Software License Management and Optimization

Maximize software value: Intelligent license management and cost optimization

Is your organization overspending on software licenses? Wasted IT spend can average 20-30%, money that could fuel innovation. Traditional inventory tools and spreadsheets lack the deep usage insights needed to truly optimize. Flexera provides intelligent license management, leveraging comprehensive product use rights and verified usage metering to help you cut costs and maximize value across end-user, SaaS, datacenter and cloud software.

Leverage technology intelligence to remove license waste and reduce application sprawl

Software Asset Management

Simplify license management for complex enterprise applications

Enterprise application licensing is very complex. Without proper visibility, it’s hard to understand if licenses are configured correctly to optimize spend or if features (such as Oracle Management Packs and Database Options) are enabled but not being used. To save time and simplify the complex, leverage a product use rights library that automatically optimizes your software portfolio by applying product use rights such as upgrade, downgrade, second use, non-production, active/passive cluster, virtual and hybrid use rights.

Application rationalization

Reduce costs and complexity from application sprawl

Stop renewing applications that aren’t providing your organization value. Spreadsheets and legacy inventory tools won’t help you find redundant applications across your distributed organization. Instead, you need one source of truth that normalizes inventory data, provides product usage insights and enriches application titles with curated categories for all applications (on-premises, SaaS, cloud) used throughout your organization.

SaaS spend management

Identify known and unknown SaaS usage

Over the past five years, SaaS application spend has doubled, but organizations aren’t governing SaaS usage to reign in sprawl and risk. To effectively manage SaaS spend and identify risk, you need a solution that identifies the use of known and shadow SaaS applications, such as ChatGPT.

Why software overspending is silently draining your IT budget

Software is a critical business driver, but unmanaged licenses and complex agreements often lead to significant financial waste. From forgotten SaaS subscriptions to misconfigured datacenter licenses, a lack of visibility into actual software usage and entitlements means most organizations are paying for more than they need:

  • Underutilized licenses: Paying for software that employees rarely or never use
  • Redundant applications: Multiple applications performing similar functions across different departments
  • Misunderstanding product use rights (PURs): Not leveraging rights like downgrade, second use or non-production use, leading to over-licensing
  • Auto-renewals of unneeded software: Contracts renewing without a proper assessment of current needs
  • Lack of centralized visibility: No single source of truth for software inventory, usage and entitlements across hybrid IT
  • Accurate license position: Understand what you have, what you're using and what you're entitled to
  • Automated product use rights application: Automatically apply complex PURs to identify optimization opportunities (e.g., leveraging downgrade rights, non-production use)
  • Usage-based optimization: Reclaim and reallocate underutilized licenses based on actual consumption data
  • SaaS spend rationalization: Discover all SaaS usage, identify redundant subscriptions and optimize SaaS licenses
  • Datacenter and cloud optimization: Ensure complex server and cloud licenses are configured for maximum cost-efficiency

Turn insight into action

Optimize every license with Flexera

Flexera empowers you to eliminate waste and ensure every software dollar is well spent. By combining comprehensive discovery with the world's largest product use rights library (Technopedia®) and verified usage metering, we provide the intelligence to optimize licenses from major vendors like Microsoft, IBM, SAP, Oracle and Salesforce, across all environments.

Comprehensive optimization

From desktops to datacenters to cloud

Software licensing complexity isn't confined to one area. Flexera provides the tools to manage and optimize licenses wherever they reside, ensuring consistent governance and cost control.

  • End-user computing: Rightsizing desktop application licenses (e.g., Microsoft 365, Adobe) based on actual employee usage
  • SaaS applications: Gaining control over SaaS sprawl, managing subscriptions and optimizing user assignments
  • Datacenter software: Optimizing complex server licenses (e.g., Oracle, IBM, Microsoft) in physical and virtualized environments
  • Cloud licensing (IaaS/PaaS): Managing bring-your-own-license (BYOL) scenarios and optimizing cloud-native subscription costs
  • Increased budget for innovation: Freeing up 20-30% of software spend to reinvest in strategic initiatives, including AI
  • Reduced audit risk and compliance costs: Maintaining an accurate license position minimizes the likelihood and disruptive impact of vendor audits
  • Improved vendor negotiations: Entering renewal discussions from a position of strength with data-backed insights
  • Streamlined IT operations: Reducing complexity associated with managing multiple, disparate licensing agreements and redundant applications
  • Enhanced IT governance: Ensuring software usage aligns with corporate policies and regulatory requirements

Beyond cost cutting

The strategic value of optimized licensing

While direct cost savings are a primary benefit, strategic software license management and optimization deliver broader advantages that contribute to overall IT and business agility:

The Flexera advantage

Powering intelligent license management

Flexera One integrates market-leading data intelligence with powerful automation to deliver unparalleled software license management and optimization capabilities.

Deep data intelligence

Automated optimization and control

Technopedia®: The industry's largest repository of IT asset data, providing accurate software recognition, normalization and product use rights information Automated license reconciliation: Continuously compare entitlements against inventory and usage to determine your effective license position
Verified usage metering: Track actual software usage to identify underutilized assets and reclaim licenses Product use rights library: Automatically apply complex licensing rules to find savings
Comprehensive vendor coverage: Deep expertise in licensing for top-tier vendors like Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, SAP and Salesforce Application rationalization support: Identify redundant applications to reduce portfolio bloat and costs

With Flexera, you gain the visibility and automation needed to proactively manage licenses, optimize spend and ensure continuous compliance across your entire IT estate.

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Get the full insights

Better data, better results

Optimize with usage and product use rights data

Flexera provides intelligent product use rights and algorithms that optimally configure your licenses to save you money, even for the most complicated software from your strategic vendors like Microsoft, IBM, SAP, Oracle and Salesforce. With verified usage metering, you can identify more opportunities for savings, and cost avoidance across your end-user, datacenter and SaaS applications, as well as applications in public cloud and containerized environments.

Realizing significant savings

A customer success story

Thanks to Flexera, we’ve been able to identify many licenses that we had already procured, which we could reuse for other services from our software vendors. When you consider that we have thousands of licenses, this quickly adds up to a significant cost saving.

SUHAIL GHAI, CHIEF DIGITAL AND INFORMATION OFFICER MAX LIFE INSURANCE

Your software license optimization questions answered

Organizations often realize savings of 20-30% or more on their software spend by implementing robust license management and optimization practices with solutions like Flexera.

Product use rights (PURs) are terms in your license agreements that define how software can be deployed and used (e.g., for non-production, disaster recovery, second use). Leveraging these rights correctly is crucial for avoiding over-licensing and maximizing value.

Flexera has deep, vendor-specific licensing expertise and a comprehensive product use rights library, enabling automated calculation of complex license positions for vendors like Oracle, IBM, Microsoft and SAP, ensuring compliance and identifying savings.

Absolutely. Flexera helps discover all SaaS usage, identify underutilized or redundant subscriptions, and optimize user assignments for SaaS applications, leading to significant cost reductions.

While timelines vary, many Flexera customers begin to identify significant savings opportunities and improve their compliance posture within the first few months of implementing our solutions due to enhanced visibility and automated optimization.

Industry insights to help keep you informed

Informing IT, Transforming IT

Ready to stop overspending and maximize software value?

Take control of your software licenses and unlock significant cost savings. Flexera’s experts are ready to demonstrate how our intelligent solutions can transform your software license management and optimization efforts.