UK businesses see software asset management (SAM) as merely a tick-in-the-box item to satisfy auditors and are blind to its potential to reducing the legal risk of non-compliance, finds research.
An astounding 98.7% of the UK businesses surveyed by IDC on behalf of the Software Industry Research Board (SIRB) failed to see how SAM was a key tool in keeping their firms on the right side of compliance laws. Instead, 62% saw its main goal as getting through an audit without paying settlement fees, while 54% saw its main role as a way of keeping control over their software licensing.
“Reduced compliance risks, controlling software costs and reduced labour costs in managing software must be seen by organisations large and small as an attractive proposition in today’s economic climate,“ said Alex Hilton, chairman of the SIRB and director of infrastructure management at FrontRange Solutions,
Instead managing software assets seemed to be at the bottom of a long list of priorities, reflected in the fact that 45.5% of respondents felt they were not allocated the budget to use SAM effectively.
