Compliance and cost savings are table stakes; modern SAM partners should help customers drive innovation
“Compliance and cost savings are table stakes; modern SAM partners should help customers drive innovation.”
Civica – Microsoft SAM Partner of the Year 2017
This was the claim made by Stewart McLuskey, Director of Sales and Operations at Civica.
Civica scoop SAM Partner of the Year 2017
Stewart was speaking at “Microsoft Inspire” (formerly WPC) in Washington DC last month. Congratulations to the Civica team for winning the global Microsoft SAM partner of the year award
Stewart stated via the Civica blog:
“We’re delighted to receive the Microsoft Worldwide SAM Partner of the Year Award. This reflects Civica’s commitment to providing the very best SAM solutions to our customers; saving them money, reducing risk and working in partnership to choose and adopt cloud technologies which deliver real benefits and help support transformation projects. To be recognised by Microsoft for the work we have done together is a real honour and we look forward to continued success together.”
Runners up included PWC (Global), Softline (Global), EBLA (Qatar) and Brasoftware (Brazil).
(Civica also picked up The ITAM Review Partner of the year in 2016 in our Excellence Awards, nominations are open here!)
The Civica partner win was based on the strength of their Roehampton University case study delivered as part of a Microsoft “SAM Plus” engagement.
Do SAM Engagements Work?
There is much skepticism of Microsoft’s “SAM Engagements” amongst ITAM Review readers who associate Microsoft’s definition of SAM with “How can I sell you stuff”. Microsoft stated at Inspire that they were keen to address this perception and work in the future on the real value of SAM. The Roehampton engagement was able to show predicted savings of £3.5M and a 40% reduction in datacentre SAM, clearly a win-win for everyone concerned.
In this scenario it clearly works for everyone – But what happens if you don’t want to buy more stuff and push everything to the cloud? Or maybe you don’t want to commit to Microsoft’s cloud? Microsoft are getting increasingly friendly with customers, basically saying we’ll forget any past misdemeanours and don’t want to argue about ELP positions – but for pity sake please buy Azure.
Why are they so friendly? For me it is one word; Amazon. Unlike the monopolistic grip of Office 365, Microsoft has to be seen to be the friendly option with cloud computing resources. It can’t be seen as a tangled web of ELPs, license true ups, penalties, otherwise customers will simply choose another elastic cloud provider.
Congratulations again to Stewart and the Civica team on a strong case study and great win.
Left to Right – Patama Chantaruck (GM WW Software Asset Management & Compliance at Microsoft),Stewart Mcluskey and Chris Owen and (Civica) and 2016 SAM Partner of the year winner Filipa Preston (SOS)
About Martin Thompson
Martin is also the founder of ITAM Forum, a not-for-profit trade body for the ITAM industry created to raise the profile of the profession and bring an organisational certification to market. On a voluntary basis Martin is a contributor to ISO WG21 which develops the ITAM International Standard ISO/IEC 19770.
He is also the author of the book "Practical ITAM - The essential guide for IT Asset Managers", a book that describes how to get started and make a difference in the field of IT Asset Management. In addition, Martin developed the PITAM training course and certification.
Prior to founding the ITAM Review in 2008 Martin worked for Centennial Software (Ivanti), Silicon Graphics, CA Technologies and Computer 2000 (Tech Data).
When not working, Martin likes to Ski, Hike, Motorbike and spend time with his young family.
Connect with Martin on LinkedIn.