George Cox, Director General of the IoD (Institute of Directors) says:

"The role and importance of externally acquired software has changed dramatically in recent years, to the point now where it has to be regarded as a business asset and managed as such. Software asset management has become an imperative, not an option. Software licenses are business assets. Without them, directors expose their business and themselves to constraints and to legal and financial risk."

The Director General's views show how seriously software asset management is taken today at the highest levels. But, whereas Mr Cox sees it as an essential pre-requisite to good corporate governance, software asset management should have greater impact on your business as the Office for Government Commerce's definition demonstrates:

"Software asset management is all of the infrastructure and processes necessary for the effective management, control and protection of the software assets within an organisation, throughout all stages of their lifecycle."

Viewed in this context, software asset management has far reaching implications for your business. For the sake of simplicity, you can place the issues addressed in software asset management into two broad categories: Business best practice and Legal requirements.