By Libby Bagley, Community Manager at License Dashboard

When most business leaders began planning for lockdown and a shift to remote working, the potential challenges they were preparing for centred around the operational difficulties of being able to collaborate from a distance. There may have been changes to processes and policies, staff training on new tools, as well as plans on overcoming financial obstacles as a result of the pandemic.

However, there was less consideration for the impact of remote working on cybersecurity. For all the benefits of allowing staff to work from home, both in terms of productivity and work/life balance, it inevitably leaves a business more open to security threats.

The average office setup is very different to the home environment of most employees, with relaxed admin rights of the latter allowing staff to easily and quickly download free trials of products that might pose a danger. Having teams working remotely also means you won’t all be on the same centralised system for updating anti-virus software.

On top of this, as the move to the cloud increases – especially when we consider the reliance on tools like Microsoft 365 – the very nature of having employees accessing files and software from multiple locations, networks and devices, is a risk to corporate information such as financial stats or customer data.

During uncertain times it can be easy to overlook the software utilised across your organisation, which leaves you with security and non-compliance risks as well a high likelihood of IT overspend.

We have partnered with License Dashboard to provide a free IT health check – a ‘Check-IT’ promotion, giving you the opportunity to take the first steps to identifying those areas of risk and overspend.

With our combined assistance, we can provide the opportunity to optimise and mitigate areas of your software spend with the following benefits:

During uncertain times it can be easy to overlook the software utilised across your organisation, which leaves you with security and non-compliance risks as well a high likelihood of IT overspend.

We have partnered with License Dashboard to provide a free IT health check – a ‘Check-IT’ promotion, giving you the opportunity to take the first steps to identifying those areas of risk and overspend.

With our combined assistance, we can provide the opportunity to optimise and mitigate areas of your software spend with the following benefits:

The relationship between an IT service provider and their customer is not unlike the romantic relationship of a married couple. The relationship between a software asset management (SAM) provider and their customer is no different.

Both scenarios start with an initial courtship and a period of dating. If both parties deem the dating phase to be a success, they sign a legally-binding contract and begin their “marriage”.

However, in the same way that 42 per cent of marriages in the UK sadly end in divorce, not every SAM relationship is a happy one either. In many instances, this once blossoming relationship ends in a messy and acrimonious divorce, with both sides blaming each other for the breakdown. As the marriage counsellor in this analogy, I am here to tell you it doesn’t have to be this way.

If we follow this analogy to its logical conclusion, we must start by examining the stages of the relationship, from dating to marriage to divorce.

First, there’s the initial realisation that life would be better if you had a partner to share it with. In SAM terms, this is the realisation that you cannot easily manage your software licensing by on your own. You realise you are not an expert in licensing and are concerned you might be paying more than you need to.

Or, even more likely: you have just received a letter from one of your major software suppliers advising you of a pending audit that you really don’t want to have to face on your own. You therefore seek out the help of a SAM consultancy, SAM tool – or both – to reconcile and optimise your software spend.

This is when the dating begins. You meet with different suitors and learn what you do and don’t want want from a partner. Eventually you figure out what you want and need in a partner, get engaged and the marriage begins.Your new SAM partner wows you with software savings you never knew were there. Your software bills are slashed and you’ve never felt so organised

At first there’s the honeymoon period. You reach levels of happiness and satisfaction you never thought possible. In IT terms, your new SAM partner wows you with software savings you never knew were there. Your software bills are slashed and you’ve never felt so organised. You know all of your licence entitlements and face that audit head on, confident that there will be no surprise bill at the end of the process. The vendor completes the audit and leaves, satisfied that your house is in order and disappointed they couldn’t extract more money from you! You know you won’t hear from that vendor for years to come.

But this is when the first kinks begin to show in the relationship. You begin to sense your partner isn’t trying as much as they used to, and the benefits of the relationship just aren’t as dramatic as they once were. Perhaps your expectations were unrealistic. Is it fair to expect your SAM partner to slash your software licensing bill every year?

You have passed your audit, but your SAM partner is still pestering you for more data, encouraging you to keep your software inventory up to date. But without the pressure of an audit you begin to hold back. You share less with your partner. You are fed up with the nagging and start thinking the grass could be greener elsewhere… This relationship is not as easy as it used to be.

I have sat on all sides of this SAM relationship, so I can see where the challenges lie. I have been the SAM tools buyer, the creator of a SAM tool (License Dashboard), and a SAM partner/consultant. In 90% of cases where the customer is unsatisfied with the results of their SAM engagement, they naturally blame the SAM partner.

After all, they are paying good money for a service and don’t feel they are getting the same results they once did. But, just like a marriage, you get out what you put in. In almost all instances the cause of the breakup is a breakdown in communication between the parties.

The reality is, without the imminent threat of an audit, both parties become less focused on maintaining the software inventory. This means that data stops being shared between the customer and the SAM partner.

This is the nail in the coffin, since your SAM partner or SAM tool will only be as good as the data you feed into it. How can you reconcile your software licensing with your software usage if the data for either (or both) is out-of-date?

Software Asset Management is a collaboration that all parties must participate equally in. It is important to set roles and expectations, but most importantly of all, to keep the dialogue open! If you, as the customer, are struggling to keep your data up-to-date, perhaps you should ask your SAM partner for assistance? If you don’t want a SAM divorce, don’t bottle up your data!

Sean Robinson is a sales director at SAM software company License Dashboard

License Dashboard, a UK-based provider of Software Asset Management solutions and services, has released an update to their software license management platform, License Manager 11, offering organizations a complete view of their IT estate with added automated functionality to manage user-based software licensing.

License Manager from License Dashboard gives a comprehensive overview of an organization’s Effective License Position (ELP) to help ensure software licensing compliance. User-based licensing allows a user to run a piece of software on a predefined number of devices, however, when users hold accounts from multiple vendors their account information is not always standardised, creating duplicates known as aliases. In what was previously a manual task, License Manager automatically reconciles each user to their multiple aliases and then allocates a single license across a user’s allocated set of devices for each vendor.

David Chamberlain, License Dashboard General Manager commented, “User-based licensing can be extremely cost-effective. But without accurate, up-to-date information, organizations are unable to take full advantage of the grants it offers. They find themselves at risk of making licensing errors such as purchasing unnecessary additional software licenses, wasting precious IT budget.”

License Manager 11 is an on-premise software asset management solution designed for organizations with an in-house SAM team in place. Those using it have full visibility if their IT estate including all connected devices and users, plus these new automated features:

When compared to businesses, software licensing in the education sector is often less costly. Site-based licensing allows for software to be deployed through an entire campus, even multiple campuses, and will likely be heavily discounted… but user agreements, contracts, and rules for compliance are just as strict. And that means if a software vendor finds a breach of contract, that institution is subject to a fine.

Software vendors look more kindly on education institutions, and so fines for non-compliance tend to be lower than those received by businesses that are found to be under-licensed. On the surface, this should put universities and colleges at an advantage, however with relatively smaller IT budgets, the impact of a fine could be just as devastating. In a study conducted by EduServ and License Dashboard, it was revealed that more than half of FE and HE institutions are not using Software Asset Management to understand how staff and students use software, putting them at serious risk of non-compliance.

Effective Software Asset Management (SAM) ensures no license goes unused, and no user goes unlicensed. But it is just as powerful when it’s time to renew contracts. SAM provides the crucial software usage data on which all decisions should be based. Depending on the size of your organisation, there is the potential to save thousands in conducting negotiations with major vendors, including Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and SAP – all through careful planning.

The countdown toward GDPR is on. Friday 25th May marks the enforcement of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, and it’s not just IT and Technology sectors that are looking at a complete shift in culture – this will impact every industry, cloud-based or otherwise, that collects, retains, or processes personal data on EU individuals, regardless of physical business location.

In what is being dubbed as the biggest shake-up to the privacy and security landscape, data management will never be the same, with stringent rules on handling personal data, and the subsequent streamlining of its flow inside the European Union

With the threat of fines of up to 4% of a company’s annual revenue, or €20m (whichever is greater) for non-compliance, the mere mention of GDPR has had some companies quaking in their boots. Indeed, the demand for “accountability” and “transparency” has meant that the often neglected responsibilities that many would assume come as standard in data management are under internal scrutiny. That is, companies are scrambling to reach compliance in time.