How to Maximize Your Customers’ Return on Office 365 Licenses

Find out how you can help your customers maximize their return on Office 365 licensing in our upcoming webinar. Help them buy only what they need, when they need it, and adopt everything they buy. (Click here to register.)

This webinar addresses the widespread issue of over-licensed organizations and how to remediate the situation. An analysis of over 3.4 million Office 365 users found about 18% of purchased licenses unassigned, which equates to approximately $150,000 in savings per year for a 10,000-person company when managed properly, and even more when scaled up.

Why the disparity between what is purchased and what is utilized?

It comes down to the nuanced needs of those involved in the purchasing process, from procurement and IT to the business and Microsoft’s license sellers. Each participant in the buying process has very different needs and motivations. Understanding how each is related is key when seeking a solution.

Here’s how the over-licensing tragedy builds:

1. The first layer is purchasing, where they’re dependent on capital funding that is typically cyclical. Therefore, they purchase in waves to tide the organization over until the next round of funding is available.
2. Secondly, the IT department is aware that these procurement cycles can result in a lengthy approval process. In order to ensure that there will be enough licenses to go around on-demand, they may request more licenses than are actually needed at the time.
3. Lastly, purchasing managers are often encouraged to reduce contract costs, which creates a third layer where license sellers are motivated to create discounted, bundled SKUs that can be contradictory to actual business licensing needs.

Now you can see why everyone involved is on the surplus licensing bandwagon, but the licensing gap doesn’t stop there. Turning the initial gap into a gorge are the inconsistencies between licenses assigned and those actively adopted and used. This happens when users are assigned licenses without having a true grasp on actual user needs. Additionally, many organizations simply don’t have the proper tools to monitor active usage and react accordingly to the data, and very few are equipped with the skills required to drive adoption.

In short, it’s a “vicious” cycle resulting in over-licensed organizations, which is like leaving money on the table. So, how can you help organizations make sure there are enough licenses to go around and avoid surplus spending?

Using Data to Manage the License Lifecycle

The solution lies in License Lifecycle Management techniques and using