Unlock the Power of ServiceNow Software Asset Management (SAM)

Are you looking for a way to revolutionize your organization’s software asset management and unlock hidden potential for cost savings and efficiency? ServiceNow Software Asset Management (SAM) might just be the answer you’ve been searching for.

This powerful platform can help you streamline your software management processes, ensure compliance, and optimize your software usage, putting you in control of your organization’s software assets like never before.

In this blog post, we will dive into the world of ServiceNow SAM, exploring its key components, benefits, and the power of automation in streamlining your software asset management.

We will also discuss how ServiceNow SAM can help you achieve compliance, reduce costs, and enhance your software asset management through plugins and integrations.

Finally, we’ll cover some practical applications, customization options, and a hands-on experience with the ServiceNow SAM Lab. So, let’s get started on this exciting journey to unlock the true potential of ServiceNow SAM for your organization!

Short Summary

• ServiceNow SAM is a business practice for streamlining software asset management, reducing costs & compliance risks.

• Key components include license management, compliance, and optimization to monitor/administer licenses & optimize utilization.

• Implementing ServiceNow SAM provides visibility, cost savings & enhanced security through automation of processes such as tracking usage.

Understanding ServiceNow Software Asset Management

ServiceNow SAM is a game-changing business practice for streamlining software asset management, which can help control costs, detect non-compliance, and inform acquisition decisions.

The platform allows organizations to save time and money by recognizing areas for cost reduction, avoiding duplication of resources, increasing compliance, reducing security risks, and promoting standardization.

With ServiceNow SAM, you can leverage existing software licenses and deploy a platform to streamline and optimize manual processes, thereby maximizing the value of your software assets.

But what exactly makes ServiceNow SAM so effective in managing software assets? It comes down to three key components: software license management, compliance, and optimization.

These components work together, enabling organizations to monitor and administer software licenses and entitlements, ensure adherence to the terms of software license agreements, and utilize software licenses cost-efficiently.

Key Components of SAM

At the heart of ServiceNow SAM lies software license management, which focuses on monitoring and administering software licenses and entitlements.

This crucial component helps organizations keep track of their software licenses, ensuring that they comply with licensing agreements and avoid costly legal and financial repercussions. Moreover, effective software license management can help organizations optimize software utilization and reduce costs.

The second key component, compliance, ensures that organizations adhere to the terms of their software license agreements. By maintaining compliance, organizations can avoid potential legal and financial consequences that may arise from non-compliance, such as fines or penalties.

Furthermore, compliance helps organizations maintain a positive reputation in the industry and among their customers.

Finally, optimization is the process of ensuring that software licenses are utilized in the most cost-efficient manner. This involves analyzing software usage data, identifying areas for cost reduction, and making informed decisions about software allocation and procurement.

Benefits of Implementing SAM

Implementing ServiceNow SAM can lead to a multitude of benefits for organizations. One of the most notable advantages is improved visibility into software usage and license compliance.

With real-time tracking and reporting, organizations can gain a comprehensive overview of their software licenses, ensuring they remain compliant with licensing agreements and avoid unnecessary costs.

In addition to improved visibility, ServiceNow SAM can help organizations achieve cost savings and increase security.

By offering intuitive workflows and lifecycle visibility for managing software licenses, hardware assets, and cloud assets, ServiceNow SAM streamlines the software asset management process and minimizes costs associated with manual processes.

Furthermore, gathering software utilization data is the most effective approach for optimizing software utilization, ultimately leading to cost savings and increased security.

Streamlining Software Asset Management with Automation

Automation plays a pivotal role in streamlining software asset management and improving compliance.

Organizations can more effectively monitor and manage their software assets by automating processes, ensuring they remain up-to-date and secure. With a single system of record in place, organizations can better manage their software assets, minimize costs, and enhance compliance.

ServiceNow SAM provides powerful tools for replacing manual processes with automation, such as efficient tracking and management of software licenses, automated workflows for software requests, and real-time usage tracking and reporting.

By automating these tasks, organizations can save time, reduce costs, and improve compliance, ultimately enabling them to make more informed decisions about their software assets.

Replacing Manual Processes

ServiceNow SAM offers a single system of record for software licenses, allowing for efficient tracking and management of licenses.

By replacing manual processes with automation, organizations can save time and reduce the risk of human error, ensuring that software licenses are accurately tracked and managed.

In addition to efficient tracking and management of software licenses, ServiceNow SAM also offers automated workflows for software requests, resulting in faster and more efficient processing of requests.

With automated workflows, organizations can streamline their software request process, minimizing delays and ensuring that software is allocated to the appropriate users.

Furthermore, ServiceNow SAM provides real-time usage tracking and reporting, allowing for enhanced visibility into software usage and greater control over software costs.

Single System of Record

A single system of record is a centralized information storage and retrieval system that holds critical data related to an organizational system or process, acting as the definitive source of data and the authoritative data source for a specific data element or piece of information.

Having a single system of record for software asset management can facilitate cost-saving, accuracy enhancement, and process optimization. It can also guarantee compliance with applicable regulations and industry norms.

ServiceNow SAM facilitates creating and maintaining a single system of record by providing a centralized platform for managing software assets and automating processes to streamline workflows.

By offering real-time visibility into software assets and usage, ServiceNow SAM assists organizations in maintaining a single system of record, helping them track license compliance and optimize costs.

Achieving Compliance and Reducing Costs through ServiceNow SAM

License management and cost control strategies are essential components of ServiceNow SAM that can help organizations achieve compliance and reduce costs manages software licenses.

By monitoring and managing software licenses, organizations can detect and remove unused licenses, ensuring compliance with licensing regulations and reducing costs associated with software licenses.

ServiceNow SAM enables organizations to monitor and manage software licenses, allowing them to detect and remove unused licenses.

It also allows organizations to track license usage and optimize software usage to cut costs. This facilitates organizations to comply with licensing regulations and lower costs associated with unused software rights and licenses.

License Management

License management practices are essential for adhering to software licensing agreements, averting legal and financial repercussions, optimizing software utilization, and cutting costs. Organizations can avoid potential legal and financial consequences by maintaining compliance with licensing agreements, such as fines or penalties.

Moreover, effective license management can help organizations optimize software utilization, ensuring that software licenses are used cost-efficiently.

Software entitlements are essential to understanding an organization’s compliance status. They ensure the user has the correct license to use a software application.

Organizations can remain compliant with licensing agreements and avoid unnecessary costs by effectively managing new software rights and entitlements.

Cost Control Strategies

Cost control strategies refer to techniques employed by businesses to identify and minimize expenses to maximize profits.

These strategies involve controlling the cost of purchasing and managing software assets in software asset management. By monitoring and managing software licenses, organizations can recognize and remove unnecessary licenses, thereby reducing costs associated with software licenses.

ServiceNow SAM enables organizations to track license usage and optimize software utilization to reduce costs.

By gathering software utilization data and identifying areas for cost reduction, organizations can make informed decisions about software allocation and procurement. Ultimately, this leads to cost savings and increased efficiency in managing software assets.

Enhancing Software Asset Management with ServiceNow Plugins and Integrations

Plugins and integrations with third-party solutions can significantly enhance the capabilities of ServiceNow SAM.

By extending the platform’s functionality, organizations can benefit from automated asset discovery, license management, cost control strategies, and integration with existing IT systems and license management solutions.

In addition to extending the platform’s capabilities, ServiceNow plugins and integrations can help organizations streamline their software asset management processes and minimize costs associated with manual processes.

By automating these tasks, organizations can save time, reduce costs, and improve compliance, ultimately making more informed decisions about their software assets.

Activating SAM Plugins

ServiceNow SAM plugins are software applications designed to facilitate software asset management within ServiceNow.

These plugins offer a range of features, including license management, cost control strategies, and integration with third-party solutions. Activating SAM plugins can help organizations streamline their software asset management, cut costs, and ensure compliance.

The process for activating ServiceNow SAM plugins must be completed by ServiceNow personnel.

By activating these plugins, organizations can unlock the full potential of ServiceNow SAM, improving their efficiency and productivity in managing software assets and ensuring that they remain compliant with licensing agreements and regulations.

Integration with Third-Party Solutions

Integrating third-party solutions with ServiceNow SAM can extend its capabilities, providing a single source of truth for asset data through integration with existing IT systems, like Configuration Management Databases (CMDBs), or ensuring compliance with license management software rights and solutions. ServiceNow SAM can be integrated with third-party solutions through APIs, webhooks, and other integration methods.

This facilitates data sharing between the two systems and enables users to manage their software assets from a single platform.

Organizations can simplify their software asset management processes by integrating third-party solutions with ServiceNow SAM, cut expenses, and guaranteeing compliance. Furthermore, users can access and manage their software assets from a unified platform, allowing for more efficient tracking and management of software licenses.

Customizing ServiceNow SAM for Your Organization

Customizing ServiceNow SAM for an organization’s specific needs can be done by creating custom products and setting up entitlement metrics.

By tailoring the platform to their needs, organizations can improve their efficiency and productivity in managing software assets, ensuring they remain compliant with licensing agreements and regulations.

Creating custom products enables organizations to standardize and track software not yet included in the Software Library.

On the other hand, setting up entitlement metrics allows organizations to measure and monitor software licenses and usage, ensuring that they comply with licensing agreements and optimize software utilization.

Creating Custom Products

Custom products refer to items crafted, tailored, or modified to meet the customer’s requirements, such as size, color, and other specifications.

In software asset management, custom products can include software applications and services tailored to customers’ needs.

Uploading custom products to ServiceNow SAM facilitates quick and easy access to the necessary information, streamlining the software asset management process and minimizing costs associated with manual processes.

By creating and uploading custom products, organizations can ensure that their software asset management processes remain efficient and up-to-date, ultimately leading to cost savings and increased efficiency.

Setting Up Entitlement Metrics

Entitlement metrics refer to performance requirements or standards defining the maximum achievable performance with a given process or service.

These metrics measure and monitor software licenses and usage in software asset management. Organizations can ensure that they remain compliant with licensing agreements and optimize software utilization by effectively managing entitlement metrics.

One must navigate to the Software Asset module to modify entitlement and license metrics in ServiceNow SAM. From there, the Licensing > Software Entitlement section can be accessed.

By establishing and managing entitlement metrics, organizations can better understand their software licenses and usage, ensuring that they remain compliant with licensing agreements and optimize software utilization.

Practical Application: ServiceNow SAM Lab

The ServiceNow SAM. The lab offers hands-on experience with the platform, providing a practical application of its capabilities, including uploading software models and product catalogs, normalization, and usage tracking.

By familiarizing yourself with the ServiceNow SAM Lab, you can gain valuable insights into the platform’s features and functionality and practice managing software assets in a lab or test environment.

In the ServiceNow SAM Lab, you can explore various platform aspects, such as uploading software models and product catalogs, normalization, and importing user data.

By gaining hands-on experience with these features, you can better understand how ServiceNow SAM can streamline your organization’s software asset management processes, helping you achieve compliance, reduce costs, and optimize software utilization.

Uploading Software Models and Product Catalogs

Software models are representations of a software design, typically in an abstract language or visual form.

Uploading software models and product catalogs to ServiceNow SAM allows organizations to efficiently manage and track their software model assets, ensuring they remain compliant with licensing agreements and regulations.

ServiceNow SAM provides an import feature that enables users to upload software models and product catalogs in various formats, including CSV, XLS, and XML.

By uploading software models and product catalogs, organizations can streamline their software asset management processes, minimize delays in software discovery, and ensure that software is allocated to the appropriate users.

Normalization and Usage Tracking

Normalization matches information for known software and updates the Discovery Model with normalized data and additional details regarding the associated software installations.

This process helps organizations maintain an accurate and up-to-date record of their software assets, ensuring they comply with licensing agreements and regulations.

ServiceNow provides native support for the import of usage data from Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM).

Organizations can gain valuable insights into software utilization by importing usage data, enabling them to make informed decisions about software allocation and procurement.

This, in turn, helps organizations optimize their software usage, reduce costs, and maintain compliance with licensing agreements and regulations.

Summary

In conclusion, ServiceNow Software Asset Management (SAM) offers a robust and comprehensive solution for organizations looking to streamline their software asset management processes, reduce costs, and ensure compliance.

By leveraging the critical components of SAM, such as software asset manager, license management, compliance, and optimization, organizations can unlock the true potential of their software assets and make more informed decisions about their software usage.

As explored throughout this blog post, the power of automation, plugins, integrations, and customization options available in ServiceNow SAM can significantly enhance an organization’s software asset management capabilities.

By getting hands-on experience with the ServiceNow SAM Lab and implementing the platform in your organization, you can revolutionize your software asset management and unlock hidden potential for cost savings and efficiency. So, take the first step towards a more streamlined and efficient software asset management process by exploring ServiceNow SAM today!

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