Based in Hasselt in the Overijssel province of the Netherlands, the Schagen Group works on the future every day. How? By building and maintaining top quality infrastructure and real estate. Like any company of a certain size, the Schagen Group depends on its hardware and software. But software manufacturers now strictly check whether their software is being used in accordance with the terms of use. Non-compliance with these conditions incurs a fine. Peter Uitslag, Head of the ICT department: “These terms of use are quite complex and constantly changing. I got to a point where I could no longer keep up with them. That’s when I knew it was time to call in a specialist.”
Non-compliance is not an option
Compliance – demonstrating that the software is being used compliantly – is an important task for any business organization. If you take out a business license, the number of licenses is digitally registered so automatically clearing the first hurdle towards compliance. As the Schagen Group grew, it decided to switch to this option. Peter: “But even so Microsoft still checks up on us: do we have enough licenses for the number of employees, for example? I spent something like 80 hours getting to grips with licensing with the risk that I still wouldn’t get it right. What we needed was someone who could analyze and monitor our software use. That’s why I called Peter van Uden from Quexcel.”
A huge relief
One of Quexcel’s services is managed Software Asset Management (SAM). The Quexcel service consists of three parts: (1) determining extent of compliance with the small print of the software licenses, (2) the balance between use and licenses and (3) practical matters such as: is the security still up-to-date, for which software is the support coming up for expiry? are there any ‘dormant’ user accounts? Peter: “When I heard this, I was convinced pretty quickly and here we are six years later. We already had an internal tool to cover part (3), but are glad to use services (1) and (2). In the beginning, Quexcel had to clear a lot of dead wood, but within a year we had everything in order. A big weight off my shoulders.
With SAM, our license status is monitored 24/7. That’s why we get together with Quexcel every quarter to evaluate and agree actions. Another plus point is that we have separated advice and purchase. As a result, I can trust that the advice from Quexcel is independent.”
We now have a rock solid basis
“As in almost every organization, Outlook, Word and Excel form the basis of our work. It simply must work well. The annoying thing is: just when you get your environment stable on a licensing model, Microsoft comes along with a new licensing model. Fortunately, Quexcel is always timely with such news and advice. I really appreciate Peter van Uden and his team as experts on Microsoft licensing. If Microsoft comes over here and we show that we use Quexcel’s managed SAM service, you can see them thinking: then it’s probably all right. And that’s good enough me.”