How Redress Compliance eliminated £20 million in non-compliance exposure and delivered £5.8 million in annual savings for a leading UK bank through comprehensive IBM licensing review, PVU reallocation, and portfolio optimisation.
A leading UK bank engaged Redress Compliance to conduct a comprehensive IBM licensing review. The bank’s IT infrastructure supported critical operations with a complex licensing environment spanning multiple platforms.
The estate included transaction systems and core banking platforms, customer relationship management systems, and regulatory compliance platforms. The complex environment spanned virtualised, cloud, and legacy systems with no clear visibility into the actual licence compliance position — and high regulatory stakes in the financial sector.
Redress Compliance eliminated £20 million in non-compliance exposure and identified £5.8 million in annual savings.
Non-compliance exposure was reduced from £20M to £0. £4 million in annual savings came from eliminating unused licences, with a further £1.8 million from decommissioning redundant products. Over 12,000 PVUs were reallocated to match actual usage, four redundant IBM solutions were decommissioned, and a governance framework with monitoring tools was implemented across the estate.
Redress Compliance conducted a full IBM licensing review across the bank’s entire estate, working with IT, procurement, and compliance teams to identify risks, eliminate exposure, and deliver substantial ongoing cost savings.
Proactive IBM licensing reviews — conducted before IBM initiates an audit — consistently deliver better outcomes than reactive audit defence. In this case, the bank was carrying £20 million in hidden non-compliance exposure without realising it, alongside millions in unnecessary annual licensing spend on unused and redundant products.
By conducting a comprehensive review proactively, the bank eliminated all compliance risk, recovered £5.8 million in annual savings, and established governance processes to prevent future exposure. Financial institutions with complex IBM estates should treat licensing reviews as essential risk management — not optional hygiene — particularly where virtualised, cloud, and legacy systems coexist across the same environment.
Entitlement mapping established a complete baseline of licences owned versus software deployed — revealing £20 million in hidden exposure that the bank’s internal teams had not identified.
Sub-capacity revalidation corrected misconfigured licensing setups across virtualised environments, eliminating a significant portion of the compliance exposure without additional purchases.
PVU reallocation redistributed over 12,000 PVUs from underutilised deployments to close compliance gaps and match actual usage patterns across the estate.
Portfolio rationalisation identified and decommissioned four redundant IBM solutions, delivering £1.8 million in annual savings and reducing ongoing licence management complexity.
Full licence reconciliation, compliance assessment, and optimisation across all IBM products.
Expert-led response to IBM compliance audits — scope management, findings challenge, and settlement.
Negotiate better terms on IBM renewals, ELAs, and new purchases with independent advisory support.
Strategic guidance for IBM ELA renewals — right-sizing, timing, and maximising contract value.
Redress Compliance delivers proactive IBM licensing reviews that eliminate compliance risk and uncover substantial cost savings — typically 20–40% reduction in IBM spend. Complete vendor independence, no conflicts of interest.