The risk of compliance audit, by software publishers and vendors, leading to heavy loss of money and work disruption is omnipresent in enterprises. Organizations often struggle to identify what software they own, where they are deployed and if it is being used. It is essential that enterprises use a robust software asset management system to maintain compliance, optimize license spend and support audits throughout software lifecycle. ServiceNow Software Asset Management is an industry leader in automating software management processes and accelerating growth.

According to Flexera’s 2021 State of ITAM Report, 30% of large enterprises paid anywhere between $1 million to $5 million in software audit true-up and penalty costs in 2020.Another report by Flexera found that 85% of enterprises were not software compliant.In this scenario,it is important to take steps to track licenses and keep their positions accurate.Conducting internal audits will help organizations see their true software compliance status under a non-pressure environment.

Enterprises using outdated software management tools have a hard time figuring out their compliance status, as these tools run in isolation. When they finally figure out their status, the IT configuration has changed and again their license positions are left uncertain. ServiceNow SAM on the other hand is a complete solution that runs in the same place you manage IT. You have the total transparency and visibility of the normalization process from software discovery, reconciliation and analytics in one platform.

Benefits of ServiceNow SAM & software reconciliation:  

  • Offers a single version of truth on your software assets
  • Tracks license throughout its lifecycle and reclaims unused software
  • Keeps license positions up-to-date and accurate
  • Rectifies non-compliance by streamlining software purchases
  • Provides real-time reports on usage and the associated cost
  • Allows control of software spend by automating allocation process

ServiceNow Licenses

How does ServiceNow software reconciliation work? 

ServiceNow Software Asset Management includes built-in capabilities to calculate software entitlements and keep their positions up-to-date. Automated software reconciliation is a complicated math exercise which entails deep understanding of how to count software assets based on every installation, software titles and license metrics. It calculates and compares the number of software rights acquired against the normalized software inventory to check compliance.

ServiceNow performs reconciliation at utmost speed by leveraging the power of artificial intelligence to get data from multiple sources and compares records quickly. It removes the risk of human error, thus, making the results accurate. ServiceNow runs software reconciliation automatically every week or it can be scheduled to run-on-demand for specific or all publishers.

Enterprises can review the comprehensive reconciliation results in a single-pane view and identify the source of non-compliance and control excessive spending. Software reconciliation helps an organization learn the truth about their assets, improves visibility, enhances compliance and minimizes financial risk. With precise knowledge on software assets, enterprises can stop their efforts on counting and can begin strategizing their license optimization plan.

Mapping your software deployments: It is highly recommended to maintain trustworthy software records as reconciliation algorithms make the calculations based on the records imported by software asset managers and other stakeholders. Data normalization eliminates data duplication and presents data sets in a clean and standard naming convention that is easier to understand and empowers enterprises to use them with confidence.

Use ServiceNow Discovery to automatically populate the software installation table in accordance with Publisher, Product, Version and Edition fields for the reconciliation process. You can also integrate other third-party discovery solutions with CMDB to support your software normalization efforts.

Remediation: ServiceNow not just provides the reconciliation results but also offers remediation options for enterprises to consider. It provides solutions to fix non-compliant situations. Enterprises can reclaim unlicensed software installations, create purchase requests for new software and automate those requests via fulfilment. It can also revoke license access to a user or device which is not authorized.

Conclusion

Enterprises take many efforts to not be an accidental software pirate and one of the most successful methods is adopting a software asset management system to keep their compliance accurate and avoid true-up costs. According to Flexera’s 2022 State of ITAM report, which provides insights into the emerging trends in software management, the top focus of enterprises is software cost savings or cost avoidance. Enterprises today, are focusing towards eliminating compliance costs and redirecting them towards innovation. In this case, ServiceNow SAM and its powerful reconciliation tools provide a strong system to manage and save software costs.

 

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