The software being one of the crucial intangible assets, it?s surprising that so little attention has been given to its management. It is important to manage software well, just as any other valuable company asset, in order to avoid serious problems. Thankfully, a perceptible change is taking place in the market and the global economic recession is spurring businesses to implement software asset management (SAM) programmes to increase efficiencies and lower IT costs.
While the use of IT has become all pervasive today, enabling the enterprises to achieve high productivity and business growth, it is essential that companies understand IT management process and leverage it to derive maximum return on investment on their IT assets. Here software asset management comes into play. At a basic level, SAM is a business practice that involves managing and optimising the procurement, deployment, maintenance and retirement of software applications within an enterprise. Today, software asset management is an international standard defined in the ISO/IEC19770 standard that closely supports IT service management as defined in ISO/IEC 20000.
Software asset management protects an enterprise?s software and helps chief information officers (CIOs) recognise what they have got, where it?s running, and any licensing overlap. ?Software asset management is a mix of policies, procedures and software tools. It?s about how you manage your people and process,? says Keshav Dhakad, chairperson of Business Software Alliance (BSA), an international association representing the global software industry. Software asset management is fast becoming a favourite among CIOs for obvious reasons.
The concept lets them focus on running their IT operations and takes their mind off things like unsupported programs, viruses and security problems stemming from a lack of patches or updates. It gives the CIOs a better insight into their future software needs. Instead of buying all the newest software and updates available, they are able to decide exactly what software is needed and when they?ll need it. ?With SAM, you can plan for your future software needs now. This can also help you when deciding if new hardware is needed as well,? says an IT analyst.
It is also seen that software that functions as it should and is trouble free will result in better overall employee morale. Here again, a centralised software asset management program will also cut down on individual training for managers and lower the costs associated with it. The tools for management of software assets enable centralised tracking of the software assets deployed to ensure the software compliance norms. At the same time, it is imperative for enterprises to continually improve their procedures to strategically manage their software assets, achieving considerable cost savings while managing risk. Software asset management has proven beneficial to companies around the world. Some have saved upwards of 15-20% in their overall IT budgets and experienced significant savings in procurement and administrative costs.
In addition, software asset management has brought about less downtime for employees, fewer helpdesk issues, faster inventory responses, and lower labour costs. Enterprises have also reported many non-tangible benefits such as improved company morale and peace of mind. Awareness is one of the biggest challenges when it comes to adoption of software asset management in India, informs Dhakad. In their endeavour to promote the concept among Indian enterprises, BSA, with support from the Centre of E-governance, government of Karnataka, had launched the SAM Leadership Programme last year, reaching out to approximately 650 IT and ITeS companies.
This programme, the first of its kind in the country, was aimed at helping companies in the small and medium business (SMB) segment in Karnataka to become early adopters. The programme aimed at making Karnataka a model state within the country by promoting organisational productivity and network security through the implementation of software asset management practices within businesses, and encouraging innovation through the promotion of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection and reducing software piracy. The programme was successfully completed this month. BSA officials inform that the programme has helped companies understand, manage and use their software assets more effectively.
Going forward, BSA is confident that this programme will help in promoting strong corporate governance standards and make the domestic IT industry globally competitive, secure and efficient. In turn, this will translate into higher legitimate revenues for the industry, more taxes to government, and more hi-tech high wage jobs.
As a business practice, software asset management offers several benefits to an enterprise, informs Dhakad. ?It makes companies far more efficient to assess the actual requirement of software in their organisation. It helps them deploy software in the right time at the right place and enables them to forecast their future requirements as they move into new areas of technologies and business,? he says.
Once deployed, software asset management enables companies to retire software they don?t need. It also helps them negotiate better with partners as they would know exactly what the requirements are. More importantly, it enables companies to discover the elements of piracy in the organisation and how they can be eliminated, so that they remain compliant.
To say that software asset management is essential in today?s business world would be an understatement. In order to compete globally, it is a must-have.