Running a business means constantly juggling IT budgets and Microsoft expenses, especially for small and mid-sized businesses. At the same time, the survival of a company without using Microsoft is almost impossible as it substantially affects the productivity of any enterprise.

According to Statista, the overall IT spending on enterprise software is expected to reach 675 billion US dollars by the end of 2022.

So, if you are wondering how your IT team can ditch the constant pressure of managing Microsoft expenses, then you are indeed at the right place. We’ll assist you in deploying effective strategies to optimize your Microsoft licence costs. All you must do is stick with us until the end to effectively implement those strategies.

1.    Understand Microsoft Licensing

One of the critical mistakes businesses make is that they fail to comprehend the intricate Microsoft licensing accurately. Resultantly, either they are over-provisioned with their Microsoft resources, or they are using the wrong licenses for their Microsoft products. Either way, your business is suffering by spending on resources that are of no use.

So, you need to reallocate your Microsoft licenses and opt for the ones you really need while ensuring that you don’t under-utilize them. This step will lift a huge burden from your IT budget, and you’ll be spending every penny of your budget in the right place.

2.    Revoke Licenses from Former Employees

Constant monitoring of your license pool is critical for optimizing your Microsoft license budget. You must be wondering how it would help. Well, most businesses end up paying for the licenses of their former employees because they don’t keep track of their license pool.

So, it’s high time for you to be proactive by synchronizing the number of employees that have left your organization with the members of your license pool.

You’ll be astounded by the fact that a massive sum of your IT budget is being spent on your former employees as you have not revoked their licenses. You can prevent this massive mishap by building a connection between your HR and IT departments.

After a specific time period, your HR should send a record of former employees to the IT department. Through that record, your IT department can either revoke the licenses of former employees or relocate those licenses to the new recruitments.

3.    Foresee your Future Demands

Foreseeing your future demands and making prior arrangements assists a lot in managing Microsoft licensing costs. It is especially helpful when the number of employees using Microsoft licenses fluctuates periodically in your organization. 

For instance, by the end of the year, you’ll be recruiting new employees as per your business demands. So, you can manage beforehand by opting for an annual subscription plan.

When you recruit new employees, you’ll be able to increase your Microsoft licenses at the former pricing levels because you were smart enough to get your hands on the cost-effective annual subscription plans.

You must be wondering what happens if I don’t end up recruiting new employees? Even in this case, you’ll be saving a substantial sum of money as annual subscriptions are way cheaper than monthly ones. In short, opting for yearly subscriptions will be a win-win situation for your business.

4.    Assign Licenses as Per Requirements

You have to make sure that you assign licenses as per the individual requirements of employees. Some users do not need a full Microsoft 365 E5 or Microsoft 365 E3 license, but they still have access to it which means you’re paying extra money when it’s not actually required.

The most significant example is the frontline employees of your company. They only need access to emails, but still have a full E5/E3 license which means the extra Microsoft resources of those licenses are going to be a complete waste.

For such employees, you need to deploy licenses limited to their requirements. For example, an Microsoft 365 F1 license would perfectly suit their needs and is much cheaper than a full E5/E3 license. In this way, you’ll save a massive sum on Microsoft resources that were not being used. So, monitoring requirements and acting accordingly is a strategy that'll go a long way in optimizing your Microsoft license costs.

5.    Take Inactive Users into Account

In some situations, employees are provided with Microsoft licenses for a specific project with a designated timeline. After the completion of the project, the Microsoft license is of no use to them. But the company is still paying for it as it has not been revoked.

According to research, 40 percent of SaaS licenses aren’t utilized for an average duration of 30 days.

In such cases, a license usage report will significantly assist you as it will tell you about the number of inactive licenses. By using this data, you can either revoke the inactive licenses or reassign them to other employees within your company who need them. Either way, you’ll end up saving a substantial sum while ensuring full-fledged productivity among your employees.

6.    Eliminate the Chances of Human Error

All of the strategies that we have discussed above would be best implemented if they were monitored via an automated process, as there's always a chance of human error, no matter how focused your team is.

So, it's better to eliminate such chances through technology adoption and automation. It’ll also provide you with a deeper insight into the positive and negative gains of your business over a specific time period. Such insights will assist you in implementing better ways to surge productivity and growth among your employees.

You might be wondering about the automation process. The most reliable way to automate is via management software. These can manage and optimize everything efficiently, from maintenance and utilization to purchase and deployment.

Finally, when your business is on the route of automation, optimizing your Microsoft license costs will no longer be a tedious task.

7.    Save yourselves from Price Hikes

The price hikes of Microsoft have gotten everyone worried about their IT budgets, but do you know that there's a way to ditch the price hike for 12 months? Yes, you read that right. If you choose an annual subscription plan, then your Microsoft licenses will not be subject to these price hikes.

However, there are some limitations in this case. You won't be able to downgrade your license pool, and if you want to upgrade it, then you'll have to pay for it accordingly.

You have to make sure that there will be no need for your enterprise to decrease the license pool in the future in order to make this strategy work. Otherwise, you’ll end up spending extra money rather than saving it. There’s also an added benefit to this strategy as it gives you time to figure out your IT budgets and how it’ll meet the price hikes when your annual subscription ends.

8.    Beware of Fake Accounts

You must monitor the accounts that acquire your Microsoft licenses to disregard the fake/test accounts. You must be wondering how you can know if an account is fake. Well, it’s not as difficult as it sounds. Most of the time, fake accounts have a weird username, making it very easy to recognize them.

As for test accounts, you have to make sure the user really needs Microsoft resources. By reviewing the needs of the test account owners, you can make a decision on whether the license of a test account should be revoked or not. So, this strategy is quite simple yet effective in managing your Microsoft license costs.

9.    Find yourselves a Reliable Retailer

Last but not least, we have the most effective strategy on board. All you need to do is get your hands on a reliable supplier which is able to support and fulfill your licensing needs.

Wrap Up

In a nutshell, we can say that the expenses of Microsoft licenses can substantially disrupt your IT budgets, and consequently, your business could suffer because Microsoft is the key to a productive business. However, you can still halt your business from facing losses by being apt and proficient.