On the 6th and 7th of October 2025, hundreds of ITAM, SAM and procurement professionals converged upon the Hotel Okura in Amsterdam for their annual gathering at SAMS Europe. One of the key events in the European software asset management calendar, it’s keenly anticipated as an opportunity to network, share best practices, hear from thought leaders, and of course to see who has the best swag to give away on their booth! For SoftwareOne, this year held particular significance as, following our recent acquisition of Crayon, we were able to show the European SAM community the power of our newly combined company. The event brought attendees from mainland Europe, the Nordic regions and even a delegation from Rwanda together to discuss key issues and new developments in IT asset management.
From reactive to proactive: The Vestas story
The first day opened with a keynote from SoftwareOne client, Vestas. Pulkit Suri shared how they built their SAM roadmap, starting from just a simple PowerShell query in 2019 and a reactive strategy. Their story of moving to a proactive stance and ensuring that that their organizational culture was embedded into their policy and strategy resonated strongly with the audience. Plenty of heads were nodding when Suri talked about banning the use of credit cards for IT purchases – as a common pain point across attendees, there were a few wistful glances as others wished they could do the same.
Turning IT portfolios into strategic advantage
SoftwareOne’s very own Richard Spithoven and Julien Kuijper took the stage next with a talk about how to manage your IT portfolio as a strategic advantage. Kuijper began by sharing an observation – that our personal lives evolve alongside a similar trajectory as most businesses. We start in both life and business with an idea that the sky is the limit, taking steps along a frequently trodden path, with growing responsibilities and possessions as we move along.
He asked the rhetorical question ‘do we own our “things”, or are our “things” owning us?’ That we need to make tough choices and take actions that might initially seem uncomfortable to optimize our lives – selling some previously treasured possessions to make space and pay for our future lives. This is the same in business – we build up a collection of IT assets as our companies grow. Over the years, these assets build up in size and value. By taking control of and optimizing these through IT asset management, we can unlock hidden funds that can be redeployed to enable innovation and growth, or “self-funding innovation” as he put it.
Richard Spithoven then took over to explain how SoftwareOne has helped clients avoid vendor lock-in, mitigate the risk of annual price increases, and avoid a forced upgrade from perpetual licenses to cloud solutions. One particular story about a German multinational that was able to make savings of €32m over three years was particularly well received within the audience, with many empathizing with the challenges that our clients had faced. As a well-known figure within the world of SAM and ITAM, Spithoven was very much a man in demand over the two days of the conference with many keen to seek his advice on how they could take control over their software estate.
Partner spotlights: Spinnaker and Origina
Other speakers included SoftwareOne partners Spinnaker, explaining how they supported Telefonica Deutschland to move a predominantly legacy software environment to third-party software support services. This gave them time to focus on a considered digital transformation with the comfort of full support and remaining compliant, instead of a forced and rushed upgrade to cloud-based software.
Later in the day, another SoftwareOne partner – Origina – took the stage. Their talk on how to retain your digital sovereignty over your software estate without having to upgrade to meet vendors’ licensing changes was one that had many heading to their booth afterwards to hear more.
Day two: M&A, EULAs, and optimization
Day two brought more sunshine and blue skies to Amsterdam after the stormy weather at the weekend, which was a relief to those that may have enjoyed the networking drinks the night before a little too much.
While the second day of conferences is usually a quieter affair, there were still many great talks to be enjoyed, including Katarzyna Korolczuk from DSV sharing her story of SAM during M&A. While many consider SAM to be an essential part of day-to-day business, mergers and acquisitions is one use case that not everyone will experience. How to combine and consolidate IT portfolios across merged or divested companies is a growing use case, and one that the team at DSV tackled through cross-functional collaboration, careful planning and standardization.
Later, Ben Mohseni took the stage to explain how important it is to keen on top of end user license agreements (EULAs) to ensure compliance and mitigate risks. Richard Spithoven and Neo Wickramasekera also led an interactive session focusing on optimizing IT portfolios (a popular topic).
The new venue for the 2025 SAMS Europe event, the Hotel Okura, was comfortable and well-equipped, and proved a definite attraction to many. During the regular breaks, crowds converged in the exhibitor halls to enjoy the plentiful and delicious food, while networking, enjoying silent disco-style presentations at booths, and even getting a portrait of themselves from the resident cartoonist at the SoftwareOne booth.
Four themes that shaped the conversation
Throughout the event, there were several key themes that kept repeating – in conversations around the venue, during presentations and even during the networking drinks in the evening:
- The importance of cross-functional collaboration. SAM shouldn’t sit in a silo – it requires input and support from all around the business. Procurement, IT, security and more – to be a success, it must be a true team effort.
- AI is coming. Whether you like it or not, AI is becoming a big part of our personal and professional lives. It’s your responsibility to improve your own knowledge and skills to ensure you remain relevant.
- Even though AI is coming, it won’t (at least, yet) replace SAM managers. It will, however, reduce workload and provide automation, enhancing efficiencies. Many of those speaking and exhibiting are building AI functionality and agents into their solutions, which further supports the need to improve AI knowledge and skills.
- There is a solution for end of support software. You don’t need to be forced into an upgrade to cloud or SaaS, you can remain secure and compliant on software that is no longer supported by vendors through third-party support.
SAMS Europe and SoftwareOne will return to Amsterdam in 2026, but in the meantime if you’re struggling with your IT portfolio, juggling license agreements and facing the very real threat of software publisher audits, help is at hand from SoftwareOne. Get in touch today to find out how we could help you optimize your IT, unlock hidden budget and help you innovate.
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