Software vendors: Coping with license management headaches and growing revenue in a down economy

For software vendors, today’s economic climate means effective license management is more important than ever. Adapting to changing market needs or competitive pressure with a new pricing model keeps revenue streams going. But as the number of pricing models expands, software product managers face a growing challenge: how to remain nimble but effectively manage the complexities of software licensing and ensure that entitlements for maintenance and support are managed efficiently as well. Effective license management enables you to unlock revenue, reduce cost while providing the highest quality of service and customer experience.

Best practices: software license management

While you may currently have a home-grown solution to manage licensing technology and entitlements, be watchful that your home-grown software does not become expensive to maintain or an obstacle to quickly adapting to changing licensing schemes, new business models, or different markets. Or seek out alternatives that include these best practices:

• Automated entitlement and license management
  Look for solutions that give you a single view into all of your licensing technologies at a glance.
• Flexible licensing
  Look for solutions that enable complete flexibility in deciding which licensing terms and pricing models to use in packaging and selling product and solution offerings.
• Electronic software delivery
  Essential to meeting changing customer needs, electronic software delivery is also essential to increasing profitability by delivering even multi-component applications directly to end-users in efficient, reliable, secure method.
• Targeted end-user communication
  Look for solutions that enable you to connect directly with end-users to deliver software product news, training, upgrades, marketing messages, etc. to further lower the cost of doing business.

License management achieves consistency and aids software compliance

Using the software license management best practices and taking a common, automated approach to licensing and entitlement management across product lines will enable:

• More effective day-to-day operations
  Having shed light on internal processes, the new licensing system can help product management rationalize actions, achieve consistencies globally across offices, and improve order processing.
• Improved management of remote operations
  A centralized system will be able to link to and interface with back-end accounting and financial systems, allowing remote operations to be centrally tracked and managed.
• Accurate statistics and reports on customer activation and usage
  The centralized license management system provides accurate activation and usage statistics. Centralized license solutions will also provide ad hoc instantaneous report capabilities that provide data by customer and entitlement which maximizes efficiency and compliance.

A strong license management solution can be the means to more efficient, flexible pricing models and more profitable operations by significantly improving internal operations.