New Gartner report shows Software Audits increase in 2011

09 February 2012

Gartner has recently published a report on The Software Vendors That Are Auditing Now and What to Do About It. The report is based on a survey that was done during their IT Financial, Procurement and Asset Management Summits held in Orlando and London in September of last year. Several factors such as Complexity of deals, and Lack of communication between IT procurement, SAM and IT operations are said to be driving the increase of vendor audits. 

Key findings from the survey:

• The percentage of clients who had been audited at least once in the past 12 months was 65%, up from 61% in 2010.

  
  

• The top five vendors in terms of numbers of audits were: IBM, Adobe, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP, with SAP jumping into the top 5 for the first time.

  
  

• Many audits lead to lengthy and confrontational discussions with vendors due to the complexity and misunderstanding around product use rights and license metrics.

  
  

The Gartner report makes a number of sound recommendations, including urging CIOs and IT Managers to invest more heavily in software asset management (SAM) programs, processes and tools to proactively maintain license compliance. Companies can and should justify the investment in software asset management by showing the financial risks involved with software audits and non-compliance. Its not just the unbudgeted license true-up costs, but the extensive audit preparation time and the lack of a strong negotiating position that contribute to these costs. 

Are you ready? If you would like to find out more about how to prepare for a software audit please click here