Global Technology Vendor Saves $6M by Optimizing Its Salesforce Enterprise License Agreement (SELA)

The Challenge

This global organization has a sprawling software estate comprised of numerous publishers, including Salesforce. With more than 110,000 employees spread across global business units, its in-house team lacked centralized demand planning and consistent communication between teams. As a result, the organization had little visibility into actual software usage and future demand. Business units continued to purchase and retain licenses without reviewing requirements, creating ongoing overspend and placing additional strain on IT and procurement resources. This inefficiency resulted in fragmented decision-making, misalignment with corporate strategy, reduced budget availability for innovation and strategic initiatives, and challenges with financial forecasting. With its SELA renewal approaching, the organization recognized the need to right-size its new agreement to reflect actual business needs and prevent continued overspend. Although its internal SAM team was highly capable, it needed deeper licensing expertise and the right SAM technology to analyze usage and forecast accurately. To close that gap, the organization began the search for an experienced partner with proven results in licensing models, compliance, and strategic roadmap development. It selected Anglepoint for its proven expertise in SAM and its track record in helping large enterprises optimize license portfolios and achieve substantial cost savings through data-driven strategies.

The Solution

From the outset, it was clear that deep rooted operational inefficiencies—driven by limited cross-functional communication and a lack of structured governance—needed to be addressed. Anglepoint began by engaging business owners as well as commercial, procurement, licensing and budgeting teams to create a complete view of the client’s Salesforce environment. Anglepoint’s SAM and Commercial Advisory teams conducted quarterly Salesforce ELP assessments over three years to identify trends in usage, compliance, and entitlements. Due to limitations with the client’s SAM tool, Flexera One, Anglepoint manually collected usage data to inform the ELPs. The findings revealed significant underutilization, which shaped a strategic roadmap developed in partnership with the client’s commercial team. The roadmap encouraged collaboration across business units, improved demand planning, supported license rationalization, and aligned entitlements with actual usage. This roadmap-driven approach not only delivered immediate savings but also established a sustainable governance model for long-term optimization. It also empowered business owners to manage their usage more effectively and plan future needs. Finally, Anglepoint also recommended establishing a formal governance software license framework to ensure future contract renewals were both data-driven and cost-efficient.

Results

• Delivered cost savings of circa $6M, reducing the overall contract value from the original $22.5M while maintaining full compliance and functionality.
• Right-sized software entitlements and aligned spend with actual business needs—improving internal efficiency and positioning the client as a more strategic and data-driven customer to Salesforce.
• Enhanced financial predictability and strengthened cross-functional collaboration through improved visibility into license usage and demand.
• Established a sustainable optimization and governance model by implementing a strategic roadmap and structured demand planning framework.