The “Best of” awards acknowledge companies that have consistently received top ratings for six months, thanks to real customer reviews! The Best Value and Best Feature Set awards are based on exceptional rankings in the feature set and value category, while the Best Relationship award is determined by reviews highlighting repeated purchases and successful implementation.

Winning the Best Value award is a particularly proud moment for us. Paula Darvell, Chief Marketing Officer at Snow, highlights: “Organizations today cannot afford to invest in tools that do not deliver on their promises. Our relentless focus on furthering innovation for our customers and partnering with them to deliver the actionable insights, agility and scale they need, allows our customers to create positive impact with Snow.”

All of these awards would not have been possible without you, our valued customers! Here are some examples of what you had to say about us in the past six months:

• “If it relates to software, Snow License Manager is our organization’s single source of truth.” – Read the full review here.
• “Snow License Manager is an indispensable tool for professional license management.” – Read the full review here.
• “The application is easy to use and I can do my job as a global license manager.” – Read the full review here. 

Truly, the best way to understand how our products deliver results is to hear it directly from our customers. At Snow, we delight in the incredible things our customers accomplish along with the value that our solutions deliver in helping drive real business impact and in solving real-world challenges.

Upcoming events

As we approach the end of the year, we know it’s a busy time balancing life and work. We have several upcoming events to support you as you get ready for 2024!

December 7, 2023: Ask Me Anything

Join us at our final Ask-Me-Anything session of 2023, where you will have the opportunity to ask our Snow experts any questions you have and delve deeper into topics that matter to you. These sessions are designed with you in mind. If you have a topic you want to cover, submit your questions in advance by emailing us at customermarketing@snowsoftware.com.

*NEW* COMING SOON: On-Demand Webinar

Snow 2024 Innovation Session: What’s New, What’s Happening & What’s Next?

So much has happened this year from generative AI to hyper-sprawl of SaaS and cloud technologies, and we have curated an hour-long webinar to help you prepare for next year! The webinar is on-demand, so you can watch at your leisure and includes:

• What’s new? Gain a deeper understanding of new Snow features and functionality that you can leverage today.  
• What’s happening? Let our panel of experts help contextualize what is happening in the market; with exclusive insights from the new 2024 IT Priorities Report, their take on AI and how it’s changing the technology landscape, as well as common questions from Snow customers. 
• What’s next? Get a sneak peek of the innovation roadmap and be the first to hear about new, exciting AI developments emerging from Snow Labs. 

During the session, we are also launching our seasonal give-back for you, our valued Snow customers. We are joining forces, once again, with Rewards Earth, and for each view of the webinar, we commit to plant a tree… not only to supply you with the inspiration and knowledge to start 2024 off on the right foot but you’ll also be making a positive impact to the planet! 

Snow’s success is only due to the success of our customers. We hope to continue bringing you value every single day!

For more information on the “Best of” Awards, please visit TrustRadius. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at customermarketing@snowsoftware.com.

The post Snow Software Wins Three “Best of 2023” Awards From TrustRadius appeared first on Snow Software.

To do this, Snow commissioned a report surveying IT decision-makers. This year, we polled 800 leaders in the US, UK, Germany and Australia. What we found in our 2024 IT Priorities Report is both expected and surprising if we consider the events of the year.  

Let’s take a look. 

Further economic uncertainty reins

The last few years have been marked by constant economic uncertainty – so it’s understandable that many organizations continued to focus on cost savings initiatives. This year, we saw a pretty marked shift in the number of companies that took wide, sweeping cost-cutting steps, including the likes of Microsoft, Amazon, Salesforce and more.

Despite these significant cost reduction measures – or the year of efficiency as Mark Zuckerberg declared it for Meta, at least – there was a flicker of optimism in the form of artificial intelligence.

As such, IT leaders said that their top three priorities in 2023 were AI, reducing security risks and reducing IT costs. In fact, most IT leaders also believe these priorities will carry over into 2024.

What was surprising about the rise of AI within IT leaders’ agendas was the confidence surrounding it.

Eighty-two percent said they are completely prepared to leverage generative AI. That’s a pretty significant percentage considering that we are still in the early stages of AI use cases and benefits. It does indicate the promise of AI, but the extreme confidence is something worth watching, especially with the likely additional regulation around the world, such as the recent US executive order on AI or the EU AI Act, which seeks to provide a framework for regulating AI in Europe.

The findings – and external data – also suggest that much of AI use today is within the current technology stack and is likely being used for productivity and efficiency gains. Seventy-five percent also said they increased spend on security tools in 2023, and this may be to counter uncertain risks surrounding AI.

However, what’s clear is navigating uncertainty caused by the global macroeconomic climate is a priority and an ongoing reality for the foreseeable future. And AI is providing a bit of sunshine amongst a somewhat dreary forecast.

Data’s new normal moment

In past years, we’ve asked IT leaders about their relationship with data. Being able to source the right data at the right time can make or break organizations, providing competitive advantages, indications on buying behaviors and more. However, many organizations are drowning in data, in some form or fashion.

We asked IT leaders about this – and in 2023, the number has decreased significantly. Forty-six percent said they were overwhelmed by their data, which is a 14-point decrease from 2022 and 26-point drop from 2021.

What’s happening? Have we really solved our data deluge problem?

While we didn’t specifically ask IT leaders what has changed, we can take some educated guesses. One of which is that most of our technology from public cloud to SaaS and more includes data dashboards that provide near real-time updates. We have become used to receiving data in more digestible ways – and even if those are not always presented to us in an actionable format, we know how to navigate some of what we receive.

However, there’s a bit of a warning here that we should consider.

Using dashboards provided by our technology vendors is one way to consume data about the integrity of our programs or ROI of our tools. PowerBI for example, provides ways to pull subsets of data into something more understandable. But this isn’t a long-term solution.

Bringing together data and making it actionable should be the ultimate goal.

The introduction of generative AI within our IT landscapes will likely create further complexity and exacerbate an already tenuous situation we have with our data. Not to mention the source and reliability of that data. It’s essential that we don’t go back to being overwhelmed, but rather we learn from history and prepare for future data challenges and possibilities. Swimming in vast amounts of data – and navigating exponential complexity around that data – will be the new normal.

Visibility remains elusive

We talk about complexity quite often here at Snow. That’s because we’ve seen A LOT of it across our customers’ environments – and we regularly see tech vendors introducing further complexity from pricing increases, new AI integrations, licensing updates and more.

This complexity and the effects of it are part of the reason why we are so passionate about the need for comprehensive visibility – and the need for a less siloed, more platform-based approach, which is another key growth area in this year’s report.

88% of IT leaders reported moving towards platforms and away from point tools.

2024 it priorities report

According to this year’s survey, visibility is an area that needs much more work. Sixty-seven percent of IT leaders said they know their business units are buying more cloud and SaaS than they are aware of. There also is no one clear issue driving this lack of visibility within their organizations.

Considering the priorities around reducing risk and identifying cost savings, it seems like tackling visibility issues is intrinsically linked. Establishing a foundation of visibility is essential for every organization. But it is especially important for those organizations that are looking to dive deeper into AI.

72% of IT leaders anticipate increasing spend on emerging technology applications like artificial intelligence in the next two to three years.

2024 it priorities report

As we close out yet another year, there is so much we can learn from this in retrospective. The question is whether we take those learnings and apply them to 2024. Many of the findings from this year’s IT Priorities Report indicate to us that organizations still need visibility across their entire technology environment and actionable insights that can help them address their priorities for the coming year including the use of AI, reduction of security risks and reduction of IT costs.

If the only constant is change, then we should prepare to be increasingly agile and ensure we fundamentally understand how to get the most out of our technology investments. It may be the difference between a good company – and a great company.

To read more about this year’s findings or hear what is on the minds of IT leaders, download the 2024 IT Priorities Report.

The post Innovation and Adaptation: Are You Ready for What’s in Store for 2024? appeared first on Snow Software.

If you’re a Security Operations, IT or ITAM professional supporting organizations with any debt, this is not just another warning to invest in a healthy ITAM practice. This news, recently communicated in a report from the S&P Global Ratings agency, states that an inadequate ITAM practice can impact an organization’s ability to have solid cybersecurity controls, and as a result, creditworthiness will be impacted. If your organization’s credit scores are impacted, the cost of financing will go up, and the organization’s reputation will be damaged. If you receive a performance bonus or have invested in company stock, the impact can be quite personal.

Over the years, governmental agencies and standards bodies such as the NIST, CISA, ISO 27001/ISO 27002, SOC2, etc. have been promoting the need for ITAM in cybersecurity processes. The noise around managing these standards have been amped up in recent years with the following disruptions:

Even with all the urgings from federal and state agencies and standards bodies, organizations are still managing IT assets in spreadsheets and with tools that have not evolved to meet today’s complex IT infrastructure and application requirements. These are not mom-and-pop shops managing ITAM processes with bubblegum and toothpicks, but enterprise organizations with 10, 20, or 50 thousand or more employees.

Why has IT asset management been ignored?

There are multiple reasons why ITAM is ignored and not properly funded in organizations. Here are a few of the main reasons:

• Distributed purchasing and users bypassing procurement controls. The majority of applications purchased today are outside IT. With SaaS, all you need is a credit card and internet connection. Most organizations are suffering from application sprawl and are unaware of dozens or hundreds of applications used across the organization. Many ITAM practices are focused on assets they can physically inspect – installed software – and the resulting issue is that no one is focused on governing ITAM for modern technologies.
• It’s a part-time job. Gartner estimates that organizations with more than 5,000 employees should have a software asset management team of at least six people. A lot of organizations relegate the ITAM function to managing the IT inventory and helping out with big audits or renewals and only dedicate minimal resources to the function. Because of the collaborative and data-intensive nature of the job, it is nearly impossible to make much progress in a part-time capacity. Especially with cloud infrastructure and SaaS applications, the role has shifted to be much more proactive from a governance perspective.
• The job is not easy. To be successful, ITAM professionals need a mix of soft skills such as listening, idea selling, cross-functional alignment and relationship building along with technical skills of managing projects, vendor negotiations, and being data driven.
• Revenue-impacting investments win over keeping data secure. This is the same reason why software companies suffer technical debt – everyone wants to work on the shiny, new thing. ITAM has been around for decades, yet we still see unpatched known vulnerabilities, organizations paying penalties for license compliance, managing IT assets in spreadsheets, and having data leak from their company due to unknown applications in use.  

ITAM’s new partner – the CFO

Even with the challenges above, organizations will need to mature their ITAM practices. Now with credit ratings on the line, the CFO will become more invested in ensuring cybersecurity controls are in place and be open to fund a proper ITAM practice for modern-day technology environments. No CFO wants to disclose material weaknesses of internal controls in their financial statements and risk having the cost of debt go up.

Another reason CFOs may be more focused on ITAM is the bridging of FinOps and ITAM practices to create a robust governance framework and optimization roadmap. This is especially true in organizations with significant IaaS spend and needing to get a handle on software cost of goods sold.

Learn more about ITAM best practices in this free guide or connect with us to determine how ITAM can improve your cybersecurity posture.

The post Will CFOs Take on ITAM to Keep Credit Ratings Intact? appeared first on Snow Software.

Navigating product bundles

Let’s start with product bundles. SaaS providers typically have widely disparate pricing depending on which tier of service you select. When they add functionality via acquisition, that often affects how they bundle features and functions within tiers and how they price those tiers. Complete visibility into your SaaS environment is crucial to negotiate effectively with SaaS vendors and avoid overpaying for features your employees don’t need. Login or billing information isn’t enough.  

Gather data at the user level where you can discover paid as well as free applications and see which features users are accessing. A clear picture of the software you have, how your employees are using it and the value it’s providing to them is essential. You’ll be in a better position post-acquisition if a vendor presents new pricing based on new tiers and functionality. It’s easier to distinguish new capabilities that may represent a gap to be filled or features you can live without.  

Take Adobe Creative Cloud, for example. They have two main bundles — Single App, and All Apps. When an employee is using at least three apps, it generally makes sense to purchase the All Apps bundle. The cost difference between the two bundles is around $50.

Adobe may decide to bundle Figma into Adobe Creative Cloud. Let’s say that’s the case. You’re an Adobe Creative Cloud and Figma customer with employees using more than three apps on the All App bundle. You’ll get even more value from your investment and can cancel your Figma subscription. If, however, an employee is only using Figma and one additional app, the Single App license may make more sense. It’s critical to have that visibility into usage. Not only will you choose correctly for each employee, you’ll capitalize on SaaS savings after M&A events like this one.

Managing volume discounts

Most software and SaaS providers offer pricing discounts based on how many licenses you purchase. When a centralized IT department purchases all software, it’s easy enough to track purchases with each vendor and negotiate accordingly. Nowadays, that’s rarely the way things work with SaaS procurement. Business units and even individual employees are making purchasing decisions independent of IT more than ever.

When two well-established vendors like Adobe and Figma merge, you might find that you’re suddenly a much larger customer of the combined entity than you were of each vendor individually. It’s critical to have complete visibility into all SaaS in use throughout the organization when that happens. With it, you can negotiate from a position of strength and leverage your size to achieve pricing power. 

Taking advantage of competition

When one company acquires another, there are any number of ways the new, combined entity can take shape. The options range from business as usual to complete integration and everything in between. Regardless, the new, combined company will have an interest in making sure its customers use as many of its offered capabilities as possible. 

If, for example, you’re using a competitor of the acquired company, you may find there are incentives available if you switch. Once again, complete visibility into your current SaaS environment puts you into the best position to take advantage of this opportunity if it arises. 

The future of SaaS savings after M&A

To learn how Snow Software provides visibility into SaaS environments, you can review our guide to SaaS discovery methods. Interested in more? Check out how Snow addresses SaaS management to optimize software costs.

The post Adobe/Figma Merger: Three Tips for SaaS Savings After M&A appeared first on Snow Software.

Most federal agencies are now scrambling to meet the requirement. If you’re like other organizations outside of the public sector, you’re probably thankful this doesn’t include you. If you’re part of the wide-reaching government supply chain, however, it’s time to begin preparations for what’s likely to come. Let’s look at why this required action step is important, why it comes with such a quick turnaround and how you can get started on your own asset inventory.

Why a software inventory?

In today’s digital landscape information is king. Organizations know this and, unfortunately, so do cyber criminals. Securing that information needs to be high on the list of priorities. The first step in making that happen is visibility, because you can’t protect what you can’t see.

Comprehensive insight across your active software inventory and your entire technology estate gives you the ability to shore up security vulnerabilities and protect your data. It also helps you save money and avoid nasty audit surprises through cost avoidances and optimization. By knowing the status of your software, you can manage cost, usage, and risk across your IT estate.

A full view enables you to:

• Manage and optimize your software licenses
• Plan for strong positioning during renewals and contract negotiations
• Prepare for audits with fewer surprises

Why the 90-day timeline?

Given federal agencies’ heavy (and growing) reliance on software, they are undoubtedly feeling the pressure of completing a full inventory in just 90 days. It’s a tight turnaround, especially for organizations that lack some form of proactive software asset management. The time to act, though is now. In truth, it’s long overdue. 

It’s been nearly three years since the 2020 breach of SolarWinds, a Texas-based company that builds software for protecting networks and systems. The cyberattack on SolarWinds put their own corporate IP at risk, but it also gave cyber criminals a foothold into their customers’ systems. This was a stark reminder to everyone that digital supply chain attacks are the new reality and downstream risk management tactics, together with vendors and partners, are critical. How can you manage these supply chain risks if you aren’t sure which vendors you rely on or which distributors you partner with? Today’s global conflicts and escalating cyberattacks, nation-state sponsored or otherwise, indicate more security is necessary. Economic uncertainty is another reason more visibility over your software estate is best performed sooner rather than later. As organizations work to digitally transform and future-proof their business against inflation and other risks, there’s no better time to optimize your software costs and prevent potentially costly compliance issues.

How to get started

For a head start on implementing NIST-authored cybersecurity guidance and to get a jump start on your software inventory, consider downloading the top 20 Critical Security Controls^® from the Center for Internet Security^® (CIS). The prioritized steps were created to guide organizations in improving their data security. Step two emphasizes creating an inventory of all software in use across the organization.

The best way to discover, inventory, manage and optimize your software in the long-term is through an ongoing strategic IT asset management (ITAM) program. To organize such an initiative, Snow has included how to define program goals and set the milestones necessary for formulating a roadmap to strategic ITAM in a helpful new e-book, the 12-Month ITAM Roadmap.

Technology plays a central role in any ITAM program. The difference is in how you simplify the discovery, inventory and normalization of your software assets and consolidate that into a single view. You can learn more about how Snow helps with Snow Asset Discovery & Inventory and Snow Asset Management.

The post 90 Days to Deliver a Full Software Inventory: Why and How appeared first on Snow Software.

Gartner’s latest Market Guide for Software Asset Management Tools¹ offers a detailed look at SAM tools currently on the market, with the aim of helping IT leaders select the right tools to support their strategy.

Gartner defines these tools as “products that help optimize software and SaaS spend while supporting the automation of tasks required to maintain compliance with software license and SaaS subscription use rights.” The market, however, is changing. The variety and complexity of technology that needs to be managed is increasing, there are more SAM tools than ever before and automating SAM has become increasingly challenging due to licensing complexity.

Read on to discover how the market is changing, what you should look for in a SAM tool and what we believe, are four of the top findings from the guide.

The DINRGOS Framework

The Gartner Market Guide identifies 10 key activities that a SAM tool should offer in 2021. The DINRGOS framework, illustrated and explained below, can be used as a baseline to plan improvements, understand current SAM capabilities and compare different software asset management tools.

1. Platform discovery – Interrogate to find physical, virtual and cloud platforms

2. Entitlement discovery – Integrate with vendor portals, sourcing and vendor management systems to find software contract, purchase and procurement records

3. Identify consumption – Extract a list of all software and software consumption

4. Identify entitlements – Decode software contracts, purchases and procurement

5. Normalize consumption data – Resolve duplicated or conflicting records and data collected by multiple tools

6. Normalize entitlement data – Produce a single, accurate, organized and categorized inventory of entitlements

7. Reconcile – Harmonize contract, purchase and entitlement information with normalized inventory data to produce effective license position

8. Govern – Allocate licenses, identify remediation actions for noncompliance and over-licensing, and automate workflows

9. Optimize – Balancing software spending with usage

10. Share – Provide information for use throughout the IT ecosystem

Managing emerging technology

One of the important trends in SAM that is captured in the market guide is the increasing variety and complexity of technology that is expected to be covered by SAM managers. Much of this is driven by an increase in cloud spending.

• In 2021, SaaS spend is expected to reach $147.7B, a YoY increase of 19.9%
• Also in 2021, IaaS spend is expected to increase YoY by 42.3%, to $92.1B

Despite these increases, the responsibility for managing these technologies varies across organizations. Only 41% of SAM teams own SaaS application management and just 34% cover public cloud spend. Moving forward, organizations will have to determine whether their current processes for tracking and managing this cloud spending are adequate.

Automating SAM

The increase in the variety of technologies that some expect SAM teams to manage compounds a long-standing challenge for SAM and IT teams: manual processes for importing entitlements. When vendors primarily sold based on “one license, one machine,” this level of manual effort was manageable. However, new technology has introduced an exploding variety of license and entitlement models, including:

• Bundles and subscription levels
• Multiple metrics
• Subcapacity calculations
• Hybrid use/BYOL models

According to Gartner, “The complexity of licensing doesn’t stop with the diverse licensing types and infrastructure; in fact, it’s just the beginning. Organizations are increasingly reliant on software, which requires them to add more software publishers and applications. With each of these publishers and products, management can become exponentially more challenging …”

Integrating SAM data into the wider IT ecosystem

Leading SAM teams have long recognized that they possess the most complete, most current source of software, hardware and usage information across the enterprise. They also acknowledge that many other enterprise teams can use this data, including:

• Sourcing/Procurement – Detailed usage information can help drive better renewal contracts and save money
• Finance/IT Finance – This data can help create a holistic picture of spend across the organization
• Enterprise Architecture – Software and hardware details help drive efficient refresh rates

Though a SAM team may have the best insights into data and asset usage in an organization, they are not the only teams to benefit from them. Groups across an enterprise can make better, more informed decisions and realize positive outcomes from the data.

Lack of resourcing holds SAM back

Even organizations that follow best practices of defining areas of management, creating a SAM charter and investing in leading technology are sometimes hobbled by inadequate SAM staffing. While the automation mentioned earlier is key, it doesn’t eliminate the need for skilled personal to understand complex licensing, define and implement governance and communicate with other IT stakeholders.

As noted by Gartner, lack of resourcing can be addressed with a SAM Managed Services Program (MSP), but it still doesn’t bring resourcing need to zero: “While SAM MSPs offer a solution to the scarce supply of skills, enterprises must see the MSP as an extension of their staff, ensuring they still hold the overall accountability for their SAM discipline. Therefore, the internal organization must have an overall SAM process owner, accountable for governing the discipline while working with the SAM MSP on the daily operational tasks and their internal network of supporters.”

We’ll also provide additional analysis and perspectives on the blog as we dig even deeper into these findings over the next couple months.

¹ Gartner, “Market Guide for Software Asset Management Tools” by Ryan Stefani. September 20, 2021.

² This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from Snow. Gartner Disclosure:

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

The post Top 4 Findings From Gartner's Market Guide for Software Asset Management Tools appeared first on Snow Software.

In a recent webinar that discussed the results of the TEI study, we joined Sruti Pegatraju (Forrester senior consultant) and Beth Kaminski (Managing partner at Kaminski Specialty Consulting) to examine the three-year impact Snow’s SAM solution delivers in detail. The results are eye-opening:

• Benefits of nearly $5 million versus costs of $942,000
• Net present value of over $4 million
• ROI of 428%
• Payback period of six months

Breaking down a 428% ROI

To better understand the benefits, costs and risks associated with such an investment, Forrester interviewed four Snow customers in the U.S. and Europe with experience using Snow’s SAM solution. Forrester aggregated the interviewees’ experiences and combined the results into a single composite organization for this study. Take a look at some of the highlights below.

• Reduced software spend by more than $4 million over three years. With Snow’s SAM solution, organizations were able to see what software they needed and how many licenses were used, which led to more effective license management. The organizations could then streamline and standardize the software they make available to end-users. On average, Snow’s SAM solution reduced overall licensing costs by 5%.
• Productivity and software management efficiencies saved more than $359,000 over three years. Snow’s unified dashboards, workflow automation and intuitive reporting, saved SAM team members’ time. It also helped SAM and IT teams respond faster, more efficiently and utilize time savings for improvements and innovation. Before Snow’s SAM solution, the composite organization had to dedicate 2.5 full-time employees (FTEs) to manually report on its SAM environment and produce the same level of insights or visualizations that the Snow SAM solution could provide.
• Improved audit efficiency saved more than $520,000 over three years. Improved accuracy, compliance, internal controls and chain of custody trails gave auditors at the interviewees’ organizations a more straightforward task to verify results. As opposed to fragmented data or manual processes, the Snow SAM solution produces immediate validation for the composite organization’s auditors and internal compliance FTEs, saving on average 50% of the time previously required per audit case.

Additional SAM benefits

Beyond these quantifiable benefits, the study also revealed that organizations using Snow’s SAM solution gained several other important benefits including smoother vendor contract negotiations and renewals, enhanced business agility and significantly stronger compliance and security posture. In addition, more flexibility was also discovered, including improved SaaS governance and tighter alignment between IT and the business.

If you’re considering a shift to a formal SAM solution but would first like more information on the ROI it can bring, download the Forrester Total Economic Impact Study of Snow Software Asset Management.

You can also listen in as Forrester walks through the compelling results in the full webinar.

The post New Forrester Research Reveals the High ROI of Software Asset Management appeared first on Snow Software.

Our survey polled 400 IT leaders to determine the current state of hybrid work and technologies and found that more than 92% were moving or had already moved to a hybrid work mode. This statistic isn’t surprising as many companies have begun opening their doors again for in-office work, but many employees aren’t ready to be back in office.

While the majority of IT leaders have moved or are already moving to hybrid work, only 34% indicated that the shift to hybrid work is the IT team’s primary focus for the next 12 months. Most leaders noted that reducing/optimizing IT costs (55%) and enabling competitive differentiation through IT initiatives (57%) as their main priorities – so if hybrid work is top of mind for organizations, why is it not a top focus for IT leaders?

Hybrid vs remote work: the difference is complexity

First, it’s important to recognize that remote and hybrid work bring their own set of complexities. While they have similarities – both bringing the challenges of managing application sprawl, shadow IT and managing costs – they are not the same.

Hybrid work requires managing requirements for both a remote and a physical environment. A hybrid work model must adjust to the ebb and flow of employees who may pivot back and forth, creating a similar technology experience regardless of location. Troubleshooting network constraints at company headquarters while also solving connectivity issues for an employee at home are the reality of hybrid work. For remote-only work, the variables stay largely the same.

But at this stage, we are not sure what the average hybrid work experience will look like. Every organization has its own unique needs, and as we saw in the survey, many IT leaders are still dealing with some lingering effects of 2020 decisions. But hybrid is a priority, and the majority of IT leaders are optimistic about the future of hybrid work, with 57% saying they were excited and 44% indicating it was a move in the right direction. Additionally, IT leaders noted feeling:

SaaS sprawl is (and will likely remain) concerning

According to our survey, IT leaders believe the most challenging aspects of supporting or transitioning to hybrid work are controlling costs (18%) and reining in unseen application use (16%) — makes sense considering the number of applications organizations are running. Most organizations surveyed are running 100 to 1000 SaaS applications across their network, and 73% of IT leaders indicated that this is an increase over the last 12 months. With SaaS continuing to gain importance, it is no wonder that one of the biggest challenges for SaaS is controlling sprawl. Discovering unmanaged SaaS applications remains a priority and will likely be a priority for many years to come.

When asked, IT leaders named Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and Zoom as the most impactful applications used by their organizations. Video conferencing was ranked as the top type of tool organizations relied on the most in the last year (32%), confirming Zoom’s place among most impactful applications. Other tools organizations relied on included:

• Cloud infrastructure (i.e. Microsoft Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, etc.) (23%)
• Office suites (i.e. Office365, Gsuite, Dropbox Paper, etc.) (11%)
• Specialty software (i.e. Salesforce, Adobe, etc.) (11%)

Surprisingly, collaboration applications (i.e. Slack, Teams, Dropbox, etc.) were on the lower end of tools heavily leaned on in the past year (9%). Considering the top three most used applications include many of the features of collaboration applications (such as chat, file sharing, etc.), collaboration-focused applications may have ranked lower because their function was already covered by the leading tools.

2021 IT spending will increase

With increased complexity comes increased costs. More than 83% of IT leaders expect additional funds to support and implement new ways of working. If given an additional budget today to support new ways of working, the majority of IT leaders (37%) believe it should be invested in IT staff while other leaders believed that budget should be spent on:

• SaaS applications (18%)
• Cloud infrastructure (i.e. public, private, virtual machines, etc.) (17%)
• Cybersecurity tools and training (10%)

IT leaders (34%) expect that hybrid work will increase employee access and consumption of IT resources. While SaaS spending increased in 2020, according to IT leaders surveyed, this is only the beginning of more significant spending increases we will see as hybrid work becomes the norm.

As we continue to navigate the pandemic and embrace the hybrid work model, over the coming months organizations will need to think more critically about how they can support this new reality. In this new era of hybrid work, vendors like Microsoft, are developing solutions for organizations to offer greater flexibility to the hybrid workforce. See how IT Asset Management teams can prepare for this transformation and beyond.

The post Study: Hybrid Work Is Here to Stay, Bringing Its Own Mix of Complexities appeared first on Snow Software.

When implementing a SAM program it’s crucial to work incrementally and focus on what will create the most significant impact first. But with so much to consider, where do you start?

When you focus exclusively on onboarding new software but leave out policy and procedure on maintenance or removal, for example, you are exposing your organization to costly risk. For smooth tactical execution, you will see the most impact when your SAM program maps to the entire software lifecycle, as illustrated below: 

• Requisition: The process for identifying and requesting software.
• Procurement: The process for purchasing software.
• Deployment: The process of installing software on hardware.
• Support (Monitor): The process of tracking software installations; this includes maintenance negotiations and payments.
• Retirement: The process for removing software that is no longer needed or transferring the software from one location or individual to another location or individual.

Finding incremental success

To achieve the highest levels of SAM and organizational maturity, your cross-functional team should consider processes designed to span the entire software lifecycle — starting with acquisition through retirement. Treat this as your strategic vision; to achieve holistic coverage of your processes aligned with the full lifecycle. What this means for your organization is that each software asset will be maintained in the most cost-aware and optimized position, including when to remove it gracefully to complete the optimized position.

But remember, this is not a set-and-forget strategy. It’s a journey of continual improvement and not a one-size-fits-all approach. When tailoring your program to your organization’s needs, it’s important to strive for productivity rather than perfection.

Navigating complex processes

One of the biggest challenges facing software asset managers is the sheer complexity of implementing a new program and identifying specific tasks that address the entire software lifecycle. The processes written in bold indicate a good starting point if your SAM program is new or if you’re looking to start a review of an existing process set.

• Create and maintain a SAM plan process

• Outline a procurement process

• Create a software request process

• Define a software re-harvesting process

• Identify a software sourcing process

• Outline a software change management process

• Implement a corporate governance process

• Maintain a supported software catalog process

• Define a software rationalization process

• Clarify your joiners, movers and leavers process

• Determine how scope will be verified

• Identify your named user verification process

• Outline an asset use verification process

• Pre-define your SAM review process

• Indicate a BYOD process

• Determine the license compliance process

• Establish a software removal process

• Author a hardware disposal process

• Create a SAM competence and training process and set schedule

• Identify a reporting process

• Establish an orphan data process

• Clarify a support and maintenance review process

Start taking action

The list above demonstrates how challenging and time-consuming finding a SAM program can be; start with the items in bold, then continue to focus on processes that will have the most significant impact on your organization. Productivity is ultimately qualitative rather than quantitative: not so much by the number of tasks or processes defined, but the outcome of each task.

It’s essential to set clear metrics for each process and to be able to measure the success against organizational goals to reinforce the value of the SAM program to gain continual support. Of course, a SAM program is only as successful as the people behind it. By investing in the right people, and with a well-organized team, you can roll out these processes over time and see your SAM success grow.

If you’re not sure where you stand in your SAM journey, or you’re just getting started, try our free, Software Savings Calculator. Using your current software spend as a benchmark, our cost savings calculator will help estimate returns based on your current and target level of SAM maturity. 

This post is the third in a series of articles on SAM. Watch for future posts that will include insights on SAM implementation, how-tos and more.

The post SAM in 2021: Be Productive, Not Perfect appeared first on Snow Software.

Businesses are doubling down on technology that helps them remain flexible and most of all, competitive. With skyrocketing cloud use and software applications being regularly introduced directly from the workforce, many organizations have lost track of the technology being used across their business. Technology blindspots can leave a business in a position of risk – and potentially mean leaving money on the table.

A comprehensive software asset management (SAM) program can provide complete visibility and usage data of your software, application, cloud and hardware assets so IT teams can better manage costs, improve security and minimize costly regulatory and compliance risks. But how do you manage your SAM program for optimal results?

As we mentioned in our last blog, your first step in managing a sprawling IT landscape is determining your current SAM maturity. Understanding your entitlements and what is installed is a start. But the real value comes when you understand what you are using, who is using it and how to build a framework for future purchasing.

Create policy framework aligned with business outcomes

The most successful SAM programs start with a policy framework that provides a clear and consistent structure and alignment with business outcomes. Proper preparation is the key. Clarify that your vision aligns with what the new technology will provide and define governance, people, and processes that need to be in place to leverage the technology when it is deployed. This reduces the time to value and ROI period.

When it comes to your team, inclusivity is always critical. Gartner says those who develop policy in isolation will find their work unread or ignored, so it’s a good idea to assess whether to integrate SAM governance into existing policies or develop a stand-alone document.

Clearly define roles and responsibilities

Another important component to a successful SAM program is ensuring all of IT has a strong understanding of the program and their individual role within it – not just the role of your SAM manager. Teamwork across your organization is the biggest success driver for truly minimizing the risks of non-compliant software. Defining roles can be different for every organization, but the one component that should stay the same is that a SAM practitioner is the one that has connections to everyone and provides valuable insight. The SAM practitioner is essentially the glue that brings all the different parts of the organization together. While the program manager oversees the full lifecycle of software, all of IT should support the resulting SAM policy and processes developed.

Likewise, key executives within the organization also have a role to play. Gartner recommends having the SAM program policies be signed off by the CEO to avoid any disruption. The CEO and others can also lead by example when it comes to adhering to defined processes.

In addition to software management being ‘everyone’s responsibility,’ there are specific tasks that make up a successful SAM program, and they bridge your entire organization. The below chart represents a suggested scope of work.

A = Accountable. Has final decision-making authority and accountability for completion. Only 1 per task.

C = Consulted. An adviser, stakeholder, or subject matter expert who is consulted before a decision or action.

I = Informed. Must be informed after a decision or action.

R = Responsible. Assigned to complete the task or deliverable

Tips for success

Establishing this organizational-wide breakout of responsibilities will help you achieve the best possible results and deliver the highest ROI on your SAM strategy. Specific tasks that address the entire software lifecycle and other key policy considerations will also boost your success. While the above chart is only an example, you can fill out the chart for your own organization and get a more accurate sense of how roles and responsibilities are distributed.

Remember, building a comprehensive software asset management program is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. In your SAM program, you should identify the key business objectives and prioritize what needs to be done based on those objectives and executive leadership support. It takes time to put things in place so don’t try to do everything at once!

This post is the second in a series of articles on SAM. Watch for future posts that will include insights on bringing SAM into the entire software lifecycle, how-tos on implementation and more.

The post SAM in 2021: Success Starts With a Strong Foundation appeared first on Snow Software.