Australian Insurance Holdings (AIH) has implemented an asset management system to track software licenses and manage auditing requirements across 300 workstations.
Part of the Budget Insurance group of companies and trading locally as Budget Direct, Australian Insurance Holdings (AIH) issues over 5000 motor vehicle insurance polices to Australian motorists every week.
Internationally, the group administers over 2.5 million policies.
Faced with a burgeoning software suite deployed across 300 of its workstations, AIH needed greater licensing visibility to extract maximum value from its program suite, and to identify licenses that were not being utilised.
After evaluating a number of solutions deployed on thirty workstations throughout its IT department, AIH selected Centennial Software's asset management solution, Discovery.
AIH technical services manager, David Armstrong, said the software was selected for ease-of-use, appropriate functionality, and because it was a best of breed solution.
"While a few of the other solutions we evaluated were capable of producing similar results in regards to software licence deployments, they also did a lot of other things as well," he said.
"Regardless of what extra features they have, even if you don't use that additional functionality, you still pay for it."
Armstrong said Discovery is providing the organization with a lot of good information, even down to how many random access memory (RAM) slots are available on certain PCs.
"Having greater visibility across the network has enabled us to extract greater value for our licensing arrangements, with idle licenses able to be either consolidated or reassigned to another active user," he said.
"Previously, purchased software would be manually logged on a software service report via a spreadsheet, and assigned to a workstation and tracked from there.
"Now, all this information can be turned around into reports in a matter of minutes, not weeks, at the click of a button."
Smartpath, a Centennial Software partner, was on-hand during the initial implementation to provide introductory training and ensure a smooth integration.
The service also includes a post implementation review, to ensure maximum value is being derived from the roll-out.
Smartpath business development manager, Leanne Cluley, said installation is quick so initial feedback is streamlined back into the system quickly.
The Budget Insurance group of companies administers more than 2 million policies and $1 billion in premium.