Nobody plays a sport and doesn’t keep score. But plenty of organizations implement a software asset management and license optimization program without any structured way to measure actual outcomes. This article seeks to provide some ideas on how to measure and track data, operations and outcomes from a program focused on optimizing the value and usage of software in an organization.

Business cases for a software asset management and license optimization program will present broad ideals of what ‘success’ looks like, such as:

• Reduce risk of unplanned payments from using unlicensed software
• Reduce risk of security breaches arising from use of unpatched software
• Save money on unneeded maintenance
• Avoid over-purchasing of software licenses
• Reduce the time and effort required to fulfill requests for new software

Crossing the gap from high level objectives like these to identifying how to actually measure outcomes can take some thought. The key principle to apply here is to work out what is meaningful and important, and seek ways to measure those things.

SOURCE: flexerasoftware.com