Barclays Capital has successfully married a tradition of Investment Banking excellence and responsive customer service to a forceful talent for innovation and deal making in new markets. BarCap has pioneered new markets in investment banking, fixed-income sales, research and trading, investment management, private equity, and private banking. This expansion led BarCap to expand its IT infrastructure to support its complex business operations.

It was in this context that Barclays Capital’s Director of Information Technology approached Commerce Planner. He and his team were facing an Oracle renewal support deadline that threatened to strain their budget as well as involve them in a time-consuming round of fact finding and compliance audits. They understood that he didn’t have the critical information he needed for a clear decision, and he didn’t have the time to immerse himself in Oracle’s complex licensing rules and regulations.

Partnership

With Commerce Planner working as a trusted partner, the negotiations quickly moved in BarCap’s favor. BarcCap was looking at renewal of contract quoted at nearly $6,000,000. Commerce Planner promptly conducted a thorough licensing inventory of BarCap Oracle assets right across the global organization. Commerce Planner also reviewed those assets in the light of BarCap’s real-time needs – past, present and future. As the countdown to signature approached, Commerce Planner was able to offer a plan to restructure Lehman Brothers support agreements that offered an immediate and significant annual saving, with the opportunity to implement further cost reductions in future years. The fee reduction was achieved without compromising any essential component of the Oracle licensing inventory, and the contracts left plenty of room for Barclays Capital to upsize its user base as the need arose. BarCap said:

“Commerce Planner provided us with the information needed to optimize our licenses and deployment strategies. In doing so they simplified the process for us and saved money. The experience, professionalism and positive attitude that the Commerce Planner team brought to the process gave us confidence to make their recommended changes to our contracts. We have continued the partnership with Commerce Planner to ensure we continue to get the best value from our investment in Oracle licenses. We definitely have confidence that the Commerce Planner team provides this service to us on an ongoing basis.”

With Commerce Planner’s help, the team was ready on the day to renew its Oracle contract, in full confidence that it had the best deal available.

• Consolidated picture of Oracle cost of ownership
• Identify opportunities to retire, migrate or reuse licences
• Evaluate manageability and flexibility

Software licensing and maintenance fees are becoming an increasingly large component of IT costs. Licensing models, particularly for enterprise software, arecomplex and not generally well understood.

Further complexity is added over time as various purchases are made, corporations restructure and vendors change their licensing policies. Oracle Corporation has made 16 acquisitions recently which has intensified the need for customers to take control of their enterprise software assets.

The final report includes a set of recommendations on how to re-configure the estate
and purchase optimally in the future.

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• Comprehensive software licensing assessment
• Avoid unexpected spend from non-compliance
• Reduce ongoing costs of ownership
• Design-in flexibility for future needs

The Discovery Licence Audit is a comprehensive software licensing assessment service developed over five years that helps Oracle customers reduce ongoing costs of ownership, avoid unexpected spend from non-compliance and design-in the flexibility they require for their future needs.

Depending on the size and complexity of your Oracle estate, the  Discovery exercise will take between one and three months – elapsed time also varies with the availability of your team to provide information. It will deliver an exact picture of your:

• Licence inventory for all selected Oracle products
• Ongoing support costs and variable discount rates
• Product and licence metric flexibility
• Individual contractual terms
• Current software and product option usage
• Compliance level
• Profile of future needs

The Discovery Licence Audit can be focused on Oracle Technology and/or Applications software.
It can be completed for your entire corporation or for a selection of subsidiaries
or geographies.

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• A detailed licencing plan
• Recommend licencing alternatives

The Discovery Licence Plan addresses your licensing needs by modelling scenarios to optimise the licence estate and minimise cost of ownership. Commerce Planner offers a practical way to ensure that once the usage data is collected our clients maximise the return on any investment made in existing and future Oracle licences. We take into account multiple parameters and offer a way forward that ensures the new commercial framework (licence agreement and OLSA) is both “fit for purpose” and commercially sound.

The final report includes a set of recommendations on how to re-configure the estate and purchase optimally in the future.

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Glenn Edgeworth is the driving force behind creating the vision for Commerce Planner. With more than 20 years of engineering and operations experience, Glenn’s leadership has fostered significant company growth. Today, Commerce Planner has over 50+ clients across Europe and has overseen more than £200 million in Oracle and Microsoft transactions.

Prior to Commerce Planner, Glenn was a principal at Compelsysao, a highly successful European Oracle consulting company with over £200 million in annual revenues. Previously Glenn spent many years living in the US where he worked in senior roles for Oracle, Baan, and IBM, etc. In these roles he developed an extensive knowledge of enterprise software licensing practices both from the software vendor’s point of view but also from the client’s perspective. This has allowed him to successfully advise clients on software license portfolio optimisation.

Peter brings years of Oracle Software Licensing and Audit practice experience to the table. Peter spent 10 years working in the Oracle LMS (License Management Services) organisation. He has extensive direct experience of Oracles licensing management practices.

In his previous roles he has been responsible for conducting Oracle license audits at Oracle clients. In his role at Commerce Planner as “Game Keeper turned Poacher” he is uniquely qualified to help clients gain maximum value while minimising their total cost of ownership.

Mr. Lebrat turned to Commerce Planner, Ltd., the IT Software Licensing specialist, knowing that Commerce Planner had the skills and deep experience to (1) analyse BSkyB’s environment across its multiple divisions; (2) interpret Oracle’s industry leading licensing policies in BSkyB’s best interests; and (3) provide recommendations that would lower costs and yield optimal asset management. In addition, Mr. Lebrat needed flexibility to evolve his Oracle environment as BSkyB’s business changed, with the flexibility of negotiating with Oracle only once.

Working together with BSkyB and Oracle’s UK account team, Commerce Planner conducted an intensive analysis over several weeks. Commerce Planner documented all aspects of BSkyB’s Oracle software licence environment including deployment, license ownership and BSkyB’s strategic plan. Then, working with Commerce Planner, BSkyB was able to negotiate a win-win licencing agreement with Oracle, and provided Mr. Lebrat with a forward looking plan, aligning both his current and future licencing needs. Commerce Planner also provided the strategic recommendations that enhanced BSkyB’s overall cost of Oracle software licencing ownership.

Mr. Lebrat commented on teaming with Commerce Planner: “Preparing to enter into a very large software negotiation with Oracle is a significant undertaking. You have to be fully prepared and be sure you’ve explored all the angles. And having teamed with Commerce Planner, I was able to conduct negotiations with the confidence of a highly informed buyer, and having that peace of mind was key to striking the best agreement with Oracle.”

Sky (has always stood for the best choice of TV available. Depth and breadth of programming in entertainment, news, sports, movies, documentaries and the arts is at the heart of what we do. So is the way we use technology to enhance the viewing experience and make life easier for customers. We’ve led the way with innovations like Sky+ and high definition TV as we keep pushing forward to meet customers’ changing needs.

Commerce Planner, Ltd. (www.commerceplanner.com) specialises in helping clients to negotiate Oracle software licensing and consulting contracts, and to renegotiate existing ones, helping to significantly lower the cost of IT ownership for its 50+ clients located primarily throughout Europe as well as globally. Founded in August 2005, Commerce Planner is privately held.

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Nobody welcomes a software audit by a vendor, with many managers dreading an Oracle audit in particular.   In addition to the risk of being presented with a large bill for unpaid licences, there is the time and cost of conducting the audit itself.
However Oracle has reacted to the recent downturn in new licence revenues by tying to drive revenue out of the installed base. The primary means of revenue generation is a new focus on software licence compliance.

In recent months in the UK Oracle have significantly increased the Licence Management Services Team which will enable them to more than double the number of licence audits performed each year.

The challenges presented by Oracle licencing

Oracle encourages the proliferation of its software by facilitating free download and installation, without licence keys, or other controls. And, until the volume of licences tallies with the volume of software downloaded, Oracle will continue to aggressively pursue licence audits. 
Added to this Oracle’s licencing rules are complicated, exposing companies to the risk of a large, but unexpected bill for unpaid software licences and penalties.  

The likelihood of under- or over-paying

Even in tightly controlled environments, Oracle software licencing can slip out of control.  That is because relatively routine actions can have hidden cost and compliance implications, for example:

• Increasing the number of front end application users can unwittingly increase in licencing requirements.  Once more, it is the number of people with access, rather than the number of simultaneous users allowed that matters.
• Changing the configuration of the server on which the software is run can unwittingly increase licence costs, with different type of server processors carrying different licence requirements.  In this respect it is important to remember that licences are based on the number of virtual, as well as real servers. 

The reality is that your company is as likely to be over-paying Oracle, as under-paying.  Indeed, our experience suggests that it is only a minority of companies that have optimized, or fully reconciled, their oracle licencing.
Concerned about an audit?

So, with oracle licence audits on the rise, it is little wonder that those responsible for licencing and others aspect of software asset management are uneasy.  Motivated by this unease, an increasing number of managers have taken the initiative to actively manage their licencing.
Commerce Planner Oracle Licence Office management services helps managers understand what Oracle Software is installed and in use, ensuring compliance, tackling over-licencing, and reducing unnecessary support charges.
 
On average businesses are paying 30% more than they should be based on their actual requirements. Unfortunately these same businesses are often under licenced and at risk of server financial penalties if they are subject to an Oracle software licence audit.

Commerce Planner Oracle Licence Office

Many businesses have chosen to address this problem by utilising the Commerce Planner Licence Office approach to Oracle software licence management. The Oracle Licence Office offers companies the opportunity to outsource the management of their Oracle software licence portfolio.

The Commerce Planner offering includes:

• A detailed independent audit of existing Oracle software licences and usage
• A review of current and planned future licencing requirements with company management
• A detailed planning processes to ensure compliance and maximize the value from existing licences
• An On-Going Licence Management Office through which all future Oracle Licence requirements are managed

The Commerce Planner Oracle Licence Management Office delivers the following benefits:

• Access to specialist Oracle Licence management domain expertise at a fraction of the cost of developing it in-house or buying it in.
• An on-going software licence management business process ensuring licence compliance and the lowest possible cost of Oracle software licence ownership across the enterprise.