Wide-eyed terror or a weary sigh – those are probably the most common reactions from IT managers whenever someone mentions licence compliance. Perhaps that’s why in many organisations it’s addressed as an afterthought, and managed on an ad hoc basis.

After all, it’s not a sexy subject, and getting it wrong can put you on the wrong side of vendors, management and users, all at the same time. Not an enticing prospect!

But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, licence compliance can be transformed from a necessary but isolated and unrewarding operational task, into a holistic organisational process that delivers measureable value. All that’s required is a fresh mind-set and the tools to back it up.

The first rule of optimal licence compliance management is to know exactly what you have. It sounds obvious, but organisations often get into trouble during vendor software audits because of a lack of visibility. They simply don’t know what their employees are installing on their employer-owned devices – not to mention the personal smartphones and tablets that they also use at work.

SOURCE: techradar.com