Effective License Management - Save Your Business Money

If you manage your small business, nobody can understand the pain of not having proper software license management practices better than you.

This blog post will explain key types of software licenses and how you can systematically reduce your software license management cost.

What Does Software License Management Mean?

Software license management, abbreviated as (SLM), allows businesses and companies to document, manage, and reduce the overall cost of their software solutions in an efficient manner.

Similarly, the license manager for WooCommerce helps e-commerce businesses appropriately sell and manage their software licenses. As a result, they can efficiently perform their numerous routine tasks and save a handsome amount of money.

Key Types of Software Licenses

Here is the list that consists of different types of software licenses:

• Free license

• Volume license
• Processor license
• Evaluation license
• Named user license
• Concurrent licenses
• Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) license
• Enterprise agreement license

Free License

Anyone can use a free license depending on their needs. It means you can complete your desired tasks through a free license at no cost whatsoever.

Volume License

Volume license allows you to authorize several individuals to use a single license at a time. This way, they can evaluate a software product in detail.

Processor License

Suppose you manage an IT company and want your servers to operate software and its components; a processor license will do the job for you in this situation.

Evaluation License

Through an evaluation license, you can check the ins and outs of a software product for a limited period.

Named User License

If you are willing to use a software platform, you should use a named user license by becoming a registered user.

Concurrent Licenses

Concurrent licenses come in handy when software developers and the engineering team want to use a software product at a time.

Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) license

Companies or businesses can take advantage of the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) license as it enables them to use it alongside specific hardware.

Enterprise Agreement License

Enterprise agreement license helps vendors permit users or customers to utilize its software for a specified period.

However, businesses and firms need to understand the value of these types of software. They can make the most of all such software provided they keep an eye on their usage.

Similarly, they should not fall into the trap of software license overspending. For that reason, they should get rid of unused software as early as possible. Otherwise, they will pay a hefty sum regarding software management costs.

How Can Businesses Reduce Their Software License Management Cost?

Businesses or organizations can apply a set of best software license management practices at their workplaces accordingly. Besides, they can benefit from the following tactics that help them significantly reduce their software license management costs appropriately:

Monitor Software System Inventory

Monitoring software system inventory allows businesses or firms to manage their software usage to a great extent. A software system inventory is necessary for companies as it provides them with a comprehensive analysis of software solutions and licenses.

Through this comprehensive analysis, an IT team can efficiently allocate or reallocate underused and unused software licenses. In addition to this, they can examine numerous aspects related to software license management, such as:

• Purchase cost
• Service fees
• Software maintenance contracts
• Software support documentation and other details
• Software maintenance expiration dates

When an IT team keeps a record of all this information mentioned above, they can add value to their team and organization. That's because organizations or businesses can use this information as references to preserve their crucial resources, be it money, digital assets (documents, videos, software), and others.

Fortunately, they will not need to pay additional maintenance or reinstatement fees based on the already available software system inventory monitoring report.

Software License Validation and Ownership

Software license validation is another way to preserve an organization's critical resources or assets comprehensively. For example, you own a small business and want to validate different software licenses.

In that case, you should consult with your legal advisor and IT procurement team to perform this task, i.e., software license validation on your behalf.

Thus, you can easily maintain a record that includes software purchase agreements and contracts that will ultimately benefit you at the time of yearly audits in the future.

There is no harm in incorporating this record with the relevant software licenses, as they will help you recognize which software needs to be upgraded and renewed based on your IT or software teams' requirements.

Software License Costs Evaluation

When companies or businesses deeply evaluate their software license costs, they can refrain from software license overspending.

Luckily, they can optimize their software usage in the right direction without utilizing additional resources.

Wrapping Up

Effective yet results-driven Software license management is the key to an organization's success. They can smartly minimize software usage costs through proper software license management practices.

Additionally, companies can spend their saved budget on purchasing and procuring other digital assets, such as videos, documents, files, etc.

Software license management is an untapped area that needs to be explored and adequately utilized by small businesses and medium-sized and large-scale organizations. By doing so, they can easily gain a competitive edge over other businesses and beat them by some distance.