Asset Management
"Software Asset Management is often one of the most neglected parts of an organisation's activities. Our outsourced Licence (and hardware asset) Management Program has proven to make extremely good financial sense - assisting our clients in optimising their return on investment and assuring legal licencing compliance."
Are you breaking the law? With the ever increasing complexity and variety of software products in use within companies, staying 'licence legal' is no easy task. Most organisations use a multitude of software products from many different vendors so it is imperative to monitor and track software installations in order to comply with the licencing for each product or very quickly businesses can find themselves breaking the law.
In a recent survey, FAST (Federation Against Software Theft) found that:
- 61% of respondents felt that the legal risk to their organisation of non-compliance was high or very high.
- 56% of respondents stated it would be difficult to prove ownership of all software.
- 80% of respondents believed that the percentage of pirated software in use within their business was greater than 20%.
It is estimated that one in four software packages used in the UK is not properly licensed and the risk of being caught is now greater than ever.
Better Management delivers Improved Retum on Investment Today software is important to just about every business, but to get the most out of your software, you have to manage it well. Yet, many companies treat software differently. They don't tend to manage it as they would any other valuable company asset. Managing software is more difficult than managing physical hardware because the process is less familiar. Software is also invisible, making misuse of the asset less apparent. Our experience shows poor software management can cost a company, in terms of efficiency, productivity as well as financially.
As the cost of software is rapidly escalating compared to the cost of hardware, recent market research undertaken by FAST and Gartner Research has highlighted that many UK businesses are wasting thousands of pounds per year by struggling to negotiate the software licensing minefield themselves. With some companies being over-licensed by between 5 to 10 per cent, both reports strongly urge companies to embrace the discipline of outsourcing software asset management to save money, as regular audits would help businesses to avoid wasting money on unnecessary licenses and ensure legal licensing compliance.
Greencorn can offer a complete asset management service, ensuring that you are constantly on top of your software (and hardware) assets and can easily prove legal compliance in the event of a site audit being undertaken.
