The Enterprise Agreement Value Roadmap Consulting Service (Introducing the Value Realization Services)

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License Agreement Value Roadmap is one of the services that Microsoft architects conduct with businesses as part of the Microsoft Value Realization Framework. It’s one of the Value Realization services that we mentioned in our earlier post, Welcome to the Value Realization Blog.

[The most common form of Microsoft licensing is “Enterprise Agreement,” which is why in our practice we typically refer to this Service as “Enterprise Agreement Value Roadmap”]

We perform the service to help businesses evaluate current returns on license investments and identify potential to maximize the business value from such investments by ensuring fuller, more effective, earlier use of purchased licenses.

Overview of the License Agreement Value Roadmap Consulting Service

A few questions that an architect might address about license value realization are:

  • How are existing licenses used throughout the business?
  • Are the licensed solutions effective?
  • Can a licensed solution continue to generate projected value over time?
  • What additional value-creating initiatives are possible, given the existing pool of licenses?

Typically, this type of evaluation occurs near the end of a License Agreement, prior to renewal. But many businesses also like to look into value anytime a major strategic or vision change occurs, from the business or IT side.

One important role an architect plays is helping to clarify the definition of value in different business contexts. To precisely assess this value, an architect needs to review the business capabilities, priorities, and initiatives, in light of the broader business landscape -- all influencing and characterizing business value.

Objectives

When a Microsoft architect performs the License Agreement Value Roadmap Service with a business:

  • We help the business understand their Microsoft product usage, and the value possible through the existing licenses.
  • We make recommendations for increasing the effective use of licenses.
  • We evaluate the expected usage of licenses in light of an existing or planned initiative

Activities

The License Value Roadmap Service includes activities for assessing value, and for making recommendations to businesses about ways they can optimize the value they receive from license investments. Importantly, architects must go beyond simple auditing of licenses to create a comprehensive analysis:

  • We meet with stakeholders and gather the information necessary to understand the priorities, strategy, and concerns of a business.
  • We review the software licenses that a business holds against the ways employees use them, or will use them, as a part of the business strategy and initiatives.
  • We present recommendations in ways that help stakeholders develop consensus about actions to take.
  • We assess the value already realized, and the projected value to be realized as a result of following recommendations.

Outcome

After we create a value roadmap and present recommendations, the stakeholders at a business clearly understand the value of their investments, and the opportunities for increasing value.

Deliverable

License Agreement Value Roadmap documents how existing licenses are used by the business, what additional value could be derived from this pool of licenses, what specific initiatives would capture that additional value.

Example

As the end of an Enterprise Agreement approached, the CIO Team and Director of Enterprise Licensing for a large bank began examining whether their IT investments were performing and producing value for the bank.

The bank had traditionally used a large amount of free open source software that met internal standards. However, stakeholders at the bank were finding that they needed capabilities that their solutions did not provide, and the IT teams and Head of End User Services were under pressure to meet quickly evolving business needs.

To gather the necessary information, the Microsoft architect consulted with directors and members of many teams at the bank, including:

  • The CIO Team
  • Enterprise Agreement and Licensing Team
  • Group Finance and Procurement Team
  • Asset Management Team
  • Legal and Compliance Team
  • End User Services Team

The Microsoft architect developed an Enterprise Agreement Value Roadmap to help the bank evaluate licensing investments in light of priorities and results:

  • We identified areas that were currently producing a valuable return on investment.
  • We quantitatively and qualitatively demonstrated the actual delivered value of solutions over time.
  • We highlighted opportunities where the bank could reduce costs, improve employee productivity, and improve the experiences customers have when working with the bank.
  • We showed the bank ways to take full advantage of existing investments, while also improving capabilities.
  • We demonstrated cost-effective solutions for helping the bank move forward with mobile capabilities.