Executive Summary
Samsung is a global leader in electronics, semiconductors, digital infrastructure, and advanced manufacturing. Headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, Samsung's technology divisions operate one of the most complex IT ecosystems in the world with over 300,000 employees across more than 80 countries. Annual revenue exceeds $200 billion.
Samsung has relied on IBM software products for over a decade, including WebSphere Application Server, DB2, Tivoli, MQ Series, and Maximo, deployed across hundreds of business units spanning virtually every country in which Samsung operates. Over the years, this IBM footprint had grown organically through business expansion, acquisitions, and decentralised technology procurement, resulting in fragmented records, over-provisioned deployments, hidden compliance risks, and significant unnecessary cost.
In early 2024, Samsung's global procurement team initiated a proactive review rather than waiting for IBM to initiate an audit. Samsung engaged Redress Compliance to conduct a comprehensive IBM licensing internal assessment. The engagement delivered $23 million in verified IBM licensing savings through entitlement reconstruction, ILMT remediation, deployment rightsizing, and strategic contract realignment — while eliminating all identified compliance risk.
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Describe Your Challenge →The Challenge: IBM Licensing at Global Conglomerate Scale
Samsung's IBM licensing challenges were shaped by the scale and decentralisation of its global operations. Unlike a single-headquarter enterprise, Samsung's IT procurement was distributed across regional and divisional IT teams in Korea, the Americas, Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Each team procured IBM software independently, creating a fragmented entitlement landscape where no single team had visibility into the global IBM position.
Entitlement fragmentation. Samsung's IBM Passport Advantage agreement was structured as a global agreement, but purchase history spanned hundreds of individual ordering documents across divisions and regions over more than a decade. Entitlement records were distributed across regional IT teams, finance systems, and IBM's own Passport Advantage portal — with no single consolidated view.
ILMT deployment gaps. IBM's sub-capacity licensing rules require ILMT (IBM Licence Metric Tool) deployment on all virtualised environments to qualify for reduced PVU licensing. Across Samsung's global estate — spanning thousands of servers across dozens of data centres and co-location facilities in 80+ countries — ILMT deployment was incomplete, incorrectly configured, or absent in multiple regions. This created both a compliance risk and a cost optimisation opportunity: properly configured ILMT would significantly reduce the PVU count required to maintain compliance.
Post-acquisition complexity. Samsung's acquisitions over the preceding decade had introduced IBM software deployments from acquired entities, some of which used IBM products not covered under Samsung's global Passport Advantage agreement. Others had duplicate entitlements that, once identified, could be consolidated and eliminated.
The Engagement: Four-Phase Assessment
Phase 1 — Global Entitlement Reconstruction
The first phase built a complete, accurate entitlement register covering Samsung's full global IBM position. This required consolidating 10+ years of IBM contracts, ordering documents, entitlement certificates, and Passport Advantage portal records across all divisions and regions. The reconstruction identified significant entitlement overlaps from acquisitions, redundant purchases where regional teams had procured IBM products already covered under global agreements, and entitlement gaps where deployments exceeded the documented licence position in specific product areas. The result was the first complete, auditable IBM entitlement register Samsung had produced — and the foundation for all subsequent optimisation work.
Phase 2 — ILMT Remediation and Sub-Capacity Validation
The second phase addressed Samsung's ILMT deployment gaps — the single largest source of both compliance risk and optimisation opportunity. Working with Samsung's regional IT teams, the advisory team mapped ILMT deployment status across all virtualised environments, identified configuration errors in regions where ILMT was deployed but incorrectly configured, developed a remediation plan to achieve compliant ILMT deployment across the global estate, and modelled the sub-capacity PVU reduction achievable with full ILMT compliance. The ILMT remediation programme delivered a reduction in sub-capacity PVU requirements across Samsung's virtualised estate, directly translating to reduced IBM licence costs and elimination of the compliance risk associated with incomplete ILMT deployment.
Phase 3 — Deployment Rightsizing and Shelfware Elimination
With the entitlement position established and ILMT remediated, the third phase identified deployment rightsizing and shelfware elimination opportunities across all IBM product families. IBM WebSphere Application Server deployments were right-sized to appropriate editions — multiple environments were running Network Deployment editions where Liberty or Base editions were sufficient. DB2 instances supporting decommissioned applications or migrated databases were identified for licence termination. Tivoli monitoring products had been partially replaced by alternative monitoring platforms in several regions, creating shelfware that continued incurring annual support fees. MQ Series PVU allocations exceeded actual throughput requirements in multiple regions. Maximo deployments had user count discrepancies versus active directory records, representing excess named user licences.
Phase 4 — Contract Realignment and Renewal Strategy
The final phase used the validated, rightsized IBM position to negotiate improved commercial terms with IBM. Samsung's global IBM procurement team, supported by Redress Compliance's negotiation specialists, presented IBM with a comprehensive, data-backed position demonstrating the actual licence requirement across the global estate. The negotiation secured improved pricing on retained IBM products, restructured the global Passport Advantage agreement to reflect the optimised footprint, established a governance framework for managing future IBM procurement centrally, and agreed terms that provided flexibility for planned cloud migrations and technology rationalisation programmes.
Results: $23M in Verified Savings
Key Takeaways
Samsung's decision to initiate a proactive IBM licensing assessment rather than waiting for an IBM audit was the single most important factor in the outcome. Proactive assessment eliminates IBM's audit leverage, controls the timing and scope of the compliance review, and creates the data foundation for a commercial negotiation conducted from a position of strength rather than defensiveness.
For global conglomerates with decentralised IT procurement, the IBM licensing challenge is not just technical — it is organisational. The combination of fragmented entitlement records, incomplete ILMT deployment, and acquisition-inherited complexity creates a situation where the actual compliance and cost position is unknowable without a structured, independent assessment. IBM's account teams are not incentivised to help identify and eliminate unnecessary spend. Only independent advisory provides the commercial neutrality and technical expertise to surface and resolve the full picture.
Explore our IBM Knowledge Hub for guidance on IBM licensing strategy, ILMT compliance, and sub-capacity optimisation. For an assessment of your organisation's IBM position, see our IBM licensing assessment tools, or contact our advisory team to discuss your specific situation.
Related Resources
- IBM Advisory Services
- IBM Licensing Knowledge Hub
- IBM ELA Renewal Advisory
- IBM Audit Defence Kits
- IBM Licensing Assessment Tools