IT labor cost reduction of as much as 50 percent. This is prevalent with more mature organizations and specifically with organizations that use software asset management tools and processes to manage the software asset cycle.

However, according to the same KPMG survey, most organizations are struggling to manage their IT assets effectively and efficiently. The survey found that a majority of organizations – 86 percent – do not have an effective software asset management strategy or complete or accurate information about software deployments and entitlements. Of this 86 percent, 59 percent have limited control over their software assets and lack software asset management business processes and tools. The remaining 27 percent indicated they have some software asset management processes and tools, but typically don’t use the information for decision making because the information gathered from these processes and tools may not be reliable.

Software asset management, and the control and protection of software assets throughout their life cycle, is a critical component to any organization’s ability to successfully manage its IT and achieve infrastructure optimization. The implementation of many IT processes, including configuration, release, or change management, is dependent on the organization having accurate knowledge of its IT assets. When an organization does not know what software assets it has, where they are deployed, how the assets are configured and how or by whom they are used, IT management is seriously compromised.

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