ServiceNow buys into SaaS licensing to drive digitisation
The cloud-based service management company has extended its reach in IT asset management to help businesses optimise cloud subscriptions
ServiceNow has agreed to acquire software as a service (SaaS) management company VendorHawk to help businesses licence software more cost-effectively.
According to ServiceNow, vast amounts of a company’s IT budget is being lost due to under-utilised software.
CIOs spend time worrying about minimising risk from software compliance audits, ServiceNow said.
Farrell Hough, general manager, ServiceNow, said: “Having a real-time view of all software assets is critical for our customers to consciously rationalise and optimise software spend as they digitally transform.”
The company hopes the acquisition will enable it to offer businesses the ability to manage on-premise and SaaS assets as they modernise their software infrastructure to support digital transformation initiatives.
With the growing momentum of cloud software, SaaS subscriptions can rapidly inundate an organisation, often bypassing a company’s IT organisation. According to ServiceNow, VendorHawk cloud-based licensing tools are designed to help customers discover, rationalise and optimise SaaS subscriptions across their organisation.
“Adding VendorHawk’s capabilities to our software asset management service strengthens ServiceNow’s unique value, bringing together essential capabilities into a single, comprehensive platform that greatly improves efficiency while still supporting the employee experience.”
Read more about IT asset management
- The updated ISO standard 19770-1:2017 offers IT managers a way to bring their hardware and software assets under a single management standard.
- For asset tracking, software as a service is no different from any other type of software licensing – but the process of software asset management needs adapting.
The addition of VendorHawk’s deep expertise in managing SaaS usage and redundancy enhances the current ServiceNow software asset management offering and brings new capabilities in SaaS spend and supplier management. VendorHawk will be added to the Now Platform and offered as part of a ServiceNow Software Asset Management release in 2019,” said Hough.
The acquisition announcement was made as the company reported its first quarter of 2018 results. Overall subscription revenues grew 40% year-on-year, for Q1 2018, boosting revenue to $543.3m.
John Donahoe, ServiceNow president and chief executive officer, said: “Our performance was strong worldwide. We are driving digital transformation for our customers, enabling great employee and customer experiences that make it easier to get work done and deliver better business outcomes.”
