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Many software vendors develop and maintain robust and capable software license compliance audit (SLCA) teams. The capabilities of these teams run the gamut – from the infamous ferocity of a certain database company to the more laid back trust but occasionally verify approach used by most. At Flexera, we get to see the issue from both sides – vendors wanting a fair return on their considerable investment and their customers sometimes overusing software for a variety of reasons – usually due to compliance complexity and usually unintentionally.

In an earlier blog I wrote about making software audits obsolete, I suggested many software vendors do and could instead make software self-compliant with license management technology while greatly improving customer satisfaction. Recently, I've realized that the role of SLCA is not becoming obsolete, but it is evolving due to the growth of usage-based license models. Subscription, pay-per-use and other usage-based models are driving the change. And, usage-based models are not limited to the SaaS world. With the broad availability of flexible, commercially available usage-based license management systems, many software and intelligent device manufacturers are using them with on-premises software and systems as well.

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Most usage-based models entail some form of measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of software usage – from user counts per month to the volume of emails distributed, and a wide variety of other license metrics. At most companies, that's the expertise of the SLCA team, so it's only natural that they continue in that role – albeit with a modified purpose. Instead of just verifying and bolstering use rights compliance, the SLCA team's role can instead take on a broader set of usage-based responsibilities:

Current Responsibilities

 

Usage-Based Responsibilities

Audit selected customers by collecting, analyzing and reporting on software usage[i].

 

Develop and manage software usage measurement, collection, analysis and monitoring systems. (“Software Usage Management Systems”).

Secure incremental revenue from non-compliant customers.

 

Provide 24x7x365 self-compliance processes, data and automation to all customers.

 

 

Provide usage analytics and intelligence to enable a wide variety of cross-functional business improvements[ii].

 

 

Create, analyze and implement compliance enforcement profiles[iii].

As you can see, usage-based responsibilities allow the SLCA team to leverage its current skills to contribute much more to the software company. SLCA teams will also bolster customer satisfaction by employing usage data to improve software utilization and efficiency. The growth of usage-based licensing models will bring about self-compliance and the mainstreaming of SLCA teams. The SLCA team will not be relegated to the backroom, making sales people and customers nervous whenever they show up. Instead, their skills will evolve and they will become sought-after members of many teams for their ability to illuminate many software vendor and customer mysteries. Optimizing compliance will be a smaller, naturally occurring part of its role.

 

[i] Usage in this context usually means the counting of installed instances.

[ii] There are many possibilities: product and/or feature utilization, marketing campaign effectiveness, sales opportunity analysis, product/feature end-of-life impact analysis, run-rate financial analysis and many others.


[iii] Defines the leniency and severity of automatic and/or manual measures taken when the
system detects non-compliance.  This allows the software vendor to apply different profiles to different classes of customers.