The main focus for the coming months for organisations that are part of the FAST Ltd programme is identifying and rationalising licences.
The annual survey was conducted by Project Managers of organisations who are undertaking the FAST programme, with 59% indicating that this will be the main focus.
The main focus and need for organisations still remains to be sure what forms their IT assets. This establishes transparency of the IT estate to ensure software is licensed correctly as per vendor and UK legislation demands. The major risks are potential fines or legal prosecutions for using unlicensed software.
Another major benefit by conducting these processes is understanding the assets that an organisation has, just like you would with say offices or hardware. Software very often gets overlooked as an asset. This clear understanding means saving costs, improving efficiency and maximising investment that has been made on software.
With major vendors regularly requesting to audit organisations, it was no surprise the second highest reply was being prepared to respond to audits quickly and efficiently with 47% citing this. Software Vendors or the Business Software Alliance (BSA) are entitled to request an organisations compliance position at any time. This can create a huge amount of work if you do not know, dont have the expertise to find out or just unaware of what to do. It can also be a hugely stressful and worrying situation whilst affecting business as usual.
The main challenges organisations face in the next 3- 6 months was discovered as not being able to identify current assets, with 47% highlighting this as a problem. To get a clear idea of what is on your IT estate, we believe a discovery tool is a must. Not only does it save time but a good quality tool such as FAST Express Software Manager will identify applications and suites from numerous vendors with a live database continually being updated. This is achieved by deploying agents across the network which continually feeds information back to the central user.
FAST Ltds expertise, software tools, training courses and programme structure designed around IT Compliance and Asset Management will mean working with these organisations to achieve these goals.
If your organisation is looking into these projects and would benefit from some advice please request a place at our FREE Breakfast Seminars running across the UK in London 19th September , Birmingham 25th September, Manchester 2nd October and Glasgow 4th October.
If youre interested in attending our Breakfast Seminars or finding out how your business can benefit more from any of the services or tools which FAST Ltd has to offer then speak to one of our trusted advisors on 0844 815 5742.