This is how to prepare for a Microsoft license agreement renewal

In order to have a business relationship, you need to have an agreement, be it a nondisclosure, partnership, or Microsoft license agreement.

The purpose of any agreement is to define each party's rights and responsibilities and provide a reference for answering future questions concerning each party’s obligations. A contract should provide certainty and predictability throughout the length of its term.

Every contract should be evaluated at least once per year (or more often if the contract length is shorter than one year) to see whether the contract is still covering your needs, its value for your company, and if a renewal should be considered.

Here are the steps you should take before renewing your Microsoft license agreement.

Microsoft licensing: 4 critical steps to take now before contract renewal time

1. Involve all stakeholders

Ensure you receive input from everyone who can help you make the right decisions. This usually means all departments and functions directly affected by the agreement--procurement, finance, IT, legal, and software asset management. When renewing agreements, it is essential to include those impacted by them to prevent any contradictions or problems regarding legal obligations and billing.

2. Review your current contracts

Make sure you clearly understand what is stated in your agreements so you know what you want to keep and what you want to remove or change. Be sure to set your contracting goals. This is particularly important for companies with an extensive contract portfolio or those engaged in lengthy, complicated contracting arrangements.

3. Review your effective license position

You should always maintain compliance, but as you approach your license agreement renewal, you must know what products are installed and what is used in case you want to terminate or replace older licenses with newer ones.

4. Set clear goals for the negotiation

Know your strategy and stick to it. A Microsoft Advisory Service (MAS) expert can help you prepare a negotiation strategy before beginning the negotiation. A specialist can help you understand the publisher’s terms of license agreements or strategic products and can help you leverage them to your advantage.

Planning for the future: How to ensure you get the best business value from your Microsoft licensing agreement

Be proactive

Don’t wait until the last minute to plan your renewal because this will increase stress levels, and you may not have enough time to really dig into the specifics. With sufficient time and expertise, you can go through all the steps mentioned above to maximize the value of your license agreement. By being proactive, you’ll have enough time to thoroughly perform your due diligence and set clear goals for the negotiation.

Plan for future needs and organizational changes

Consider all the possible scenarios for your organization in the near or mid future.

• Is your organization planning to move to the cloud, and if so, what’s the cloud roadmap?
• Will the current licensing models address your needs throughout the next three years?
• Are acquisitions/mergers/divestitures likely to happen soon?

Before renewing a license agreement, you should have answers to these kinds of questions.

Analyze users

Create profiles of the users within your organization and determine who needs more robust functionality and who needs less. This will inform the choices you make moving forward.

Discuss cloud strategy and cloud spend

Microsoft is continually changing product use rights and terms which can impact cloud spend. For example, the bring your own licensing option introduced in October 2019 allowed customers to use their licenses flexibly on-premise or in the cloud. That’s why looking ahead and creating an excellent clear strategy on the cloud helps you plan for your future needs as part of your organizational changes.

Consider utilizing AWS optimization and licensing assessment

As you plan for your future needs, consider taking advantage of an Amazon Web Services optimization and licensing assessment (OLA) to help you assess and optimize your current on-premise and cloud environments. The free program can help your organization save on third-party licensing costs and efficiently operate your resources.

Determine if Microsoft EA or Microsoft CSP is the best choice

Explore the differences between a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (EA) and a Cloud Solution Provider Agreement (CSP) and determine which offers your enterprise the best business value.