What is Software Asset Management (SAM)?

Today, all businesses use various software to manage their daily operations according to their business needs. The increasing number of software for organizations creates problems of management and monitoring of software. Software is an integral part of IT infrastructure but more difficult to manage and monitor because they are not tangible assets like hardware assets. Software Asset Management is a necessary business process to meet this challenge.

What is Software Asset Management?

Software Asset Management is a tactical business process that allows organizations to use software assets effectively and helps identify expenses, liabilities and risks associated with software assets. Thus, organizations can effectively monitor upgrades, license changes, license expiration and compliance.

Software Asset Management (SAM) encompasses all the processes needed to successfully manage and secure organizations' existing software assets throughout their lifecycle, and to guide their decisions to purchase new software assets or renew licenses. Software Asset Management is a tactical approach that aims to actively manage the provisioning, use and distribution of Software licenses and subscriptions and to recover budget by automating this process.

Software Asset Management is a component of Hardware Asset Management and IT Asset Management and is an attempt to maximize the value of the organization. As it can be understood from here, Software Asset Management is a multidimensional process and does not only provide benefits to organizations in terms of managing software licenses and costs. It is a critical process with many benefits for organizations.

Why is Software Asset Management Important?

Software Asset Management helps organizations determine the number of licenses each software has and allows to measure its usage in the organization. It allows to identify unnecessary or obsolete software and make a decision to dispose of that software. With Software Asset Management, you can renegotiate unused software licenses with their vendors and distribute those licenses to those who are actually needed in the organization.

Software Asset Management basically helps organizations maximize their investment in software assets, but in doing so provides organizations with benefits such as saving costs and time, increasing productivity and staying up to date. In summary, Software Asset Management plays a role in the growth of the company while helping to streamline business processes for an organization.

In which area does Software Asset Management help organizations succeed?
Software Asset Management has the effect of facilitating business processes to organizations. Let's examine Software Asset Management under three main headings: license management, audit and optimization.

License Management

Software licenses provide information on the terms and conditions and correct use of software products. The organization that is the user of the software guarantees that it will use it in accordance with the license agreement and will not violate any of the terms. Software providers are very strict about compatibility and do not want their software to be used beyond their license permissions.

In addition, the renewal dates of the licenses are of critical importance for companies. It ensures that expired software is detected and the decision to renew or terminate them is taken. With license management, unused software is detected and their licenses are revoked. Thus, unnecessary costs in IT budgets are eliminated. Management of software licenses is one of the main goals of Software Asset Management.

Audit

Software providers perform controls on whether users are using their software in accordance with the license agreements containing accepted terms and conditions. These controls have two consequences, either compliant or non-compliant. Inconsistent audit results mean serious legal obligations and financial costs. For this reason, organizations should often conduct internal audits on a regular basis to ensure they are in compliance with their license agreements. Internal auditing without Software Asset Management is more costly and takes more time, interrupting the normal flow of day-to-day business operations.

Optimization

Another important issue, such as compliance, is that the organization overpays for licenses or pays for unused licenses and unnecessary maintenance where those licenses are not needed. This is because if an organization is faced with non-compliance, it makes a one-time payment, but these unnecessary expenses can recur, resulting in further loss of costs. Software Asset Management helps to be aware of these unnecessary costs.

Benefits of Software Asset Management

Software Asset Management is a process that aims to maximize the value of the organization as a component of Hardware Asset Management and IT Asset Management. Aiming at maximizing the value of the organization, this process provides organizations with many significant benefits, from cost savings to track software assets.

Effective Software Asset Tracking

Since software assets are not tangible assets, they are not as easy to track and monitor as hardware assets. Software Asset Management allows tracking the overall usage, expense trends, and compliance of software assets.

Software Asset Lifecycle Management

Software Asset Management allows organizations to track and manage software assets from the purchase decision to disposal. It assists in making purchase or license renewal decisions of software and allows decisions to be made to dispose of unnecessary or obsolete software.

Reduction in Punishment and Penalty Risk

Software Asset Management helps to pre-identify vulnerabilities and incompatibilities of existing software licenses and to minimize the financial risks and penalties associated with license terms.

Reduced Security Risk

Software Asset Management allows organizations to properly configure all their software to protect it from security breaches, viruses and malware.

Enhanced Responsibility

Software Asset Management ensures compliance and increases accountability by providing organizations with an authoritative compliance tracking record before the software vendor when it comes time to audit. This also reduces the financial risks that may arise from license terms.

Software Asset Management Software

Software Asset Management Software is a business solution that makes SAM processes end-to-end systematic, automated and effective. Loggle offers the Software Asset Management Platform. With Loggle, you can monitor your software assets, measure the cost of your software assets and effectively manage your licensing processes.

Discover Loggle, an end-to-end solution for IT Asset Management!