A Consultant’s Story: No Tool Can Do It All

Though maybe best known as an innovator and developer of ground-breaking IT Asset Management and SAM solutions, Certero has always retained a global network of in-house SAM and licensing experts, who deliver Certero’s broad scope of independent SAM and ITAM services.
A pioneer of what we call the ‘Technology-Led Services’ approach, Certero’s vendor specialist consultancy team have the unique benefit of the full Certero technology platform at their disposal, to help them provide value to customers much faster and with greater accuracy than the traditional consultancy-heavy, ‘tool agnostic’ or manual approaches to delivering services.

This is because the substantial knowledge and expertise within Certero is what informs the creation of the technology and how it’s used by the consultancy team in practice, to deliver value beyond the norm – each element doing what it does best, in harmony.

In this blog series we look to Certero’s SAM team including dedicated specialists in Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, SAP and SaaS & Cloud, who discuss where the lines are between the expert knowledge and the unique insights from the solution, the value of symbiosis between the two and the knowledge they provide that will never be captured within a SAM solution…
In this first installment, members of Certero’s global SAM Services team discuss why expertise is essential:

When it comes to establishing a compliance position for a particular vendor – ensuring that the customer is fully informed of where they may have financial risks from under-licensing and where exactly they are over-spending on software that they don’t evidently need – it isn’t just about adding up the numbers within a SAM solution and creating a nice ELP screen – that’s just a starting point.

The SAM consultant’s role is to have a deep understanding of the publishers and know what to do with the information, as Certero Oracle and IBM licensing consultant for the APAC region, Noel Donovan explains

Noel raises a key point – a SAM solution can provide visibility and can help to identify the technical complexities around environments and how that impacts licensing with specific vendors, but organizations still need to have someone who understands each publisher in detail and can leverage their knowledge to maximize potential benefits whilst making sure that the interpretation of the rules remains in-line with the vendors.

With multiple vendor’s software in use, it’s often difficult for one individual to be an expert with all of those vendors and for IT leaders, recognizing where additional help and resources are required is a vital element to keep control.

Many SAM solutions have begun to offer automation– possessing software recognition and ‘pre-canned’ intelligence on the defined licensing rules of vendors. This certainly helps to truncate otherwise cumbersome manual processes and of course, the solutions must always provide the evidence and underlying data so that the optimal positions identified can always be logically verified by the SAM consultant.

Every vendor however, has its peculiarities which only licensing expertise can identify, as Hazel Hopes, Certero Oracle and Salesforce Licensing consultant for UK and EMEA, confirms

Reviewing contractual data is especially important as there can be hidden complexities in these documents which companies sign up to and then overlook, often leading to compliance issues further down the line.

Certero’s experience suggests this to be a common problem where vendor products have been in use for several years and stakeholders who originally agreed terms have moved on, leading to confusion and worry for those left behind. (See Financial Services User Case where this scenario occurred).

In addition, there may have been acquisitions or, worse, divestments, meaning the business loses track of who can use what and where. We have seen divested/sold companies still happily using vendor products without realizing they lost the right to do so during the divestment process, causing huge financial risk.

We spoke to Steve Wood, Certero IBM & SAP licensing expert for the UK and EMEA about his experiences with SAP contractual data and how it relates to usage and optimization:

As well as helping you maximize and understand your current investment, a licensing consultant can help you gauge how to mitigate, plan for and understand if your vendor’s suggestions (or reseller’s) are the right ones – or if an alternative strategy would be best for you, as Certero IBM Consultant for UK and EMEA Kevin Barnes explains:

Beyond any SAM solution, having a clear understanding of how the major vendors approach auditing and how you can use this to your advantage is key to keeping your costs under control.

Forrest Silverman, Certero IBM and Oracle expert in the US, warns that a lack of clarity in these areas can cause unforeseen financial consequences:

We have seen too many businesses agree to additional audit expenditure just to make audits go away when there could be other options. Major vendors have very active audit programs, Oracle have traditionally generated substantial revenue through their auditing activity and they are not alone, as Steve Wood tells us:

Forrest Silverman, Certero IBM and Oracle expert in the US, warns that a lack of clarity in these areas can cause unforeseen financial consequences:

As much as ITAM & SAM technology has evolved and many of the old ‘data’ problems simply do not need to be problems anymore; the consolidation of asset management disciplines onto a single platform has enabled the focus of SAM professionals to be on acting upon information and delivering value, rather than frustratingly spending most of their time just collating that information.

The role of the SAM consultant is more valuable than ever, as it is they who transform information into business value and with better information at their fingertips and more time to analyze and take actions, more and more organizations are able to transition to the ways of continuous control and technology value optimization.

By using specialist expertise, the abilities of the Certero suite of products can be significantly enhanced. Certero’s global consultancy team bring that additional element of clarity through the services engagements which de-mystifies many of the rules and, working directly with and for the customer, allows us to adjust findings to allow for their distinctive environments and business structures.

The second blog in our series looks at how businesses can assess SAM maturity, identify any gaps they may have with elements like specific vendor expertise, a lack of a SAM governance or emerging technologies, and how it’s possible now to simply ‘Switch ON’ the additional capabilities they need.

Daniel Whitefield, UK and EMEA: Subject Matter Expert on all aspects of Microsoft On-Premises, Online Services and Cloud Licensing. Dan has extensive experience in the LSP space as a Microsoft Licensing Specialist and made the natural evolution from Microsoft License Management to ITAM and SAM.

Hazel Hopes, UK and EMEA: Oracle and Salesforce Licensing Consultant for Certero, has worked in tech for many years and is focused specifically on deep dive Oracle Licensing and compliance, helping businesses to drive maximum value and understanding from their Oracle estates.

Kevin Barnes, UK and EMEA: Kevin brings extensive experience in IBM licensing to the team (ELPs, Audit Defense and Advice and Guidance). This is coupled with a background in Financial Services and project management which help with customers from that sector as well as in executing remediation plans.

Noel Donovan, APAC: Noel has worked within the SAM and License Compliance industry for the past 23+ years focusing on SAM process maturity and license compliance in the datacenter (Oracle, IBM, VMware, Microsoft amongst others) for public and private sector organizations. In 2015 he moved to Australia from the UK and continues to focus on these services for APAC and global organizations.

Peter Chance, APAC: Peter hails from Perth, on the sunny west coast of Australia and has twenty years of experience in managing enterprise infrastructure. In recent history, Peter became responsible for his organization’s SAM and after evaluating SAM tooling, liked Certero so much that he joined the company. He is predominantly self-taught and excels at anything he turns his hand to, if he does say so himself. As a Certero consultant Peter delivers ELP’s and optimization services to customers across the APAC region and specializes in Microsoft licensing, Enterprise infrastructure, AWS, Azure, Managed services, Support and Product Training

Steve Wood, UK and EMEA: Steve has worked within the Public Sector, Pharmaceutical, Transport, Banking, Retail and Shipping industries, as an IT Asset Management Software Professional for over 20 years. Steve brings a wide technical understanding of HAM, SAM and the Optimization of Datacenter Licenses, especially as an SME for IBM and SAP. An experienced auditor for IBM, Steve has guided many enterprise customers through audit processes, achieving savings often into the tens of millions of pounds with big-ticket vendors like SAP and IBM.

Michael Gray: Michael has extensive experience with Microsoft and Adobe licensing from both the sales and consulting sides. He has worked with customers large and small as a Microsoft licensing specialist in order to assist them in navigating the ever-changing world of Microsoft licensing. He has several years of SAM experience as both a Software consultant and Software Asset Manager for a large international organization. Michael is knowledgeable within the Datacenter and has assisted many customers in the optimization of their Windows Server and SQL estates as well as their cloud-based licensing.

For more information on Certero services visit: www.certero.com

User Cases:

Certero SAM Managed Service for Oracle

SAM Service: Effective License Position for SAP

SAM Managed Service – Microsoft, Oracle & IBM