FlexNet Manager Suite Global Security Company Success Story
1. Success Story:
Global Security Company
Customer Profile: A Fortune 500 global security company from the United States. “If your company has not been managing and
Challenge: The customer centralized IT in 2009, integrating IT services for all optimizing software licenses—it is missing out on a
business sectors into one IT organization. Prior to this time, the company had disparate huge opportunity to save money and manage risk.
IT asset management (ITAM) and wanted to streamline for process efficiency and cost We’re just scratching the surface, but the payback
savings. Challenges included inconsistent hardware/software management, inability to
has been almost instantaneous. Without facts and
fully leverage IT procurement and decentralized software contract management limiting
the company’s ability to negotiate favorable terms. data, you cannot make informed decisions.”
Solution: The company selected FlexNet Manager Suite for Enterprises as the
management tool underpinning its ITAM and license optimization processes, providing
Director of IT Asset Management
continuous license compliance and optimized spend management from the desktop
Global Security Company
to the datacenter. Their initial focus was optimization of SAP licensing using FlexNet
Manager for SAP Business Suite. Implementations of the FlexNet Manager Platform,
and FlexNet Manager for Engineering Applications are also underway.
Benefits: With FlexNet Manager for SAP Business Suite, the company has
documented usage of SAP software licenses for each user and discovered that
20% of its SAP licenses were unused. This allowed the company to avoid new SAP
license purchases, saving approximately $1 million. The company is now streamlining
purchasing and leveraging the information provided by FlexNet Manager Suite to
negotiate more favorable software license contracts for SAP, Microsoft and other
software vendors.
Managing hardware and software from Flexera Software, to address the need The primary objective of the customer’s
assets collectively across all of the for data collection, analysis and optimized ITAM investment was to provide enterprise-
customer’s business segments represented management of software assets across class asset management to improve
a large opportunity for cost savings the enterprise. bottom-line results. The Director of IT Asset
and risk mitigation. The company had Management was hired to fill the new
diluted its negotiation power due to its Flexera Software Enterprise License position in 2009 and was tasked with
decentralized, business sector silo’ed Optimization (ELO) Maturity Model right sizing all IT assets in the company’s
approach to software asset management portfolio. The director quickly pulled
• Level 1—“Installed”: Identify existing
(SAM). No single business segment had together a plan that would capture new
hardware and software.
adequate data to effectively negotiate asset information at purchase time,
software license terms or withstand the • Level 2—“Managed”: Reconcile
refreshing all data over its 3 to 5 year
scrutiny of an audit, thereby exposing purchased versus installed licenses at refresh rate and focusing foremost on
the customer to both compliance risk a point-in-time. accuracy. The customer was at Level 1
and exorbitant software license costs. • evel 3—“Continuously Compliant”:
L or Level 2 (Installed/Managed) in
The company recognized the need to Automated purchased versus Flexera Software’s Enterprise License
mature its ITAM operation in order to installed reconciliation and Optimization Maturity Model—with
streamline operations and gain control contract management for just the ability to identify hardware
of its software estate to reduce ongoing continuous license compliance. and software assets for most vendors,
software expense. and the ability to create ad hoc license
• evel 4—“Optimized”: Entitlement
L reconciliation reports for others.
The customer took proactive steps at the based license management
advice of its newly-hired CIO and created to optimize software usage Corporate expectations evolved
a new management position entitled and spend. and a year or so into the company’s
Director of IT Asset Management. This implementation, the customer decided it
role would be responsible for developing The Maturity Model describes levels wanted to use internal chargeback for IT
a plan, staffing, defining processes— of software asset management and license services as well. This function would add
maturing and centralizing IT Asset optimization maturity and can be used complexity and additional process steps.
Management (ITAM). Planning activities to help organizations assess current state Successful implementation of chargeback,
resulted in approval for hiring new staff and make plans for improvement. The automated license reconciliation and
members, review of existing management highest level of maturity—Optimized— license type optimization, along with other
toolsets and ultimately the selection of equates to highest and fastest return software asset management and license
FlexNet Manager Suite for Enterprises, on investment. optimization capabilities would move
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