Panasonic case study

At A Glance

Customer: Panasonic Information Systems Company Europe (delivers IT services for the Panasonic Europe Group)

Location: EU, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Russia

Employees: 12,000+

Autonomous structure resulted in complications and high fees

Panasonic is one of the world’s largest developers of technologies and solutions in consumer electronics, automotive and B2B markets. The Panasonic business entities in Europe are part of the global Panasonic Corporation, and they employ more than 12,000 people in the region.

To manage the special IT infrastructure needs of such a large group, the company formed Panasonic Information Systems Company Europe (PISCEU), a division of Panasonic Business Support Europe GmbH.

As a whole, all entities under the Panasonic umbrella have had an autonomous approach to management. While this approach has proven successful for their bottom line, it’s proven a significant challenge for their IT and software asset management groups. Local business units operated independently and maintained records, including software asset records, on their own. They also depended on spreadsheets often submitted by very busy executives.

Even though PISCEU was as thorough as it could be about license compliance in that structure, a high-profile audit resulted in significant unplanned additional fees. With comprehensive audits and external consultants engaged to help the situation at considerable expense, the business units needed a more effective solution.

Ulf Kuetemeyer, senior manager of contracting and procurement, takes up the story: “The fee resulting from the software audit was a wake-up call across businesses of Panasonic in Europe. Over time, we had collected a sprawling mix of server, client, on-premises and cloud subscription software, running on thousands of systems, and our rather manual software asset management processes were not keeping pace. We wanted to reduce the time, effort and cost of software audits, by ensuring compliance and streamlining the software asset management process. How could we encourage the highly independent businesses to release a little of their autonomy in return for a centralized IT service offering that would improve compliance, lower costs and reduce risk?”

Using the new transparency delivered by the Snow Software SAM solution, we have negotiated five new framework agreements with major vendors. We can procure licenses at significant discount, assigning them to the Panasonic companies from a single pool, while ensuring compliance.

Ulf Kuetemeyer, Senior manager of contracting and procurement Panasonic Information Systems Company Europe

The Solution

Meeting functionality requests without compromising data privacy

The central IT Services team from PISCEU reviewed software asset management solutions. Keeping in mind the 12,000 users in separate business units using an array of solutions such as Adobe and Microsoft®, the team focused particularly on the ability to manage both on-premises and cloud subscription assets. The Snow SAM solution was among the top contenders they considered.

Among the features that made the Snow SAM solution stand out was its ability to monitor in-browser software usage. The PISCEU team also favored the Snow Data Intelligence Service (DIS), a vast and continuously updated catalog that includes software from the largest recognition database, which enables discovery by the SAM service.

However, some employers and employees were concerned that web-browser monitoring would collect personal usage data. As a company based in Germany, PISCEU naturally involved its Workers Councils at an early stage in the project. They discussed how the Snow solution collected, stored and shared data without intruding on users’ activities as it enabled full monitoring and management of cloud subscription software used within a web browser.

“We chose the solution because it covers all our functionality requests, from the DIS to the management of both installed and web browser software, without compromising data privacy,” says Ulf Kuetemeyer. “For the first time, if the operating companies agreed to take up the service, we could gain clear visibility of software across the entire estate.”

The Result

Advanced software optimization enables SAM as a service for cost and management efficiencies

The company’s very large Microsoft Office user base offered the first significant opportunity for software optimization. In that first step, they used Snow SAM tools to determine the number of licenses and, based on usage, the appropriate license type for each user.

“With Snow SAM we found we had around 450 people who did not make use of their Microsoft Office license, which alone could lead to a savings of up to a six-digit Euro figure,” remarks Ulf Kuetemeyer.

“The Snow SAM, solution enables complete transparency of software usage, licensing, and deployment. We can optimize the mix of license types, quantity, and allocation based on that knowledge. For large contracts such as Microsoft and Adobe, central IT can buy licenses at volume, and if a local business reduces their user numbers, we take on the risk that we can use those spare licenses within the Panasonic group.”

“In effect,” Ulf continues, “we are offering SAM as a service to the business units, showing how we can provide greater cost efficiency, reduce their risk of fees resulting from audits and optimize their software management.

Using the new transparency that the Snow SAM solution delivers, we have negotiated five new framework agreements with major vendors to procure licenses at a significant discount. The ability for Panasonic companies to return licenses to the pool at any time offers them much greater flexibility, while we gain better visibility of enterprise usage to enable license optimization.”

In addition, the IT services team has the opportunity to centrally rationalize software across the enterprise for the very first time, thanks to the Snow SAM solution. By consolidating to standardized solutions and tools, Panasonic in Europe is reducing complexity, cutting operational costs, and streamlining business processes.

Ulf Kuetemeyer concludes, “As we prove our value with this service model, more Panasonic business units are coming on board, which in turn improves our economies of scale and simultaneously enhances our compliance position. Based on the benefits of our approach, PISCEU plans to extend this solution across the enterprise, helping to further reduce risk, cut costs and optimize operations.”

Microsoft is a registered trademark of the Microsoft Corporation.