Case Study – IBM Licensing Optimization: Samsung Saves $23M with Redress Compliance Internal Assessment
Background
Samsung, a global leader in electronics, semiconductors, and digital infrastructure, operates one of the most complex IT ecosystems in the world.
With over 300,000 employees and operations across more than 80 countries, its technology infrastructure spans R&D, manufacturing, logistics, finance, and customer service.
Samsung has long relied on a portfolio of IBM software products, including IBM WebSphere, DB2, Tivoli, MQ, and Maximo, which are spread across hundreds of business units and technical environments.
Over time, this sprawling IBM footprint had grown difficult to manage. Software was licensed under multiple contracts—some regional, some global—and many were tied to older hardware configurations and business units no longer in active use.
In early 2024, Samsung’s global procurement team initiated a review of its IBM software licensing as part of a broader cost optimization initiative. The team engaged Redress Compliance to lead a comprehensive IBM license assessment and cost reduction strategy.
The result: $23 million in realized and contractually secured savings through license optimization, reallocation, and commercial realignment.
Challenges
Despite a mature software asset management function, Samsung faced several unique IBM-related challenges at enterprise scale:
- Fragmented Licensing Records: Contracts and entitlements were distributed across subsidiaries and global business units, many of which had differing terms, legacy metrics, or bundled purchases.
- Over-Provisioned Usage: As environments scaled over the years, licenses were often purchased in excess, “just in case,” leading to significant over-licensing in areas such as DB2 and WebSphere ND.
- Sub-Capacity Exposure: IBM software was deployed on virtualized platforms, but in some instances, sub-capacity compliance could not be demonstrated due to gaps in ILMT deployment or misconfigured reporting.
- Unmonitored Expansions: Some teams had deployed additional IBM instances outside of the original license scope, introducing hidden compliance risk.
- Inflexible Contract Terms: Legacy contracts made optimization difficult without a strategic overhaul or strong commercial leverage.
- Vendor Pushback: IBM was simultaneously pressuring Samsung to commit to long-term cloud transformation bundles, without addressing existing inefficiencies.
Samsung needed a multi-pronged strategy that combined compliance assurance, financial optimization, and contract realignment—executed without disrupting mission-critical operations.
How Redress Compliance Helped
Redress Compliance delivered a full-spectrum IBM optimization engagement that covered entitlement discovery, technical validation, risk mitigation, and commercial savings.
1. Entitlement Reconstruction & Contract Analysis
Redress began by collecting and reviewing all IBM license entitlements across Samsung’s global IT estate. We:
- Mapped licensing across contracts, business units, and regional teams
- Identified inconsistencies in metrics (PVUs, RVUs, user-based models) and license scopes
- Flagged outdated or redundant contract terms and support renewals tied to inactive products
This analysis enabled Redress to establish a clean, normalized license baseline, which served as the foundation for all subsequent decisions.
2. Deployment Audit and ILMT Remediation
Next, we worked with Samsung’s infrastructure and compliance teams to:
- Discover all active IBM software deployments across cloud, on-prem, and virtual environments
- Review processor configurations and assess license-to-deployment alignment
- Identify gaps in ILMT coverage and assist in tool deployment and remediation to ensure sub-capacity compliance
This stage surfaced a wide range of optimization opportunities and risk areas—especially in underutilized WebSphere clusters and legacy DB2 servers.
3. Optimization & Commercial Strategy
With full visibility into entitlements and usage, Redress developed a multi-tiered optimization roadmap that:
- Matched deployments to optimal metrics
- Reassigned entitlements across business units
- Retired idle licenses consume support without delivering value
- Flagged licenses for formal termination where usage no longer existed
- Created a commercial renewal negotiation plan with IBM that consolidated and reduced support commitments
We advised Samsung’s procurement team through negotiation planning, ensuring IBM’s proposals were evaluated against a newly optimized baseline—not inflated legacy figures.
Outcome and Impact
The engagement delivered substantial and measurable outcomes:
- $23 million in total cost savings, including:
- Termination of unused licenses and support streams
- Commercial concessions on contract renewals
- Internal cost avoidance through reallocation of entitlements
- Audit-ready compliance posture, with ILMT fully deployed and usage reconciled across all virtualized environments
- Eliminated over-licensing, particularly in high-cost metrics like PVU and user-based models
- Improved contract structure, giving Samsung better flexibility for future IBM purchases and cloud transitions
- Increased internal governance, with dashboards and controls to sustain license hygiene in the future
By working with Redress Compliance, Samsung turned its IBM software portfolio from a cost liability into a controlled, optimized, and fully auditable asset.
Client Quote
“Redress Compliance delivered results far beyond our expectations. Their team helped us uncover hidden licensing inefficiencies, navigate IBM’s complex metrics, and negotiate contracts that saved us tens of millions of dollars. Their depth of knowledge and commitment to protecting our interests were evident at every step.”
— Head of Global IT Procurement, Samsung Electronics
Call-to-Action
Managing a complex IBM footprint? Redress Compliance helps global enterprises, such as Samsung, reduce spend, mitigate risk, and take control of their licensing future.
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