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ITAM PROGRAM DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT

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An effective ITAM Program is essential for your success, as your maturity is directly related to amount of over-licensing (over-spending) and under-licensing (compliance gaps) in your organization. The key to better manage your IT costs is to advance your ITAM program.

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​We will help you to review your current situation by assessing your ITAM maturity level using our standardized methodology, identify strengths and weaknesses, and propose areas to focus. You can also let us design tailor-made ITAM Program suitable for your company – objectives, success criteria, policy and processes documentation, roles and responsibilities as well as your tools’ capabilities. It is our specialization to provide end-to-end service by successful ITAM implementation in your environment through achievable and realistic projects. According to Gartner, it takes usually 12 to 18 months to achieve higher ITAM maturity.

EXECUTION PLAN

  1. Evaluate current SAM/ITAM maturity level using Smart Cost's standard methodology.

  2. Identify gaps and recommend improvements for each of three key areas – Technology & tools, People & responsibilities, Policy & processes.

  3. Define objectives and prepare action plan & roadmap for ITAM program development. Typically, the plan is built for 12-month period after which a new assessment is completed.

  4. For the technology part, we review available tools in your organization (e.g. discovery, inventory, Active Directory, Identity Management, etc.) and propose a suitable composition of tools for sustainable ITAM instead of unwanted data silos. Our approach is to rather use owned tools instead of investing into expensive specialized solutions.

  5. Run a project to successfully drive implementation and process adoption (optional).

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ASK YOURSELVES...

  • Do you know how to boost your ITAM program to achieve business goals?

  • What systems are you using for your ITAM program? Are you sure you don’t store data redundantly in silos?

  • What critical processes or tools are you missing to make your ITAM Program more successful?

  • Are you sure your ITAM team staffed appropriately to meet your expectations is it reporting to the right department?

  • Would ITAM outsourcing (or partial outsourcing) be more cost-effective while increasing flexibility?

BUSINESS CASE STUDY

Customer did not have a dedicated Software Asset Manager. However, responsibilities were scattered across the organization, mostly in IT Operations. No specialized SAM tool was in place, only Microsoft Active Directory and SCCM was being used to track assets. As a result, customer was forced to pay € 50k to Micro Focus based on recent audit findings (it represents nearly 30% comparing to amount of all Micro Focus licenses).

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After initial assessment we recommended following adjustments and delivered successful implementation during 8-month project:

  • Designed and documented core ITAM processes, including software procurement, software installation and pre-purchase license analysis.

  • Dedicated ½ FTE for SAM role responsible for process adoption, software purchasing and annual license review for key software vendors. Other roles and responsibilities related to ITAM area were clearly defined and assigned. It was not considered as additional headcount, as overall efficiency was significantly improved within IT Operations.

  • Established software license inventory using excel templates to track available licenses and related costs. Process was introduced to keep inventory up-to-date during life-cycle from planning, through acquisition, till license disposal (e.g. maintenance and/or subscription expiration).

  • Active Directory remained as primary evidence for workstations and servers and data quality was quarterly reconciled against discovery data from SCCM.

  • As a result, customer’s ITAM maturity reached nearly Standardized level without additional investments, decreasing risks related with both under-licensing and over-licensing to approximately 10%.

WHAT IS NEEDED FROM YOU?

  • Set of evaluation meetings with IT stakeholders.

  • Clear delegation of responsibilities related to ITAM.

  • Official kick-off for the ITAM project and mandate to implement processes previously agreed with project SteerCo.

  • Bilateral NDA

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