Software asset management (SAM) is the business discipline an organization uses to optimize their investment in software assets by tracking and reconciling installed inventory, measuring the usage of products, and integrating this information with contract, licensing and financial data.

The challenge is to understand the current level of your organization’s software management effectiveness and efficiency. Do you know how effective your program is today?

In today’s world, every process has a basic cost to produce a product or service correctly the first time. This base cost is known collectively as the cost-of-quality (COQ) and generally made up of the costs of quality assurance (requirements), the costs of quality control (testing) and the costs of failure (fixing defects). We all have heard that the cost of finding and fixing a defect in production is at least 100 times the cost of finding and fixing that same defect earlier in requirements.

Description

Our affordable, fixed-price Software Asset Management Process Rapid Review Assessment provides a fast and efficient assessment and evaluation of your current software asset management process, which covers the following:

• An assessment and evaluation of the current software asset management process by platform for both executive and staff levels
• An assessment and evaluation of the barriers that increase the risk of achieving higher efficiency levels
• A gap analysis comparing the software asset management process to best practices

The results of our service enable companies to manage strengths, improve weaknesses and develop a self-funding software management roadmap.

Our Experts have extensive experience in creating and implementing software asset management process solutions. Our team also has experience in performing software asset management assessments and audits, and designing enterprise IT software asset management process support systems and automated reporting systems.

We partner with our clients to define an improved software asset management process based on their goals and business requirements, and educate their team in the process. We believe this is important so our clients can take ownership for the recommendations, and are capable of making continual adjustments to the software asset management process as changing business needs demand.

Deliverables

Standard

Our offering delivers the following results:

• An assessment and evaluation of the current software asset management process by platform, for both executives and staff levels, and its related supporting infrastructure
• A summary of current barriers to SAM process improvement
• A gap analysis comparing the current software asset management process to best practices, and recommendations for improvement

Our Experts will deliver a summary report that includes the above deliverables, and present the findings to our client’s management.

Work effort may be conducted on-site or off-site as follows:

• TAC will work with client’s IT staff to gather the information for review.
• Work effort is limited to two days for data gathering, and one day for an interactive presentation of findings and recommendations
• TAC assumes client has readily available inventory, prices and costs of all areas, and/or will send to TAC within two business days upon request.

Optional

In addition to the deliverables listed above, we can assist clients in a more detailed, complete software asset management process assessment provide additional support, and help to implement the approved initiatives.

Additional support examples:

Inventory Support: Based on the SAM Process Assessment we will develop a comprehensive asset inventory baseline for ongoing comparison and action.

Contract Analysis and Support: Based on the SAM Process Assessment, we will selectively (per the client) review one or more software vendor’s contract terms and conditions with related environment factors in order to develop a comprehensive vendor strategy.

Usage Analysis and Support: Based on the SAM Process Assessment, we will develop a comprehensive asset usage baseline for ongoing comparison and action.

Ongoing support: TAC offers analytical and research support for the SAM Process Assessment results.

Performance Dashboard: An automated visualization tool which enables management to view all the important SAM process measurements and KPIs in a simple, easy to understand pictorial format.

Software Asset Management Savings Tools: A SAM impact tracker “Savings Tool” in Microsoft Excel is provided to the client for use during the engagement. The tool enables the client to track and record each event that takes place as part of the software asset management engagement. An event may be a cost saving, cost avoidance, or a process improvement activity such as the elimination of a software product or the renegotiation of a software contract. Written reports can be prepared easily by the client on a periodic basis based on the data captured and summarized in the tool, and used to support the program to client management. These reports are typically done each quarter.

Target Audience

CIO, COO, CFO

IT executives and senior management who are responsible for software asset management.

About The Advisory Council

Founded in 2002, The Advisory Council provides IT organizations with enterprise-wide access to objective, actionable advice for resolving IT challenges and issues. Through its suite of services, products and workshops, TAC helps IT organizations make decisions more quickly and cost effectively. TAC’s Expert Decision Support Network consists of more than 200 Experts, covering 97% of all IT practice areas. Clients include Fortune 1000 and midsize companies, government, and educational institutions.