Not so long ago, the majority of businesses purchased Microsoft licensing on a perpetual basis – a number of licenses are purchased based on user volume. If you added more users you then purchase some more, if your user numbers went down then you kept some spares on the shelf. Alongside this, you then paid annual maintenance for the software.
The downside of this model is that it can become complex to manage and in general companies end up owning more licenses than they need. In addition, it requires a lot of upfront investment.
With Office 365 you get the flexibility of monthly licensing which allows you to change the number of licenses based on your requirement, you just receive one bill every month for what you need.
Sounds fantastic, however, if not closely managed it is very easy to end up overpaying every month. Each time a user leaves, licenses need to be removed from the user and the license count decreased. This can involve several steps and if one step is missed, you’ll pay for any licenses assigned to your Microsoft tenant.
In our experience, we see a 5 to 15% wastage in customers who have self-managed their subscriptions. In some cases, customers are not aware that the numbers can be reduced.
Lucidity has always offered costs based on actual usage. As a direct Microsoft partner, we have automated the processes associated with procuring licenses from Microsoft. Office 365 and Dynamics 365 subscriptions are now automatically tuned to your current requirements – if you remove a user, our systems ensure that the licenses are relinquished and not on-charged. A process runs daily to make sure you only ever have enough licenses for your user volumes.
If you want to see if you are paying too much for your Office 365 services, get in touch for a free no obligation assessment – we’ll tell you how much you could save each month by moving to Lucidity.
