Bytes deliver tangible savings and benefits to Oxford City Council through effective software asset management

Overview

With a population of 152,000 residents, Oxford City Council needed to upgrade its desktop and server platforms to ensure that it could run the latest software and applications to ensure the efficient running of all of its departments with their differing requirements. Through the implementation of two Enterprise Agreements, Bytes were able to ensure that OCC was licensed in the most cost effective manner, with the flexibility and agility to cater for their IT roadmap for the future

Challenge

In order to continue to provide a quality service to their citizens and employees, Oxford City Council (OCC) identified the need to run the latest generation of software and applications.

OCC realised that with the continuous development of their software applications, they needed to upgrade their legacy Microsoft desktop and server platforms to the latest editions tokeep pace with the evolving needs of the organisation.

However, following the outsourcing of their IT provisioning to the County Council, OCC had lost the personnel with the licensing knowledge of their IT estate. Therefore, it was important to find a partner who could work with OCC to draw up an accurate picture of the estate and map out next steps

The Bytes Solution

OCC appointed Bytes Software Services (Bytes) to assist with the challenge. Bytes were able to provide valuable assistance by auditing and vetting the software requirements during the discovery phase.

Bytes has a close working relationship with OCC and by leveraging this relationship they were able to gain a definitive understanding of OCC’s Desktop and Server estate along with a clearer understanding of their future software requirements from which to draw up an IT roadmap.

During the final phase of setting up the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement Bytes were able to provide a saving of 15% on the desktop software via an Enterprise Subscription Agreement based on the Enterprise Desktop Platform. A further saving on the Server Licensing was achieved by identifying eligibility for and negotiating a separate Enterprise Agreement for Enrolment for Core Infrastructure Agreement with Microsoft.

The net result of these two Enterprise Agreements ensures that not only is OCC adequately licensed in the most cost effective manner, but also has the flexibility and agility to cater for their IT roadmap for the next five years and beyond

Benefits

The key requirement for OCC was to be confident that it was running the latest generation of applications in order to meet the business objectives of the organisation, whilst also ensuring that their software estate was compliant. Both of these requirements were met and OCC is now running the latest applications, delivering a more efficient service to its users and council clients.

In addition to delivering efficiencies from the new applications, the Bytes team identified significant cost savings for OCC through a restructuring of its Microsoft agreements. In all, OCC saved 20% on its Server Licensing costs and achieved a 15% saving on its Desktop Licensing costs.

By partnering with Bytes the OCC IT team were able to hand over a large work overhead, freeing up their time to concentrate on the actual business needs of the organisation

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