Robin Cronan, Marketing Director, Certero
Automated Software Asset Management solutions deliver value far beyond the speed of delivery and cost-efficiency.
The Problem with Older Tools
Since the dawn of the computer age, technology has advanced at an incredible speed. However, it is the past decade where technological innovation has exploded. Cloud, Big Data and Analytics, Social and Mobile, combined with AI, IoT and other innovations, act as catalysts for new and innovative business process and models – driving a new age of Digital Transformation.
As organizations embrace these new technologies, the scale and complexity of IT ecosystems accelerates. Managing this change is one the greatest challenges faced by today’s CIOs and their IT teams. However, the IT Asset Management and Software Asset Management tools used to govern and manage the IT ecosystem come with increasing limitations. The tools, often developed decades ago, may have delivered value 10 – even 5 – years ago. But as the scale and complexity of the IT ecosystem accelerates, these tools become increasingly obsolete.
One of the main limitations is that of speed. In order to keep up with the advancing modern world, older tools add modifications and bolt-on applications that carry different data structures, architecture, UI/UX formats and so on. The result is fragmented tool sets and data sources that require an increasing level of manual processes to derive basic outputs.
These tools already require a lot of manual processes, so increasing them just slows down IT and Licensing teams further and increases the risk of human errors. With increasingly inefficient processes, costs begin to rise as the quality and frequency of outputs falls. As the IT ecosystem grows, the ability of organizations to govern and control their IT assets weakens. Ultimately, this slows down Digital Transformation programs and allows competitors to get to market first.
So, what can you do to improve the governance and control of your IT ecosystem, and support the acceleration of your Digital Transformation strategy?
The Power of Automated Software Asset Management Solutions
Organizations that are beating their competitors to market are embracing Digital Transformation right across the enterprise. No stone is left un-turned, which means the entire process and function of IT Hardware, Software and Cloud Asset Management is put under the microscope.
By analyzing these processes in more detail, you can get a better understanding of your areas of weaknesses, inefficiency and cost-wastage. With this intelligence, you can identify opportunities to digitize and automate your end-to-end IT Hardware, Software and Cloud Asset Management processes and functions.
Once you have an optimization plan ready you can begin to digitize and automate your processes. The first step will be to find a suitable provider of next generation ITAM, SAM and CAM solutions to replace your old, legacy tools.
Next generation solutions should offer you a range of benefits that your older, legacy tools simply cannot – the main one being automation. With next generation solutions you will be able to automate many different processes and functions, so creating outputs like ELPs can be reduced to around 60 minutes. Automation of discovery and inventory is also important, because it removes the risk of human error to ensure you get the very best and most complete data sets possible. Once these outputs are created, next generation solutions maintain them for you in real-time so you don’t have to create them from scratch every time.
In addition to automation, next generation solutions should give you the flexibility to deploy full end-to-end SaaS solutions for ITAM, SAM and CAM, or on-premises or hybrid configurations – with full functionality and zero compromise. Equally, they should provide you with a single source of data, saving you from the manual processes needed to stitch together fragmented data sets. With a single source of data, you should also be able to perform advanced analytical computations with just a few simple mouse clicks, and use the data to create a wealth of customized and dynamic reports to suit your specific business requirements.
There are many more benefits that next generation solutions provide above and beyond older, legacy tools. However, it is their impact that is most appealing. By deploying next generation solutions to digitize and automate your manual ITAM, SAM and CAM processes, you can unleash the full power of automated Software Asset Management solutions. What this means is you will be fully enabled to:
- Increase your speed of delivery
- Improve the quality and completeness of your data sets
- Reduce your operational costs (OpEx)
- Accelerate your Digital Transformation change programs
The last point here is very important. Automated Software Asset Management solutions not only help you digitize and automate processes for the governance and management of your IT ecosystem, they also enable you to accelerated Digital Transformation.
Beating competitors to market is critical for CIOs and IT teams with Digital Transformation objectives. Managing technological change programs is one area where Digital Transformations can slow down, giving competitors an opportunity to overtake you. But with next generation solutions helping you digitize and automate your processes, you have the power to accelerate technological change programs at your fingertips – faster, better and more cost-effectively.
