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SAM Success: How are You Going to Get There?

  • Posted by: Scalable Team

Historically, many SAM projects have failed to deliver value, in large part because the tooling does not stand-alone. Also there are very few, if any, touch points into the stakeholders of solving, administering and extracting the value from a SAM program. But the tool story is only one part of achieving SAM success. Everyone in technology will agree, when pressed, it is always a story of people, process and technology.

At the tool level, the SAM processes are dependent on additional products to get the job done: discovery tools, normalization, procurement information, contracts repositories and barcode systems to name a few.

This requires sharing and integration. Like many challenges in the use of technology, SAM suffers from the silos that are so common in organizations. It is not deliberate, but human nature is to try and minimize confusion and compartmentalize process so they can be better measured at the expense of routinely sharing information. Coupling this with the fact that so much of the software asset management process can be outside the scope of traditional IT infrastructure management where ITAM generally sits, the points of failure in executing a successful process are many.

From an information sharing perspective this requirement causes not only the loss of data resolution, but often never gets done. The SAM inventory becomes out of date, the information is hard to mine, and when it does get shared it is anything but actionable. The constituents do not trust it and SAM eventually becomes a burden to its initial sponsors.

But what about the people and process? Having the world’s best software asset management tool is not enough. There must be a thorough understanding of requisite processes as well as documenting them, coupled with people who understand what should be done and why they are necessary. SAM must be owned by a specific team of people who are supported and empowered by the highest possible management level.

To emphasize this inter-relationship make sure to watch the on-demand webinarHow to Achieve SAM Nirvana Through a Unified Process. Hear Mark Cresswell, President and CTO of Scalable along with Frank Venezia, Senior Vice President of Siwel Consulting discuss:

  • The role and importance of tool versus process versus people
  • How a unified SAM tool will accelerate your chances of success
  • How to avoid the most common software licensing “gotchas”
  • The importance of executive leadership to SAM success
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