Cut Down Purchasing Costs

Optimize and Reduce Internal Effort

Consolidate Functionally-Identical Software

COMPAREX Portfolio Management

PlatformFOR LICENSE PURCHASERS

BEST PRACTICES SOFTWARE ZOO

*You can use your own inventory tool with the Portfolio Management Platform if we support it. Many customers

decide to completely switch to the COMPAREX Inventory, however, because their existing tool does not deliver all the

data they need and tends to be much more expensive.

COMPAREX Portfolio Management Platform Consolidate Functionally-Identical Software and Reduce Your Purchasing Costs

Are you interested in saving up to 30% of costs through software consolidation? Make it happen the easy way: The

COMPAREX Portfolio Management Platform, in combination with COMPAREX Software Portfolio Management, offers

the necessary insight into functionally identical software at your company. Through our ongoing service, you are regularly

provided with clear information on nearly every piece of software available at your company (even your proprietary de-

velopments, if you choose), which helps you to consolidate your functionally identical software for the greatest impact.

1. Qualification of Your Data

At the core of every software consolidation effort (and thus cost reduction), is highly qualified software data. To

accomplish this, COMPAREX Portfolio Management Platform is comprised of a COMPAREX Dashboard, the COMPAREX

Inventory and the COMPAREX Profiler. The Inventory* (or your existing one) automatically scans all the available technical

software data at your company for more than 14,000 vendors and 900,000 fingerprints.

The COMPAREX Profiler then increases the quality of this raw data. This is a necessary step, as the raw data alone

supplies many data records, several of which cumulatively provide only the information on a software product. The powerful

COMPAREX Profiler service, which automatically detects new programs and in-house developments, forms the basis

for deep software analysis. The COMPAREX Intelligence Team – a qualified COMPAREX service team – closes any gaps

in knowledge through extensive research. As you can imagine, qualifying the software data is a time consuming and

demanding job. If you want to identify a software like Microsoft Office, for example, you may find up to 120 different

data records that all refer to Microsoft Office. The information comes from many different sources, for example from the

registry of the Unistall, out of meta-data from files, out of SWID Tags or metering information. We simplify these 120

data records to just one.

COMPAREX Portfolio Management Platform This picture illustrates the three parts of

the Portfolio Management Platform:

Profiler, COMPAREX Intelligence and the

COMPAREX Dashboard.

COMPAREX. By Your Side in a Digital World.

Best Practice – COMPAREX Portfolio Management Platform

2. The unique functionality comparison

After qualifying your software data, it is displayed on a dashboard in a clear and easy-to-understand manner. Altogether,

17 categories with more than 480 functions are available for data analysis at the push of a button (like PDF writer, games,

online storage, peer to peer networks, virus scanner etc.).

The ability to reduce your many different software programs is based on analysis of functionality comparison.

Our breadth of information allows you to compare products across vendors. This feature is still unique in the market, as

COMPAREX has information on the functional capabilities of every software product.

It enables you, as a license purchaser, to say:

You can use the following report to increase your purchasing volumes for software licenses and secure better procure-

ment prices.

This report allows you to compare the selected software program with all others within your environment or the global

Profiler catalog. The result is a comparison of all other software that provides similar or the same functions, such as a PDF

reader or PDF writer. Green is a supported function, Red is a not supported function and Blue is an additional function.

The result shows you the percent match so you can decide which software could be replaced by another (e.g. cheaper

software).

Best Practice – COMPAREX Portfolio Management Platform

www.comparex.com/zoo

„I researched a certain software and am now comparing it to what we

have in our environment. This will give me a list of all the products with

matching functions, enabling me to carry out the consolidation.“

3. Quick Wins – Customer Examples

With a software information service such as the COMPAREX Portfolio Management Platform, you are able to identify and

replace functionally identical software for yourself. You and your team can work with the Portfolio Management Platform

as a self-service and reduce purchasing and transaction costs.

Step by step, you can discover for yourself how to save money. You will see significant "quick wins" when you start to

optimize your software portfolio. For example, most of our customers have a lot of functionally identical software from

many different vendors, for example 72 different vendors for security programs or 27 PDF products and multiple graphic

programs, which you can clearly reduce. Here are some actual customer examples:

The following examples show how many vendors for PDF software one of our customers had before consolidation.

See here the huge number of vendors and functions in the category communication of another customer.

COMPAREX. By Your Side in a Digital World.

Best Practice – COMPAREX Portfolio Management Platform

If you want to start consolidating on your own, don´t forget to check procedural questions, for example if there is an

existing governance in your company to which you must adhere. It is imperative that you understand your

organization works before starting to consolidate.

4. Long Term Effects

The Portfolio Management Platform also helps you when it comes time to purchase new software. As a licensing pur-

chaser, responsible for software procurement, you are able to compare the planned software with your existing IT

landscape. Should you already have software with similar functions, you can compare whether your existing software is

more cost effective, since there may already be a framework agreement for it and you could negotiate better costs with

a higher purchasing volume. The COMPAREX Portfolio Management Platform also enables you to view new products

which the IT department or another specialist department would like to acquire. You will likely find this software in the

COMPAREX Profiler catalog, which allows you to check whether the new software has the desired functionality.

With COMPAREX Software Portfolio Management Platform, you can prevent a software zoo from ever beginning.

Under normal circumstances, software must be purchased in order to be used, and oftentimes your only argument

against purchasing is based on cost. Now you can dig deeper into the technical aspects of the software, such as its

functionalities, and this knowledge allows you to discuss software purchases on an even playing field. The more software

that has been ordered indiscriminately in the past, the more opportunity you have to now keep a handle on software

procurement. You are now able to show them that you may have an alternative that is much more cost effective and you

can have a dialogue with them about why the existing product is not sufficient.

An actual consolidation example for long-term cost reduction Let us have a look at another real customer scenario. We started with a Proof of Value, showing the customer some quick

wins. Within a single year, we have consolidated the number of vendors from 28 to eight. That means that we were

able to reduce his software costs by 20% by setting up new three-year contracts for the remaining eight vendors, which

translates to a 1.65 Mio Euro savings over three years.

Best Practice – COMPAREX Portfolio Management Platform

www.comparex.com/zoo

The constantly growing COMPAREX Profiler catalog includes more than 14,000 vendors with over 900,000 releases!

CONTACT

Winfried MetzgerHead of Presales Portfolio Management Platform

Blochstr. 1 · 04329 Leipzig · Germanyphone: +49 341 2568 2307email: info@comparex.comweb: www.comparex.com/zoo

COMPAREX Headquarters

Why COMPAREX?

COMPAREX Portfolio Management Platform, consisting of the COMPAREX Inventory, the COMPAREX Profiler and the

COMPAREX Dashboard helps you to gain a detailed overview of your installed software. This is the basis for all of your

consolidation activities and allows you to quickly see wins. Additionally, COMPAREX supports you in making further

optimizations. As Software Portfolio Management is our core business, we will help you see more success in consolidating

software with overlapping functions.

With 200 Solution Advisors and 300 Software Asset Management Consultants worldwide, we support you in operating

holistic Software Portfolio Management. We help you to analyze your optimization potential, advise you on the best

ways to consolidate, and how to prioritize as well as support your implementation. A great advantage of having our

team on your side is that we also selectively check your contracts to ensure you are making the most of your optimization

potential.

Best Practice – COMPAREX Portfolio Management Platform

Do you want to know more about how to consolidate functionally identical software & reduce your purchasing costs?

Visit www.comparex.com/zoo