One of the issues with SPLA is that the program is very reactionary. You report in the arrears, you bill clients based on what they used previously, and no one cares about compliance until you receive an audit notification. It’s time to be proactive in this reactionary world.

With over 20 years of experience working with cloud providers in various capacities, one thing they all have in common is the challenges of licensing. For many organizations, they license the same thing month after month, without any data or understanding of why, solely for convenience. When you are audited, there is a typical 3-year lookback period. If you do not understand the licensing requirements, you will be charged a penalty for licenses not reported during that period. That tells me two things: 1) You are out of compliance and will owe a significant unbudgeted expense. 2) You are not charging your customers correctly, either.

For a moment, set aside the compliance risk and consider how long it takes your sales organization to close a deal. Most sales cycles are typically 3-6 months. You spent all that time, resources, and education to land that customer. Fast-forward 3 years, and all along, you have been charging them incorrectly. You are then faced with either telling the customer they owe for those licenses (which is unlikely, as the customer will likely just leave) or you are forced to absorb the costs. That’s why it’s crucial to be proactive before audit time. In addition, this is your opportunity to eliminate risk before it becomes a risk.

How do you become proactive? It’s important to understand what you have installed now. You can do this by running scripts. If you were audited in the past, most auditors provide this script; if not, I have one used for audit purposes that I can send to you. The tool/script is only one side of the story, though. You have to understand how to connect what is installed to the licensing rules. We perform this analysis by creating an Effective License Position (ELP) report. It will show what you should be reporting now and potentially what you would owe if audited based on your SPLA usage report. We can correct the mistakes now and provide education to your customers about their options if for whatever reason what they are doing does not meet the licensing rules (as an example, no software assurance).

What you need is not a tool, what you need is a SAM program to help you create processes and policies now rather than later. Think about this, if you are reporting 100k a month or 5k a month, don’t you want to ensure it is right?

Have a question about this or other topics or would like to review more, please email info@splalicensing.com Together, we can navigate the treacherous waters called Microsoft licensing.

Thanks for reading,

SPLA Man