Budget time bomb: why SMEs are losing thousands on licenses and how ARDURA Consulting is turning this chaos into profit

In the world of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), there is a common but extremely expensive belief: strategic Software Asset Management (SAM) is a “corporate problem.” It’s something for big banks and multinational companies with dedicated compliance departments, armies of lawyers and multi-million dollar audit budgets. The owner of a manufacturing company with 150 employees, or the leader of a 50-person ‘software’ team, has “more important” problems on his mind – sales, production, maintaining liquidity.

This is a dangerous illusion. The truth is brutal: it is SMEs that are most vulnerable to the financial consequences of licensing chaos.

Why? Because in a corporation, an unexpected audit by Microsoft or Adobe and a fine of £500,000 is a budget problem. For SMEs, it’s a liquidity-threatening disaster. Because in a corporation, overpaying 25% for cloud licenses is a sheet item. For an SME, it’s a loss of funds that could have financed the hiring of two new salespeople or a key marketing campaign.

At ARDURA Consulting, as a global trusted advisor, we understand the unique pressures that SMEs operate under. We understand that these companies do not have the resources to build internal SAM departments. That’s why we have tailored our expertise and advanced tools, such as Flexera One, to a service model. This article is a guide for SME leaders on how to stop throwing money down the drain and turn license management from a threat into real, measurable savings.

Why do small and medium-sized companies mistakenly assume that strategic software asset management (SAM) does not apply to them?

The main reason is a misunderstanding of what SAM actually is. SME owners see SAM as a bureaucratic “policeman” – a department that only generates costs and slows down work. They don’t see it as a proactive financial optimization function.

The second reason is lack of resources. In a typical SME, one or two people are responsible for all IT. Their time is 100% consumed by putting out fires: printers not working, servers crashing, passwords resetting. They have neither the time nor the niche expertise to analyze complex Oracle licensing agreements or VMware virtualization metrics. As a result, the company deliberately ignores the problem, hoping that “somehow it will work.”

Finally, there is the myth that “we are too small for auditors to be interested in us.” This is the worst mistake. SMEs are an ideal target. Auditors (e.g., Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle) know full well that these companies have no defense, no data and no preparation. One letter from a vendor’s law firm is enough to force an SME to pay any amount demanded “amicably” to avoid a crippling audit.

What are the biggest hidden financial risks of “shadow IT” in an organization that does not have a central purchasing department?

This lack of preparation leads directly to the biggest epidemic in SMEs. “Shadow IT” is the bane of every company, but in organizations where formal purchasing procedures are lacking, it is a real scourge. “Shadow IT” is any software or service (mostly SaaS) purchased and used in a company without the knowledge and approval of the IT department – most often using the manager’s corporate credit card. The marketing department buys emailing tool A. Sales department buys a competing tool B. The graphics department buys 5 different subscriptions for video editing tools. SME leaders would be shocked to see how much money goes out the door each month for these “small” subscriptions.

The financial risks are enormous. The first is waste through redundancy, where the company pays for five different tools that do exactly the same thing. The second is the cost of unused licenses – an employee leaves, but no one remembers to cancel his subscription to 10 SaaS tools, which the company pays for for years to come.

But the worst is the data (compliance) risk. This is the hidden cost, but the biggest. Where does the customer data entered into these non-compliant tools go? Are they secure? Do they meet the requirements of RODO? Data leakage from a “free” tool purchased by an employee can cost a company millions in fines and reputational damage. Without a central SAM process that automatically discovers these services, SMEs have no control over this digital “wild west.”

How does “saving” on a license audit lead SMEs right into a trap of many times higher fines?

This “shadow IT” chaos is only one aspect. The other, more direct, is the fear of auditing. Many SME owners view a proactive audit (aka “baseline”) as an unnecessary expense. “Why should I pay consultants to look for problems I may not have? It’s like refusing to have your car serviced, hoping that the brakes won’t fail at 140 km/h.

The risk is not whether the company is license non-compliant – if it has never done an audit, it certainly is. The question is who will find the non-compliance first: a friendly partner or a hostile auditor.

When ARDURA Consulting performs a proactive SAM audit, our goal is to minimize risks and optimize costs. We identify vulnerabilities and recommend the cheapest way to fix them (e.g., “Uninstall 10 unused copies of SQL Server and you will avoid a potential fine of 150,000 PLN”).

When a vendor’s auditor (e.g., Microsoft) enters a company, his goal is exactly the opposite: to maximize the penalty. He will look for any inconsistency, even a technical one, in order to charge license fees and penalties, calculated not according to the discounts negotiated by the company, but according to the highest list prices. “Saving” a few thousand zlotys on a proactive audit conducted by a trusted advisor almost always ends up costing hundreds of thousands of zlotys in reactive penalties paid to the auditor.

Is relying on excel sheets to track licenses a viable strategy or just an illusion of control?

However, many SME leaders will respond: “But we are in control, we have Excel.” This is an absolutely fundamental question and the most dangerous form of self-deception. Excel is not a SAM system. It is a static wish list that was true (perhaps) on the day it was created.

The problem is that the Excel sheet is static, while the IT environment is fully dynamic. The moment the IT department installs a new application, creates a virtual server or an employee downloads a new tool, the Excel sheet becomes obsolete and worthless.

More importantly, Excel doesn’t “discover” anything. A true SAM system (like Flexera One) actively scans the network 24/7 and automatically discovers any new installation of ‘software or a device. Excel relies on someone remembering to update it. Moreover, the spreadsheet can’t understand complex licensing metrics. It won’t count licenses per “core” (Core) vs. “PVU,” it won’t understand VMware’s virtualization rules or complex dependencies in cloud packages. Relying on Excel is worse than having no system at all, because it gives business leaders a false sense of security, while real risks and costs grow in the background every day.

How are SMEs overpaying for licenses (e.g., Microsoft 365, Adobe) without optimizing their subscription plans?

This lack of real visibility leads straight to the most common source of waste: suboptimal subscriptions. In the SaaS era, optimization is the key to savings. Vendors (like Microsoft, Adobe, Salesforce) offer dozens of different plans, deliberately complicating them so that the customer always chooses a higher (and more expensive) plan than they realistically need.

In SMEs, the purchasing process is often simplified to the point of pain: “Let’s buy the highest package for everyone (e.g. Microsoft 365 E5 or Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps), we’ll have peace of mind and everything will work.” This is a trap that thousands of companies fall into.

The reality is that the company pays £250 a month for an E5 license for a front desk employee who only uses Outlook and Word (for which a £50 plan would suffice). The company pays the full Adobe package for a manager who opens PDFs once a week (for which a free reader would suffice). These “small” amounts, multiplied by 100 employees and 12 months, turn into tens or hundreds of thousands of zlotys of pure loss. That’s money the SME is paying for functions it will never use.

Strategic SAM, supported by tools such as Flexera One, allows analysis of actual application usage. This allows ARDURA Consulting to provide SMEs with a precise recommendation: “These 30 users only need an E1 plan. These 50 need E3. And only these 5 analysts realistically use the E5 function. Here you go, here’s £80,000 in savings per year.”

How does the IT skills gap prevent SMEs from successfully negotiating with ‘software’ giants?

This waste is painful every month, but it becomes a disaster at one key moment: contract renegotiation. Negotiating SMEs with giants like Microsoft and Oracle is akin to a poker game in which one side sees all the cards. That side is always the supplier.

The SME leader or his one-man IT department enters the negotiations (e.g., Enterprise Agreement renewal) completely “blind.” He has no idea:

• Exactly how many licenses does it really need?
• Which products are critical and which can be abandoned?
• What are alternative, less expensive licensing models?

On the other side sits a vendor representative who has access to sophisticated analytical tools and knows full well that the customer has no data. He presents one unfavorable “all-inclusive” offer, often threatening with hidden audit risks. The SME leader, having no arguments, signs another unfavorable 3-year contract, overpaying for resources he doesn’t need.

At ARDURA Consulting, we are changing this dynamic. We enter the process as a strategic advisor and client advocate. Armed with hard data from the SAM platform, we dictate the terms: “Thank you for your offer. Our real demand, based on usage data, is 30% lower. We expect a new proposal that reflects that.” We are giving away the negotiating power to SMEs.

What is “Software Asset Management as a Service” (SAMaaS) and why is it an ideal model for SMEs?

So how is an SME supposed to break this vicious cycle if it can’t afford its own SAM department? The answer is “Software Asset Management as a Service.” This is the solution to the fundamental problem of SMEs: “How can I do it if I have neither the people nor the money to do it?”.

The traditional SAM model assumed that a company had to buy an expensive platform (like Flexera One) and hire 3-5 very expensive licensing analysts to operate it. For SMEs, this is an insurmountable barrier.

SAM as a Service (SAMaaS), the model offered by ARDURA Consulting, is a revolution in access to this service. SMEs don’t have to buy the entire platform and don’t have to hire experts. Instead, it buys a managed service in the form of a monthly subscription. Under this service, it is ARDURA Consulting that provides the technology, deploys the scanning agents, provides access to our platform (such as Flexera One) and, most importantly, it is our team of SAM experts that monitors the client’s environment on an ongoing basis.

The client receives a monthly report and proactive recommendations: “We have discovered 5 new ‘shadow IT’ installations – please block them. We have identified 15 unused Adobe licenses – please disable them, the savings is X PLN.” SMEs gain access to the same world-class expertise and tools as a global corporation, but in a fractional model that perfectly fits their budget.

How can a platform like Flexera One be accessible and cost-effective for a smaller organization?

But isn’t that shooting a cannon at a sparrow? Does an ‘enterprise’ platform like Flexera One make sense for SMEs? Standalone – no. But in a service model – as much as possible. Accessibility for SMEs is only possible through a partnership model such as ARDURA Consulting’ s SAM as a Service.

We act as an “aggregator.” ARDURA Consulting invests in the full Flexera One platform and the team of experts that operate it. We then “share” the power of this platform and the knowledge of our experts among many smaller clients.

As a result, the SME pays only a small monthly service fee that covers exactly the part of the platform and exactly the amount of expert time it needs. Instead of paying £500,000 a year for its own system and team, it pays a fraction of that amount for the finished result: compliance reports and identified savings. What’s more, the ROI is almost immediate. Very often, the savings we identify in the first month (e.g., on overpaid Microsoft licenses) fully cover the cost of our annual service.

What role does a partner (such as ARDURA Consulting) play in interpreting complex licensing data and generating savings?

This is absolutely the key difference. The SAM tool itself – even the best, like Flexera One – is just a scanner. It’s a powerful calculator that collects data and says: “You have 100 installations of SQL Server version X and 50 licenses of version Y.”

This data is useless to the SME leader. It does not know what it means. Is he in compliance? Is he overpaying? What are the complicated SQL licensing rules in a VMware cluster?

Value is created by an expert from ARDURA Consulting – a trusted advisor. This is a person with years of experience(Experience) in audits and licensing, who looks at the data and makes interpretations. Such an expert will say: “I see that 80 out of 100 SQL installations are developer versions, which are free – you are safe. But the other 20 are on a server virtualized in a way that violates your contract. You have a critical non-compliance, the potential penalty is X. We need to move these installations to a dedicated host immediately, which will solve the problem and cost nothing.”

The tool delivers data. ARDURA Consulting provides knowledge, recommendations and measurable savings.

How does proactive SAM support cyber security and protect SMEs from ransomware attacks?

For SMEs that don’t have dedicated security departments, SAM is one of the most effective and least expensive forms of defense. Ransomware attackers are not looking for complex “zero-day” vulnerabilities; they are looking for clutter. And SMEs are masters of clutter.

SAM protects SMEs in several ways. First, it eliminates “Shadow IT. “ Every unauthorized SaaS application is a potential data leak. Every tool downloaded by an employee from the Internet is a potential attack vector. SAM immediately detects them and allows the CTO to block them.

Second, it identifies obsolete software. This is the main target of ransomware. Attackers are looking for servers running Windows Server 2008, browsers without patches or old versions of Java. These are open doors to the network. The SAM system (like Flexera One) provides IT with a precise report: “These 15 machines have outdated software. Update them immediately.”

Third, it controls access. SAM helps implement a fundamental security principle: if an employee doesn’t need an application for work, he shouldn’t have it. Taking away unused licenses not only saves money, but also reduces the “attack surface.” For SMEs that can’t afford expensive security systems, a clean, managed and up-to-date ‘software’ environment – which is the result of implementing SAM – is the best defense shield.

What immediate, measurable benefits (ROI) can an SME achieve by implementing a managed SAM program?

Unlike many IT investments, strategic SAM in ARDURA Consulting’s service model delivers a return on investment (ROI) almost immediately. Business leaders see measurable results in the first few months.

The fastest return comes from direct cost savings (Hard ROI). Our analysis almost always identifies waste. This includes reclaiming (‘re-harvesting’) unused licenses, optimizing subscription plans (e.g., M365) and eliminating redundant, redundant SaaS applications. As our clients’ experiences show, these savings reach up to 25% of annual ‘software’ expenses. Very often these savings are many times the annual cost of our service.

Another pillar of ROI is penalty cost avoidance (Cost Avoidance). What is the value of an audit that didn’t happen? What is the value of a penalty that did not have to be paid? By identifying and closing gaps in licensing compliance, we generate powerful, though harder to quantify, savings.

Finally, there’s the reclaimed IT time (Operational Efficiency). How much is the time of the only IT person in the company worth who can focus on supporting the business instead of manually tracking licenses? Automating SAM processes frees up valuable human resources.

What does a strategic roadmap for SAM implementation look like for an SME that doesn’t have a dedicated team?

SAM implementation in an SME must be quick, lightweight, and bring immediate value. There is no room for multi-year, corporate projects. The table below shows the agile SAMaaS (SAM as a Service) deployment model that ARDURA Consulting uses for SMEs to turn chaos into control.

Strategic roadmap: implementing SAM as a service (SAMaaS) in SMEs

Summary: SAM is not a luxury, it is financial management

For small and medium-sized businesses, every penny spent on waste is a penny taken away from growth. Maintaining chaos in software licenses in 2026 is no longer a “normal” cost of doing business – it’s active financial negligence.

Fear of cost and lack of competence is no longer an excuse. The “SAM as a Service” model offered by ARDURA Consulting democratizes access to this critical function. We give SMEs access to the same expertise and tools used by major corporations, but on a flexible, predictable and budgeted subscription model.

As a trusted advisor, we help SME leaders regain control of their largest hidden cost, transforming license management from a risk center to a measurable profit center.