Case Study
Syntegon discovers 6-digit euro amount in software license savings
At A Glance
World-leading producer of processing and packaging technology for pharmaceutical and food industries
Employees: 6,000
Location: Germany
Featured Stats
Saved 6-digit euro amount in 2020 software license costs
Significantly strengthened software license compliance position
Simplified deactivation of unused applications and user profiles
The Challenge
Unique licensing agreements multiplied management efforts and costs
If you’ve ever received an injection from your doctor, there’s a high chance that the medicine you received was transported in a hermetically sealed and sterile Syntegon container. With a presence in over 15 countries and 1,700 patented inventions, Syntegon Technology is a world-leading producer of processing and packaging technology for the pharmaceutical and food industries.
In 2020, Syntegon embarked on an ambitious business transformation project, aiming to cut costs, improve efficiency and enhance profitability. With over 6,000 employees relying on 6,500 workstations, 3,000 mobile devices, and 700 servers, software licenses form a substantial proportion of their annual spend.
Ulrich Koch, license manager at Syntegon, explains: “As well as enterprise applications from Microsoft®, Oracle and SAP®, we also use a great deal of specialist engineering software, including EPLAN, AutoCAD, SolidWorks, Wonderware and much more. Each application comes with its own unique license agreement and terms of service, which makes managing our license portfolio and ensuring compliance with usage terms a tremendously complex task.”
Koch continues, “With a savings target amount in mind, we looked for the best way to consolidate all of our asset management activities into a single platform, help our IT teams to work even more productively, optimize our software licenses, and increase license compliance.”
By delivering granular insight into our software license portfolio, user types and the key hardware metrics relevant to our usage agreements, Snow Spend Optimizer helped us to identify unnecessary and underutilized software licenses.
Ulrich Koch, license manager Syntegon
The Solution
Vastly better application monitoring and seamless deployment
To find the right asset management solutions for its needs, Syntegon selected solutions from two vendors and tested them both in proof-of-concept exercises.
“During the proof of concept, we discovered that Snow Spend Optimizer would enable us to monitor at least 95 percent of our installed applications, whereas the other vendor would only cover 40 percent,” Koch recalls.
“Based on the excellent performance and the fact that it could help us to manage our entire license portfolio, not just enterprise application licenses,” he adds, “selecting Snow Spend Optimizer was a natural choice.”
To ensure best practices and maximize the benefits of this solution, Syntegon engaged SoftwareOne to host Snow Spend Optimizer and manage their SaaS, datacenter and end user computing environments.
“Thanks to SoftwareOne, we achieved rapid, seamless and cost-effective deployment,” says Stefan Elling, director of IT controlling. “In fact, we were able to get up and running without any issues, and it only required one member from our IT team to help configure the system—freeing the rest of the team to work on value-added tasks.”
Snow Spend Optimizer is an essential asset management tool for us because it helps reduce IT operating costs and minimize business risks. By purposefully streamlining our software license management and consistently reducing expenses, we can devote more resources to developing new, innovative IT services and expanding IT service excellence.
Ulrich Koch, license manager Syntegon
The Result
Significant savings and simplified management lead to innovation and excellence
With Snow Spend Optimizer underpinning its asset management activities, Syntegon has dramatically simplified software license management and uncovered huge year-on-year savings.
“We reduced our software licensing costs by an upper 6-digits euro figure, which was significantly more than the original target,” says Elling.
“By delivering granular insight into our software license portfolio, user types and the key hardware metrics relevant to our usage agreements, we could identify unnecessary and underutilized software licenses. We are also much better equipped to ensure round-the-clock compliance with all our software license agreements with a near real-time view of installed software— making it easy to spot and deactivate unused licenses.”
Frank Streichert, vice president IT, concludes: “Snow Spend Optimizer is an essential tool for us because it helps reduce IT operating costs and minimize business risks. By purposefully streamlining our software license management and consistently reducing expenses, we can devote more resources to developing new, innovative IT services and expanding IT service excellence.”
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