ISVs have experienced huge challenges over the past 18 months and in many cases have had to re-evaluate core processes in their business to adapt to changing circumstances. This is particularly true with regard to Licensing of your Software Applications and how this can impact customer relations.

Companies that had implemented flexible, customer-centric licensing processes were able to provide seamless service to their customers to enable large volumes of licence transfers, re-allocations, and re-assignments to support flexible working. Those with older, more unwieldy systems were not, and their relationships with their customers will suffer as a result.

In the past, Licensing was seen simply as a negative, protective measure for the ISV to secure IP and guard against application misuse. That is certainly one aspect, but Smart Licensing can also be a business enabler, particularly if the focus is customer-centric and allows maximum flexibility for end-users.

Unfortunately, many legacy Licensing Software systems are good at the first challenge of protecting the IP of the ISV but don’t support flexible business models like subscription or feature packs and are not designed to ease interactions with customers. In many cases, they are an impediment to doing business and account for a significant percentage of support issues.

The combination of the challenges raised by the pandemic coupled with recent trends towards hybrid deployment models is undoubtedly a catalyst for ISVs to look again at how they can provide a customer-centric process for Licence and Entitlements Management and at the same time improve customer service, reduce costs, and increase revenues.

Whatever your deployment model – SaaS, On-Premise, Hybrid, etc. you will need to strike a balance between controlling how your software is used while at the same time making it easier for customers to buy from you and easily manage how your software is distributed across the workforce.    

Chances are that your existing systems are not geared up for this so now is the time to re-evaluate your options and improve your relationship with your customers.

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