Are you getting value from your SAM solution?

Is your (Software Asset Management) SAM provider meeting your expectations and delivering everything you need? What should you be looking for? What steps can you take to get the most value out of your SAM solution?

Too often, organizations implement a solution which they believe will do a certain task only to find it doesn’t live up to expectations. This is often as a result of poor support, technical efficacy or both. It’s no different with SAM and, sadly, Certero has seen too many examples of organizations who have experienced such dissatisfaction, yet find themselves unable to take remedial action without incurring additional cost or operational disruption.

What should you be expecting from a SAM Tool?

Identifying whether your existing SAM solution or provider is delivering everything it should is reasonably straightforward and centres around some key questions:

• Are you enjoying all the many benefits of advanced SAM, including:
  • Cost savings through licensing optimization and contract management
  • Operational and productivity gains
  • Reduced organizational risk from enhanced compliance and improved security
  • Better decision making, IT strategy and investment planning
• Are you confident you have complete, accurate end-to-end coverage and visibility of your IT estate? Even if the information is available, how easy is it for users and stakeholders to get quick access and/or transform it into valuable intelligence? Too many solutions still fail to meet these fundamental requirements.
• The best solutions are highly automated, reducing the need for manual intervention which takes time, costs money and, without rigorous process, is susceptible to errors. How much manual effort and resource does yours require? Can you access a dynamic ELP at the touch of a button?
• If you received notification of an impending vendor audit, how confident do you feel that you are completely covered?
• Is the solution being fully utilised? If it isn’t, it’s often down to poor levels of training and knowledge transfer imparted to your key users or system administrators.
• Ensuring that you derive continuous value from you SAM solution requires on-going access to technical support and expertise. How satisfied are you with the level of support you’re receiving?
• How easy is it to implement updates or new versions? Costly and highly disruptive migrations are completely unacceptable.
• Does the solution fully integrate with your other systems – such as those covering ITAM or ITSM – protecting existing investments and providing the richest IT management experience?
• How future-proof is your SAM solution? As IT continues to evolve, so too do the associated management challenges. It is essential to have a flexible solution which is able to adapt and ensure that those challenges can be addressed as and when they arise.

Of course the list of questions could be even longer; but a negative answer to any of them is probably grounds to query the value of your existing SAM solution or provider and push back accordingly.

What are your options?

If further analysis confirms the shortcomings of your existing solution, there is a number of options:

1. Push back on the SAM solution provider and seek an improvement
2. Terminate the contract and seek an alternative solution
3. Wait until the contract expires or is up for renewal
4. Speak to another provider about a cost-neutral swap-out

In our experience, most organizations tend to choose option 1 or 3, neither of which usually result in any significant improvement or benefit for the end-user. Option 2 is rarely invoked and, unless there has been a very serious breach, would entail the customer taking a financial hit from the cost of any remaining licensing commitment, on top of which comes the additional cost of investing in and implementing an alternative solution.

Clearly any reticence to take immediate action comes from concerns about financial and personal exposure (no-one wants to have to shoulder responsibility for a mis-judged investment decision, no matter how misled they may have been), as well as the operational impact of any rip and replace activity.

All fully understandable, but what about option 4?

Now is the time to consider a swap-out for your SAM solution

What if the provider of an alternative – preferred – solution is willing to offer a cost-neutral swap-out, covering implementation costs and ensuring no additional financial exposure? This is what’s on offer from Certero.

Certero is passionate about delivering the very best, highly automated solutions which enable customers to fully realize all the benefits of an advanced SAM program. Get in touch to request a demo today. 

So, whether you’re feeling hand-tied or simply unaware that you could be enjoying a far better SAM experience, remember there is a better way…