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Have You Purchased Too Many Software Licenses?

From connecting remote teams to streamlining the management of massive projects, there’s a valuable tool to help. As valuable as these tools are, they’re also costly and open up to potential security flaws. So, ask yourself: are your teams using all those tools effectively?

By Ramiz Khan

How many company licenses aren't being used? Surrounded by company logos for Salesforce, Dropbox, Adobe and others.

Modern technology has made it possible to do more work, faster, to create more value out of the precious hours in a day. From connecting remote teams to streamlining the management of massive projects, there’s a valuable tool to help. As valuable as these tools are, they’re also costly and open up to potential security flaws. So, ask yourself: are your teams using all those tools effectively?

According to CIO Insight, companies lose between $11,000 and $15,000 per employee per year on underutilized workplace technology. Companies are bringing in new software and services to help their employees perform work faster and at the expense of fewer resources. But with so much technology found going to waste in the modern workplace, can your business justify the extra expenses of new software and services? 

ActivTrak’s user activity monitoring (UAM) tools can help companies with their license management with a transparent view into which software is most of the work being performed under and by who.

Contextualize Your Company’s License Management

Looking at the time a user spends using a software program is one layer to the greater picture of how employees are performing in their work. Some software programs may not require an extensive amount of time investment but do add a significant value to the workflow. 

What companies need is context into how work is being done. ActivTrak offers an unobtrusive analysis of employee activities to discover the total amount of time spent on productive and unproductive activities for each day. Companies will also gain insight into how activities impact work between departments and employees, helping companies find the real value of licensed software and the employees with the most efficient workflows.

Develop Baselines for Your Company’s License Management

It’s not enough to simply have insight into how your employees are utilizing software. Companies must set an operational baseline to how software should be used to be profitable. For example, if your company’s software license utilization must be over 5-hour per-week of productivity to justify the expense, that’s the baseline that should be used for all licensed employees. 

ActivTrak’s reports break data down into activity logs, productivity reports, cloud and desktop application usage, as well as top users to help companies better understand how the software’s help compares to their baseline. Managers can use this data to make sure teams are constantly moving towards creating more value. 

Resolve Inefficient License Utilization

As we mentioned earlier, the goal of contextualizing which software licenses your employees need is to understand how the software adds to the greater value of your products or services. No-two companies will operate the same. There may be a valid reason as to why your company uses one service over the other, whether it be the cost of retraining to a new software, limitations set by your machinery, bundled deals, and so forth. 

If you’re going to keep using a software, you want to make sure you’re using it to create the most value possible. Identifying where in your workflow software is utilized the most and resolving inefficiencies is crucial. ActivTrak’s user activity reporting measures all computer activities and evaluates the steps an employee takes to complete a task in real-time. Companies will be able to take this data and identify their top performing employees and map their workflows to create a teaching opportunity for others. 

If your team is concerned about license management and whether those services are leading to more value, then try ActivTrak’s User Activity Monitoring software. ActivTrak can help with your software license management by contextualizing which software your teams are spending most of their time on and how it feeds into their workflow. Try ActivTrak now and gain a better understanding of your team’s workflow!

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