Your IT team has never had more on its plate
If your IT team feels busier than ever, it’s not your imagination. Two years ago the to-do list was already long. Now it has AI on it too. And software asset management is usually the first thing to slip.
Every department wants to try the latest AI tool. Leadership wants a governance policy so that data doesn’t end up somewhere it shouldn’t. Meanwhile, shiny new SaaS applications keep appearing, maybe bought on a credit card and discovered months later when the renewal invoice lands.
All of that sits on top of the day job: keeping people working, keeping systems secure and keeping the auditors happy. Something has to give, and too often it’s the quiet, unglamorous work of tracking what software you own and how long it will be supported.
Cyber Essentials has raised the bar
Since 27 April 2026, new Cyber Essentials certifications have been assessed against version 3.3 of the NCSC’s Requirements for IT Infrastructure, using IASME’s new Danzell question set. For software, the message is clear: if it’s out of date or out of support, it’s a problem.
- 14-day patching. Critical and high-risk updates for operating systems, applications and router or firewall firmware must be installed within 14 days of release.
- No unsupported software. Anything in scope that the vendor no longer supports needs to be removed, upgraded or properly isolated from the internet.
- Remove what you don’t need. Unnecessary software should be removed or disabled across in-scope devices.
- Tougher Plus testing. Cyber Essentials Plus assessors now check that fixes have been applied across the whole estate, not just the devices they first sample.
In practice, one forgotten PC still running an end-of-life operating system, or one application nobody realised had dropped out of support, can be enough to fail. And with Cyber Essentials increasingly expected by customers and cyber insurers, failing is expensive.
The work that slips through the cracks
Knowing what you have, what it costs and when it stops being supported sounds simple. In most organisations it’s spread across spreadsheets, inboxes and people’s memories. The result is familiar:
- Renewals that auto-renew before anyone asks whether the licences are still used.
- End-of-support dates that arrive as a surprise, leaving no time to budget or plan an upgrade.
- Duplicate tools doing the same job in different departments.
- A last-minute scramble for evidence when the Cyber Essentials assessment comes round.
None of this is difficult on its own. It just needs someone to keep watching, all year round, and that’s exactly the kind of task a busy IT team never quite gets to.
Hand software asset management to a trusted, independent partner
Wouldn’t it be nice to offload some of that work? An independent software asset management (SAM) partner can take the watching off your hands, so your team can focus on the projects that move the business forward.
- Renewal tracking. We keep an eye on your software contracts and flag renewals well in advance, so you can decide to renew, reduce or replace rather than be auto-renewed by default.
- End-of-support and end-of-life alerts. We monitor vendor lifecycle dates across your estate and tell you what’s approaching end of support, with enough notice to budget and plan.
- Cyber Essentials readiness. We help you spot unsupported or unnecessary software before your assessor does.
- Licence optimisation. We highlight unused, under-used and duplicate licences so you only pay for what you need.
To keep costs down, we use Licenseware, a cost-effective SAM tool that we provide as part of our service. If you already have a SAM or inventory tool that we can access, we’ll happily work with that instead. Because we’re independent of the software vendors, our advice is based on what’s right for you, not on pushing any particular publisher’s products.
Sound useful? Drop us a line
If you’d like a second pair of eyes on your software renewals and end-of-support dates, we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch for a no-obligation chat about where you are today and how we can help lighten the load.