Streamlining a Software Publisher Support Strategy with UK Financial Services Organization

Founded over 125 years ago and with more than 15 million customers, this consumer-facing financial services organization has a vast IT estate. The nature of its business – managing people’s money and assets – means it is naturally risk-averse and cost-conscious. For this organization, it is critical that all commercial risks are kept to an absolute minimum.

With IBM solutions widely deployed across its IT environment, the company has in the past been required to defend regular audits. Not only are these time-consuming to manage, but they also represent a risk to the organization as they can trigger unplanned expenditure.

Keen to protect itself from the impact of IBM audits, the company elected to join the IASP program in early 2023. This would allow it to provide regular usage reports to IBM, negating the need for one-off inspections. To achieve its objective, the company needed to appoint a new SAM partner, authorized by IBM to oversee the program.

A new partnership with a SAM expert would also enable the organization to identify and implement best practices across its wider IT estate, as well as maximize its previous investment in a SAM tool.

After careful consideration, the financial services organization selected Anglepoint – one of just four authorized IASP program providers – to manage its IBM estate and provide biannual usage reports to the publisher. In practice, Anglepoint’s team delivers far more than the minimum requirements stipulated by IBM. Instead, it has implemented a comprehensive SAM program designed to reduce short-and long-term risks as well as identify new opportunities for cost savings.

While IBM mandates that the client must provide usage reports every six months, Anglepoint delivers internal quarterly reports, enabling the company to keep a close eye on its environment and ensure ongoing compliance.

Anglepoint also provides comprehensive support and training for the client’s ServiceNow tooling, which was deployed shortly before the contract began. By configuring the software asset management tool to reflect the client’s environment, undertaking subsequent health assessments, and supplementing the tool’s automated reports with manual reporting, the client can now access up-to-date and trustworthy usage data, which can be cross-referenced against its entitlement to identify potential risks.

Anglepoint and the client are also working together to remediate these risks. Anglepoint produces regular Risk and Opportunity Assessment Reports (ROARs) for its client, discussing the findings with a dedicated task force – comprising ITAM, procurement and senior IT stakeholders – and making recommendations on how to achieve further efficiencies. These recommendations are then managed via Elevate, Anglepoint’s proprietary asset management, data processing and automation hub, which provides a clear and convenient way for the client to track and action remediations.

The partnership has also enabled the client to improve the accuracy of its forecasting to right-size its future licensing spend. With Anglepoint’s assistance, the organization has created a clear roadmap of future IBM deployments, including expensive IBM Db2 licenses, which it intends to roll out in the future.

Following the success of the IBM engagement, the organization decided to place all its top-tier publisher relationships – calculated according to spend and potential risk to the business – under Anglepoint’s management. These include Adobe, Cisco, McAfee, Micro Focus, Microsoft, Open Text, RedHat, SAP and SAS Institute.

Anglepoint is establishing the client’s Enterprise License Position (ELP) in advance of each contract renewal while it has also onboarded and is maintaining up-to-date entitlement positions for these publishers onto the client’s ServiceNow tool, and is now using this tooling to track the client’s entitlements The managed service also includes the creation and presentation of ROARs, remediation support for any recommendations included in these reports, as well as ongoing program enhancements.

For example, the client had previously entered into an Unlimited Licensing Agreement (ULA) with Oracle. While this contract did not expose the organization to any risk, it came at a high price. In September 2023, Anglepoint embarked on a project to determine Oracle usage across the organization. Having established it was over-licensed, it worked to re-certify the client’s Oracle usage and reshape its contract, so that it was for a fixed number of licenses. This helped to reduce annual fees by more than £1 million.

These contract terms were only possible because of the granular data provided by Anglepoint. Now with a deep understanding of its ongoing usage, the client can be certain that its consumption will not exceed the number of licenses stipulated in its new agreement. The client now has the confidence to have a fixed number of license contracts because of the yearly reviews worked on with Anglepoint. 

For added flexibility, the Anglepoint team is engaged to provide consultancy services to the client such as publisher audit defense for publishers not in the currently agreed Anglepoint scope. With best practices now in place, the client has the option to extend the capabilities of its SAM program to incorporate FinOps as well as support its sustainability objectives.

IBM audit avoidance: By joining the IASP program, the client is protected from all future IBM audits.

Accurate data: By optimizing the client’s ServiceNow tool – and supplementing the data collected with manual reporting – Anglepoint has given the company far greater visibility into its usage.

Audit readiness: With a better understanding of its top tier publisher usage and entitlement – plus the option to flex the engagement to include other publishers – the company is in a strong position to respond to audits effectively and proactively.

Proactive SAM program: With access to trustworthy data and with Anglepoint’s guidance, the client has been able to increase the accuracy of its forecasts, placing it in a position of strength ahead of contract negotiations.

Easy-to-manage workstreams: Leveraging Anglepoint’s Elevate hub, the client’s SAM team can easily keep track of and action any recommendations to reduce risks and boost efficiencies.

Reduction of Oracle annual support costs: By determining which Oracle licenses were in use, Anglepoint helped its client reshape its Oracle ULA, contributing to cost savings of £1 million per year.

Continuous, strategic improvement: With strong foundations now in place, the client is in a position to extend its SAM strategy to support key business objectives.