Software Asset Management (SAM) is more than just a software licensing exercise – it is about maintaining control, reducing risk, and maximising value from your software investments. Effective SAM practices help organisations avoid compliance issues, reduce unnecessary costs, and improve operational efficiency. The following key points provide a practical foundation for managing software assets with confidence.
- Maintain an accurate inventory of authorised software. Knowing what is allowed makes identifying and removing unauthorised software installations more manageable.
- Ensure that all your software is correctly licensed. Avoid unnecessary purchasing of software licences by limiting usage based on job roles. Reconcile software purchases with software usage.
- Maintain control over who can install software packages. Avoid ad hoc software installations and proliferation to reduce licence exposure and cyber threats.
- Ensure that authorised software is up to date and supported by vendors. Reduce exploitable software vulnerabilities.
- Segregate business-critical software from other lower priority systems. Avoid less important systems from impacting the business.
- Keep control of software support costs. Accurate information about software usage contributes to avoiding excessively priced support contracts.
- Choose the right product to fit your business environment. Ensure the solution works with existing platforms and operating systems, and the software works out of the box or with minimum configuration. Avoid the trap of buying software and then paying expensive project and development costs to make it fit for purpose.
Good SAM practices create a more stable, secure, and cost-effective IT environment. By actively managing software across its lifecycle, from procurement to retirement, organisations can minimise risk, reduce waste, and better align IT with business objectives. A little discipline in this area can go a long way toward supporting compliance, security, and more effective IT spend.
Information security, risk management, internal audit, and governance professional with over 25 years of post-graduate experience gained across a diverse range of private and public sector projects in banking, insurance, telecommunications, health services, charities and more, both in the UK and internationally – MORE