For 10 years, Koch worked for a German telecommunications enterprise that had not yet embraced the value of a software asset management (SAM) tool. Despite having a 10-member global team who logged countless hours of hard work managing licenses for more than 30,000 servers, there was always a degree of uncertainty over incomplete software visibility. This made optimization extremely difficult and led to rising costs and growing risk. All of this contributed to high levels of concern for Koch because he knew there was a better way of verifying.

Several years later, Koch found a new role as License Manager at Syntegon Technology, a global pharmaceutical and food industries processing and packaging provider headquartered in Germany with more than 30 sites in almost 20 countries. Koch joined Syntegon about the time they were embarking on an ambitious business transformation project with aspirations to cut costs, improve efficiency and enhance profitability. This made for an interesting journey into gaining visibility.

Koch sat down with us to explain why working with the Snow Software SAM solution and their Snow premier partner, SoftwareONE, who hosts Snow and manages the Syntegon SaaS, datacenter and end user computing environments, was critical to the success of the project as well as his own professional growth and satisfaction.

A path to simplification 

With over 5,800 employees relying on 6,500 workstations, 3,000 mobile devices, and 700 servers, Syntegon software licenses comprise a substantial proportion of their annual IT spend. Syntegon considered a few different SAM solutions and tested two in proof-of-concept exercises. The goal was to cut costs and streamline the management of software agreements and licensing terms with enterprise applications from Microsoft, Oracle and SAP^®. It was also important to better manage specialist engineering software, including EPLAN, AutoCAD, SolidWorks and Rockwell. Through the process, Snow quickly rose to be the clear winner.

The exciting part of this journey is that with Snow Software underpinning its asset management activities, Syntegon was able to uncover huge year-on-year savings. This dramatically simplified software license management and strengthened their compliance position, which pleased the team. 

Visibility improves collaboration

Visibility has made a huge impact for Syntegon and it has made life much easier. For Koch, the Snow-powered visibility into what software the company and their 30 worldwide subsidiaries have and how it gets used has made all the difference.

“It’s so important to have the right tools to do your jobs well . . . With Snow, there are many benefit paths that impact many different departments.” 

Ulrich koch, license manager, syntegon technology

For example, the metering capabilities that Snow provides serve as the ground floor for the purchasing department to start new contract negotiations because the company now has evidence of which applications are used. Koch explains that this insight includes how many licenses are held currently and what they will likely need in the future. Cost reductions are a natural result. 

Software visibility has also proven important from a security perspective. “With detailed knowledge of what Syntegon has, we can give our IT security teams leads into what they should be looking at and what could potentially be an insecurity issue,” Koch says. 

Another benefit Koch sees is what ultimately turns into a more accurate, meaningful software catalog. This information then allows him to produce more timely, complete reporting for company leadership and he can demonstrate, with certainty, what works and what doesn’t. As a result, Snow has also fostered more proactive cross-departmental collaboration at Syntegon, from IT to purchasing, legal to finance teams. The software catalog data leads to certainty that everyone can confidently act upon.

As more people rely on the software catalog and its insights, the cycle becomes self-perpetuating. Software requests are easier to make, and people are much more likely to get the tools they need for maximum productivity at the onset.

Higher job satisfaction

In summing up his experiences, Koch offers the following recollections and advice: 

“Before having the right tools, life was not easy and manual tasks did not lead to job satisfaction because you never really knew if you had captured all the data needed. Having the tools you need to do your job well and make definitive decisions is hugely rewarding; your job satisfaction increases. If you feel you’re able to give 100% and what you’re delivering is high quality, it’s very satisfying, and this type of satisfaction brings great joy because we have a higher degree of confidence in the data.”

“With Snow, I can show reports and results and we can decrease our costs,” Koch concludes. “I can answer my colleagues’ questions with confidence and offer them advantages or even substitute products. I’m now able to do the work as it should be done.” 

Learn more about the benefits Syntegon realized using Snow Software in the full case study.

If you’d like to share your story with Snow readers or nominate an ITAM/SAM star to tell theirs, please send an email to kathleen.shepherd@snowsoftware.com.

The post Software License Manager Sleeps Better at Night and Delivers Cost Savings at Syntegon   appeared first on Snow Software.

IT Asset Manager Beth Kaminski has worked in the ITAM space for 25 years. She’s spent seven of those years at Dart Container, a Snow Software customer. Thanks to those years of work from Beth and her team, the DART ITAM department excels at mitigating risks, adapting to changes in user needs and optimizing costs for their organization. 

We recently captured Beth’s valuable insights in the embedded video above. In it, she identifies the impacts of hybrid working on today’s ITAM landscape, the We recently captured Beth’s valuable insights in the embedded video above. In it, she identifies the impacts of hybrid working on today’s pandemic-era ITAM landscape, the challenges this way of working presents for operational efficiency, and the ways Snow has helped DART Container tackle these issues. She also offers her perspective on the future of ITAM and whether we’ll ever get back to “the pre-pandemic normal.” 

ITAM then and now

We started our conversation with Beth’s recollections of how her ITAM journey began before she even started working at Dart, and then we got her take on what IT is like right now. “It goes back to before software asset management, or IT asset management, was a thing,” she recalls. “I was doing financial management at the time, and the CIO called me up, pushed a stack of paper at me, and said, ‘Here, Beth, I know you can clean these up . . . You don’t have to do this forever, but just clean up these spreadsheets.’”  

Twenty-five years later, she no longer needs to work reactively by fixing hardcopies. Instead, she’s responding to and reflecting upon the ways in which the last few years have affected ITAM professionals like her. “IT is a reexamination of the daily life of an IT worker right now . . . a reexamination of the working environment,” she explains, “A good example is the Omicron variant. I think it took a lot of us by surprise, and Dart Container went back to remote work, but we can work here if we like to. It left people with a choice. Dart container made the announcement that we could go back and work at home at like, 8:30 in the morning, and by 9:30 everyone cleared out. Twenty-five years later, she no longer needs to work reactively by fixing hardcopies. Instead, she’s responding to and reflecting upon the ways in which the last few years have affected ITAM professionals like her. “IT is a reexamination of the daily life of an IT worker right now . . . a reexamination of the working environment,” she explains, “A good example is the Omicron variant. I think it took a lot of us by surprise, and Dart Container went back to remote work, but we can work here if we like to. It left people with a choice.” 

The move to hybrid

Her colleagues mirrored the larger movement toward hybrid and remote working in the IT industry, so we asked Beth to identify some of the challenges that arose for Dart professionals as they made the transition. She immediately singled out the working environment and tools we typically take for granted, such as internet access. “Dart Container actually sits in mid-Michigan in the United States,” she says. “We’re in a fairly rural area, and a lot of the people in IT live in rural areas. We were providing hot spots for folks. It was problematic; everybody was just sucking up the bandwidth. That was one of the biggest challenges around hybrid work — getting the right things that you needed to work with —printers, internet access, chairs. Who would’ve thought chairs?” With the right IT asset management tools, however, they had the ability to just go and be productive right away. “That,” she says, “was very successful.” 

Despite the obstacles that this new hybrid working environment presents for IT asset management, it does have a big upside for individual contributors, according to Beth. “Individual contributors have more of a say in how things are done,” she says. “Management has backed off a little bit. There is more opportunity to be proactive in things like cost optimization. It could be that we are afraid that we are going to miss things. So, people are being more proactive, and they’re also being more diligent at the tasks they did in the past.” 

Operationally, however, there was a significant challenge as people moved back and forth between their homes and offices. “We have laptops, so we just drag them around,” she explains. Other people in her organization had equipment in both places. “That has been problematic from an operational standpoint,” she says. 

Supporting business growth with new tech

When it comes to best supporting business growth through hybrid working, Beth says that ITAM professionals need to look continuously for technologies that facilitate the transition back and forth from the office and make it easier for workers. “When we’re talking about hybrid, we’re maybe talking not completely remote, and not completely on-premises,” she explains. It can be a disorienting transition in which workers have trouble recovering what they miss from each environment. Beth strongly advises ITAM professionals to look for and adopt technologies that help workers feel that they are part of a group and not disconnected.

As for the future of ITAM, Beth asserts that we’ll all need to adapt to the new technologies —and their price tags — that are coming in fast and furious, just as Dart had to quickly adapt in its own recent history. “There has been talk out there in the space about how everyone had a different transformational journey,” Beth says. “That journey took place in about six months, and [had] a lot of cost and a lot of software asset management or IT asset management tasks and initiatives with it,” she remembers. “We were already sort of reeling from cloud, and it all kind of hit us at one time.” 

The future of ITAM

Talking further about the future of ITAM and whether we’ll get back to “the pre-pandemic normal,” she believes the new hybrid environment is a permanent fixture. “I think we’ve gone too far. I think if you look at the marketplace now, people are insisting on remote work, so I think hybrid is here to stay,” Beth insists. She adds that she’s not sure what that “normal” really was in the first place. “We were already doing a big metamorphosis in the space because of cloud,” she says. 

Hybrid working also created challenges regarding visibility, according to Beth. “I think you have to work a bit harder at it because you are remote, or remote part of the time. You have to try harder; you have to push your initiatives forward, you have to stand out and get good at being on camera and using video,” she says. “That was a learning curve for a lot of folks.”  Being proactive and better at this literal, traditional visibility helps for reporting visibility, Beth claims. “It gives the impression that you’re on top of things and that you’re seeing things, and everybody is watching you,” she says. 

Success with Snow

Beth also related how Snow has been a huge contributor to achieving that visibility into the entire IT landscape at DART.

“Snow has helped in giving us . . . that visibility to move forward, more importantly in governance, and be able to really see in this fast-moving pace around hybrid work and new technologies . . . what’s coming in and out of the environment. That’s very important. Having a tool that was portable in and out of on-prem, that was really important to us.”  

Beth Kaminski, ITAM Manager, Dart container

As a nice conclusion to our conversation, Beth conveyed the impact on her team and corporate culture when they won an Honorable Mention Award for Transformation of the Year at the Snow Software 2021 Technology Intelligence Awards. “Winning the Technology Intelligence Award was SO rewarding for my team,” she happily relayed. “We have worked together for six years, and . . . this program didn’t exist before the five of us started working. It was like . . . saying you’re recognized, it was all worth it. There were arguments, and yes, tears, but all those tears have been recognized in both the ITAM space and in Dart Container corporately.”

To read more of Beth’s industry insights, check out, “4 Key Metrics Every Software Asset Manager Should Measure.”

To learn more about Beth Kaminski, check out her bio on LinkedIn.

If you’d like to share your story with Snow readers or nominate an ITAM/SAM star to tell theirs, please send an email to kathleen.shepherd@snowsoftware.com.

The post Industry Expert Shares Insights on the Dynamic Between the New Hybrid Working World and the ITAM Sphere  appeared first on Snow Software.

From the moment he got to the City Council, he recognized a group of very capable people with strong skill sets. But they were so busy just making things work, they had no strategic visibility of assets, no clear understanding of who was doing what or what contracts they had in place and zero insight into the total value or cost of IT to the organization.

“It was clear to me that the biggest problem was no visibility,” Lawrence says. “If you can’t see it, you can’t manage it. Nothing you do will make any big change until you get visibility.”

We sat down with Lawrence to talk about his career journey and how he modernized Christchurch City Council IT.

How did Christchurch get here?

In 2010 and 2011, Christchurch, population 380,000, suffered widespread devastation from a series of earthquakes. Buildings and homes were destroyed, and infrastructure collapsed; 185 people were killed and thousands more were injured. New Zealand declared a national civil defense emergency and response to the natural disaster became a herculean effort. This included lasting support from Christchurch City Council.

The City Council serves the community’s citizens with essential public services with an annual budget of approximately NZ$1.14 billion and just over 2,400 employees. In response to the catastrophic quakes, the entire agency moved into emergency mode to aid the community’s massive rebuild. In the months and even years that followed, the City Council continued to operate that way – doing what they could to make things work. Fast forward five years though and the City Council was still operating under such a premise. Until Lawrence got there.

For nearly forty years, Lawrence worked in ambulance service and management. In 2020, he was hired by the local government agency to support their IT efforts. Thanks to his clinical training as an advanced care paramedic, Lawrence was adept at walking into a situation and quickly evaluating the scene. He knew how to understand the context of that scene and assess what actions needed to be taken to maintain the status quo, or preferably, improve upon it. For City Council leaders, improvement was the goal in the form of delivering better services to the community at a lower cost.

Modernization to the rescue

Soon after Lawrence was hired, the Council began their first-ever IT asset management plan to provide a comprehensive record of IT infrastructure, assets, and performance. This information could then be used for strategy development and assessing IT efficacy. Under Lawrence’s direction, an extensive review of IT asset management solutions and internal evaluation of both software and systems integrators was devised along with a roadmap for a more strategic IT in the future.

At the end of this process, Christchurch City Council chose Snow Software for full visibility of assets, users, and IT consumption.

“Snow gave us visibility into things we knew about, and revealed much more, too…For the first time, we obtained accurate totals for on-premises devices, software and cloud subscriptions, and we could see who used which software and services.”

– Colin Lawrence, Team Leader, IT Asset Management, Christchurch City Council

Learn the benefits Christchurch City Council realized using Snow Software in the full case study.

Team is everything

For Christchurch City Council, strategic IT decisions fueled by visibility were an entirely new concept. Going through such a shift was a process only made possible with good tools and even better communication. Bringing people along through the culture change took willingness and plenty of communication from everyone involved. For Lawrence, it would have been impossible without solid teamwork.

“Teamwork is everything; you will get nowhere by yourself.”

At the City Council, my team listened, he says, and likewise, he listened to them and the problems they were encountering. In this way, the organization was able to come to an aggregated view of what needed to be done and as a result, a roadmap for how to get there with the budget available.

Remodeling software licenses, uncovering inappropriate software and automation, in general, provided significant cost avoidances and allowed the City Council to make strategic decisions in support of service delivery.

Lawrence also built a performance system that reflects on the work people do so that people could understand when and how they make progress. In this way, they know they are contributing and adding value to the organization. Problem resolution is much more effective, and people feel rewarded for their efforts. People sense they are listened to and that their ideas benefit the organization, he says.

Suggestions for success

For Lawrence, it’s important everyone understands the vision, buys into it and works toward it. When asked about his advice to other practitioners looking to make a difference in their organization, teamwork comes out on top. “Getting it right means listening to each other and collaborating. When you support your team and acknowledge their work, the entire organization benefits.” He has felt strongly about teamwork since working in ambulatory services. “I have a duty of care to my team.”

Secondly, always be open to new ideas, he suggests. “Be willing to look around you because your environment changes. And with that change comes a need for you to change. Be aware of institutionalization. Don’t get wrapped up in an organization so much that your thought processes and your actions limit your vision and your ability to see what actually needs to be done.”

This post is part of a series of blogs that highlight IT practitioners and their on-the-job experiences, diverse backgrounds and what it means to work in IT today. Look for more posts coming in the new year. 

If you’d like to share your story with Snow readers or nominate an ITAM/SAM star to tell theirs, please send an email to kathleen.shepherd@snowsoftware.com.

The post Ambulance Services Manager Drives Teamwork and IT Modernization at Christchurch City Council appeared first on Snow Software.

The value of SAM can be derived from cost savings, time and productivity gains, enhanced customer experiences, reduced security and compliance risks and more. Here’s how Kaminski and her team quantify their SAM program.

1. Cost reduction

KAMINSKI: As the ITAM Manager at Dart Container, we launched an all-new SAM program. The company didn’t have a dedicated program previously. I set up a team of 3 people, and to justify the program and show value, we began by recording everything. We tracked a wide variety of activities, like software terminations, for example. The logic was that, without a thoughtful SAM program, the terminations never would have happened — those dollars would have been spent. In the first year, we were able to save the company something like a combined $1.9 million. Whenever you save money from being spent, in any amount, record it. The everyday numbers add up to big savings by end of year.

When it comes to ROI, everyone looks to the big wins, the six-figure wins. They want to look at large entitlements and point to data points like, “we saved $13 million over a font issue.” The big wins are great, of course, but more often than that in SAM it’s also about the little wins you are scoring day in and day out. It can be about the $1,000 saved here and another $1,000 saved there and that adds up to valuable ROI.

2. Cost avoidance

KAMINSKI: Another example is consistent software ticket triage. When a request for new software comes in, the SAM team looks at it and will usually triage the request. Every time you don’t add new software, we would look up the cost and then record that amount as a savings, too. Again, it was money saved.

3. Risk aversion

KAMINSKI: Looking at the bigger picture, you can also address financial risk beyond purchase price. Take the worst-case scenario and look at what that would have cost the company had it not been for a proactive SAM program. It’s often a compilation of costs and vendor non-compliance fines. In a Microsoft review I worked on once, the highest version we could install was 2016. We had 10 installs of 2019 (which we discovered because we were using Snow License Manager). Without catching that, we could have had real problems with Microsoft. To understand ROI in this example, we looked up the list price and a year’s maintenance/service agreement fees for that version. That total is what it could have cost us had we not been proactively looking. That dollar amount was recorded as ROI.

4. Time savings

KAMINSKI: We also addressed another important metric — time savings. Regularly tracking your efforts means you no longer scramble and spend weeks buried in spreadsheets come audit time. It also enables your IT team to spend more time working on strategic initiatives like a sustainability project or furthering the organization’s digital transformation efforts. Regular tracking not only saves time for the SAM team members, it provides time back to your technical or infrastructure teams so they can do what they do best, too. With a SAM program in place and a SAM solution that tracks everything, your technical teams aren’t wasting time looking for software information.

The daily work SAMs do brings significant value to their organization. While the department may not be a profit center, the program does keep more money in the bank, enhances productivity and reduces risk exposure every day.

To learn more about our featured guest, Beth Kaminski, check out her bio on LinkedIn.

This post is part of a series of blogs that highlight IT practitioners and their on-the-job experiences, diverse backgrounds and what it means to work in IT today. Look for more posts coming in the new year. 

If you’d like to share your story with Snow readers or nominate an ITAM/SAM star to tell theirs, please send an email to kathleen.shepherd@snowsoftware.com.

The post 4 Key Metrics Every Software Asset Manager Should Measure appeared first on Snow Software.

We recently sat down with Shepperd, Associate Director of Infrastructure Platform Services at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, to hear about his career, how the pandemic has impacted his team and tips for maintaining a work/life balance while working remotely.

Can you tell me about your career journey and your current role at Vanderbilt University Medical Center?

SHEPPERD: I came to the Medical Center as the Windows and Virtualization Director, which now is called the Infrastructure Platform Services Director. My team and I take care of the complete virtualized infrastructure, virtualization hosts, virtualized guests and all 3,500 Windows servers.

I spent 10 years in the Marine Corps. When I left, I decided to go to college and focus on Information Technologies. I had already gotten my start in IT while in the Corps. After college, I worked for a Fortune 100 company for about nine years. I decided to get off the road because time with my wife and kids was more important than traveling for work. I worked for a couple of small companies before moving to Vanderbilt University as their Unified Communications Manager. I managed email, SharePoint and instant messaging for all 66,000 people. And then, in 2016, we split into two organizations, namely Vanderbilt Medical Center and Vanderbilt University.

What my team has accomplished in the last five years for the hospital has been amazing. Before, we were a hospital in downtown Nashville with a few clinics and affiliate networks in three states. Now we have four hospitals with over 30 clinics and affiliates in three states. We are growing exponentially.

How has the pandemic impacted your team?

SHEPPERD: Actually, our productivity has increased during the pandemic. The hospital has two virologists who helped develop the vaccines, subsequently putting Vanderbilt at the forefront of the research. Our researchers have had enough input into the vaccine’s development that there are entities using cyber-attacks in an attempt to access our research. In return, our team has become hyper-alert about our security.

As an organization, we still have about 20% of our employees working remotely, but the far majority of IT is remote and we’ll stay that way moving forward. There’s no chance we’re going back into a physical location, but that has its pros and cons. Since our home is now our office, employees can’t get away from their work. They can work anytime they want. The con, however, is that they can be called into work at any time. Employees may feel the requirement to be constantly on camera or constantly in front of the computer, and this drains people very quickly and burns them out.

About six weeks into the pandemic, I was sitting in front of the computer and realized my team never logged off. They thought they had to be plugged in at all times. In the next team meeting, I told them to set realistic boundaries. My expectation is productivity, not time. Productivity is more important.

Your office and your house may be in the same place, but there’s an invisible line that needs to be acknowledged. Boundaries must be created. Your house may be an office when it’s time to work, but it needs to be your home when you are off the clock.

What are some ways that you and your team handle stress?

SHEPPERD: Early in the pandemic we didn’t do well, but we’ve now found outlets that help. The first thing we did was create a virtual office workroom. It’s basically a meeting that’s constantly running, where team members can jump in and jump out. They can talk about work, non-work subjects, or whatever is on their minds. It’s important for my team to still personally connect and have a sense of comradery. Because of that, we also decided to host more team-building events.

On a more personal level, I didn’t want my team to lose focus of their personal relationships with family and friends. Their families are ultimately their support systems. My boss and I both believe that our family comes first. It’s easy to execute that philosophy when your supervisor holds the same belief. If there’s ever a choice between work and family, the answer is family. Don’t ever think a day of work is more important than the needs of your family. That was my belief before the pandemic, and it’s the same now. Especially now. If everything is alright with your family and you’re good there, then you can be more focused and productive at work.

Lastly, but certainly not least, is the need to reassess your priorities. Employees should take time to unplug, re-center and re-focus. Whether that means spending time with family or just getting away from the computer screen, downtime is incredibly important. It allows an employee to come back refreshed, with a renewed perspective.

How have you found ways to unplug?

SHEPPERD: Just a few weeks ago, my wife and I took a two-week road trip following old Route 66 that runs from Chicago to Barstow, California. The pandemic had made us a bit stir crazy and we needed to get out of the house, away from work and away from technology. We drove over 4,000 miles along the historic highway, staying in restored pre-1950s court motels and eating in notable diners and cafés. We visited historical locations, national parks, and some very quirky sights along the way. Along with that, we met some incredible people with amazing life stories, which truly put perspective to ours.

^{Photo by: April Shepperd}

As we eased into our vacation, we became more relaxed and our stress waned away. Each day, we were excited about waking up and experiencing a new place and a new adventure. Along with driving the “Mother Road”, we were also driving our stress away. That’s what the whole trip was about.

To learn more about our featured guest, Guy Shepperd, check out his bio on LinkedIn.

This post is part of a series of blogs that highlight IT practitioners and their on-the-job experiences, diverse backgrounds and what it means to work in IT today.

If you’d like to share your story with Snow readers or nominate an ITAM/SAM star to tell theirs, please send an email to kathleen.shepherd@snowsoftware.com.

The post The Importance of Unplugging in the Era of Remote Work appeared first on Snow Software.

How did he do it? Stephen started with the basics and pretended to explain licensing models to his 10-year-old son.

We recently sat down with Moulds to talk about his career journey, which includes roles with IBM, Marshall Aerospace and Defense Group and Johnson Matthey. While at Johnson Matthey, he gained expertise in the field of SAM in part by working with the Snow Software SAM solution.

How did you get into SAM and succeed?

MOULDS: Within my company, the SAM function was there but it just wasn’t working. Over two short years, we had some brilliant success and I think the reason behind that success was that I took it back to the basics. I had a simple understanding of SAM at the time and because of that, I was able to build a simple but solid foundation for improvement.

It came down to even silly things like understanding the different types of core licenses. I wanted to put that into basics that even my 10-year-old son could understand. Then it became a question of how we could deliver those core three or four different licensing models to our customers without risking our compliance position. Once I got my head wrapped around that, it became about putting basic processes in place to allow that functionality to happen.

What SAM processes do you recommend?

MOULDS: One of the toughest things about good SAM strategies is knowing where to start. For us, we focused on keeping it simple. Rather than attacking all the applications we had (which was a lot), we started with our top 10-15 software vendors based on volume of usage. That might be Microsoft, Oracle, IBM — any vendor for which usage is high, and therefore, so is your cost. We started with those and brought them under control. By doing so, we then had a framework to manage the rest of our licenses across our software estate.

Next, to get a handle on our global software estate, one of the things I found to be important was appropriate vendor engagement. Sometimes, calling up a vendor and asking about licenses can be a red flag to that vendor and an audit could follow. Instead, tell them you’re looking to renew your licenses and consolidate with them. You can get the information you need this way without explicitly telling them you don’t know what you don’t have. It’s important to protect the organization while you go through this discovery phase.

We also knew this foundational work was good for a point-in-time view. While we were gathering data on our top 10-15, people were out there buying more software in the background. To address that challenge, we made sure all new entitlements were added to our framework. With the Snow Software SAM solution, we had a single source of truth for all our data. It became almost self-managing once we had all the data in there. If you’re going to succeed as a SAM leader, you also have to manage your data daily. Consistent misinformation ends up leading to mistrust.

Lastly, once we had our top vendors under control, we could look at the tail spend. No one ever really knows what that is; it’s made up of bits of stuff. For larger enterprises, it may total £ 3 or 4 million. For us, we had many different project management tools when we only needed one. Understanding and consolidating our portfolio into a pre-approved catalog combined with other similar services meant we were able to save the company £1 million.

Lessons from the trenches

Taking a SAM program from zero to 100 in just two years taught Moulds and his team a few important lessons that are valuable for anyone working to improve their own program.

MOULDS: SAM can sometimes be a forgotten function within IT. Today, we are an important team that can save the organization significant money and reduce risk. It’s important for SAM managers and the discipline to evolve from being a compliance organization to a function of delivery of software on time to the business. We’ve shifted from being the stereotypical bean counters to a position of strength — one that works in partnership with all areas of the business.

But you can’t do this without good data. From the cybersecurity team wanting to know about out-of-date software to the operations team needing to know who is using what, SAM is about delivery and supporting an ever-changing business. If you feed the Snow Software SAM solution with good data, it will do much of the work for you. Without such a tool, you can’t keep on top of where you stand. You can’t deliver.

To learn more about our featured guest Stephen Moulds, check out his bio on LinkedIn.

This post is part of a series of blogs that highlight IT practitioners and their on-the-job experiences, diverse backgrounds and what it means to work in IT today.

If you’d like to share your story with Snow readers or nominate an ITAM/SAM star to tell theirs, please send an email to kathleen.shepherd@snowsoftware.com.

The post How Keeping It Simple Saved Money and Reduced Risk appeared first on Snow Software.

“There’s that one scene where R2D2 is showing the hologram of Princess Leia, sending the message to everyone. She says, ‘Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.’ Honestly, that is ITAM in a nutshell. When everything goes wrong, the ITAM is the only person that can recover their organization from financial or cyber loss,” says Mackenzie.

We recently sat down with Mackenzie, a Senior IT Asset and Configuration Manager, to learn about his career progression, how ITAM has changed over the years, tips for software asset managers in 2021 and everything in between. He shares how he’s been able to use Snow throughout his career at companies including Arqiva, Dyson, Carnival UK and National Trust.

Can you tell me about your career journey and experience at each company?

MACKENZIE: The first company that I got exposure to Snow at was Arqiva. Initially, when I joined Arqiva, a lot of the information was in spreadsheets, and it was also in BMC Remedy, their ITSM tool of choice at that time. My job was to understand where the devices are set, the procurement processes and how these devices are managed.

Arqiva was using Snow before I had joined, but at the time, I don’t think they had the maturity to use the tool to its full ability. When we re-introduced the platform, it almost changed what we did overnight. There was this huge spreadsheet, which was their definitive media library. We would rely on the Joiner-Mover-Leaver process to alert us if somebody had moved so that we could reassign a license or terminate via a portal. But with Snow, it’s real-time, so as long as we had our compliance information in there and we were keeping in the green, we were happy. We could automate that process and understand how the numbers moved up and down. We became smarter about what we needed to renew in terms of cost because, looking at a spreadsheet, you can’t categorically tell what you need and what will happen in the future. You can’t see actual consumption.

Just before I joined Dyson, they realized that renewals were becoming quite expensive. They didn’t know what was out there. They were relying on people to ask, “Have you got a rough idea of who uses this? How many numbers do we need?” You’d have contractors going in and out all the time, and they’d give their input and then they would leave, and the knowledge would go with them. So, Dyson recognized they needed a decent asset management tool.

I went in and started up the function in terms of asset management, which had never been done before. The service desk was relying on information and spreadsheets. And also, each service desk representative had their sheet of information. Whether it was endpoints or client devices, they knew where some things were but couldn’t keep track of everything. For me, it was all about bringing in technology intelligence and giving them visibility over where things are stored.

When I joined Carnival UK, they were an existing Snow customer, which was hugely beneficial because I didn’t have to worry about implementing another tool when I joined. It helped us answer questions like, what do these ships do? How do they base their architecture? Are there any blackouts in connectivity? How do they map it going around the world? Snow allowed us to be a lot smarter about what assets the ships were carrying so that if we needed to do any decommissioning, we knew exactly where those devices were and when they should be retired. Using Snow was very handy, especially from a version control perspective, because you could map out where you need to do your upgrade paths.

Coming from an engineering background to then going into maritime law and looking at these devices on ships gave me a good understanding of maintenance windows, the risks, connectivity issues, blackouts and how to manage those assets.

At National Trust, I was initially brought in to set up a CMDB, map out their services, the hardware, the supporting stakeholders and provide the leadership team with forecasting.

Over the last 14 months at the Trust, we’ve accomplished some huge transformational changes. We changed the mindset around asset management. Before, it was just SAM, and now, it’s ITAM. ITAM is at the heart of what we want to do in terms of technology enablement, hardware selection, working with IT security and networks and collaborating with tier 1 vendors. When looking at the granularity of the data, we’ve had some very large renewals come through, and Snow License Manager (SLM) has allowed us to understand our users, our platforms and where applications sit.

What are four tips to being an outstanding software asset manager?

MACKENZIE:

1. Be ruthless. Have the courage to ask awkward questions.

2. Don’t be embarrassed or feel ashamed to sit in the corner of the room and be quiet for the entire meeting.

3. Provide your critique and answers after everybody else has finished their conversation because what you’ll find, especially in the technology industry, is that it’s very opinionated. There are lots of people that have their own opinions and desires. But sometimes, it can be too personal. From an ITAM perspective, you need to be a diplomat and sit in the corner of the room and just listen to everybody’s opinion, value everybody’s speech, and then you can come in with your own critique and answers on how to improve process inefficiencies and waste.

4. Don’t work to one-year objectives. You have to map out to five years. With the way that agreements are changing now, large tier one vendors are happy to take the longer route and introduce more service offerings. So don’t be ashamed to ask, “What’s going on in the future?” Ask awkward questions like, “Do you think this will work?” or, “Tell me why you think this is going to work going forward?” Just ask those questions because I guarantee you that not many people will.

Why is ITAM important in the organization?

MACKENZIE: Historically, organizations didn’t have a dedicated person to say no. Customers would renew software for the sake of it. They never looked at the data and instead just trusted word of mouth. Customers would go to their colleagues and say, “Hey, I need to sort out renewal; how many seats do you think you’re going to need and what type of licensing?” Especially with ITAM, it’s nice to have leadership go to a specific team that owns that information rather than reaching out to the entire organization.

What is the future of ITAM?

MACKENZIE: I think in the future, asset management is going to kind of change and lead how organizations operate, and especially power enablement through the right tools. I think organizations are only starting to realize that the spreadsheet cannot be used going forward. You need a technology platform that can provide you information on the fly because audits, when they happen, are very quick.

With asset management, a good technology platform and visibility tool are key to understanding where people are storing things, where those devices sit, and the behaviors around how they work. It’s also important for pushing policy forward. You’ve got to be quite ruthless in asset management because your job is to protect the organization.

To learn more about our featured guest David Mackenzie check out his bio on LinkedIn.

This post is part of a series of blogs that highlight IT practitioners and their on-the-job experiences, diverse backgrounds and what it means to work in IT today.

If you’d like to share your story with Snow readers or nominate an ITAM/SAM star to tell theirs, please send an email to kathleen.shepherd@snowsoftware.com.

The post 4 Tips to Being an Outstanding Software Asset Manager Today appeared first on Snow Software.

Kaminski is the ITAM Program Manager for Dart Container, the world’s largest manufacturer of food service packaging and beverage solutions headquartered in Mason, Michigan, with 45 locations. Early in her career, she was a window dresser for several retailers. In a recent sit-down, she explained how the two roles are strikingly similar.

How did you get started in the profession and what is it like?

KAMINSKI: I started dressing mannequins and creating store displays when I was in high school. Then I put myself through college dressing windows. When I graduated, I was ready to burn down the world, but I ended up working as an assistant manager for a large retailer and I went back to dressing more windows. When I tell people about my time as a window dresser, most say, ‘isn’t that interesting’ and ‘I’ve never known anyone who did that.’ For all the SAM professionals, that probably sounds familiar. Asset management may be a growing field, but it’s still small and a unique part of most organizations.

How is the job similar to a SAM’s role?

KAMINSKI: Organizationally, both roles are unique. As a window dresser, you aren’t a part of any one department: you’re working for every department. You’re serving the entire store. It’s the same for SAMs. You work enterprise-wide and early-on, you learn it’s your job to constantly consider the bigger picture.

For window dressers, it’s when someone sells all the clothes out of one of your windows and, suddenly, refilling that window becomes your next task. No one wants naked mannequins. It’s the same for SAMs. In my role today, when we receive an audit letter, we suddenly have to shift our focus. There’s little routine in both jobs. Instead, it’s a reflection of what’s happening in the organization and the market at any given time.

What have you learned from being a window dresser that has helped you in your role today?

KAMINSKI: Right away, I can think of one very important example – the need to know how to pivot quickly and be agile. I remember working with an absolute genius while I was in college. He and I created a beautiful bridal window and as soon as we locked the door on our work, a customer said she wanted to try on the wedding dress. He had a fit, complaining she was messing up his work. That’s a good example of why, as window dressers, we needed to remember why we do what we do – it’s to peak customer interest and sell merchandise. We have to go with the flow.

It’s the same for SAMs. We have to be agile; we have to pivot around what is important at the time, even if it means tearing out the work you just completed. You just have to roll with it. And like window dressers, SAMs are also trying to sell an idea. In a store window, you might be designing a fun beach window, but the ultimate goal is to sell beachwear. In SAM, you may know your organization needs a SaaS management tool, so what do you do? You have to sell the idea to management. You might start with how the tool will help formulate the organization’s SaaS strategy or how it will help protect the strategy. Or, how it will improve overspend on SaaS licenses. Once again, you have to pivot from idea to idea, depending on what’s happening in your organization, and sell it.

When selling your idea, it’s critical to know what your audience needs. Each executive has a different take on what they need from a SAM manager to make a strategy or technology decision. Some want numbers, and others want industry comparisons. It’s the same as doing a winter scene in a store window. You know the goal – now you have to find the right winter boots and coats to sell it. So what will most effectively promote your idea? Both SAMs and window dressers are marketers in that way. And knowing your audience is key.

To learn more about our featured guest Beth Kaminski, check out her bio on LinkedIn.

This post is part of a series of blogs that highlight IT practitioners and their on-the-job experiences, diverse backgrounds and what it means to work in IT today.

If you’d like to share your story with Snow readers or nominate an ITAM/SAM star to tell theirs, please send an email to kathleen.shepherd@snowsoftware.com.

The post What Do SAMs Have in Common With Window Dressers? appeared first on Snow Software.