Category: SAM in general

Savings, optimization and folly

Dear SAM

took part today in a webinar about asset economics.

Man, did I get disappointed. For a while now I’ve been looking for new information, seeking inspiration, etc.

I hoped I’ll get some ideas, and boy, did I ever?

I realized, yet again (will I ever learn?), that webinars are organized mostly to “sell” an agenda, unfortunately in most cases it regards rather old way of thinking (in my mind anyway), linear thinking or simply academic point of view on the issue at hand in order to resolve a man made, hands on, practical problem, in reality, now.

Let me bring up an old scenario here:

there’s been a group of people who with the help of Acrobat () were editing a form which regarded some standard application, you know like a visa application… Nothing fancy. Anyone who is used to use a word processor working in Acrobat, will find it painful and time-consuming to fill out predefined, many fields …

The group has done it this way for a while, let’s say 5 years. Let’s assume that the 50 people doing that task, let’s say each did this for 3 hours per day, 5 days a week, among their other tasks.

Upon a shallow investigation of the mentioned problem, I suggested digging up the original form. To my surprise, it was a word document.

It took 10 minutes to teach the person to fill out the form in Word, convert it to pdf, and file it.
In 30 min we completed (I was “Omnipresent” but did not interfere) all the forms of the day and the ones of co-workers (work equivalent of 3 hours each, for 2 people)

Do you see the savings?

Let’s assume that each of these people costs the company 50$ per hour doing this.
We have thereby reduced administrative costs from $187 500 to $31 250 and reduced the need for licenses to 1/6th, meaning from $1750 to $291

I’ll give you another…

170 copies of Illustrator at let’s be kind and say $250 a copy.

170 users adjusting technical drawings, few a day.

Looking at the frequency of use we got 30 – 45% of utilization per user.

Divided this into 2 groups:

those with around “30% utilization”

those with around “50% utilization”

now engaged leaders of said users to look at how to utilize these users accordingly, taking these two groups, and reorganizing tasks, so target per user was closer to 100% / utilization.

Managers did some “moving tasks” around which freed workforce resources to other tasks; while in groups of around “50% utilization”, instead of 2 users using Illustrator 1/2 day,  it became 1 user focusing on these drawings all day.

Same with the next group although there you could get 1 user doing tasks of 3..

The result?

about 60% of “50% utilizers “ could be freed to do other tasks freeing also their licenses.

About 65% of “30% utilizers” could do the same, freeing 2 for each 3.

In terms of license alone, this means cost avoidance of around 60% of licenses that are not needed anymore.
This would mean 25k plus could be freed or saved had this been looked at before buying the licenses and was possible as of the change in procedures…

Software asset management is not only about assets, but also how they are used and indirectly why… Since we do see how things are being used, we can help managers of the users to realize this.

They, by optimizing “production” can help save tons of money, both avoiding spending the money on licenses that can be avoided being purchased, which saves an additional 12-20% in annual renewal cost, but also by freeing resources which are a cost in themselves.

We don’t have to travel full throttle all the time, all of us doing everything to a “just a little bit” degree. The question is just how to implement common-sense 😉

Communication

Dear SAM

reoccurring as it seems, the word and concept of communication comes like a hangover, post some conversations, now and again.

I have an OCD on the topic, or in other words, I have a need of being precise.Split hairs, being pain in the neck, requesting clarifications, pushing on more and better specifications, requirements, prerequisites to be provided, in short: Let me know what you want()…

Almost every day I’m being reminded that others do not share my sentiment for precision and it takes a lot of focus and energy not to be “super-precise” / efficient, all the time. Actually, at times I’ve been described with the word “efficient”, where it was not meant as a compliment.

I’m assuming that, when I’m to perform something for “another” party, the other party would care about me getting it right, so that they can receive exactly what they actually want, by delivering somewhat precise requirements.

It doesn’t matter if the “other party” is a girlfriend, wife, mother or a client/customer, person in a street, or even a train conductor… Such situations make me think that people turn to other people not to get something they want, but rather to pass their problem onto someone else’s lap.

It seems to me, that in about half of the occurrences, once they pushed the “buck” forward, they only care to complain about lack of their success. (which reminds me of this) The rest varies.

I’ve noticed this is the same around projects when defining scope, or gathering requirements in regards to implementation or even deployment. It is the same when people call asking for advice when expressing a want or need.

It feels like if I would be a cashier at a convenience store, the “other party” would expect me to pack their imaginary wishlist for them, preferably without even a word on their part, process it for them, pack it up, pay for it for them and then deliver to their refrigerator. All without them doing anything.

Is it so with people today, that no one wants to take responsibility for even clearly stating what they want? Are we returning to the toddler stage through technology?

I don’t know much about most of the world, however, growing up in Sweden thought me a rude yet rather simple principle:

“Att tala innan man tänker är som att torka röven, innan man skiter.”

which roughly translated means:

“Speaking before thinking is like wiping your ass before you poop.” To argue the other side I’d have to quote one of my idols:

“A witty saying proves nothing.”
― Voltaire

And so the obvious question is: how do we accomplish anything in a group when only a few care about the details?

Costs and “Carum est quod rarum est”

Dear SAM, been a while since I wrote…

Software is or should be, a cost of doing business for any business requiring software consumption. It is much like a hammer for a carpenter, or screwdriver for an electrician. So it really should break down to needed or not, or?

In my experience, things are a bit more complicated. Even though business knows a piece of software is needed, procurement has a point of view, finance has a point of view, sourcing has a point of view, and of course, SAM teams have a point of view. My point of view however doesn’t differ much from a business point of view.
-Is licensing acceptable?
-Is technology implementable (as infrastructure is configured)?
-Can it be automated as requested?
–If not, is there an option close enough to automation?
-Are there better options from licensing and cost perspective, allowing for more flexibility?

Once these are mostly answered with a “yes” it’s just a question for meeting all requirements, and push for purchasing, Continue reading “Costs and “Carum est quod rarum est””

writing on the wall (mene mene tekel upharsin)

Dear SAM

I’m not a big fan of religion I must say (suitable quote on religion linked). Like most people, I choose parts that sit well with me, avoid others that don’t. Some stories in the old testament inspired me, although perhaps not for the quest for heaven, at least a situation corresponding to an expression I learned in Germany: “Ordnung muss sein”, but let’s leave “Hans” out of it(although it can be argued that after 10 years in IT one is preconditioned or fated for insanity, in which case Hans is “on the table”).

To some SAM is just a word, abbreviation, concept, philosophy. To me, it has been a large part of my life. It’s been growing in importance ever since a cold December evening, when I, almost 20 years ago, read my first EULA and realized what it meant, e.g what I can do with my copy of Windows 95a. Some of you might not even remember it, OEM licensed operating system, through the hardware vendor, which I won’t mention in this example. At the time there was no SAM, nor did anybody really spend much time reading license agreements. To me, however, this simple act opened a new world, which I started understanding and thus my journey began.

And so I decided to choose “writing on the wall” to lead the first post ever, on “this” topic, on this blog. Those who are interested in finding out what the words mean will have an easy time finding articles explaining the story.

For me, these words are an instruction, on how to perform a … reconciliation.

Reconciliation to me is … the brains of SAM. Continue reading “writing on the wall (mene mene tekel upharsin)”