ITAM by SHI Services

27 July 2020
1 minute read
Best practice

ITAM by SHI Services

27 July 2020
1 minute read

Name: ITAM by SHI Services

Description: The ITAM team at SHI is comprised of 75+ ITAM SMEs and includes licensing consultants for all major publishers, former auditors, specialized systems engineers and data quality experts. SHI offers end-to-end ITAM services, dedicated account teams, industry-leading tools and proven practices to help customers remain compliant and ensure their IT portfolio is always fully optimized. SHI’s breadth of ITAM services include O365 Optimization, SaaS Management, Managed Services and Audit Defense.

Application Category: Managed Services

Author: AJ Witt

Summary

From software and hardware procurement to deployment planning, configuration, data centre optimization, IT asset management and cloud computing, SHI a number of SAM and software licensing related services available via twenty-eight regional offices including operations in USA, Canada, UK, France, Germany and Hong Kong. SHI are privately owned and are Microsoft’s largest worldwide partner.

Through experience and SAM frameworks, SHI have developed their IT and Software Asset Management service. SHI states their services stretch from the cradle to the grave for both hardware and software ensuring that SHI provides services for the full lifecycle of an asset.

The SAM Managed Services aim is to provide industry-recognized license and compliance expertise across all key software vendors and product lines. The ITAM Review believes that SHI have the internal resources and expertise to help customers manage their key software vendors, and believe SHI to be more than capable of assisting any customers with challenging licensing issues.

SHI is a powerhouse in the software-licensing world with huge international resources for supporting customers. We believe they offer a solid SAM Managed service offering and market-leading platform to deliver value to customers. However SHI are yet to gain significant traction with their SAM Managed Services compared to competitors in this review. SHI have clearly invested in this area of the business – but now need to convert that investment to market share.

SHI state that their SAM Managed Service is contained within the ITAM specialist team within SHI. The service has been named under the brand name ITAM by SHI, which is said to be key to SHI’s current and future business plan.

SHI use a variety of technology including commercial applications and in-house deployed applications. Their in-house platform has been built from the partnership with eTelligent Solutions – an SHI sister company.

SHI also states that their SAM service is completely tool agnostic and they work with data from pretty much any Inventory tools the customer has deployed. SHI has developed long-term relationships with a number of specialist tool set providers with emphasis on complimenting the investments already made by customers.

As part of SHI’s SAM Managed Services, SHI states the ITAM by SHI team provides the customer with on-going support for the named publishers contained within the service. If a vendor declares its intent to audit the customer, SHI will provide support through the audit process. In that process, SHI provides the customer with advice, information, and guidance based on prior experiences and license expertise for the most effective and efficient completion of the audit.

We particularly liked the SHI internal software marketing approach. This framework helps customers ensure they avoid spending money on software licenses that they don’t need, or already have in stock. This helps SHI’s customers to clearly identify where their software licensing risks are, and also where they could save money on unused software. The SHI offering includes a self-service software request portal that uses SHI’s licensing experts to ensure customers are kept up-to-date with licensing changes.

We also liked the License Desk element of the SAM MSP offering, and also the fact that SHI provide training and education for SAM and software licensing. We believe that providing customers with the option to contact SHI with any form of software license question is a fantastic benefit to choosing SHI, and also means that customers do not have to contact the software vendor directly. Furthermore, we were impressed with SHI’s stance on training and education for their customers. They offer internal training and education for customers, and will also help users become accredited if they so wish.

SHI make money from software and tools. This may represent a conflict of interest for some customers and not be an issue for others. Finally, the ITAM Review believes that SHI’s offering is not as customisable as their competitors. Some of SHI’s competitors were more flexible to adapting to customer needs and requirements.

CUSTOMER REFERENCES

“SHI’s ITAM services are designed to meet our specific business needs, and have consistently delivered value while mitigating risk to our enterprise.”

John T. Muller,
Quest Diagnostics,
Sr. Manager – IT Asset Management

Reference 2:

“ITAM by SHI is a intuitive and comprehensive service supported by a professional team of skilled individuals each with unique contributions, the result of their work are accessible via a state of the art web portal with power drill down capability for detail research and review. Well worth the investment”

Reference 3:

“As a software reseller a partnership with SHI for SAM could have had the potential that some information uncovered could become a sales opportunity. SHI offered to have in our contract a privacy clause so that their sales team could not access the information, which gave us even greater comfort.”

Reference 4:

“In additional to the Managed Service we also take advantage of advice offered when we are looking at new initiatives, to ensure we have the correct and most efficient licensing model. Whilst running their discovery tools information is also picked up for vendors that are not part of our Manage Service agreement we are able to use this information to look after the smaller, less complex vendors ourselves.”

Reference 5:

“The SHI team quickly established themselves as a critical element of (our) team, providing significant expertise and quality deliverables. At all times, SHI focused on (our) needs and interests.”

Reference 6:

”I have to admit I never thought we needed audit services. I was 100% proven wrong. We could never have escaped these audits and major findings without the assistance of the SHI Audit Defense team.”

Overall
82%
82%
  • ITAM Review Analyst Score - 82%
    82%

Pros

Internal Software Market Approach

License Desk Service

Training & Education

Works with existing customer tools rather than mandating a particular ITAM tool

Cons

Possible conflict of interest as a software reseller

Service not as customisable as some competitor offerings

Company Details

Headquarters:

Somerset, Franklin Township
New Jersey
United States

www.shi.com

Can’t find what you’re looking for?