Tech Journal Christchurch City Council finds new insight in SAM

Facts at a glance

Client industry:

Local Government

Situation:

Bringing structure to the Software Asset Management team and providing better visibility and management of IT assets

Solution:

• Intelligent technology and a meaningful partnership
• Insight’s hosted Snow Software Platform
• Insights SAM and License Optimisation Consultant Services

Results:

• Ability to see what we had, where we had it and who was using it 
• Showed duplication and multiplication of apps 
• Information on cloud software including ShadowIT at hand 
• Able to decommission unused hardware due to visibility 
• Able to measure the risk per lifecycle of software 
• Better forecasting, more efficient spend 
• Expected Cost savings on software by 5% 
• Mitigate risks from dated or unpatched software. 

Solution area:

Insight’s Supply Chain Optimisation solutions optimise and simplify your technology investments to drive greater business transformation

Situation

Colin Lawrence is blunt: “You can’t manage what you can’t see.” It’s a well-used tenet, but for Colin, Christchurch City Council (CCC) IT Asset Management Team Lead, an Insight-hosted Snow software asset management (SAM) solution has provided unparalleled visibility and management of the council’s software and hardware portfolio. This visibility has provided a range of optimisation and cost avoidance capabilities across their on-premise and cloud assets.

Colin took on his role at the Council,  charged with bringing structure to the asset management team and providing better visibility and management of IT assets.

What he found was an organisation with tools, including a service management tool with a configuration management database, but which still had only limited visibility.

Using SQL scripts specific to IT asset management allowed Colin to get some information from SCCM, but without a lot of configuration and constant configuration work to keep it up to date, usage data wasn’t available.

Solution

Rather than a fully managed solution, Insight suggested a hosted SAM solution using Snow with design and implementation and the addition of a set number of hours available of Insight consultants’ time, on an as-needed basis. “Rather than a fully managed solution we are setting them up for success and then once they are comfortable with the level of expertise internally, they will continue to manage it themselves,” says Rachael Lattimore, Insight New Zealand Account Manager. “But when they need a SAM specialist, they have prepaid for a bucket of consulting funds they can draw down on.” “If we didn’t get the right tools, it would cost more in trying to recruit staff to get what we wanted to do and we still wouldn’t get the results council was after.”

Working with CCC, Insight’s team established the Snow platform within the CCC environment – the effective establishment of the SAM Platform enables complete and accurate data collection for CCC. This transition was led by the Insight transition team utilising project management best practice methodology.

“I don’t look for a vendor, I look for a partner. I look for someone who is willing to travel the journey with me. And I’m very happy with what we have got – both in terms of the product and the folks I’m dealing with.” Colin Lawrence, Team Leader IT Asset Management.

Results

Being able to see for the first time the true extent of the software assets provided Colin and his team with the ability to mitigate risks from dated or unpatched software.

“That was a biggie for me from day one: We saw usage, we saw how stuff was being consumed and to what quantum, and from that we could start doing some things positively about that”.

“We are at the end of our three-year contract so our true-up allowed us to go into contract a little differently and we have done the same with other software as we moved through.” Within the first month Christchurch City Council had cost avoided enough to pay for the consumption of Snow.

The Council spends around $12 million per annum on software. “I think I can cost avoid 5% of that,” Colin says.

“I don’t think we will save money, but I think we will avoid spend, we will improve productivity by re-spending that money on better tools for people to do the things they need to do more effectively and efficiently.” Colin Lawrence, Team Leader, IT Asset Management