Top SAM Executive Mandates for 2020

Accuracy and Action Towards High Priority Risks

SAM programs make a habit of building excessive overheads compared to the results produced. Combining this with the heavy degree of manual effort required, and time spent navigating enterprise communications to make things happen, little time is left to produce real results that show ROI. Additionally, priorities that are weighted are not always clear or known, resulting in precious resources being directed to lower traction activities. Time is critical, and even more so in 2020.

Clearly identifying the risks, should be a key guiding light for SAM in 2020. Risk examples:

a) A major agreement due end of year.

b) ULA expiry in 24 months (for which you need to position your chess pieces for).

c) General risk of audit (big uptick in 2020).

d) Sub-capacity exposures

e) Pockets of overspend

f) Cloud costs spiraling

The key point, you can only focus on so much, so calibrate your time, energy and resources to what will best benefit your firm in a risk management context.

Results, Results, Results

Similar to what has been already mentioned, results are critical. Sometimes you will have to accept that a process is not perfect, that governance targets are lacking maturity, or that your SAM Tool has data issues or bugs.

Despite what you know of what exists 'under the hood', common sense suggests that results speak and few will remember to do list specifics when you saved a few million on a major agreement. The current economic climate is showing it is harder to earn than ever before, so sharpen the sword towards results and worry less about polishing the armor.

Positioning for Audit Activity Uptick

An unfortunate truth for 2020 is that Software Vendors are increasing audit activity, with speculation abundant that it is related to recouping declining revenues. In addition, it could be argued that the chances of more sympathy, empathy, or flexibility in the event of an audit finding are narrower.

Don't be tricked here into reading the tea-leaves from historical patterns. We are all in new territory. An audit can come in a moments notice and it is simply not worth waiting for the train to come down the tracks, since it always comes eventually. Produce a plan (plan for the worst, hope for the best), prioritize, focus and manage your risks accordingly.

Negotiation Strategy and Execution

Negotiation can work both ways. I have seen it produce miracles, and i have seen it drive false hope that resulted in catastrophe. End of the day, negotiation is a tool you can use, and it can save time and money used in the correct manner, and with the right dominoes falling for you.

Ask yourself where negotiation has been used in the past, and if there are no best practices established around this, or no playbook to guide and streamline the process, it is probably bet you engage with experts who can fine tune your results and take advantage of industry lessons learned.

Data Intelligence

It is no secret that SAM generates a great deal of data. Data quality, data trust, and validation are an ongoing effort that never goes away.

Data intelligence concepts are gaining more traction in SAM. The better the intelligence, the less data gathering and validation required and the more time can be spent on actions and execution.

However there are many factors that dilute pillars that drive data intelligence. Identify fundamentals that are specific to you such as data timing and integration quality, and focus on keystone activities that drive enablement yield. Identify root causes to your data challenges. Remove obstacles that prevent data intelligence from taking shape. If you are consuming data from your organization but not enabled to fix issues at the source, turn your SAM platform into the producer and force others to consume, and instill a cross enterprise framework to promote distributed accountability.

What also comes from strong data intelligence? Machine learning, Artificial Intelligence, and next generation automation such as RPA. Now we are making SAM seriously exciting.

Automation and Technology improvements

The dawn of the SAM automation revolution is here. There are many approaches and means to improving automation, with most of the approaches actually being available for some time within other areas of computing. However the dynamic pace of IT can instill fear of automation becoming a high maintenance cost or simply becoming quickly redundant, limiting appetite for executive investment. However the trick is in making automation robust.

I once visited a Client who we originally had developed an entitlement based integration for, and it has run for five years, without a single error. It seamlessly managed and resolved data exceptions that a human would typically have had to get involve in also, and that functionality increased our time to develop by 40% - but was clearly justified through the long term performance return. Don't take shortcuts within your SAM tool ecosystem, take the time to think things through - it will almost certainly reduce your TCO.

Robotic Process Automation is primed for a serious impact within SAM. Overcome integration barriers, workflow limitations, intra-platform communication or system health checks. Tackle data quality issues. Tackle skill shortage or resource availability issues (common SAM theme). Scale up and scale down quickly with bots. SAM is a world of logic, and with that logic coupled with RPA you can get creative and produce amazing results.

Are you currently outsourcing a very expensive SAM service to a large consulting firm? Here a statistic and a prediction. Mature RPA can reduce that cost by over 60%. This is not a myth, this is starting to happen now - and the capabilities exist to make it happen. Multi cloud strategy burdening your staff and revealing complexity to manage? RPA can greatly assist here too and even reduce human interaction with sensitive systems and data, or reduce training and education demands for many areas and activities.

Bite sized RPA and automation efforts today will elevate your results for 2020 and allow you to combat resource challenges, and simply cover more ground with less time.

Contact Enstarla if would like to dive deeper into any aspect of this discussion.