Flexera One Migration Success with ABB, Anglepoint, and Flexera

As a technology leader in electrification and automation, ABB is enabling a more sustainable and resource-efficient future. The company’s solutions combine engineering expertise and software to the way systems are manufactured, moved, powered and operated. Building on more than 140 years of excellence, ABB’s 105,000 employees are committed to driving innovations that accelerate industrial transformation.

Facing ITAM Complexity

For the last four years, ABB has been working with Anglepoint to establish an effective ITAM program leveraging FNMS as the foundation. The program, led by ABB’s ITAM team in partnership with Anglepoint, provided SAM managed services for key software publishers and tooling services, while also developing and maturing policies and procedures. To mature the implementation of FNMS, a significant investment of time was spent on stakeholder awareness, education, and top-down strategic direction mandating the installation of FNMS agent on all devices within the environment.

Following the lessons learned from the FNMS implementation, ABB’s requirements matured in the context of an increasingly complex and fast-changing hybrid environment. Their applications are dependent on assets and data that resides within multiple environments with de-centralized teams using flexible licensing models. With an increased focus on minimizing financial, security and license compliance risk, while optimizing existing software investments, it became critical to have real-time visibility into trustworthy data across the entire enterprise.

Meeting Stakeholder Needs for Real-Time Data

When considering migrating to Flexera One, ABB gathered requirements from key stakeholders across various Global teams and from within the Business Areas to understand what would add value to each user group. Key stakeholders highlighted the need for trusted data, SaaS visibility, chargebacks, and tools to optimize investments and manage overconsumption. Their feedback guided the migration to ensure value for all user groups.

Why Flexera One Was the Right ITAM Solution for ABB

With such a large and complex environment, ABB wanted to explore the benefits of moving to Flexera One to empower the Global, Business Area and Division teams by providing real-time trustworthy data across the entire IT asset management (ITAM) estate. ABB needed to strengthen their contract negotiating position, minimize potential compliance risks and reduce administrative overhead.

The tool needed to be user-friendly and serve as the single source of truth globally for hundreds of stakeholders. Flexera One would enable these stakeholders across ITAM, global teams, and Business Area and Division teams to make informed decisions based on reliable data to drive to business outcomes, and the platform needed to be flexible enough to meet the reporting requirements of the de-centralized organizational structure.

The Flexera One Migration Plan

ABB, Anglepoint and Flexera collaborated to prepare a plan for the Flexera One migration and post-implementation support.

Due to the scale of the project, ABB, Anglepoint, and Flexera each deployed project managers assigned to ensure that all team members were on track with assigned tasks.  These teams worked together to establish and execute the migration plan which included both technical preparation requirements and the cultural aspects to engage all stakeholders throughout the journey.

A few key elements of this plan included:

• A Communications Plan for executives and for new and existing Flexera users
• Assessment and documentation of the existing FNMS environment that was then updated after migration
• User Training Plan recorded for future use: Flexera One ITAM for FNMS Users, Flexera One for new Flexera users, IT Visibility User Training, and SaaS Manager Training
• User Support Plan including Open Door sessions for all Flexera users to ask questions of Anglepoint’s technical experts, and ticketing system to raise troubleshooting requests

Quick Business Wins and Achievements

Fundamentally, Flexera One’s ITAM, IT Visibility and SaaS Management modules, have enabled the right people to have access to the right data on a real-time basis, reflecting the decentralized organizational structure. For the first time, have people within different divisions or countries had access to this type of information and the insights needed to act on it.

With the migration to Flexera One complete, ABB was able to achieve significant business outcomes within weeks.

These included:

• Trained 50 users in Flexera One with dedicated trainings for existing FNMS users to highlight the key differences between FNMS and Flexera One, and for new Flexera users to navigate the new platform. These users now have access and have begun creating their own reports.
• Promoted the benefits of Flexera One and importance of trustworthy data to executives and all stakeholders. Spreading the awareness ensured the support needed for stakeholders to make informed decisions through the Communications Plan. This indicates a cultural change that highlights the importance of ITAM at ABB.
• Fully automated coverage analysis reports in a self-service model, saving money on Tableau licenses.
• Improved data quality and time previous required to clean and maintain the data has reduced.
• Removed the time and cost to manage the backend server infrastructure because Flexera One is Cloud-based.
• Reduced reconciliation time significantly and increased the reliability of the reconciliation.
• Identified potential optimization opportunities for Adobe by leveraging SaaS Manager, which will become part of standard reporting through Anglepoint’s Managed Services.
• Aligned ITAM with the ABB corporate from Good to Great framework by moving from an on-premises platform to the Cloud.

Rapid ROI Through PowerBI Reports

A critical example of Flexera One’s impact is the Power BI report on inactive users for Adobe using the SaaS module created within weeks of the migration. This report identified potential optimization based on inactive users, and Users License Product Configuration optimization reviewing users with redundant licenses. This small step completed in a very short time frame showcased quick wins regarding ROI on ABB’s migration.

Since the creation of this report in F1, ABB now regularly shares optimization reports as part of the ongoing ABB & Anglepoint Risk Remediation & Optimization management process. These reports play a vital role in managing risks and identifying optimization opportunities across the business on a detailed level. Similar reports leveraging F1’s data will be created for workstreams across Anglepoint’s SAM Managed Service to ensure that these reports are understood and then actioned by the business to realize results.

The Move From Good to Great

The migration from FNMS to F1 represents moving from Good to Great by transitioning from the more static on-premises solution in FNMS, to a Cloud native platform that removes the overhead of managing the backend infrastructure. This shift has provided ABB with visibility into real-time, trustworthy data across their hardware assets, software licensing and cloud consumption. With Flexera One, ABB is better equipped to drive resource-efficiency. The newfound visibility with Flexera One transforms their raw data into actionable business intelligence. Stakeholders can now make informed decisions that deliver successful ITAM outcomes aligned with ABB’s mission. By optimizing license and cloud resources allocation, and gaining insight into carbon emissions across the estate, ABB can improve both cost management and sustainability.

Cultural Transformation and ITAM Adoption

In addition to the operational benefits of cost savings, optimizations and risk management, there have also been significant cultural wins within ABB. Existing FNMS users have felt well-informed about the migration, including changes to existing functionality and the new features available in Flexera One. As a result of the Communications plan and training plan, users who previously engaged with Flexera for their specific use cases are now more engaged and proactive.

Employees who had never used Flexera before are now actively requesting access to the Flexera One platform, eager to leverage its benefits. Previously, only 20 people had access to FNMS, and this was mostly ABB’s SAM and Anglepoint team members. However, now there are 150+ users and counting! This widespread adoption indicates a cultural change within ABB as employees seek to use Flexera One to its fullest potential and work collaboratively to better manage their IT environment.

Flexera’s Trailblazer of The Year Award

Thanks to the hard work between ABB and Anglepoint’s team members, ABB was recognized as the “Trailblazer of the Year” in the 2024 Flexera Technology Intelligence Awards. This outstanding achievement recognizes an organization that has successfully implemented Flexera One into their strategy within the past year and demonstrated quick time to value for their organization. It is a fantastic industry recognition of the strong partnership between ABB, Anglepoint and Flexera, where teams worked together to deliver outstanding business value and drive cultural changes within ABB.

Ongoing Partnership For Continued Success

Anglepoint is an embedded partner within ABB, providing ongoing support to Flexera One users by answering questions, troubleshooting and maximizing coverage. Our technical and software licensing experts work together to leverage more data and dashboards available in Flexera One as part of Anglepoint’s ongoing SAM Managed Services. The primary focus is on driving adoption and training within the Business Areas, ensuring Flexera One is the single source of truth.

Anglepoint is eager to help organizations, both simple and complex, achieve ITAM success through successful ITAM tool implementation, migration, and ongoing managed services. Our team is equipped with the expertise and knowledge to facilitate seamless integrations and deliver measurable results for your ITAM program across all software publishers.