Software Audit & Agreements

Tips for Software Audit and Agreements

Steps to complete Software Audit

Note: It is very essential to remember and set aside the time for "normalizing" the data collected by any discovery tool to ensure accuracy and account for applications not recognized by the tool. This can be a very time consuming task and seeking expert assistance might make sense.

Get your Software Agreements Done This Way --->

Following are the steps to be taken before purchasing commercial software

Gap Analaysis

To start with perform a Gap Analysis. Take a detailed look at your licensing status for various Software you use. This requires some form of software inventory tool to find out what is installed and usually involves some level of data cleansing to in order to build a clean inventory of installed assets. Collect anywhere up to six years worth of historical license records from the Sysadmin team and vendor, their contracts, purchase history and build a statement of entitlement. Subsequently provide a licensing status report.

Fiscal Analysis

Check your pockets. Use data from the Gap Analysis and look at what the IT team is planning 3 to 6 years from now. Look at what projects you have on the horizon, the strategic plans and compare and contrast this to the vendors roadmap and upgrade plans. Ensure the relevant agreements are in place and look at the various options available to the IT admin. Finally look at the ramifications 3 to 6 years down the line for each agreement option. How it works out in terms of their projects, financials and their agreements.

Plan the Negotiation

Finally begin to plan for the negotiation. This part is rarely performed before a negotiation - even when millions of dollars are at stake. There is no negotiation strategy. Work with the team to define the goals of the negotiation of the new contract. How much are you going to spend? What is your budget? Set out the differences between maintenance payments and new licenses and agree soft objectives such as support benefits, training vouchers and training.