Software “fat” in the cloud is a boardroom issue

IT departments no longer have control over the value of their infrastructure, said Concorde Solutions (Concorde) today, as the US Government found last week when it was fined £31 million for under-licensing software in the Department of Justice.

Martin Prendergast, CEO of Concorde, said that old software asset management (SAM) strategies and applications just aren’t cutting it, leaving companies and institutions fighting compliance payments, or over-provisioning of licenses versus actual users.

“Software actually accounts for 30 per cent of an organisation’s annual IT spend; an incredible amount when you take into account maintenance contracts, capital outlay for on-premise implementations and new hardware. It’s a huge challenge to know whether it’s being used to its greatest potential. But today, SAM is a hugely complex and nuanced environment, which cannot be easily ruled. Achieving true value from an organisation’s software and IT infrastructure can be a significant struggle for many businesses,” he stated.

Prendergast continued: “In the past, before mobile devices, before cloud computing and before this ‘hybrid’ environment where no two organisation’s systems are the same, SAM offered a reasonable solution and adequate business intelligence (BI) to stop companies paying over the odds and at the same time avoiding heavy compliance fines.

“Consider multiple suppliers, hosted environments, software and service contracts, users downloading applications and programmes left, right and centre – we’ve never had such a complex IT environment of different agendas. Organisations don’t even know where to begin. So this is much more about the understanding and controlling the value of the software and IT infrastructure, how to gain visibility of it, and how to manage it to save money and stay compliant,” he said.

Prendergast continued: “Unfortunately for the IT department, who traditionally would manage this, there is limited time and resources to put that control in place. The key is making SAM more manageable and realistic, to smooth the path to true software value management (SVM). Your first line of defence in this battle is intelligence. With access to the right BI, which is ‘actionable’, you can make the changes that will have a real impact.
“And don’t get this wrong; this is much, much more than about having the right technology to help you search, mine and self-analyse data on what’s on your systems in order to produce useful information, you absolutely need to ask the right questions, and bring in the right expertise to truly get a handle on it. And the boardroom needs to get a handle on it, and not rely on the bodies in IT. Highlight your biggest risks and opportunities when it comes to software and ensure you are maximising your investments and avoiding compliance exposure,” he said.

Prendergast concluded: “It’s crucial to note however that SVM is not just about compliance; it’s about the bigger picture of BI as a holistic tool that can lead to a shift in how businesses achieve value. SVM should be considered as a central part of the business, not just something that runs alongside it. The financial side of software is important, but so is vendor management, and the control of mobile devices, in order to reach a position of sound governance.”