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A new report has exposed the alarming figure companies waste each year on unused software licenses.
Six million customers surveyed across nine industries in twelve regions. Nextthink (opens in new tab) looked at over 30 popular software tools and found that 50% of all licenses were unused.
The cost of the unused licenses alone would cost the companies $45 million each month, equating to nearly $537 million in wasted software each year.
Unused Software Licenses
What’s worse, the figure could be even higher, because the estimate only takes into account the average cost for the licenses, which may not account for higher tiers that some companies opt for.
Among the most expired licenses were Tableau, TrelloNotion app, Spotfire and Blue jeans.
On the other end of the spectrum, limp, teams, Zoom, WebexAnd Asana were all actively used, suggesting that communication, video conferencingand work management platforms remain critical to business operations.
A separate poll of 200 IT leaders found that only 5.5% of them claimed to have “full understanding” of how many of their employees were actively using licensed software, further suggesting that companies are out of touch with their employees’ habits.
To reduce the huge unnecessary spend, Nexthink says companies should conduct regular software usage audits, which can help them negotiate more favorable contracts and terms in the future.
Companies are also being urged to move away from the “one size fits all” approach, where employees often get overwhelmed hardware and an overabundance of unnecessary software, leaving others without the resources they need.
Finally, companies should also consider collecting qualitative data in addition to the quantitative data that support their license usage. It is possible that employees find certain tools extra useful from time to time, but that is not apparent from the figures.
Whatever situation your company is in, given the tough outlook ahead, cutting back on your software bills can help you weather the storm and protect employee roles as well.
