Software Asset Management Enhances Business Productivity

Right from the management of the IT infrastructure to the management of software licensing, CIOs are facing challenges in every aspect. With the growing security related issues and the increasing costs of software licensing, a CIO has to look into every facet of the IT infrastructure.

Software Asset Management (SAM) is the talk of the town, which is helping CIOs address every kind of challenge pertaining to software. Present day organisations are using a wide range of software for their back end and front-end applications. While procuring organisation specific software, organisations have to pay a heavy sum for licensing, while simultaneously trying to maintain various compliance standards with these software. Organisations are now considering their software as assets. SAM is the infrastructure and processes, necessary for effective management, control and protection of software assets within an organisation and through all stages of the lifecycle.

Informs Jeffrey Hardee, VP and Regional Director, BSA Asia, “One of the unique tools that enable businesses to grow better and improve productivity, is SAM. Software should be treated as an asset to the organisation and as important as ‘Intellectual Property’. SAM gives an opportunity to various verticals to standardise the different versions in the company, thereby leading to increased employee collaboration and productivity. By understanding software as an asset and then implementing it in their operations, organisations can manage their software assets and find out exactly what software programmes they already have and what they need. SAM is an effective way of reducing risks of viruses entering the network.”

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Instituting A SAM Policy

It’s difficult to overstate the value of an efficient, comprehensive software asset management solution. Without one, your business is exposed to undue risk with no reliable way to prove licensing compliance. Organisations run the risk of paying for software licenses and maintenance coverage that are not required. Finally, without an asset management system in place, an organisation can’t effectively negotiate with vendors because of lack of visibility into key dates, terms and conditions and asset usage patterns. With accurate installation and usage data, companies can successfully renegotiate expensive and inflated license contracts. They can then ensure license compliance while reducing the total cost of ownership for each application. SAM can be used to efficiently manage the entire range of software assets of an organisation, in addition to getting inventory and software compliance programmes in place.

Says Brian Campbell, director, Genuine Software Initiative, Microsoft India, “This process includes establishing and enforcing software standards, generating reports that integrate licensing, installation and usage data, allocating licenses to specific sites, departments, cost centres or individual workstations and managing and monitoring your IT contracts, associating them with licenses, assets, users and organization units.”

Companies should take the following steps to protect themselves from software piracy and controlling costs of software. They should develop and implement a software management policy. The policy should affirm the commitment to use properly licensed software. Companies need to communicate their software policy to their employees. Software management should centralise acquisitions, installations or deletions of software and changes in configurations, as much as possible. Software must be recognised as an asset and software lifecycle management should be included in business planning activity. When purchasing hardware, efforts must be undertaken to ensure that the software pre-loaded on the machines is fully authorised and licensed. An organisation that achieves software copyright compliance should conduct regular audits, comparing the organisation’s level of software installation and network usage to the number of programmes it has licenses to support.

Initiatives To Popularise SAM In India

Major software vendors and organisations are taking various initiatives to popularise the concept of SAM in India. As the software piracy rate in India is at an alarming stage, companies in India should frame their software asset management policy to reduce piracy rates and control cost. BSA through its members is reaching out to all businesses to help them understand the benefits of SAM and show them how they can legalise and address licensing issues through Software Asset Management, so that they maximise their software assets and use only licensed and legal software.

Informs Hardee, “BSA is conducting Software Asset Management Seminars to educate corporates that legal software is an asset and there is a need to manage it well. Through these seminars BSA wants to create awareness around how SAM can lead to cost saving, time saving and increased productivity of the employees.” BSA is also working with KPMG and NASSCOM in India to popularise the concept of SAM among SMBs.

Microsoft is also investing in developing an ecosystem of certified partners who will be capable of delivering SAM related consulting services to customers who are interested in implementing a comprehensive SAM program. From time to time, Microsoft also helps organise customer seminars or conferences focused on SAM. It is also working with BSA and NASSCOM to organise multi-city SAM seminar series. Microsoft is working very closely with the International Standards Organisation (ISO) and ITIL for the preparation and adoption of the new ISO 19770 standards on SAM.

Drivers Of SAM

The main driver of SAM is the increasing requirements for organisations to adhere to regulatory and compliance norms. The adoption of ITIL framework and BS 15000 is accelerating this trend. Asset Management is a key component of the ITIL framework, which forms the foundation for a future rollout of BSM in the organisation. The second key driver is license compliance.

As quoted by a Gartner analyst, non-compliance with software usage rights can be extremely costly, with penalties exceeding US$100,000 and can also result in negative publicity for a company. Products that offer inventory, usage and software distribution enable customers to monitor usage trends that can track the use of unauthorised applications and more accurately use software distribution to set and enforce corporate standards. Organisations spend millions of dollars annually on software license fees. Research shows that most companies buy more software licenses than they actually use. SAM will now increasingly become critical to businesses in India as we do business globally and will be required to meet global standards in terms of compliance and costs.