Shelfware – The CIO’s Missing Key Metric and Cost Cutting Imperative

How many CIOs have shelfware as a target for improvement on scorecards, identified as a cost and leakage from their operations? Or indeed the reciprocal – software consumption, potentially phrased as utilization?

At any point in time IT operations may be running with 25% plus of software going unused.

Gartner coined the phrase Shelfware as a Service in 2008. Transformation of software from on premises models to the cloud has done little if anything to enable greater consumption or value alignment between applications licensed and utilized.

Consider the degree to which publishers require commitments to volumes, but allow no credit for volumes, capabilities or components unused. Bundles remain widely used as a means of completing sales, whilst consumption billing whilst present in cases remains a minority approach. Add, also, the higher comparative cost of subscriptions than their prior software maintenance fees, thus unit costs of shelfware have also increased.

Cost Cutting Economic Imperative

Within ordinary business activity there’s cause to be concerned about shelfware or under consumption. Factor in now extensive reduction in software user numbers as unfortunately through COVID-19 impacts roles are being made redundant in significant volumes. Whilst vast numbers of organizations have taken dramatic steps to reduce staffing costs, to what degree can CIOs expect their functions to eliminate aligned software costs?

Without Software Asset Management (SAM) discipline, telemetry and transparency of usage, steps to manage out costs will be challenged to execute upon. Leavers management processes, data archiving and license harvesting are foundational to managing out a dramatic degree of arising shelfware and realising software application cost saving. See Software Asset Management for the Cloud: Consumption Management and Optimization Take Center Stage

Quality data, roles and responsibilities are core to the equation of addressing shelfware. Organizations that have invested in SAM will be rewarded with clarity.

The means to realize cost saving are a subject of contract terms and timing.

Across the range of software contracts in any enterprise there may be a variation in the capability to eliminate shelfware from contract costs mid-term or even at renewal. Some of these variables are a factor of cost caps and relativity, whereby the opposing clauses to price caps are a limitation on the capacity to true down – typical examples include ERP and CRM contracts.

In other scenarios the capacity to reduce may be realizable annually. Last week we published new research which focused on this mechanism within Microsoft EAs. Organizations with an in flight Microsoft EA may have an anniversary imminent and aligned with the fiscal year end. If so a window of opportunity to true down may exist, but, will close 30 days ahead of the anniversary date!

The Microsoft EA example is one which provides a cost reduction realization opportunity from minimizing shelfware. Other examples may exist and warrant investigation to establish targets for prioritization.

Gartner resources addressing shelfware

• 3 Best Practices to Avoid Costly Shelfware in Your SaaS Deal
• How to Cut Costs in Microsoft Enterprise Agreements When Your Organization Is Disrupted
• Software Asset Management for the Cloud: Consumption Management and Optimization Take Center Stage
• Shelfware as a Service: Paying for Unused SaaS Subscriptions
• Shelfware Is Stealing Your Budget: Spot It and Stop It
• Address Shelfware and Reduce Software Maintenance Costs by Up to 50% With These Often-Overlooked Best Practices
• How to Cut Software and SaaS Costs and Quickly Improve Cash Flow in Times of Crisis
• COVID-19-Induced Downturn Will Disrupt SaaS Pricing Models