Real Hard Dollar Savings

Highlights

• A major commodities company needed to cut down IT costs without disrupting the work of their geoscience and engineering communities.
• Tracking the software usage of each user and the automated harvesting of inactive licenses generated real cost savings.
• One software product alone reaped an estimated cost savings of $639, 000 on pay-per-use licenses.
• Open iT usage reports were used to encourage buy-in from stakeholders and support a critical software conversion.

Business Challenge

In 2006, when the company first purchased Open iT, the IT team was mostly concerned with ensuring key users of technical applications had access to the software they need. Users were being denied access during peak times in the business lifecycle and asking for additional licenses but there was little information on how many were available and who was using them.

When Open iT LicenseAnalyzer Level 1 alone was in place, the Technical Computing support team used it to document whether new licenses were actually needed and to negotiate licensing agreements that fit the business need. When the company sought greater cost savings in 2015, one area of focus was to reduce the cost of software assets. Not only senior management and the IT department cared about managing cost – the user community was also motivated to look for cost savings if it would not impact the result of their work.

Managing a Critical Software Conversion with Open iT Data

The science team was interested in switching software products from the same vendor. This required engagement from the users to gain buy-in, lead the change and assist in the significant work to redesign workflows, train users on the new tool and monitor uptake.

Open iT usage reports provided the data to identify who the power users in each region are. These individuals then helped with evaluation and conversion while Open iT monitored the uptake of the new software alongside the decline in use of the old one.