Get Your Assets Out of the Shadows – Recording and Recap | SoftwareONE Blog

We recently hosted part two of our three-part webinar series, with the focus of the webinar series being how to build a mature and sustainable Software Asset Management (SAM) practice. The full recording for part two, “Get Your Assets Out of the Shadows,” can be downloaded here. In part two we specifically covered:

• The role of SAM in solving the problem of shadow IT
• How to understand what software you have, your entitlements
• How to get your business units to remain accountable once you’ve uncovered your assets from the shadows

Kevin Hooton summarized some of the key challenges customers face when trying to bring visibility across one’s software estate, and how to maintain this transparency and accountability.

He touched on why visibility is key to maintaining a SAM practice – and it basically comes down to the fact that you can’t manage what you don’t know. Due to this lack of visibility, cloud bills are soaring and companies are facing massive budget discrepancies as assets are either under, or over, utilized. To help combat this, companies are starting to realize the value that software asset management can bring to an organization in both the short and long-term. Kevin left the audience with a few “to do’s” to help move their SAM journey along, including:

• Take ownership of cloud licensing
• Broaden the focus from license management/compliance to contract management for subscription licensing
• Identify and manage opportunities and risk
• Maintain reliable SAM usage/consumption data
• Create and communicate a governance model for SAM