Software Asset Management; How to Save $1M Dollars

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Software Asset Management; How to Save $1M Dollars

Many statements are bandied about the industry on how much you can save with Software Asset Management, for example:

“Organizations can realize cost savings between 5% and 35% by implementing focussed software asset management practices” Gartner

Less common, are examples of organisations explaining how they actually went about it. It is a strange phenomenon in the ITAM industry, organizations are all too keen to go on record to demonstrate how much money they saved by being prudent with energy consumption – but not software.

For this reason I was glad to see a case study from Sassafras Software which offered real details into how savings were found. It reads as follows:

“In 2009, Scott Lemm, a well known SAM practitioner from Michigan, deployed K2 into a corporate environment of 10,000 computers on a global network. In the course of just four months Scott delivered software cost reductions of greater than $1-million. Here is how he did it.

Using Sassafras K2, Scott reported…

• Less than 10% of Microsoft Office users utilize Pro tools. Scott was able to use this information to reduce their Microsoft Office costs by $450,000 by licensing the Standard edition at their next EA negotiation.
• Seven applications had over 1,200 unused installations. Scott was able to harvest the unused software for savings over $220,000.
• The same seven applications had over 2,200 rarely used installations. The company decided to install application kiosks for savings over $260,000.
• Two applications licensed for over 8,000 users showed concurrent use of less than 10 at any one time. Scott’s organization renegotiated licensing terms to move to concurrent use licensing for savings over $125,000.
• In roughly four months, with a quick deployment of the K2 – KeyAuditor & KeyServer SAM tool, Scott was able to identify and generate $1,055,000 in real cost reductions.

Scott pointed out, however, that it was his ability to mine detailed usage metrics provided by Sassafras K2 that made it possible for him to reap so much in savings.  K2 provided him with detailed visibility into usage that was critically important in achieving his objectives.”

View more about Sassafras Software here.

More like this please! If you have a story to share from your brag file (Anonymously or otherwise) Please contact me.

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