Software Asset Management. Are you Ready?
Software Asset Management (SAM) is a critical business issue for all private and public organisations. There are significant penalties and disadvantages for those organisations that do not treat and manage their business applications as assets.
Good SAM practice not only minimises legal and financial risks associated with Copyright breaches, but it also saves money by not overbuying software.
In Australia, as in many other parts of the world, there are numerous Acts and Laws governing the way in which IT is used, especially in relation to software licensing for key business applications.
The officers of a company are responsible for ensuring that these various Acts and Laws are complied with and that the organisation complies with relevant corporate governance standards such as AS8015.
There are significant legal consequences for companies that fail to ensure compliance with software licensing terms. Any license shortfalls that are found means that these licenses have to be paid for. This can mean that unforecast purchases of a potentially significant value have to be incurred, which can lead to a cost blow out and erosion of profits, not to mention any legal and reputation costs.
In addition company officers are also ‘vicariously liable' for the actions of their employees. This means that company officers can be held personally liable even if they had no knowledge of the actions of their employees.
The recently released ISO 19770-1 International Standard for Software Asset Management provides a mechanism that will allow Organisations to:
- guard against prosecutions, lawsuits and fines
- increase awareness of the importance of standardised IT (environment and processes)
- improve their IT environment and control purchasing
- enhance internal processes for monitoring and administering installed software and licenses
- strengthen software forecasting and budgeting
- minimise over-licensing and remove under-licensing
- prepare software inventories in advance of potential mergers, de-mergers or acquisitions.
Smartpath can provide advice on the new ISO SAM Standard to prepare organisations for complying with this standard as well as a full SAM service. Contact Smartpath to find out more or download our whitepaper for an overview of the ISO SAM 19770-1 Standard.
