SAM stands for Software Asset Management. It’s a business process through which an organization maximizes its return on investment of software solutions and software assets. The key role of software asset management is to streamline and automate the process of procuring, using, deploying, and retiring software licenses.
According to Gartner, “SAM” is a process for making software acquisition and disposal decisions. It includes strategies that identify and eliminate unused or infrequently used software, consolidating software licenses or moving toward new licensing models.”
While it plays a huge role within an organization with regards to software inventory management and licensing requirements, proper Software Asset Management programs always have these three primary objectives.
SAM Helps Achieve These Three Goals :
1. Compliance
With SAM a company can control its risks and bring transparency to the operational front.
2. Optimization
SAM enables companies to get more out of their software investments. It does so by providing information about what rights are included in the purchased licenses, and how they are currently being used.
3. Savings
With SAM, companies can save both time and money as it helps gain valuable insights, and avoid unnecessary costs.
A SAM software tool provides an organization with complete reports of implementation, licensing, contract terms and dates along with license inventory. This gives companies the power to make an informed decision regarding costing and software utilization that leads to cost savings.
SAM, unlike other management concepts, is more about risk prevention than time management. It safeguards the company from audit risks regarding unauthorized use of any software and protection of Intellectual Property (IP). A SAM tool is useful for budgeting, purchase, and use of various software within an organization.
Compliance
This is where compliance comes in. Each piece of software is licensed and designed to be used in a specific manner. Violation of these terms, whether intended or unintended can put the company at high risk of audit.
Auditing is done by software publishers to keep companies and users from using the software in ways that are unintended as deemed by the publishers. SAM streamlines the process of license management for business and provides a safe and controlled environment for operation before, during, and following an audit.
If the result of an audit shows that the business is non-compliant, it can lead to unexpected fees and months and months worth of procedures that eat into day to day business operation. To prevent this, Software Asset Management and SAM software is needed for thorough license management.
Related: How the Compliance Function is Evolving in 2018
Optimization
The key to running a business in a more efficient manner is to look at the organizational aspect. A SAM tool will help a business understand its organizational needs. An important function of SAM software is to analyze the software estate of a company.
This helps safeguard a business from aggressive publishers while keeping track of the software lifecycle and contract management. While under-compliance is a concerning factor, most businesses are often over-licensed.
Over-compliance happens when a business has more licenses than they need. As a business owner or as an IT manager within the company, if you ever feel that you are constantly managing one license after another, a SAM tool can help keep track of things for you.
Most businesses feel that being-over compliant will save them from auditing risks, however, the cost of over-licensing can quickly become than the potential audit fees!
Savings
Through SAM software, a business gets insight into their current software usage. In a hypothetical scenario, if a business does fail an audit, they are more than likely required to pay enough to make up for the under-licensed software or sometimes the maintenance fees. On the other hand, when they’re over-compliant, they have to pay for licenses that they don’t need plus the fees to maintain this. All of this can be avoided with the right tools and mature SAM practice. This is what is known as lean licensing and it helps bring down IT operational costs of a business.
If a business has an in-house IT staff, a SAM tool will help alleviate pressure on them. It’s difficult to achieve the same level of SAM optimization without some sort of automated tool and corresponding database.
Even if the business manages to do great things in SAM without a dedicated utility, a great deal of resources, like time, money and manpower have to be dedicated to a task that could very easily be achieved through SAM software.
SAM brings transparency to the software estate and software usage of a company. Through software asset management, a company can make better financial decisions based on thorough reports and statistics of usage. SAM brings forth safer infrastructure management as it gives the owner and employees an insight into what is on the network and how it is being used.
With the elimination of unused and unnecessary software, not only does the company benefit financially, but the employee productivity levels also go up. Employees are no longer sifting through countless software and licenses, but are using only what is absolutely necessary.
Related: 5 Tips and Tricks When Getting Started With Software Asset Management
Key Benefits of Using SAM Software Include:
- The reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) for software
- Software asset control
- Optimized software licenses and management
- Increased employee productivity
- Higher Return On Investment (ROI)
- Thorough audit compliance
To Wrap It Up
Software Asset Management is the process of safeguarding a business through proper software inventory management, audit compliance, and best practices. Together these increase revenue and productivity while cutting down unnecessary overhead costs associated with over-compliance and lack of knowledge.
Investing in software management helps with people management, and has a great impact on how well the IT department functions within a company.
Thus, a company can potentially save a lot of money in the long run with proper implementation and inventory management.
Related: What’s the Difference Between Digital Asset Management and Software Management?
