Questions around SAM

Organisations should answer a number of questions before buying new software licences, says Keith Rock

Rock: Take care when planning software purchases

Organisations can easily lose their grip on IT purchases, licensing agreements, legacy system usage and performance levels.

Before deciding on a customer’s licence, purchase you need to understand what application fulfills the requirements and what type of infrastructure will be used, such as dual-core, quad-core, or virtualisation. Will this change over the lifecycle of the licence, and how will that change affect customer compliance?

Then you should thoroughly check what licences the customer currently has – which ones are being used and if they are correctly licenced and that can be proved, with the terms and conditions clearly understood.

Check whether there is any spare software that can be used for the customer’s new application, and whether a current licence could be used. You also need to review your customer’s old licence matrix to see if that might be deployed better.

Procurement and IT managers must answer a series of questions to identify the long-term financial impact and logistics of managing the contracts.
- What type of licence agreement is required and what does it need to include?
- What are the latest terms and conditions?
- Will the metrics suit your business?
- Do you understand how to match the metrics and quantities to create the best combination for now and for the duration of the contract?
- Are you familiar with the licence rules for test, development, failover and DR environments?
- Are you aware of planned changes within your business and can you accommodate these within your licence agreement?

All details must be in writing. After each phone call or meeting, make sure what was discussed is shared by email and agreed upon as this will protect you if the contract works out differently.

Whoever you deal with should be a constant contact, as this will enable both sides to plan and understand the objectives for the purchase. Developing a quality relationship plan with the vendor will ensure you become proactive at outlining what you need and maximising the opportunities.

Enterprise SAM can get complicated. Managed effectively, you can save thousands for your customer, and support business growth.

Keith Rock is sales and strategy director at Inatech