Best of Consulting Mittelstand 2023

Success story for the Best of Consulting Award 2023

Putting a sensible stop to the multitude of new software applications is often a difficult endeavour. High expected profits often stand in the way of the challenges of translating them into business cases for the respective products - in this case, Intero Consulting was able to save a large telecommunications company costs in the mid double-digit millions with a new software portfolio management system.

The requirements for the project were as follows:

The number of suppliers and products had to be reduced and a strategic focus was to be placed on selected partners with standardised products.We had to analyse the software portfolio in order to optimise software expenditure.Data quality had to be improved.It was important to implement governance structures to ensure better control of requests and to clear the portfolio of superfluous software.
 

In order to implement this accordingly, we faced a number of challenges:

There was a lack of qualified queries regarding requirements for new products and alternative proposals in the existing demand process.There was no review of software products already included with regard to more cost-effective alternatives or cost-saving potential.Existing classification criteria for software were not suitable for supporting the analyses with regard to cost optimisation.The central role of the licence manager vis-à-vis the users was purely a service function; questioning requirements was not included.

In order to achieve our savings targets, the customer decided together with us in favour of dedicated cost management within Software Asset Management. To this end, we focussed on two main measures:

However, there were also some difficulties during the project. Internal factors within the Group made the implementation of portfolio cleaning and the introduction of a software portfolio manager more difficult. Long contract terms with software suppliers worsened our negotiating position, while low data quality hindered our analyses. Intensive change management was also necessary in order to overcome the low cost awareness in the area of IT software costs.

The project has led to annual savings in the double-digit million range from 2023. We were able to identify four key measures that contributed to these savings:

1. Introduction of demand management and the role of a software portfolio manager.
2. Switching to alternative solutions and handing over maintenance and support to a third-party provider, which reduced maintenance costs by approx. 65 percent.
3. Software portfolio cleaning with analysis of approx. 800 contracts.
4. Bottom-up analysis of supplier results and benchmarking for a medium-term supplier strategy. 

In the long term, this enabled a sustainable improvement in cost governance in the software area, with savings in the mid double-digit million range over a three-year period.

The key to this success was the use of specialist expertise in licence management, the design and implementation of management processes as well as the methodology and operational support in the area of software cost reduction. Skilful communication in stakeholder management, the development of software portfolio management and the introduction of a new software demand process rounded off our consulting services.

Our client was highly satisfied with the very successful completion of the project, the specialist knowledge on the subject and the smooth cooperation with Intero Consulting employees from their Competence Centres Purchasing, IT Control and IT Financial Management. This contributes to our client recommending us as experts to other companies.

In the long term, this has led to a sustainable improvement in cost governance at Intero Consulting.

We at Intero Consulting are very proud of this project and have therefore submitted it to WirtschaftsWoche for the Best of Consulting Award 2023. We want to build on our success from last year, when we won second place in the Best of Consulting Awards 2022 and the SAMS Jury Prize with the previous project. We are looking forward to the result and to more exciting projects in the future!

If you would like to find out more about the project or are looking to make cost savings in the software sector yourself, contact us today!