Management of Software Assets : Challenges in Large Organizations

Sammanfattning: This thesis is a study about the difficulties managing software assets within larger organizations.Software Asset Management (SAM) is a fairly new practice which has started to be used byorganizations in order to track and manage software assets throughout their life cycle. Existingliterature states that organizations have challenges with the increasing complexity, which comesalong when buying software products from manufacturers. However, the lack of academicresearch, due to the rapid development of technology has been limited. The purpose of this paperis to explore the challenges that large organizations are confronted with when managing softwareassets. A mixed study approach was conducted with main focus on a qualitative approach,where five persons with mainly long experience in Software Asset Management, whereinterviewed. In addition, a survey was sent out to employees who work with IT, to capture ageneral aspect on the topic. The findings of the study include the identified challenges of SAM,which are divided in four main areas. Further, the paper highlights the importance and success ofSoftware Asset Management.