13 Roadblocks to SAM Adoption [SAM Survey Results]

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This is the third and final article digging into feedback from Partners and Suppliers for our research study with Stephen Mann from Forrester.

See also:

• Which services do SAM Partners offer? and
• Business Drivers for SAM Adoption

Blockers to SAM Progress

For this section we asked: What are the biggest blockers to progress with SAM?

Participants were asked to provide general feedback on what hinders progress with Software Asset Management (as opposed to answering predefined choices). The following thirteen roadblocks emerged as major themes in the feedback. They could probably be merged into three of four core themes but I think each of the thirteen is interesting in their own right. Themes are ranked by popularity (% of respondents in bold).

1. General lack of awareness about SAM or lack of stakeholder buy-in / traction 18%
2. Perceived high setup costs, not sure about returns / ROI, failed to articulate business value 13%
3. Lack the time and internal resources to get on with it 9%
4. Perceived as a one-off exercise for audit defence, no desire for ongoing SAM practice 8%
5. No budget to implement 8%
6. Lack of skills / knowledge internally or access to skills / knowledge externally 7%
7. Ingrained internal habits, fear of change, set in their ways 7%
8. Low priority, easy to postpone, always more pressing stuff to do 7%
9. Complexity of License Programs 6%
10. Pandora’s box – fear of unearthing something nasty during implementation 6%
11. Inadequate tooling / poor data from tools 5%
12. Loss of trust in SAM tools due to ‘Silver Bullet’ sales techniques 4%
13. Too technical, stuck in IT when it should be business / finance project 2%

Insights

• Roadblock 1 & 2 (SAM Awareness, Proving ROI) are no real surprise. You might argue these points of all IT projects – but more general awareness of SAM and the ability to sell SAM as a concept to a non-technical audience is definitely an industry requirement. I will take this onboard with The ITAM Review and try to develop some non-technical SAM evangelism tools in the future.
• Roadblocks 3, 4, 5 & 8 (Lack of resources, low priority) arguably all stem from 1&2 – projects would be supported properly and correctly prioritized if the concept is sold properly in the first place.
• Roadblock 6 – Skills / Expertise – There is a real dearth of SAM expertise – demonstrated by high demand for SAM professionals. I believe this is partially linked to 9. Complexity in licensing programs. You could also link this to 1&2 – general operational SAM skills are required but also the ability to consult professionally the real life virtues of SAM.
• As for roadblock 7 and 10 – the mind boggles. I don’t think there is any hope for these organizations!

Forrester SAM Study

The final report from Forrester is in final editing and will be published soon. Sign up to The ITAM Review newsletter to receive a copy. If you are reading this article after publication please refer to the ‘Downloads’ section in the monthly newsletter.

Feedback

What do you think of these 13 roadblocks? what can the industry do as a whole to address these issues?