With the increasing digitization of assets, the software asset management market is expected to grow from 3.5 billion USD to 7.3 billion USD by 2029, showing a compound annual growth rate of 16% in the next five years.
Over the years, the SAM market has evolved significantly, bringing new challenges and complexities to the management of software assets. As the organizations expand, the complexities of managing software assets also increase, making it essential to assess and enhance SAM strategies regularly. One valuable approach to this is conducting a SAM product maturity assessment.
Understanding ServiceNow SAM Product Maturity
The SAM product maturity refers to the effectiveness of an organization’s SAM processes, tools deployed, and practices adopted. It evaluates how well software licenses are tracked and how well SAM is integrated into broader IT and business operations.
Organizations with higher SAM maturity can efficiently track software usage, stay compliant with vendor licensing agreements, and minimize costs with over or under-licensing. Conversely, organizations with lower SAM maturity might struggle with scattered software tracking, higher compliance risks, and unnecessary expenditures.
SAM maturity assessment provides an all-in-one adoption accelerator. This provides a predefined roadmap to customers for the ServiceNow SAM solution. There are maturity items in the SAM Product assessment, which acts as a checklist for achieving each of the organization’s success goals.
There are different stages in ServiceNow’s SAM product assessment, which are as follows:
Stage 1: Crawl
At this stage, the implementation team can establish a healthy configuration management database (CMDB)2. The implementation team can identify tools to discover data and establish processes and roles.
Stage 2: Walk
This phase can be started by establishing procedures, policies, resources, and tools to execute the roadmap of the SAM implementation program. It is possible to automate the processes established during the crawling stage at this stage.
Here, an organization can move to a more complex licensing model in the data centre environments. Organizations can consider additional governance and cost control through software metering and reclamation, identify overlapping software, and rightsize software estate through compliance results.
Stage 3: Run
At this stage, the organization has a standardized and automated process and procedure for centralized software assets tracking and system management.
Also, organizations can provide software to end users through an automated on-demand mechanism and rightsize the software spend.
Also, read Why SAM Solution is Important for Your Organisation.
Benefits of Conducting a SAM Product Maturity Assessment
Organization can understand their SAM practices’ current state by conducting a SAM product maturity assessment to identify the areas for improvement. The following are the benefits of these assessments:
- Optimized Cost: The organization can identify gaps in the SAM process and uncover opportunities to reduce unnecessary software costs such as over-licensing, underutilization or penalties from non-compliance.
- Risk Mitigation: SAM product maturity assessment helps the organization identify software management processes vulnerabilities. This enables the organization to mitigate risks like software audit failures or security vulnerabilities.
- Enhanced Compliance: In organizations with higher maturity levels, SAM product assessment ensures that the organization meets software license agreements and avoids legal penalties.
- Strategic Decision Making: Organizations with a mature SAM program are better equipped to make strategic decisions for their upcoming software investments, vendor negotiations, and technology enablement planning for the organization’s future.
Also, read The Future of ServiceNow SAM.
Steps to Conduct a SAM Product Maturity Assessment
To have a successful maturity assessment, organization should follow a structured approach.
- Define the End Objective: The organization must clearly outline the goals of the assessment, which can be cost reduction, compliance improvement, tracking license usage, etc.
- Data Gathering: The team working on the assessment must collect detailed information on the current software assets, licensing agreement, and any ongoing SAM processes in the organization.
- Current State Evaluation: The team must assess the current SAM processes against the maturity model to identify strengths and areas for improvement.
- Gap Identification: The assessment team should highlight the gaps between current practices and desired maturity levels and prioritize to improve the areas that require immediate attention.
- Action Plan Setup: As per the priority, the implementation team can create a roadmap to address the identified gaps, including specific initiatives, timelines, and resource requirements.
- Implement Improvements: Based on the assessment, the implementation team must introduce changes to improve SAM processes. This step may include implementing an automated SAM tool, refining the current policies, or providing trainings to staff on software management practices.
- Tracking and Measuring Progress: The organization must continuously track progress and adjust as needed to ensure sustained improvement in SAM maturity.
Get more insights on ServiceNow SAM Transforms Business with Clarity
Best Practices for an Effective SAM Product Maturity Assessment
- Engaging with Key Stakeholders: The implementation team must involve key stakeholders from IT, finance, procurement, and compliance to ensure a holistic assessment.
- Leveraging Automation Tools: The organization can utilize SAM tools to automate data collection, analysis, and reporting.
- Prioritizing Compliance: The organization must ensure compliance is always a top priority. This practice should include staying updated on the vendor licensing requirement and ensuring that the contracts are being honoured.
- Leverage Reporting and Analytics: The organization must fully use dashboards and analytics tools to gain insights to refine the SAM processes.
Case Studie: Successful SAM Product Maturity Assessment
The Customer
The client, a leading supply chain software provider company, has long been committed to leveraging cutting-edge technology to streamline operations and enhance customer satisfaction. The customer wanted to track and manage their software assets effectively. For this, the company conducted a SAM product maturity assessment using ServiceNow’s SAM solution.
Challenge
The customer faced challenges with managing its growing software portfolio and ensuring compliance with strict vendor agreements, leading to compliance risks and unnecessary costs.
Solution
InMorphis implemented ServiceNow’s SAM solution, which leverages the full suite of features. Integration with System Center Configuration Manager along with ServiceNow Discovery was implemented to pull endpoint attributes across two million installations. Additionally, InMorphis developed custom dashboards for real time analytics on license metrics, compliance analysis, and publisher analytics.
Results
The implementation of the ServiceNow SAM solution led to numerous benefits for the supply chain software provider company including:
- Increased visibility of assets
- Reduced software spends
- Positive asset audit
Conclusion
A SAM product maturity assessment becomes essential for an organization seeking to enhance its software asset management practices. With automated tools like the ServiceNow SAM platform, the maturity assessment becomes a streamlined process that allows organizations to stay agile and provide a competitive edge in today’s software-driven world. By regularly conducting a SAM Product Maturity Assessment, organizations can unlock the full potential of their software investment and can ensure that their SAM processes are future ready.
InMorphis can help your SAM program, establishing step-by-step achievements while keeping an eye on the organization’s future goals. Contact us today for a systematic approach encompassing every facet of your security and compliance efforts, ensuring your teams effectively utilize ServiceNow SAM modules.
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