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3 min to readSoftware Sourcing ServicesAsset Management

Why IT asset managers should care about Software Digital Supply Chain

Marc Hennemann
Marc HennemannGlobal Business Owner Core Consulting
SoftwareOne Software Sourcing Services

Gone are the days when a company would know what software it was using just by checking a spreadsheet. Nowadays, most organizations don’t have an accurate picture of all the software, or even hardware, running on their networks. And, as the old adage goes: ‘If you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it’.

Relatively recent changes to business technology have dramatically increased the level of complexity IT asset management (ITAM) department face, the rapid growth in shadow IT driven in part by cloud and Software as a Service (SaaS), smart devices and bring-your-own-device have made the ITAM department’s job harder. Weakened control leads to more risks and costs for businesses. This is exacerbated by the increased number of software and cloud services for an ITAM team to administer and manage, especially for what we call ‘the long tail’ of software providers. These aren't the big vendors like Microsoft and Salesforce, but the myriad of smaller, niche software solutions used across a business. These are now taking up a significant proportion of ITAM and procurement’s time to manage.

Fortunately, there is a way to bring it all under control – and for organizations to measure and manage their software assets.

Stop the tail wagging the dog

Businesses are under constant pressure to innovate and digitize processes. Most organizations turn to new solutions and services to help achieve this. Managing the majority of your spend allocated to bigger suppliers is relatively straightforward – at SoftwareOne we work on a rule of thumb that 80% of your software spending goes to the hyper vendors. However, most of your time is spent on onboarding, processing licensing requests, and renewals for the long tail of smaller, often local, vendors.

This long tail of specialized software is expanding and accounting for a growing proportion of total IT spend, as technology gets ever more complex and fragmented, so the challenge for the ITAM team grows exponentially.

Establishing an effective Digital Supply Chain (DSC) for software and cloud services is fast becoming vital for any ITAM team. Creating a central catalog of pre-approved software and automating end-to-end processes covering software requests and contract renewals to retirement can dramatically improve the visibility and control your team has over software assets and cloud services.

A DSC collects the data that ITAM teams need to do their job and helps bring services and software back under control. That means they can make smarter, data-driven decisions about optimizing and rationalizing the software and cloud services the organization has built up. Which means they can save the company money and reduce risks from software audits, data security and new cyber security threats.

An effective and efficient Digital Supply Chain provides a better end user experience. It means IT assets and services are well managed and ITAM and procurement teams are aligned for contract negotiations and renewals. This frees up valuable time for IT asset managers to focus on strategically important initiatives and be proactive in speeding up innovation, transformation and driving value for the business.

A long-term win

Setting up DSC and getting buy-in from everyone along the line, is not an easy task. IT, operations, IT asset management and procurement all need to be aligned. It’s about bringing together people, processes and technology and having a shared vision and goals.

To align ITAM and procurement teams you need a plan that breaks down the actions required by each team – and the expected outcomes each can achieve from their efforts. Overall cost reduction is a big win across the board, but so is faster delivery of software to users, fewer ticket requests, less time wasted on software management, happier employees, and readiness for any audit.

DSC helps you gain genuine visibility into your network, improve security, reduce audit and data protection risks, increase efficiency, and licensing gains and, above all, give the ITAM team the data they need to make better technology decisions in the future.

A blurry image of a computer screen with numbers on it.

Take control of your Digital Supply Chain Management

To dive deeper into why DSC is important and an integral part of ITAM, download our whitepaper:

Take control of your Digital Supply Chain Management

To dive deeper into why DSC is important and an integral part of ITAM, download our whitepaper:

Author

Marc Hennemann

Marc Hennemann
Global Business Owner Core Consulting

Digital Supply Chain Management