Photo of Tim Colwell
Written by
Timothy C. Colwell
Tim is Executive Vice President at AOTMP University

License management is gaining attention in many organizations as the volume of SaaS subscriptions increase. Left unchecked, budget bloat caused by oversubscription and underutilization is inevitable. Follow these best practices and you’ll be on your way towards an efficiency and effective telecom, mobility, and IT license management practice.

Best Practice #1: Track software licenses for all technology systems
This best practice involves maintaining records for all software licenses and includes version, activation key, configuration details, license terms, charges, vendor delivering software, and user assignment. Associating financial cost center allocations with licenses is an added step that aligns licenses with internal financial stakeholders.

Best Practice #2: Assess license assignment requirements
Understanding current requirements and revisiting them frequently improves alignment between technology and business stakeholders and provides critical information that supports optimization initiatives.

Best Practice #3: Monitor license utilization
Knowing who has licenses is important (see best practice #1). Knowing how licenses are being used enables license managers to make informed recommendations to ensure users have the features they need at the most effective price point.

Best Practice #4: Validate contractual compliance
Software license contracts can be complex. Pricing tiers, utilization thresholds, named user assignments, minimum commitments, and the list goes on. Validating that you are charged accurately according to contractual terms and conditions is prerequisite to an effective license management practice.

Best Practice #5: Maintain license versions
Software changes rapidly. Sometimes updates are pushed and sometimes they are manually installed. Regardless of the update method, monitoring and maintaining end-user license versions helps with security and operability controls.

Best Practice #6: Reclaim unused licenses
Oversubscription occurs when assigned users cease to use active licenses. Users may change roles or software or leave the organization. In any case, reclaiming unused licenses and reassigning them or eliminating them greatly improves overall license-to-cost performance.

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