Everest Group’s 5S Framework: Choosing the Right Software Licensing Strategy | Blog

With the myriad of cloud software choices on the market, determining the right licensing strategy is more complicated than ever. Don’t let confusion and indecision prevent your enterprise from getting vendor discounts and fully optimizing your resources. Learn how Everest Group’s 5S Framework can help your organization choose the right license model.

Organizations are increasingly dependent on various software for productivity, automation, security, and other critical enterprise needs. Google pioneered the move to cloud-based applications with G-Suite. Today nearly every major enterprise platform or productivity suite has a cloud-based version.

The rapid transition of enterprise applications, tools, and platforms from on-premise to the cloud has simplified commercial models and invoicing. But it has also made subscribing to the right license all the more complicated and important.

Having a plethora of licensing options available for each software often leads to indecision by organizations in selecting the right fit. While this task can be arduous, having the right licensing strategy will lead to higher savings and optimized resources.

Enterprises are frequently at a disadvantage in negotiating better prices and discounts because they don’t understand the licensing nuances, which often leads to vendors overselling features that are then underused.

After analyzing the key licensing models prevalent in the market, Everest Group developed its comprehensive 5S Framework. This simple yet effective approach to choosing the right license model works as a guiding principle to reduce associated risks and helps enterprises build the optimal licensing strategy.

The 5S Framework covers the most important aspects an organization should delve into when licensing a software, platform, or product. Here is an overview of the process:

• First and foremost, understand your environment and inventory and then determine the tools or platform needed based on stakeholder input
• After mapping the requirement, identify the right license which meets stakeholder expectations and budget requirements. Striking this balance is usually the key element to a successful licensing strategy
• Once all the pieces are in place, validate and ensure no further optimization possibilities exist before finally proceeding to the procurement stage
• Lastly, neither the extent of usage nor the available licensing options remain static. Therefore, it is important to monitor usage statistics across the organization and revisit the available licensing options periodically

We have used the 5S approach to not only help clients determine the right fit for their organizations but also within our internal IT environment.

To learn more about how this approach can help your organization select the right Microsoft Office 365 licensing plan, stay tuned for our next blog in this series, Comparing Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise Plans: Getting Your Licensing Strategy Right.

For more details, please reach out to [email protected].