Software Asset Management is all of the infrastructure and processes necessary for the effective management, control and protection of the software assets within organization, throughout all stages of their lifecycle.
A well-established SAM setup can help an organization reduce software costs, improve compliance and simplify processes for the software requests from employees. SAM can also help control inventory through accurate data captured in databases, which in turn helps to identify organizational software needs and find out the unused software that can be deleted. Also, with the available data we can consolidate the number of software vendors in use and take necessary action to reduce if any needed. The key to employ it is to perform a thorough cost-benefit analysis of making SAM an innate component of its business model, to gauge software expenses in terms of investment, renewal and meeting regulatory compliances. After all, the idea of every business is to justify its ROI.
SAM Optimization Checklist
- Manage and track software licenses through their lifecycle
- Harvest licenses
- Purchase only what is needed
- Maximize product use rights
- Understand license metrics and deploy accordingly
- Eliminate shelfware
- Pay maintenance only for software licenses being used
Business Benefits of using SAM:
Some of the key benefits using SAM is described below
Cost Reduction
- Avoid purchasing licenses that are not required for an organization
- Go for bulk software purchase with discounts once the organization knows the software needs
Security
All the software installed in an organization network can be easily tracked and evaluated
Compliance
One of the major benefits of using SAM is protecting an organization from the unauthorized or unintentional usage of illegal software licenses and ensure the software license compliance.
Reduced IT Support
SAM helps preventing the unauthorized software usage in an organization and in turn helps to reduce the head-count of IT support staffs by focusing on the needed software only
