Software audits remain a major worry for many firms - particularly if you use these companies

Software audits continue to be a major cause for concern among businesses, new research has warned.

Findings from Flexera revealed businesses are particularly concerned about two key issues: the rising costs of audits and the ongoing struggle to maintain visibility into their technology assets.

Alarmingly, more than half (53%) of IT teams are grappling with achieving full visibility of their technology investments, leading to a host of issues including increased expenditures, higher cybersecurity risks, reduced IT service management data quality and potentially slower growth.

Businesses are struggling with so much software

“CIOs should be alarmed that 53% of IT teams lack complete visibility into technology assets,” noted Flexera Chief Product Officer Becky Trevino. “One of the root causes of this visibility gap is siloed teams and systems.”

The financial impact of software audits is particularly troubling – nearly a quarter (22%) of global IT leaders reported paying more than $5 million in audit costs over the past three years, representing a 15% year-on-year increase. The number of companies spending more than $10 million had nearly doubled, from 7% last year to 12% in Flexera’s latest study.

However, despite the increase in auditing activities, companies are still wasting between 20% and 30% of their IT spending. Advanced ITAM practitioners self-estimated 30% wasted spend on desktop software, 22% on data center software, 21% on infrastructure/platform-as-a-service, and 20% on software-as-a-service.

Half (50%) of respondents claimed that Microsoft had audited their organization in the past three years, with IBM (42%), Oracle (31%), SAP (30%), Salesforce (25%), Adobe (24%) and ServiceNow (20%) also intensifying their efforts.

Looking ahead, Flexera highlighted the reuse of licenses, vendor contract negotiation, reduced maintenance spend on unused software, cheaper license options, Bring Your Own License and audit compliance as key areas that can be strengthened to optimize cost efficiency.