The Strategic Importance of Software Asset Management (SAM)

This episode of The ITAM Executive podcast is an excerpt from a webinar hosted by Anglepoint and Converge. View the complete webinar here.

As noted by Gartner, SAM is a discipline that supports strategic business development. Here are the 4 main strategic benefits of SAM:

Reduce Risk

• Data collected from SAM allows organizations to identify IT security risks, finding faulty and/or unsupported software. You’ll know which/how many software assets need patches/security updates.
• SAM reduces compliance exposure. When auditors come knocking, they’ll find that you are paying for what’s being used; eliminating the need for potential hefty, business-changing fines.
• The reduced risk from practicing good SAM will save your organization from any and all potential legal, financial, and reputational damages/liabilities.

Reduce Spend

• This is a major benefit! Many of our clients see actionable savings of 20% or more in year one.
• Good SAM monitors usage on an ongoing basis, allowing you to identify re-harvesting/re-use opportunities. It’s (obviously) important that you don’t spend more money that needed.
• Ongoing usage monitoring also empowers organizations to purchase software assets based on their true usage and future needs. – Additionally, SAM helps limit rogue purchases and potential chargebacks.

Maximize Investments

• Through configuration management & standardization and change control & business continuity, organizations get the most out of what they have.
• Take advantage of IT optimization opportunities, i.e., virtualization, server consolidation, etc.
• Having the right people and processes in place allows you to realize the full benefits of your SAM tool(s). Many organizations fail to take full advantage of this.

Negotiate Strategically

• If you know exactly what you have and exactly what you need, you can negotiate from a position of power. This gives you confidence and makes life much easier.
• SAM data allows for dialed-in and precise decision making.
• Having a SAM managed service provider in your corner gives you the publisher-specific expertise needed to negotiate. This detailed publisher knowledge allows for focus on key contract asks and advantageous terms.

Other ways which software asset management helps organizations

Here are a few other ways that SAM benefits companies

• SAM streamlines IT processes through standardization driven by SAM policies.
• SAM greatly reduces man hours and limits business disruption caused by audits.
• The visibility and validation that come with SAM contribute to better IT governance policies and practices.
• Data of past usage and trends helps improve forecasting of future software needs.
• SAM helps prioritize which software publishers to manage based on spend, audit considerations, strategic importance, etc.