Software Licensing Management Featured Article

Have you thought about where the foundation for the digital age came from?  Hard, manual work that today is considered old fashioned and out of step with the way the cloud-powered economy works. On Demand! Driven by software.

Many software companies at one point or another started with their own homegrown licensing- manually processing and maintaining licenses. Reporting licenses on a spreadsheet so finance could invoice, and the software could ship.  What if things change and suddenly sales is complaining that customers are going to the competition because they can get their software in hours vs. your delivery in days.  

Be proactive and being with understanding the pitfalls to avoid right from the start.  

Manual licensing is expensive! In this Forbes article, they report that an average company with 500 employees can save as much as five million dollars a year by leveraging automated software licensing practices.

In addition to added costs, manual processes introduce inefficiencies that slow development. Coding Sans noted that by utilizing manual processes, the team is faced with extra work and inefficiency every step of the supply chain. Some 26 percent of companies state their biggest challenge is delivering working software while the backlog us full and capacity is limited. So, instead of the dev team working on its focus, it is tasked with fixing avoidable mistakes and issues. 

According to SaaS (News - Alert) Capital, 50 percent of B2B SaaS companies, regardless of revenue scale or product price, have instituted a reseller program of some kind. This is important because communicating directly with the channel is critical. By not being able to directly communicate with the channel, the software supply chain falls victim to a slower feedback cycle and less visibility.

The fourth point I’d like to make is customer service, illustrated by a PwC survey that found 43 percent of B2B customers would pay more for a fast and convenient, self service experience. Customers want a self-service experience period. This staple of the digital age is quickly becoming the preferred method of engagement with companies. Automating the software supply chain makes this a reality.

As we move deeper into the cloud era, software providers are taking to automating the software supply chain because there is no substitute for best practice.