Credit checking firm guarantees compliance

Credit search company Experian has implemented a software asset management tool to help achieve compliance standards for its 600,000 UK software licences.

The firm did not have a clear view of its software assets before introducing the organiser product, supplied by Business Continuity Services.

‘Maintaining compliancy of all our assets is an enormous challenge as we purchase hundreds of licences every month,’ said Richard Brown, Experian’s head of business experience.

‘It has saved a huge amount of man-hours because there is not another tool that can bring in all the complex relationships of our diverse software,’ he said.

The software enables Experian to demonstrate to shareholders gold standard compliancy awarded by the Federation Against Software Theft.

‘Compliancy is key for us because the damage to our reputation if found to be non-compliant would be very damaging, not to mention the penalties we would have to pay,’ said Brown.

Benefits include economies of scale through better negotiation with suppliers and more efficient procurement.

‘We were over-licensing before we knew what we were buying, and have since saved a large amount just by knowing what we are buying and from whom, so we can reuse licensing and recuperate our costs,’ said Brown.

‘We have saved 30 man-hours a month and we are getting to the point where we have become compliant and we are only able to see the benefits now.’

The next stage is software harvesting which passes licences between staff when needed.

It is critical that firms show compliancy in terms of their reputation, says IDC managing director Peter Farley.

‘There are varying degrees of risk and it is important for firms to stay within acceptable parameters of risk,’ he said.

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Further reading:

Software assets are underused