IS YOUR COMPANY WASTING MONEY ON UNUSED SOFTWARE LICENSES?
The universal nature of information technology (IT), or tech as it is also called, makes it easy for businesses to use and enjoy massive transformation, as it is convenient and affordable to adopt. Or is it?
Your company may be wasting thousands of dollars monthly on unused software licenses and software. This cost rises depending on your company’s level of tech implementation, and number of staff.
My team has seen companies in Nigeria with up to 12 staff spend hundreds of dollars on unused licenses or underutilised subscriptions.
In a 2016 report by 1E, a digital employee experience company examined 1,800 software titles on 3.6 million computers in 129 companies across 14 different industries. The study found a 37% waste per company at $259 per computer.
A 2024 report by Nexthink looked at 30 popular software on 6 million Windows devices, across 12 global regions (including Africa), put the number of unused licenses at 50% costing $44,743,651 monthly.
How Do You Stop Software Licensing Waste
- Avoid wasteful communication: Improved communication & collaboration between IT departments and business units on their software needs will result in solutions that fit into IT’s tech setup & policies. This will also solve problems for the department that need it. Better collaboration will provide a win-win solution and help companies save money.
- Conduct regular software usage audits: Software audit will give a snapshot of licenses that are installed. An audit will also show how licenses are being use, so companies can take action that will make the best use of licenses or cut back & save costs.
- Dynamic monitoring of workers software usage: Use patterns change, due to reasons such as projects at hand, change in job role, etc. Dynamic monitoring should work transparently to know which software is being used, so that IT staff can work with users to utilise software as intended.
- Gather employee feedback: Employee feedback will give insight to why licenses and software are not used. Do employees know what software are available for their use? Perhaps licenses are unused because they do not solve business needs of intended users. It may even be that licenses are unused because employees do not have the technical skills to use them.
Conclusion
Take Action, Save Money Without Compromising Perfomance
Software licensing waste can be tackled, and your company can save money.
The tips above can help you eliminate software licensing waste.
Do you know how much your company spends monthly or annually on software licensing and subscriptions? What percentage of employees use the licenses and software paid for?
