Blogs

A best practice guide for IT procurement professionals

October 13 2020

IT procurement professionals face increased pressure to deliver efficiencies and cost-savings as businesses assess their finances amidst evolving demands.Finding innovative ways to deliver value back to the business and gain the competitive edge requires effective IT procurement processes. All soft... Read More Read More

Forget products, it’s time to understand your organisation’s portfolio of application services

August 24 2020

The old model of procuring IT is no longer relevant Traditionally, when organisations went about compiling their IT portfolios, the building blocks were made up of two things: the perceived IT infrastructure and the technological capabilities of both software and hardware. During this time, innovat... Read More Read More

Re-booting ITAM for the cloud era

August 21 2020

Most US enterprises today have well organized, highly-skilled IT departments that are laser-focused on supporting and enabling wider business objectives. As part of this, the department typically has a dedicated software asset management (SAM) team, whose job it is to ensure that the company has the s... Read More Read More

The Software Vendor negotiation game has fundamentally changed, do you understand the new rules?

January 24 2020

I have worked across a wide range of Public Sector organisations with a multitude of software licensing programs throughout my career. Common themes always remain “am I getting a good value from my investment” and “do I have enough confidence in my current & future requirements t... Read More Read More

Cloud Shock: what is it & why should you care?

April 17 2019

As a term, cloud shock has been with us a few years now, but it’ use is not yet quite yet sufficiently widespread to safely assume that everyone knows what you’re talking about when you say it.Cloud shock is, in very simple terms, the moment of realization that money being spent on cloud s... Read More Read More

Managing software applications post-COVID

August 20 2020

As organizations settle into the new normal, it’s time to take back control of your software applications and address all the changes that will have been implemented during the Pandemic to allow ‘Business As Usual’ to reign. In this 15 minute session Livingstone Group’s Chie... Read More Read More

An expert guide to SAP S/4 HANA Contract Migration Challenges

February 20 2020

After 2025 SAP will only be supporting Customers who are converted to S/4 HANA. Many customers are already in the process of planning the technical migration since this is a quite complex exercise. Whilst the technical migration is complicated, the license contract conversion will also confront you... Read More Read More

Microsoft Cost Optimisation – Negotiating the best renewal

May 20 2020

In this 45-minute video Gareth Redshaw discusses key points that will help you optimize your Microsoft estate and validateyour Bill of Materials (BOM) to reduce your spend. He will share insightsand recommendations that will show best practices to implement when negotiation with Microsoft. Gareth w... Read More Read More

Get the best outcome for your SaaS contract renewal - Salesforce.com Case Study

September 24 2020

In this 15 minute videoLivingstone Group’s Salesforce Practice Lead Karen McAllister outlines key considerations for renewing SaaS Software contracts using Salesforce as a case study. This session covers: This session covers Understanding your current and future requirements Understan... Read More Read More

Governing rapid IT transformation & increasing cloud consumption

March 16 2021

Innovation Martlesham, in association with TechEast,would like to invite you to another Breakfast Networking Webinar Event with Guest SpeakerChris Gough, Chief Strategy Officer, Livingstone Group VIEW BRIEFING>> The last 18 months has seen massive acceleration taking place in ho... Read More Read More

Planning for a Microsoft renewal in 2021? Two key factors to bear in mind

February 01 2021

Microsoft’s ubiquity means a large number of enterprises and public sector organizations will be gearing up for a contract renewal exercise during 2021. As with all vendors, it is absolutely vital to start planning for renewals as early as possible (have a read of the blog from my colleague Ian ... Read More Read More

ITAM Round Up - Key trends and how ITAM needs to respond

February 02 2021

Join Livingstone Group's Chief Strategy Officer, Chris Gough and Principle Consultant, Hugh Skingley, who in this video blog, discuss the market trends and changes that organizations experienced during2020,how these will affect the relationships between IT, Procurement and Finance and how they nee... Read More Read More

What is software portfolio management and optimization? Livingstone Group on Innovation Martlesham podcast

March 02 2021

Livingstone Group’s Nigel Someck (BT Account Director), recently joined Nicky Daniels, Head of Innovation Martlesham on her podcast ‘Nicky In Conversation With…’ to discuss software portfolio management and optimization. On the podcast, you can hear Nicky and Nigel discuss: ... Read More Read More

Best practice approach for Cloud Investment Management

March 12 2021

Many cloud guides often advise quick-fix tips and tricks on how you can strategically reduce costs. Instead, we want to provide a more holistic view of Cloud Investment Management, taking into account the wider processes and best practices, guiding you to better cloud consumption management and cost o... Read More Read More

Public Sector: How to reduce cloud and software spend without impacting public service delivery

April 26 2021

ITAM in the public sector is an evergreen topic of conversation here at Livingstone Group. Since the financial crisis, there has been a near-constant squeeze on public budgets, which has placed expenditure on IT – in particular, on software – firmly under the microscope. More recentl... Read More Read More

Managing technical debt and legacy investments: Microsoft SQL Server 2012

July 05 2021

In our previous blog, Understanding and eradicating your technical debt, we looked at the concept of ‘technical debt’ in software estates. At how, without proper attention to detail or if upgrades have been passed over one too many times, technical debt can accumulate massively. That, if b... Read More Read More