The year 2022 can rightly be seen as a crisis year: the supply chain crisis and resulting parts shortages, the war conflict, the energy crisis, and rising inflation have caused unexpected expenses, upsetting the budgets of business organizations.
Let us start with the bad news:
- The inevitable cost-cutting programs are also squeezing IT budgets: investments have to be canceled/rescheduled/rescaled to free up funds to support the core activities of the organization. The slowdown in IT procurement is illustrated by Gartner‘s quarterly forecasts, which show increasingly conservative growth figures throughout the year, with October showing near stagnation (0.8%) globally and a decline (-3.8%) in EMEA.
- At the same time, the fall in IT purchases means a loss of revenue for software vendors, who are responding to this by stepping up their license audits, as they have done in the past. It is now well known that software audits are no longer simply a means of checking compliance, but are an important part of manufacturers’ annual revenue plans.
However, as promised, there is also good news!
Among IT tools, software licensing provides the most scope for cost reduction: Stopping purchases altogether is not the only option. With thoughtful optimization, even with almost imperceptible changes in operations and productivity, significant savings can be made! In addition, well-designed license optimization serves to minimize both the costs of over-licensing and the risks of under-licensing. Thus, if you implement cost reduction in this way, you also eliminate the audit threat.
