Some of the many reasons companies should consider outsourcing the management of software lifecycle and adoption
Expertise
IT organizations that currently manage―or would like to manage in the future―their software lifecycles in-house might not fully understand the complexities involved. It’s rare for companies to have somebody on staff that has the level of expertise in place to help them fully realize the benefits of managing software lifecycles. Using a managed service provider (MSP) that has a practice solely focused on this critical IT element can save you time, resources, and, of course, unnecessary expenditures. To successfully accomplish this requires in-depth understanding of, to name a few, use rights, metrics surrounding software licenses, and volume purchasing agreements. And if nobody is closely monitoring those contracts, any remediation and/or financial penalties due your organization could go unnoticed.
Software Audits
It’s not uncommon for software companies to conduct audits to confirm that their customers are complying with licenses and ensure that unlicensed software isn’t being utilized. Often companies don’t tackle this issue until they’ve already been audited, and, in many cases, expensively penalized. And preparing for audits ahead of time will uncover valuable information, as well, including how many licenses a company currently holds compared to what it needs.
Adoption, including the alignment of software with key business processes
A key adoption element is ensuring that software utilized is properly aligned with an organization’s various business processes, and uncovering why adoption barriers might exist. A managed services provider worth its weight will conduct interviews with key personnel from different business units to ensure software demands are being properly addressed. In doing so, they can also help you embed any product features to meet the demands of different business units.
Knowledge Transfer
If you select a managed services provider to manage and monitor your software lifecycles and adoption, make sure they provide extensive training sessions for end-users, including Train the Trainer sessions for in-house personnel. Don’t just rely on their expertise, learn from them.
Cost Savings
Professionals whose sole focus is on software licensing can help customers achieve economies of scale that they probably haven’t enjoyed in the past. Software adoption needs to be closely monitored and understood to ensure investments are optimized and software is right-sized. And an MSP specializing in software licensing can help you understand why and how software licensing can be migrated to more economical and less cumbersome Enterprise Agreements (EA).
Call on the experts
Developing a comprehensive software lifecycle and adoption management plan is a lot for organizations to take on in-house. Relying on experts to deliver those benefits can save time, headaches, and considerable savings. Turning to tenured professionals whose sole focus is on software lifecycle and adoption management will free up valuable IT resources to work on those forward-thinking initiatives they were hired to deliver in the first place. For more information about software lifecycle and adoption management, Contact the SLAM (software lifecycle and adoption management) professionals at
SLAM@gdt.com. They’d love to hear from you.
]]>
