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Every year Gartner produces a SAM Magic Quadrant report highlighting its partners in the industry and asserting trends and expectations for the future of the industry. The 2022 SAM Magic Quadrant report was just released in July and while it may seem unimportant, there is much we can learn from their industry expertise – including how to select a partner for your SAM program.
Gartner makes the following assertions in their report:
We believe these assertions are absolutely accurate. Looking specifically at the second bullet, cloud infrastructure is often underestimated because it is not fully understood. The magnitude of the cloud is beyond comprehension – therefore the components and regulations attached to the cloud are often neglected. The fact is, though the cloud provides many benefits to businesses including the ability to update devices virtually, remote software deployment, remote work VPN access, and greater storage and storage efficiencies, the cloud also introduces many complexities – and licenses to manage.
Back in the day, a business had to purchase a specific number of licenses for the number of devices they had. Think back to the days of Microsoft 1996. Whatever licenses you purchased were sent to you via disc and every disc was matched with a computer. There was no automatic updating or new version. If you wanted the newest edition, you bought the disc.
Today, most software is SaaS and sold on a monthly subscription with updates either costing a fee or included with your subscription. Because you do not have 50 hard discs (or however many devices you have) to manage anymore, it is easy to lose track of the number of license instances deployed on the devices across your organization. Now multiply that by the number of software your business deploys… add in varied license considerations for computer versus mobile access and even if you only have 20 different software, managing all those licenses in the cloud is work – not to mention managing the license requirements.
As SaaS solutions and cloud complexities grow with businesses’ digital transformations, SAM managed services increasingly incorporate FinOps within their cost optimization discipline. By adopting a SAM program, organizations can see up to a 30% software spend reduction during the first year. Comprehensive SAM programs monitor and regulate all your software deployments to determine which are necessary, which are redundant, and which can be more efficiently utilized.
Recently, we analyzed a client’s Oracle Enterprise Database Cloud Service (enterprise edition) subscriptions and found 580 extra processor licenses. By finding and eliminating the extra licenses, we saved the company $32mm at the list price value. In another instance with a client, we tracked their ROI to an application level and achieved $217k in software re-harvesting, another $801k in re-harvesting opportunity, $405k in license optimization, and $324k in license exposure and mitigation for a total benefit of over $1.7 million.
Many companies, like these we worked with, aren’t clear on how their software subscriptions are being used, simply paying the bill every year thinking it is a necessary business cost. However, a robust SAM program will sort the license instances to make sure what you are paying for is what you need.
As Gartner states, “The greatest benefits are derived from SAM managed services when they are used comprehensively, delivering the complete set of components of a continuous service.” Indeed, without a comprehensive SAM program, you can end with bits and bobs that do not fully align with each other leaving gaps in your program – opening your business up to risks you may not be aware of.
To get the most out of your SAM program, you want to make sure the program you employ is delivered by a partner with skilled resources who leverage expertise, intellectual property, rigor, and clear and efficient best practices in place. Your partner should be working directly with you, the end-user, and not using a middleman to communicate or work with you. You can choose whether continuous or scheduled services, but without continuous management, you are opening your business up to the potential risk of an audit or true up as the result of mismanagement of licenses.
With SAM managed services, the program is expected to provide complete and continuous management of all software publishers your company uses. Gartner defines complete as delivering each of their required services but can be summed up to say that the service should be end-to-end with complete visibility into your software.
When you check out the Gartner report, you will notice we aren’t included. There is a process to engage in to be included in the report which includes spending a great deal of time trying to convince a Gartner analyst that your business is worth paying attention to. One day, we will embark on the process. But in the meantime, we continue to dedicate our time and resources to helping our clients solve their SAM problems.
Regardless, the report is still incredibly informative and provides excellent information about the intricacies of SAM services. When you partner with Connor, you have the benefit of our customer-centric services. We analyze your current subscriptions to determine where overlap and redundancies exist. We then determine if your software and applications are stacked in the most cost-efficient way and determine how to improve resulting in tremendous ROI and quick time-to-value.
To learn more about our SAM services or to speak to an expert, please email us at softwareadvisoryservices@connor-consulting.com.
