Organizations waste or underutilize over 32% of their IT budgets, according to Flexera’s 2023 State of ITAM (IT Asset Management) report. Their report took place in March of 2023 and surveyed 500 technical professionals and executive leaders across the globe. The report states that organizations waste 36% of desktop software spend, 33% of data center software spend, 32% of SaaS spend, and 32% of IaaS/PaaS spend.
Organizations should incorporate a SAM (Software Asset Management) program to increase IT savings and decrease wasted expenditure. In the past year since creating a SAM program, 55% of respondents have saved over $1 million. A further 16% have saved over $10 million, with 7% of that group saving over $50 million due to their SAM program.
SAM platforms optimize software use to save money, increase the maturity of the software supply chain, deal with SaaS containers, and reduce the complexity of vendor use rights. Savings from SAM programs tend to increase as programs mature. The main benefit of a beginner program is better negotiation of vendor contracts. In contrast, advanced programs mainly encounter methods of reusing non-cloud licenses to mitigate the need to buy new ones. Source.
Another aspect of SAM programs that makes them efficient is their high level of interaction with other department teams. Across FinOps, CIO/CTO, Security, Infrastructure, and IT Service Management, SAM programs have a significant level of interaction. For modern organizations that find themselves in a nexus of FinOps, security, ESG, cost savings, and other enterprise initiatives, this allows SAM programs to help save across the board.
Over the past year, there has been an increase in visibility into an organization’s IT estate. About 39% of organizations now have this visibility, which is a slight improvement from the previous year’s 35%. However, that still suggests that 61% of respondents don’t have complete visibility into IT assets and cannot effectively monitor business outcomes.
SAM programs and other ITAM tools can increase savings and boost visibility for most organizations. Yet, there is still a long way to go to reduce corporate inefficiencies.
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