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License
optimization, before
the renewal.

Eliminate shelfware, right-size deployments, and rationalise sprawling portfolios across Oracle, Microsoft, SAP, Salesforce and the wider stack. Most clients recover 20 to 40 percent of annual licence spend before a single line of the renewal paper is opened.

20–40%
Typical savings unlocked
15
Vendors covered
6–12 wk
Typical assessment
100%
Vendor-independent
Overview

Spend less before you negotiate.

Most enterprises buy software the way they manage real estate: they acquire, they expand, and they almost never give anything back. Over a decade, that produces portfolios full of shelfware, over-licensed deployments, duplicate tools, and entitlements no one remembers ordering.

License optimization is the discipline of finding that spend before the renewal arrives. We baseline what you own, measure what you actually consume, and design the smallest defensible footprint that keeps the business running. The result is leverage you can take into the negotiation, not just a smaller bill.

Where this service applies

  • Oracle Database, Middleware and E-Business Suite entitlements.
  • Microsoft 365, Windows, SQL Server and Power Platform licence positions.
  • SAP user classification, indirect access and digital access review.
  • Salesforce, ServiceNow and Workday seat type and edition rationalisation.
  • Adobe, Autodesk, Atlassian and the SaaS long tail.
  • Cloud entitlements: AWS, Azure and Google Cloud unused commit and orphaned resources.

What we don't do

We do not sell SAM tools. We do not resell licences. We do not take vendor commissions. The optimisation work is hands-on, finding-led, and delivered as a defensible position you can take into the vendor conversation.

Vendor scope

Most often Oracle, Microsoft, SAP

The three largest sources of shelfware in most enterprises. We also routinely cover Salesforce, ServiceNow, Adobe and the SaaS long tail where seat sprawl is highest.

Typical duration

6 to 12 weeks

A single-vendor optimisation runs 6 to 8 weeks. Multi-vendor or portfolio-wide reviews run 10 to 12. Output is a defensible licence position and a savings roadmap.

Engagement model

Fixed-fee or success-based

Most optimisation projects run on a fixed fee. Where the scope is harder to define, we structure success-based fees against documented savings. See engagement models →

How we work

Optimization, in six phases.

01

Entitlement baseline

We reconstruct the legal entitlement: every contract, order form, amendment and true-up. Most clients discover they own 10 to 20 percent more than their procurement records reflect — or less than their deployment assumes.

02

Deployment measurement

We measure what is actually deployed and actively used: installations, named users, indirect users, server cores, edition mix and feature usage. This is where most shelfware first becomes visible.

03

Compliance position

We build the defensible compliance position: where you are over-licensed, where you are exposed, and where the vendor's audit playbook would land. This protects you in any future audit conversation.

04

Optimisation scenarios

We model the savings scenarios: harvest unused licences, downgrade editions, retire products, swap to alternative SKUs, restructure the portfolio. Each scenario is quantified in annual run-rate dollars.

05

Internal execution

We work alongside your IT, finance and procurement team to execute the harvest, edition changes, deployment cleanup and process fixes that prevent the sprawl from returning.

06

Renewal handover

The optimised footprint is documented and handed to whoever will run the next renewal — including us, if you choose. The savings are locked in before the vendor sees the new requirement.

What we routinely find

The shelfware that almost always exists.

Pattern 01
Wrong-edition deployments
Enterprise-edition databases running workloads that would run on standard edition. Premium Salesforce seats assigned to read-only users. Visio Plan 2 issued by default.
Pattern 02
Duplicate or overlapping tools
Two ticketing platforms, three monitoring suites, four diagramming tools. Procurement standardisation almost always pays for itself within the first renewal cycle.
Pattern 03
Orphaned and inactive accounts
SaaS subscriptions that survive long after the employee leaves. Power BI Pro licences assigned by default. Admin accounts retained as full named users.
Pattern 04
Indirect and digital access exposure
SAP indirect-access exposure from integrations, RPA bots and downstream apps. Oracle named-user thresholds breached by ESS, MWS and middleware traffic.
Pattern 05
Unused cloud commit
AWS EDP and Azure MCA-E commits drawn down at 60 to 70 percent. Reserved instances mismatched to workload. Idle Snowflake warehouses billing 24x7.
Pattern 06
Bundled SKUs no one uses
Bundles that include features the business never enabled. Suite licences where the cheaper component licence would cover the actual usage. M365 add-ons issued by default.

"We thought our portfolio was lean. They found 28 percent of our annual licence spend was either shelfware, wrong edition, or duplicating another tool we already owned."

Director of IT Asset Management
European Industrial Manufacturer
Outcomes

Recent optimisations.

All case studies

Renewal on the horizon?

The cheapest dollar in any renewal is the one you never spend. Tell us the vendor and the renewal date, and we will tell you what is recoverable.