Introduction

The degree to which technology has become a part of everyday life and day-to-day commerce has seen a change in the way management approaches how they manage the finances, the processes and the assets within a business. Computing becoming an increasing factor in business.

As technology becomes more widely used within a company and takes a more prominent vital within the vital functions of that business, it is important to make sure that an appropriate level of attention is given to this technology.

IT capabilities have come a long way during the past few years and are now seen as critical parts of any company. As such, they receive grander budgets but must also be able to deal with a larger amount of responsibility.

But once you have spent a substantial amount of your budget on developing an IT system and seen the circumstances of your organisation change, how do you ensure that the systems you are using can keep up with demand?

This is the role undertaken by IT management software and systems.

Every organisation and every environment will have different specifications and will create different challenges. To satisfy these needs there are a number of different solutions and approaches that can be implemented to help control the IT network of your organisation.

Software Asset Management

SAM ( Software Asset Management) is designed to do exactly what it says on the tin – monitoring and controlling the deployment and usage of software suites within your company. It is a business process rather than a distinct discipline and is becoming a more critical part of the modern corporate environment, particularly for companies operating in the field of IT. Despite the many benefits of SAM, there are still a great many companies that are not utilising it to its full potential.

SAM is not simply an aid for technicians installing software across a large corporate network, but can be a critical tool to help improve performance at multiple levels of a organisation. The goals of SAM include managing of the IT infrastructure within a company, negating legal risks associated with incorrect software license usage and preserving high levels of productivity by making sure software is up to date and fit for its purpose.

The practice of SAM is often viewed as an unnecessary evil due to the intangible nature of what it is designed to deal with, and the business case for going with a SAM solution is not always obvious until a full of the software infrastructure of a company has been undertaken. Once existing problems have been highlighted however, the use of SAM becomes self evident.

Monetary benefits are still the most motivating business factor when deciding to operate software asset management software within an organisation. Every business needs to make profit after all and expenditure is a very measurable figure.

An increasingly large amount of a company’s IT bank roll is spent on software licensing so there is a vital need to invest to correctly manage this spending. As companies expand and diversify, their software requirements can change greatly and equipment and software can swiftly become out of date. There is no need to spend money to maintain the licenses on this outdated software, which is where software asset management really delivers an edge.

software asset management is not limited to simply the IT department of your business either. As a management operation it will often involve many of the departments within a company, including Finance Human Resources, to make sure that it runs as cost-effectively as possible.

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Why follow a SAM Strategy?

Having heard the various benefits of employing a software asset management solution, how do you know that it would be appropriate for your organisation? Every business is different and has its own separate set of challenges and advantages, so any strategy you will undertake needs to be catered to these specific traits. The benefits of software asset management do cover the basic aspects of IT management.

There are more than just financial benefits that can be made through the management of licensing and maintenance agreements across a businesses IT network. Productivity can be vastly by ensuring that staff have the newest versions of software permitted under current licenses held, and communication inside the corporation is helped when support staff know exactly what is in use on every computer under their control.

Cost Savings

As discussed before, perhaps the most convincing reason to utilise SAM within your company is the potential financial savings that can be made. The profitability of your business is always going to be the bottom line so any system that can help to improve this profitability by descreasing expenses is one that should be considered. Money can be saved in a multitude of ways.

The most immediate way that software asset management can help to reduce costs is by identifying any software running on your corporate network that is no longer necessary. The software might not be being used anymore, it may be too outdated to be of use or it may be duplicated on your system. software asset management can be used to remove this unnecessary overhead.

By clearing these items of software that are no longer a help to the running of your company you are streamlining a large portion of your IT network. Paying for unnecessary software licenses and maintenance agreements means that more money can be spent on the critical sections of your IT infrastructure.

Mitigate Risk

A surprising proportion of software that is actively used in the business environment is either licensed incorrectly or not licensed at all. Running any amount of unmonitored software on your IT system is ill advised, because when left unchecked it can become very unpredictable.

Rogue software programs can be introduced into an unmonitored IT system in a number of ways. Software may have been included when your IT hardware was first bought although the initial software licenses may have expired. Without the correct control policies in place, users may also be able to load their own software onto the network.

The risk of running unlicensed software on your network is clear. When something goes wrong with the hardware or software platform supporting your critical processes, how do you recover the situation? Operating a complex software system without the appropriate support can create a metaphorical minefield when it comes to disaster recovery and can critically limit your responsiveness to unpredictable events. The cost of recovery will forever outweigh the cost of mitigation when it comes to data systems.

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Implementing SAM in your Organisation

As previously mentioned, there are numerous potential advantages to employing a good SAM strategy within your organisation, both monetary and otherwise. It is therefore important to determine which branches of software asset management you should implement first since certain benefits will be realised more quickly than others. Some may take a period of years to be fully felt.

This discovery process can be seen as three primary phases that have to be performed to really develop an accurate picture of the usage of software assets within your business. These are:

Inventory

Inventory is the most fundamental function of the discovery process. It is important that an accurate inventory of software assets within your business is created to aid your IT department to maintain baselines regarding your IT system. This inventory process must be performed before carrying on with discovery.
Thankfully, this process can now be made automatic and even the largest of networks can be investigated and analysed in a reasonably short period of time. Inventory must be able to identify your IT assets regardless of their physical location or technological characteristics.

Capture

The second step in the discovery cycle is the capture of the software license entitlements that cover the software programs discovered in the inventory. The capture process should gather entitlements regarding all of the software that is installed on your network, even if the software is not currently in use. Without this information the inventory would be almost useless.

The factor of human error can be mitigated by using automated tools that are specifically designed to create a library of license entitlements. Packages that are currently employed are incredibly efficient at capturing accurate information.

Identification & Validation

The next process is to match up the software audit to the repository of licensing data that were built in the last two stages. Errors may have been made anywhere from the original paperwork for software to the latest audits undertaken on your IT system.

One critical factor in the validation stage is the ability to link the license entitlements within your network to your organisation’s proof of entitlement. This will be essential if any arguments with software vendors arise as a consequence of the discovery cycle.

After these steps have been performed you will have built an incredibly detailed picture of how your IT system is delivering software programs to its users. It will be a lot simpler to identify particular trouble spots on your network, or sections of software use that are no longer of any particular benefit to your activites. This detailed image can be used for future strategies as well.

You can now begin a period of reconciliation on your system. You can compare the software programs that are actually employed on your network against the licensing and support entitlements that you are paying for and close any divides between the two. This is when the financial benefits of SAM start to take effect.

The software spread in your network may include many hundreds or perhaps thousands of individual installations, and there are any number of rules that may be associated with the licensing contracts you have in place. It is therefore essential to automate the reconciliation period, utilising one or more programs to apply smart rules to the process.

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Compliancy and Flexibility with SAM

Many of the fundamental practices of a successful SAM strategy are based upon the principles laid out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. This library details a number of principles and best practices that should be adopted for successful control of IT functions. The ITIL can be found online.

This library is a changing publication and is often updated with new concepts and techniques that cater to the constantly changing IT backdrop of modern business. A good SAM strategy should be fluid enough to comply with the guidelines laid out in the ITIL whilst matching the changing requirements of the company within which it is actively used.

The International Standard Organisation (ISO) has published a standard that applies directly to SAM practices. This standard, ISO 19770-1, is an incredibly comprehensive set of guidelines that are built to ensure that SAM is utilised in such a way as to “satisfy corporate governance requirements”.

The ISO standard should certainly be followed when planning a SAM strategy for your own company, although the level of detail covered within can quickly become a daunting prospect. It is vital to remember that no matter what recommendations you follow when creating a software asset management strategy, whatever plan you decide to implement needs to help your business rather than stifle it.

Designing a complete and comprehensive software asset management strategy for your own organisation might actually never come to fruition. Your strategy must be flexible to change and grow as your organisation does, and it should allow for modifications to your daily activities, no matter how small or underlying they might be. This really is the key to a successful software asset management plan.

Conclusion

It is clear to see that as the extent and importance of IT systems within your organisation grow, so does the requirement for good and efficient monitoring of these systems. Gone are the times when an IT branch was a luxury that would sometimes forward the business. Computer networks are now critical to the modern business. Critical systems need to be monitored to an appropriate standard.

As with other branches of any company, a number of different strategies should be considered and used in order to ensure the efficient running of day to day tasks. SAM should not be the only tool used to manage technological resources within your organisation, but rather one of a number of complimentary techniques used to manage the system as a unit.

So if you think that your company is currently suffering from a lack of planned monitoring and management over its IT network, or that the possible benefits described in this article could manufacture a crucial market advantage over your competitors, then it would be worth researching how SAM could be used within your organisation.

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Gourmet Chocolate

Plettenberg Bay is surely one of the best places in South Africa as a destination for your holiday. For long streches you can see and walk the white sandy beaches and get lost in the feeling of total relaxation. The long streches of beaches of Plettenberg Bay makes you feel as if you have found heaven.

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Whale Watching is one of the best tourist attractions around Plettenberg Bay. Even watching them from the Rooberg Reserve, you can see these huge mammals enjoying the water, feeding their little ones. They are in the Western Cape from about July until January, but you might see the most of them during September.

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Accommodation Plettenberg Bay

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Accommodation Knysna

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Only a few kilometers away is the great next door town of Knysna. Wander around at the Waterfront or visit the famous Knysna Elephant Park