Federal agencies face an escalating IT skills gap, undermining their ability to manage and optimize critical software assets. As the U.S. government continues to invest over $100 billion annually in IT, the federal IT talent gap poses significant challenges. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), poor software tracking, inefficient procurement practices, and insufficient IT expertise are among the primary culprits behind wasted resources and suboptimal software utilization.
To address these challenges, federal agencies are increasingly turning to Software Asset Management (SAM) managed services. This approach empowers agencies to leverage external expertise, bridging the IT talent gap and ensuring effective software license management without the need for extensive in-house talent.
SAM Managed Services: A Strategic Solution for Software Licensing Complexities
SAM managed services provide federal agencies with access to specialized expertise in software license management. These services encompass license tracking, optimization, compliance assurance, and strategic procurement, all while alleviating the burden on internal IT teams.
A city government in Texas leveraged SAM managed services to overcome software licensing challenges amid limited staffing resources. Collaborating with an external provider, the city’s IT department improved license management, ensuring users had access to essential tools while reducing costs associated with underutilized licenses.
Open iT: Enterprise-Grade SAM Managed Services
As a GSA-certified SAM managed services provider, Open iT delivers tailored solutions to federal agencies, addressing critical IT talent gaps while ensuring optimal software utilization. With extensive experience across engineering-intensive industries—including energy, manufacturing, and technology—Open iT specializes in managing complex license portfolios for mission-critical applications, such as CAD, BIM, PLM, CAE, CAM, digital twins, and data modeling tools.
Open iT’s managed services provide end-to-end software license management, offering:
Engineering License Portfolio Management
Open iT’s team of license management specialists provides comprehensive oversight of engineering license portfolios, ensuring efficient deployment while avoiding underuse or overallocation. Through advanced tracking mechanisms, the team ensures strict compliance with contractual terms, minimizing cost inefficiencies and enhancing operational continuity.
Custom Reporting and Dashboards
The Open iT managed services team develops intuitive dashboards that deliver real-time visibility into license consumption, user activity, and cost trends. These dashboards are customized to align with agency-specific requirements, empowering IT leaders to make precise, data-driven decisions that drive operational efficiency.
License Usage and Optimization Analysis
Leveraging granular usage metrics, Open iT specialists perform in-depth evaluations of active versus inactive usage, peak consumption periods, and departmental usage patterns. This detailed assessment enables agencies to optimize license allocation, ensuring resources are properly aligned with operational needs while eliminating unnecessary expenditures.
Vendor and Contract Analysis
Open iT’s license management experts provide thorough vendor and contract evaluations, benchmarking agreements against industry standards and uncovering cost-saving opportunities. By aligning contract terms with actual usage patterns, the team enhances agencies’ negotiating positions and ensures that procurement strategies support mission-critical objectives.
Chargeback
The Open iT team enables accurate internal billing by tracking software usage across departments, projects, and user groups. By attributing costs based on actual consumption, the team ensures accountability, promotes responsible resource utilization, and provides clear visibility into software expenditures
Persistent IT Skills Gap: A Federal Challenge
The federal IT skills gap remains a critical issue, contributing to 22 of the 37 high-risk problem areas identified by the GAO. This gap extends across technology, engineering, cybersecurity, and scientific disciplines.
While hiring skilled IT professionals is the ideal solution, the reality is more complex. Approximately one-third of the workforce possesses low or no digital skills, intensifying competition for qualified candidates. Lengthy, resource-intensive hiring processes further disadvantage federal agencies, as top-tier talent often opts for more agile corporate opportunities.
Moreover, the rapid pace of technological advancement exacerbates the skills gap. Despite federal initiatives for workforce development and upskilling, challenges such as limited time for training, low participation rates, and inadequate institutional support hinder progress.
Leveraging SAM Managed Services for Sustained Success
For federal agencies, particularly those managing complex engineering software portfolios, SAM managed services provide a practical solution to resource limitations. Providers like Open iT offer specialized expertise to optimize software assets, maintain compliance, and support mission-critical operations—without the need for extensive in-house staffing.
By partnering with Open iT, federal agencies can bridge the IT skills gap, maximize software investments, and sustain operational resilience in an increasingly complex technological landscape.
Struggling to manage your engineering licenses due to limited IT resources? Learn how Open iT’s managed services can provide the expertise your agency needs.
Contact Open iT today.
