How a Public Sector Agency Optimized Spend with ServiceNow’s Software Asset Success Portal

Challenges Faced in The Public Sector

The client has been proactive in building out a robust ITAM function to mitigate risk and optimize spend. As a public sector organization, it is important to them that they are delivering the best service possible to the public while also avoiding any unbudgeted spend.

They have worked closely with Anglepoint to implement the ITAM function, ServiceNow and SAMPro discovery. Using a regular cadence of team calls, they continually review the ROARs that Anglepoint delivers and review the service against outlined KPIs. During these meetings, Anglepoint provides recommendations to reduce risk and optimize spend and reviews processes in place with the client to ensure the service continues to deliver on these KPIs. In these meetings, the public sector organization said they were struggling to execute the recommendations and felt that the process of communicating remediations was not working for them.

Anglepoint explored this challenge more deeply with the client and it was clear that, in addition to the ineffective communication, other challenges were compounding the issue.

The ITAM function was relatively immature, and the agency was overwhelmed with the workload. In some cases, they lacked the knowledge and expertise required to act on the recommended remediations. The ITAM function only had two consistent team members, and the rest were regularly rotated contractors. This left them with the consistent challenge of new employees and limited resources. Communication with the other business areas including procurement and IT was also limited and as a result, the wider business was unable to maximize the benefit of Anglepoint’s services. These operational challenges are not uncommon in the public sector, so Anglepoint needed to adapt and provide an ITAM solution that would meet these needs.

Anglepoint needed to establish the best way of working for the client that would allow their wider team to see and action recommendations more effectively, access the intelligence available, and use this to make business decisions and negotiate the best commercial and contractual agreements with software publishers.

The ServiceNow Solution: Software Asset Success Portal (SASP)

Anglepoint’s Client Success team recommended leveraging a module in the Software Asset Workspace in ServiceNow called Software Asset Success Portal (SASP). The Software Asset Success Portal equips companies with the knowledge and skills to navigate the portal and use its features effectively to optimize Software Asset Management (SAM) practices. As the client was already using ServiceNow’s SAM tools, it was agreed that this would provide the best solution. It meant that the whole SAM service, end to end, would be in one place, and the client’s ITAM team could effectively track risk remediation and cost savings. The wider team would have access to and be able to action their remediation responsibilities identified by Anglepoint during the Effective License Position Process.

The Software Asset Success Portal would allow the client to track:

• Open success goals by status
• Completed success goals
• Projected success savings by status
• Projected success savings by category
• Past and upcoming success goals completed success savings by category

To ensure that this solution would deliver the outcome that the client required, Anglepoint created ServiceNow Software Asset Success Portal training guidelines and communications with step-by-step instructions for the users. Within this was guidance around roles and responsibilities for all the users and the wider business. It was important to provide not only the solution but to put the infrastructure around it to ensure its success.

Finally, Anglepoint’s Client Success team utilized a SharePoint site for the client to store all documents and contracts as a backup to enable the retention of valuable information that is often lost due to employee attrition.

The client now has the entire service delivered through one tool in a centralized single pane of truth. Anglepoint now transitions over all the recommendations to SASP and reports to the client on the outstanding activities that they need to act upon. This agency is now achieving its goal of managing IT Asset Management in one place. They now leverage the ServiceNow software asset management (SAM) tool for all ITAM tracking, which helps to act on the recommendations provided by Anglepoint to mitigate risk and achieve cost savings.

Collaboration across functions has improved as roles and responsibilities are defined and remediation actions are communicated clearly to all stakeholders – everyone can access information through SASP and SharePoint. This addresses the challenges with attrition as new employees can access critical information quickly to ensure continuity and BAU.

Through the regular cadence of meetings with the client, constant improvements are being suggested and implemented. With Anglepoint’s support, the ITAM Lead oversees the ITAM function and continues to move the team in the right direction and drive the execution of recommendations. With documented processes in place and a robust centralized tool that provides a platform for effective communication, the ITAM function can be measured and managed.

Anglepoint continues to work with this client with a focus on understanding their unique requirements and challenges and meets them with the best software asset management solution.