Erasing Risks and Achievieng IBM Compliance

Customer: COBIS

Industry: IT Services for Financial Institutions

Services: SoftwareONE IBM Advisory Services

COBIS was challenged to assure their continued ex-pansion into new markets with new services for new and existing customers in North America, particularly in Mexico and the US. An essential part of their growth challenge was for the IT team to maintain high quality and availability of services in any part of the world where COBIS plans to innovate. That quality of ser-vices delivery requires management and control of all software assets and licensing across all company and customer locations.

Part of the COBIS objective is to fully understand the use and compliance of third-party software by all internal company areas, as well as within the customer base. They needed efficient and accurate cost distribu-tion policies for all. Their own staff expertise and asset control tools were no longer sufficient to the task, and it was time to engage outside assistance – particular-ly to help with the management of IBM middleware assets that are licensed to be sold as essential compo-nents of the specialized COBIS financial software.

To achieve ongoing compliance, COBIS needed help with proper management of the IBM License Metric Tool (ILMT). The tool helps businesses measure and monitor software usage, enabling a clear understand-ing of potential risks or problems. They also wanted to stop paying for software that wasn’t being used or generating value. The push for efficient software use was also a directive from the COBIS executive team to improve expense controls for third-party software.

COBIS raised their concerns about IBM contract risks in a regular meeting with their SoftwareONE account manager. That resulted in an engagement with SoftwareONE IBM Advisory Services to review their contract risks and assess challenges across their environments and infrastructure. At the outset, COBIS estimated a worst-case financial risk in the millions and with SoftwareONE assistance reduced that risk by 97.5% to thousands.

The Advisory Services review began by using the ILMT to evaluate software licenses used by developers and func-tions within COBIS. That was followed by assessments of individual customer installations, starting with one of their largest customers located in Colombia. “We knew they were not meeting all brand standards, and it was necessary to carry out an immediate risk review,” said Casa. “However, unlike our own facilities in Ecuador, permissions, and coor-dination with the client added complications that extended implementation and revision times. Even so, COBIS and SoftwareOne professionally overcame obstacles together, and recovered the pace of the project.”

As a financial technology company, COBIS has invested heavily in a flexible technology infrastructure that provided project advantages. Now, tools and processes are in place to more easily understand what is installed, how it is linked to licensing contracts, and how each software asset is being used.
When complete, the project is expected to reduce mone-tary risk to COBIS and their customers by 97.5% or roughly 2.5% of the estimated risk at the project’s start.

• COBIS and their customers now fully IBM compliant
• Reduced compliance risk and potential expense by 97.5%
• Detailed knowledge transfer from SoftwareONE experts in licensing and the ILMT
• Advisory Services have substantially reduced COBIS compliance man-agement staff time
• Ongoing trusted strategic partnership