Dear SAM
Seneca (the younger) was expressing in such a way, what we within Software Asset Management would call:
perseverance in inanity.
For me personally, the goal is to enable every manager, no matter how high or low, to see and control software costs. This can be achieved only when:
- The software budgets for opex and capital investments are centralized
- Necessary mechanisms are implemented to handle all licenses and monitor their usage
- A clear cost center plan is implemented
- Every investment and cost are monitored centrally and an allocation model for costs supports the cost center plan
- Costs are assigned from initial offering to tracking of the assets
- Scalable reporting is implemented, to which managers can subscribe dependent on their needs and system possibilities.
Above however will not work as long as finance and accounting persevere in their old ways, won’t evolve with the times and tools, and will not consult Software Asset Management folks in their own organization.
I keep seeing this elsewhere too. We as people seem to be repeating this vicious cycle everywhere we go. We build our silos and try to chase our own visions in spite of the grand plan we are part of. I see this in management where they focus rather on lowering KPI’s than having their teams achieving them.
I suppose this has to do with how the corporate world and it’s “cultures {for the lack of a better word} is constructed. We are rewarded for achieving budgets, targets, goals, set by someone who has not much idea of what we actually do or even sometimes why. In my mind it seems as a CEO comes with a strategy such as “Save costs”, and every department is to save costs. It is done however without all the departments talking to each other, often with opposite effect, as everyone is chasing their own goals, with disregard how much that breaks within the entire organization.
From a SAM perspective, this makes things slow and difficult.
Let me tell you this though. Once upon a time, I was part of a team, where most individuals worked towards full automation of the above list and made it to what we called SAM 4.5, meaning automated provisioning, settings, and full cost visibility. We had to, because of changes in organization and some acquisitions, regress to SAM 3.0, meaning control of assets alone, but at continuous validations from which we had to regress. It is possible to achieve full control of spendings and investments in regards to software costs. This with a complete disregard to the software service type and its nature.
Most companies seem to be concerned mostly with compliance and governance, while these can be achieved as part above mentioned journey rather with a focus on the development of the services themselves.
So ITIL can help a lot, but it depends on who has read the damn book and what they found in it. Like many books, it contains a lot of distractions.
In other words, it seems companies can’t see the forest for the trees…
