Almost half of firms are unprepared for the true cost of software audits as ‘Black hole’ of risk looms

According to a recent survey the cost of being non-compliant three times a year could cost businesses in excess of USD$2m, with cloud deployment further complicating the compliance issue.

In June 2016 Crayon commissioned independent analysts at Vanson Bourne to conduct over 575 interviews across US and Europe with IT decision makers, with responsibility for software licensing and IT asset management, in firms with more than 500 employees. 

• 46% of firms were found to be non-compliant.
• The average penalty for non-compliance with software licensing already tops USD$750,909 (£611,008).
• With enterprises deploying an average of three software publishers’ products in their IT environments, they are running the risk of being audited three times a year and exposure to fines in excess of USD$2m (£1.6m).
• Respondents estimate their organisation to have 9 people dedicated to SAM, but spend an average of 129 resource days dealing with audits alone.
• There is a reluctance to handle software asset management (SAM) in-house. 94% of respondents said their organisation uses a third party software asset management (SAM) tool.
• Although 96% of respondents said their organisation was imminently moving or planning to move software and infrastructure to the Cloud, seven in ten expect the complexity of their software licensing to increase following this migration.
• 72% of respondents say that their organisation’s investment in cloud technology has increased following the deployment of a SAM environment.

To download a full copy of the report ‘Software Asset Management, Cloud Transformation and the Cost of Compliance in 2016: Enterprises exposed to a ‘Black hole’ of Risk’ click below.