How to save on software
One of the most important IT assets in any company is software. Software is important not only because it represents the key to success in the modern world of constant communications, but also because organizations spend huge amounts of money on it (purchase, maintenance, updating, etc.).
Some, especially large companies, do not think about the validity of these expenses, for them the cost of software is an insignificant part of the budget expenditure item. Medium-sized companies save on software as much as they can afford, buying only a minimum and, possibly, using unlicensed software. (By the way, in my opinion, it is a mistake to think that unlicensed software is free, you can pay dearly for it, which you can read here. ) There is another category of companies: they think about how to reduce the cost of software, but do not know how exactly to do it. It is to such companies that I will give some tips on how to avoid unnecessary spending on software.
First you need to decide on what software is generally used in the organization. (How much is it, what type, how and by whom is it used?) The software inventory procedure will help to answer all these questions. How it can be done and what will help us in this, I will tell in another article.
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As soon as we have information about all software products in the company, you can proceed to its analysis:
Is all software really necessary, is it used to its fullest?
Is there any software that is not used at all?
Why is the software not used and how to benefit from it, maybe the staff simply do not have to use it?
How to determine what software you need and avoid additional costs?
Answers to these questions can be obtained as follows:
1. Interviewing employees and their managers.
Interviewing can both help and harm at the same time. It will show how subjectively the employees relate to the use of software. I am sure that even if a particular software product is rarely used and not for the performance of official duties, the employee will still find a thousand excuses and explanations for the fact that this software is very necessary for him, even citing specific examples of use for official purposes.
For example, you can often find employees using multiple web browsers (Internet Explorer, FireFox, Opera, Google Chrome) on a single computer, although in terms of their functional duties, an employee can use access to the network only 10% of the total working time. In such situations, the IT department should choose one web browser (although everything is free, but time is spent on their service, and, consequently, money), which will be the corporate standard.
Or, for example, the use of paid archiving software. You can easily get rid of such software without losing the quality of the employee’s work, or replace it with a free or cheaper counterpart. By the way, be prepared for the fact that when you start replacing software with an analog, the employee will say that he is not used to the interface, to the functionality, etc .;
2. The use of special technical means of audit.
I would pay particular attention to this method, but I will say straight away that it does not cancel the use of interviewing. The technical tool will allow you to track the number of launches of any selected solution, the loading of hardware when using one or another software. But when you find a program from which, in your opinion, you can get rid of, then you will not avoid interviewing employees about its necessity.
Now I’ll just give you a list of fixed assets (for starters) that allow you to make an inventory of software, divided into different classes:
3. Creating a software standard for different categories of employees.
A very effective way to cut off all unnecessary. This will certainly require serious analytical work, but, having done it, you will understand in the near future how useful it is.
To do this, you need to divide all employees of the company into categories. The criteria for division can be very different, and their choice depends on many circumstances. In general, the division of specialists seems optimal by the criterion of the implementation of various business tasks.
For example, accountants, designers, sales managers, lawyers, etc. It is clear that specialized software designed for lawyers or accountants should not fall into such a category as “designers”. It is difficult for me to assume that a designer needs any of the reference-information systems or accounting software to perform direct official duties.
Exactly the same approach should be for other categories of employees. At the same time, I recommend including in the standard of using the software only the minimum of the really necessary software, it is better then to make an exception for an individual employee, having carefully considered his need. After defining such a software standard, you should “clean out” all software that is not included in this list. If the extra software was legally purchased, then it is necessary to look at and draw conclusions: perhaps it is really necessary for someone in the company now and there is no need for its removal.
Let me explain with the example of a pair of computers belonging to an accountant and a lawyer. First, take a standard accountant’s computer, taken from one of the SAM implementation projects. It was found on it:
After the analysis, it became clear that some of the programs are rarely used, some are not needed by the user at all if you look at his official duties, and some can be optimized. As a result of the analysis, the following image was obtained:
If you look at the estimated cost of the programs used on this computer, it is clear that the savings on computer alone amounted to almost 40,000 rubles. This example is also indicative because there was an unnecessary SQL Server accountant on it as a result of probably some kind of error.
I can give a similar example regarding the lawyer’s computer. What was discovered on his computer during the first software inventory:
What remains after analyzing the data obtained:
In this case, with a lawyer's computer, the savings amounted to about 12,000 rubles per computer;
4. "Tightening the nuts" at the stage of approval of applications for software installation.
Having defined the standard and “cleaning out” all the computers to the level of the created standard, it is worth taking a tough stand and enlist the support of the management, not allowing to install the software beyond what is specified in the standard. This is extremely important.
Nobody has canceled the human factor and social connections between people and always do not want to deny their friend to install some software that is not included in the standard and, in your opinion, it is not necessary for the performance of official duties. But rules are rules, and they need to be considered. Therefore, in this case, the rigidity at the stage of approval of applications for software installation is the key to your success in optimizing software costs.
Of course, I am not saying that there can be no exceptions to the rules. They are very possible, but my advice to you is to indicate any possibility of exclusion and criteria for possible exceptions to the rules in the standard / regulation itself.
5. Manage software purchase contracts.
An extremely important point. I will not now speak about contract management as an integrated process, but I will say only one point from this process: you need to unambiguously understand all the features of any software purchase contract that give you any advantage (in competition for a client, these advantages can be provided by a vendor or a lot of suppliers):
1. How many distributions we have the right to store;
2. Is it possible to use in a virtual environment;
3. If you buy a package, what software products are included in it;
4. The ability to reuse on another computer;
5. Ability to use on home PCs;
6. Whether the contract provides for technical support and, most importantly, to what extent;
7. Is there a right to upgrade.
All these additional options that you got for free in the competition of vendors and suppliers for you, you must fix and constantly use them. Their use allows you not to spend extra money on maintenance or purchase of other software.
It would seem that these are very simple tips, but I can definitely say that they are far from being respected by all and, as a result, money can be spent on software.
Take an average company that has 1,000 PCs in a computer park. Suppose the average annual budget for software in this company is just over $ 250,000 . I can say with 100% certainty that if a company does not take full account of software, does not have software management policies / procedures, does not conduct a permanent software inventory, then such a company may have over $ 80,000 in risk of overspending money on software. year. And these are real numbers from practice. And I am only talking about direct spending on the purchase of software. And updates? And the service?
Do you have any experience of this kind? Did you do some of this work in your companies? It would be interesting to hear examples from your experience.
Author: Vladimir Razuvaev, Director for Legal Support, Candidate of Laws, Head of the Softline License Management Department
Some, especially large companies, do not think about the validity of these expenses, for them the cost of software is an insignificant part of the budget expenditure item. Medium-sized companies save on software as much as they can afford, buying only a minimum and, possibly, using unlicensed software. (By the way, in my opinion, it is a mistake to think that unlicensed software is free, you can pay dearly for it, which you can read here. ) There is another category of companies: they think about how to reduce the cost of software, but do not know how exactly to do it. It is to such companies that I will give some tips on how to avoid unnecessary spending on software.
First you need to decide on what software is generally used in the organization. (How much is it, what type, how and by whom is it used?) The software inventory procedure will help to answer all these questions. How it can be done and what will help us in this, I will tell in another article.
')
As soon as we have information about all software products in the company, you can proceed to its analysis:
Is all software really necessary, is it used to its fullest?
Is there any software that is not used at all?
Why is the software not used and how to benefit from it, maybe the staff simply do not have to use it?
How to determine what software you need and avoid additional costs?
Answers to these questions can be obtained as follows:
1. Interviewing employees and their managers.
Interviewing can both help and harm at the same time. It will show how subjectively the employees relate to the use of software. I am sure that even if a particular software product is rarely used and not for the performance of official duties, the employee will still find a thousand excuses and explanations for the fact that this software is very necessary for him, even citing specific examples of use for official purposes.
For example, you can often find employees using multiple web browsers (Internet Explorer, FireFox, Opera, Google Chrome) on a single computer, although in terms of their functional duties, an employee can use access to the network only 10% of the total working time. In such situations, the IT department should choose one web browser (although everything is free, but time is spent on their service, and, consequently, money), which will be the corporate standard.
Or, for example, the use of paid archiving software. You can easily get rid of such software without losing the quality of the employee’s work, or replace it with a free or cheaper counterpart. By the way, be prepared for the fact that when you start replacing software with an analog, the employee will say that he is not used to the interface, to the functionality, etc .;
2. The use of special technical means of audit.
I would pay particular attention to this method, but I will say straight away that it does not cancel the use of interviewing. The technical tool will allow you to track the number of launches of any selected solution, the loading of hardware when using one or another software. But when you find a program from which, in your opinion, you can get rid of, then you will not avoid interviewing employees about its necessity.
Now I’ll just give you a list of fixed assets (for starters) that allow you to make an inventory of software, divided into different classes:
| Decision class | Products webpage |
|---|---|
| SAM | |
| SAManage (web based) | samanage.com |
| Snow Software License Manager | snowsoftware.com |
| Auditpro | auditpro.biz |
| Realite 1.2.5 | realite.ru |
| Microsoft Software Inventory Analyzer | microsoft.com/msia |
| Lansweeper | lansweeper.com |
| Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator | microsoft.com/solutionaccelerators |
| 10Strike | 10-strike.com |
| SAMM (+ SCCM) | sam-audit.ru/SAMM |
| ITAM | |
| Flexnet manager for Desktop | flexerasoftware.com |
| Licensewatch | licensewatch.com |
| FrontRange Infrastructure Management solutions | frontrange.com |
| HP Asset Manager + DDMi | hp.com |
| MS SCSM + Provance (+ SCCM) | microsoft.com/systemcenter |
| Spiceworks | spiceworks.com |
| Spider (web based) | brainwaregroup.com |
| AIDA64 Business Edition | aida64.com |
| Deployment Suite | |
| Microsoft SCCM | microsoft.com/systemcenter |
| Landesk | landesk.ru |
| Symantec altiris | symantec.com |
| Novell Zenworks | novell.com |
| SaaS | |
| Windows intune | microsoft.com |
3. Creating a software standard for different categories of employees.
A very effective way to cut off all unnecessary. This will certainly require serious analytical work, but, having done it, you will understand in the near future how useful it is.
To do this, you need to divide all employees of the company into categories. The criteria for division can be very different, and their choice depends on many circumstances. In general, the division of specialists seems optimal by the criterion of the implementation of various business tasks.
For example, accountants, designers, sales managers, lawyers, etc. It is clear that specialized software designed for lawyers or accountants should not fall into such a category as “designers”. It is difficult for me to assume that a designer needs any of the reference-information systems or accounting software to perform direct official duties.
Exactly the same approach should be for other categories of employees. At the same time, I recommend including in the standard of using the software only the minimum of the really necessary software, it is better then to make an exception for an individual employee, having carefully considered his need. After defining such a software standard, you should “clean out” all software that is not included in this list. If the extra software was legally purchased, then it is necessary to look at and draw conclusions: perhaps it is really necessary for someone in the company now and there is no need for its removal.
Let me explain with the example of a pair of computers belonging to an accountant and a lawyer. First, take a standard accountant’s computer, taken from one of the SAM implementation projects. It was found on it:
After the analysis, it became clear that some of the programs are rarely used, some are not needed by the user at all if you look at his official duties, and some can be optimized. As a result of the analysis, the following image was obtained:
If you look at the estimated cost of the programs used on this computer, it is clear that the savings on computer alone amounted to almost 40,000 rubles. This example is also indicative because there was an unnecessary SQL Server accountant on it as a result of probably some kind of error.
I can give a similar example regarding the lawyer’s computer. What was discovered on his computer during the first software inventory:
What remains after analyzing the data obtained:
In this case, with a lawyer's computer, the savings amounted to about 12,000 rubles per computer;
4. "Tightening the nuts" at the stage of approval of applications for software installation.
Having defined the standard and “cleaning out” all the computers to the level of the created standard, it is worth taking a tough stand and enlist the support of the management, not allowing to install the software beyond what is specified in the standard. This is extremely important.
Nobody has canceled the human factor and social connections between people and always do not want to deny their friend to install some software that is not included in the standard and, in your opinion, it is not necessary for the performance of official duties. But rules are rules, and they need to be considered. Therefore, in this case, the rigidity at the stage of approval of applications for software installation is the key to your success in optimizing software costs.
Of course, I am not saying that there can be no exceptions to the rules. They are very possible, but my advice to you is to indicate any possibility of exclusion and criteria for possible exceptions to the rules in the standard / regulation itself.
5. Manage software purchase contracts.
An extremely important point. I will not now speak about contract management as an integrated process, but I will say only one point from this process: you need to unambiguously understand all the features of any software purchase contract that give you any advantage (in competition for a client, these advantages can be provided by a vendor or a lot of suppliers):
1. How many distributions we have the right to store;
2. Is it possible to use in a virtual environment;
3. If you buy a package, what software products are included in it;
4. The ability to reuse on another computer;
5. Ability to use on home PCs;
6. Whether the contract provides for technical support and, most importantly, to what extent;
7. Is there a right to upgrade.
All these additional options that you got for free in the competition of vendors and suppliers for you, you must fix and constantly use them. Their use allows you not to spend extra money on maintenance or purchase of other software.
It would seem that these are very simple tips, but I can definitely say that they are far from being respected by all and, as a result, money can be spent on software.
Take an average company that has 1,000 PCs in a computer park. Suppose the average annual budget for software in this company is just over $ 250,000 . I can say with 100% certainty that if a company does not take full account of software, does not have software management policies / procedures, does not conduct a permanent software inventory, then such a company may have over $ 80,000 in risk of overspending money on software. year. And these are real numbers from practice. And I am only talking about direct spending on the purchase of software. And updates? And the service?
Do you have any experience of this kind? Did you do some of this work in your companies? It would be interesting to hear examples from your experience.
Author: Vladimir Razuvaev, Director for Legal Support, Candidate of Laws, Head of the Softline License Management Department
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/125470/
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