Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Do It Yourself or Have a Professional Do It For You?

Sorry I've been rather quiet the past couple of months...we've been launching a new service (or more accurately - finally marketing an old service) and that's been distracting me a bit.

What we're doing is finally offering our SAM managed services offering (LOL...OK, when we started doing this 10 years ago we were calling it Outsourcing) to all of our clients.

Basically, we do everything to give you the information you need to run your business with the appropriate software licensing at the appropriate cost. See, for us - that's easy. We live and breathe software licensing, processes, controls and negotiations. We keep up with what's going on in the marketplace, because it's our business. Typically companies (excluding large enterprises) simply can't dedicate the resources to do this in a cost efficient manner. For us to do it, the service pays for itself and you're not running the risk that you're relying on a staff member whose knowledge is from 2 versions ago.

We're not looking to replace your current staff members...we're looking to free up their time so they can focus on areas that move you forward.

Our service has been extremely successful - we've been told by our clients that the price is attractive, the deliverables timely and needed, and the independent relationship (not the reseller, etc) extremely beneficial and ties in well with internal governance programs.
However; I'm curious, what are your thoughts?...What would you want in such a service? How often would you want it? What would you want to pay for it? Would you want a service like this?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cynthia,

We have a product that you can offer to yor clients whereby they can extract the raw data very fast and send your organization the data files for consolidation and reporting whic h allows you to maximize consulting revenue. It's small in size <300k, no user manual needed, can be scripted and runs really fast, without any training, installation or software identification library. It stops the normal objection over a key issue of intrusive audits at the desktop. see http://www.pcprofile.com/Discovery.aspx

Regards

Rob Harmer
PCProfile
Adelaide

South Australia

Mobile 0448 650 227
Fax +61 (0) 8 8265 1961
mailto:pcprofile@internode.on.net
www.pcprofile.com
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PCProfile offers practical tips on how you can understand the rapidly changing technology scene within your business.
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Anonymous said...

I think this will be a strong proposition - as long as you remain independent from licensing profit. i.e. You are not motivated by selling software licensing.

Cynthia Farren said...

Thanks for the support and I absolutely agree! In order for this to work right we have to approach the service as if we were part of the client's organization...not driven by external goals.

Cynthia Farren said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Cynthia Farren said...

Thanks Rob and you bring up a valid point...company's need to have a discovery tool (at a minimum) in order for anyone to manage their IT assets.

There are a large number of tools out in the marketplace - I won't be posting any more "pure marketing" comments going forward but did want to acknowledge the importance tools plan in software asset management.