Partner Profile: Cortex Consulting

Area of Focus/ Specialism(s):

Contracts and licensing of datacentre software vendors, including all of the big ones, and SAM policies and processes to support their management.

What is the biggest change youÂ’ve seen in SAM since you started in this discipline?

The shift in focus to cost savings as opposed to simple compliance and the end user community becoming much wiser to the tactics of major vendors. WeÂ’re starting to see end users becoming more willing to shift technologies than allow themselves to be bullied by software vendors.

What gives you the greatest satisfaction about being in SAM?

Being able to help my clients save money on their IT costs long term by optimising their licensing and showing them how to govern that spend more effectively in future; watching a vendor or auditor visibly deflate because youÂ’ve shown their findings to be inaccurate always gives me a sense of perverse pleasure!

If you could change one aspect of SAM, what would it be?

Less so SAM itself, more changing the attitude towards it as a business practice. IÂ’ve worked with so many clients where the folks working at the coalface struggle because the executives donÂ’t allocate the budget and / or resources to undertake the practice properly. This is largely because itÂ’s not regarded as a business-critical practice like, for example, change and incident management. ItÂ’s a matter of education and it would help to see ITIL include ITAM in its proper place in their framework.