In the course of business operations, you will enter into numerous licence agreements. The licence stipulates how to use the program, liabilities, and rights of the software owner. Though you have no limitation on the number of software licences you can acquire, these may lead to financial and legal issues in case of non-adherence. And this is where software license optimization comes in. It’s a process that helps you get the best out of your system.
Here’s why you need software licence optimization.
1. To Boost Security
Many business operations are dependent on software. Unfortunately, the software puts your business at a higher risk of cyberattacks. Many of the potential vulnerabilities will be new to you, and you can’t seal them.
Software licence optimization will help you reduce vulnerabilities by providing an added layer of visibility into your software estate. With it, your software will be healthy and up to date, strengthening security.
2. To Optimize Software Spend
You might buy an overpriced licence or under licence from vendors. Such will make your business have shadow applications and low speed. But with software licence optimization, you can manage software licences to avoid unnecessary spending or the consequences of using unlicensed software.
3. for Easy License Renewals
Managing software and vendor licencing, subscriptions, and pricing changes can be daunting. It involves numerous tasks, and manually tracking the software contract renewal is the trickiest task. That’s due to software agreements’ complexity that complicates the negotiation cycle. However, your IT team needs to stay up to date with all the licences deployed in your business.
With software licence optimization, the renewal process becomes more straightforward. You can access the existing software to evaluate what your business needs and what to scrap. As a result, your business will approach licence renewals with accuracy and streamline the process.
4. To Reduce Audit Risks
Software vendors have been increasing their audit frequency. The audit aims to verify licence compliance and monitor quality assurance. Therefore, you need to comply with industry standards and legal standards.
To avoid the risks, you can plan an internal audit. The internal audit helps you remediate any exposure and ensure compliance. Software licence optimization makes that process easy and points you to issues you must address before the audit.
5. To Increase Flexibility
It’s critical to have a flexible software licence agreement. Your business might experience material expansions and contractions in the licencing demand. If you invest in software licence optimization, you will know what your software need and when. That will make your software more flexible in responding to changes in licencing demand.
6. To Increase Leverage
If you don’t understand the terms, it won’t be easy to negotiate your licence agreement terms. You can understand vendors’ agreements more deeply through software licence optimization. You can leverage the understanding and benefit from it in your subsequent licence negotiations.
Conclusion
There has been an increase in the transition to cloud computing over the past years. The increase has made it more difficult to track software licences manually, and many owners are spending more on licences and using unnecessary programs. To avoid such issues, you should practice software licence optimization.