CUSTOMER CASE STUDY

Enabling Efficient, Effective

Software License Management at

Lane Construction

BACKGROUND Lane Construction specializes in transportation projects, providing expert

construction of highways and bridges, locks and dams, mass transit systems,

airport runways, aprons, and taxiways.

A complex IT infrastructure, made up of numerous geographically-dispersed PCs,

as well as several expensive and highly sophisticated software packages, made it

hard for the organization’s IT department to stay on top of software license

management activities, and to keep track of assets and their locations at all times.

CHALLENGES To ensure efficient planning and execution of its projects, Lane maintains a

complex technology environment that includes more than 1,000 PCs used by

everyone from secretaries and engineers in multiple offices across seven US

regions, to field personnel such as equipment operators and job site foremen.

Each region connects to headquarters via Cisco routers and a secure VPN, while

remote workers access regional offices using cellular cards, Internet connections,

and a VPN. Installed on many of these computers are several specialized

engineering software applications such as HeavyBid and AutoCAD, as well as

packages for job estimating and project management.

Although the Lane IT team was mandated with optimizing technology performance

to facilitate continuous communication flow across the business, the intricacy of

the environment made it quite a challenge to do so. Additionally, many software

purchases were handled by the individual offices, so volume discounts were not

always leveraged. This lack of centralized control also made it difficult for the IT

department to adequately support users and enforce corporate standards.

SOLUTION Unhappy with the support they were receiving for their existing IT asset

“SAManage gives us

everything we need

to manage our

software

applications from

end-to-end. We

have full visibility

into what we have,

where it is, and who

is using it.”

Brian P. Morgan Software Asset Management Coordinator

“The solution is so

simple to use. In

just 15 minutes, I

was able to learn

how to enter and

track our software

inventory. ”

SAManage is a leading provider of secure, on-demand IT Management services that helps companies manage their PC and software assets, organize software licenses and IT contracts, and detect risks and license compliance gaps. Delivered as an on-demand service with no software or servers required, SAManage empowers companies of all sizes with capabilities that were previously available only to large companies. SAManage is easily deployed across multiple locations within minutes and provides visibility into complex IT infrastructures, making it easy to automate and simplify the daily tasks associated with establishing IT governance, control, and compliance. For more information visit www.samanage.com or call 1-888-250-8971.

management solution – Dell eSmart – as well as its limited end user functionality,

Lane Construction began investigating other alternatives. For example, Lane staff

members were unable to put information into the system themselves. Instead,

they were forced to rely on eSmart representatives to enter the data for them – a

process that often took longer than ideal.

“What we really needed was an effective and affordable way to keep track of our

software licenses, and an improved ability to monitor our computers, which tend

to move around frequently as our workers move from one location to another,”

said Brian P. Morgan, Lane’s Software Asset Management Coordinator.

SAManage was selected to help centralize and streamline software license

management and other IT activities. The powerful on-demand IT asset

management service is helping Morgan and his team store important licensing

information, such as purchase details and physical copies of contracts, so they can

better track how those licenses are allocated and utilized across the business.

BENEFITS Within just a few short weeks of using SAManage, the advantages became obvious.

Benefits achieved so far include enhanced productivity and improved

management of software assets through better coordination and centralization.

“The solution is so simple to use,” added Morgan. “In just 15 minutes, I was able to

learn how to enter and track our software inventory.”

“We have so many more features at our disposal than we did with eSmart,” he

continues. “This makes us so much more efficient when it comes to managing our

software assets. For example, we have just completed our audit of Adobe Acrobat

and AutoCAD licenses across the company. This would have been a hassle with

eSmart, but with SAManage, it has been fast and easy. “

“SAManage gives us everything we need to manage our software applications from

end-to-end. We have full visibility into what we have, where it is, and who is using

it. All the capabilities we need to effectively control and track our software

inventory are right at our fingertips. “

“The integrated Help Desk, which we will begin using soon, is a significant added

bonus,” Morgan concludes. “Until now, we had no centralized system for

supporting our end users, it was all done via email and phone calls. The SAManage

Help Desk will allow us to provide better service, while increasing the productivity

of our support staff.”