By Howard Magill, CEO at Road Map Technologies
Mid-size to enterprise companies should be looking at measuring and managing software and hardware costs prior to cutting employees.
Companies are furloughing and cutting employees to save costs. Have you thought about looking at assets prior to letting users go?
Companies overspend on assets more than they realize. I know, you have an asset management team. However, are the assets being managed, or is it just to say you have a team. Per Gardner, companies overspend on assets by 15% – 25%. This can add up to millions.
How does this overspend accumulate? Let us look at common ways this happens.
Not Leveraging \ Maintaining Maintenance Plans
It has been my experience that the approval process for renewals take months to approve. By the time it is approved, your buying the product again. If the application is widely used, leverage the discounts for 2- or 3-year maintenance plans. This adds up to thousands of dollars in savings, based on the products. Vendors tend to give big discounts for extended maintenance. Also, make sure you are renewing your maintenance. If you miss your renewal, you will have to repurchase the software again.
Rationalize Your Applications
As companies grow, or just turnover, new products are brought in regularly under the radar. When found, the excuse is, “I know this product, not that one.” Now your paying for multiple products that do the same thing.
Version control is important as well. Different versions may cost to maintain of you out of maintenance. Sometimes this may be due to other products dependent on specific version of Acrobat Reader for instance. This also leads to security vulnerabilities; vulnerabilities lead to costly liabilities. An important benefit to rationalization is that it will reduce your security footprint.
Work with your service providers to wrap licensing costs into their services.
When I do service contracts, I work with customers to include renewals with our services. If they choose to cut services for whatever reason, it is then up to the customer to renew the licenses. Doing it this way, customers can budget operationally if needed.
The number one reason for overspending due to asset bloat, is lack of action.
We can put all the cool reports and projections in front of customers. The number one reason they do not see ROI is failure to act. Yes, you want our employees to be productive, but do you want to keep your employees too? Retraining employees to streamline products may take less time and money maintaining the cost of multiple products. Training employees on new technology benefits the company and the employee. As a lot of companies are experiencing a lot of turn over, it is important not to overspend on assets that you are not using.
Summary
Look for value add resellers, rationalize your assets, manage your assets, and take action to reduce your cost. I am sure employees would rather learn a similar product than lose their job due to budget reasons.