IT asset managers must be proactive with up-front risk mitigation strategies

Recent Iron Mountain research reveals the risks associated with licensing critical software applications, and why procurement professionals and IT asset managers must take protections to safeguard the software that is at the heart of their business operations.

Key findings

• Fifty-five percent of IT decision makers report having licensed critical software applications from a vendor that did not meet expectations.
• When enterprises select vendors that ultimately do not meet expectations, it wastes valuable resources and increases costs. This impacts business in several ways: 64 percent of respondents said additional time and/or effort was required; 60 percent had project setbacks; and 47 percent noted added costs.
• On average, IT project failures cost businesses a 25 percent overrun.

Enterprises struggle with a range of negative consequences when a software vendor fails to provide adequate support. Technology escrow gives organizations leverage to demand better SLA compliance – and protection against a potentially dangerous total loss of support.

If a software developer goes out of business, or otherwise discontinues support, an escrow release lets the software licensee continue with development in-house or keep suddenly unsupported products running long enough to find and implement a replacement.

With the benefit of technology escrow, a copy of your software source code, data, build instructions, and third-party tools are stored securely with Iron Mountain. As a result, the wasted resources and cost overruns associated with vendors that do not meet expectations can be minimized or eliminated.

“This research illustrates a chief fear for IT asset managers, namely how to prepare for ‘what happens when the worst happens?’ In order to avoid that worst-case scenario, many forward-thinking companies build risk mitigation into the procurement process with technology escrow and verification. Additionally, beyond traditional escrow for on-premises applications, special considerations need to be taken for software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and data, since when your software and data are in the cloud, the old rules no longer apply,” said John Boruvka, VP of Iron Mountain’s Intellectual Property Management business.