A new study has found that the UK now has the highest incidence in Europe of overweight people, through poor diet and lack of exercise. With so many clear advantages to eating healthily, it’s a mystery that the message still doesn’t get through and that we don’t see more people deciding to do something about it. Maybe they don’t think the heart attack will happen to them, maybe they think they haven’t got time to prepare healthy meals, or they can’t afford the raw materials.

Software Asset Management – a question of motivation?

The parallels with the status of Software Asset Management are startling. Managers decide they can take the risk that nobody is going to report their organization to the BSA for under-licensing – despite whistle blowing by disgruntled ex-employees being the greatest single source of aggressive audit requests. Normally responsible executives decide they will not invest the time or resource to make basic comparisons of what they have installed with what they truly need and what they actually have licenses for. And without knowing what they really need, they will either under-spend and be at risk of being found out of compliance, or they will over-spend to be on the safe side and end up with a bloated license inventory.

Maybe some unpleasant ‘heart attack’ encounters with the BSA or an individual vendor can act as a trigger to get into better shape, but it’s really not necessary to let things get that far. Maybe there is scepticism about the level of savings that analysts predict will accrue from a well managed software asset management function. If the organization suspects that it is under-licensed on a whole range of software then it is easy to think that introducing software asset management will result in an expensive round of ‘true-up’ purchases.

Is it really that expensive to switch from pre-processed to healthier food, and what price would you put on a heart attack? Like heart attacks, vendor audits are likely to reappear if the first one found you were out of compliance, as other vendors get to hear and come knocking on the door. Each occasion is expensive to respond to and is probably a highly unproductive drain on resources.

Software Asset Management – needs a champion for the cause

OK, the comparison has its limits, and if any of our readers are overweight or at risk of heart attack, I hope not to have caused offence by drawing these parallels. There is something about software asset management that seems to demand an act of faith, a sense of ‘it’s go to be right’, and often a personal commitment from a champion in the organization, before anything happens.

About the Author

Colin Bartram's background in IT Asset and Service Management runs uninterrupted from the 1980s, and includes specifying, writing, selling and supporting software solutions. Today he contributes to product strategy and marketing for the Vector Networks group of companies. His spare time is focussed on his horse and the related demands of maintaining 5 acres of ancient pasture in Derbyshire in the UK.