Bradford College

Compliance Day

Following the success of the Adobe Campus Day, Bradford College is proud to announce they have been specially selected to host a Compliance Day by Phoenix Software, one of the UK's leading suppliers of software and experts in software volume licensing and compliance.

Visitors travelled from across the country to attend the event, in a bid to learn more about software asset management and how to safeguard against claims surrounding licence misuse. 

Elaborating on why Bradford College had been selected to host the event, Samantha Mudd, Associate Director for Phoenix Software said: “We have a long standing relationship with Bradford College and recently ran an Adobe Campus Day here, which was hugely successful.  This was aimed at lecturers and students.  It gave us the opportunity to see the facilities and meet the events team.  That’s why we decided to selected Bradford to host the Compliance Day as software asset management, is very topical in higher and further education at the moment. Given that Bradford College have also invested in a software asset management programme, it seemed appropriate that we came together to present on the subject. ”

During the special event, conference participants were made aware of the software options available to organisations, allowing them to ensure that all licences are valid and all users are covered.  This safeguards against organisations like the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) from claiming damages on behalf of its members for fraudulent use.
Samantha Mudd, Associate Director for Phoenix Software continued: “Today we’ve brought together a number of organisations like FAST (Federation Against Software Theft) and manufacturers such as Symantec to inform people how to approach the software asset management journey.”

Brenda O’Shea, the Director of FAST IIS, speaking at the event, said: “The Federation has been know for many years as an authority on licensing compliance and the legalities of intellectual property rights.  What we’re doing today is sharing the results of our research into the positive benefits that organisations gain from managing their software assets effectively - and pointing out the risks and challenges that they face if they don’t address the issue.”

Brenda added: “A lot of the colleges and universities are keen to provide a level of service that meets their obligation. It also means they can provide a cost effective service for students.”

Phoenix Software Associate Director, Samantha added: “Statistics show that 50 to 60% of organisations can potentially get a knock on the door from a publisher such as Microsoft wanting to do an audit and review.  Organisations are then contractually and legally responsible for investigating the software they’ve deployed and whether they’re legally entitled to use it. Having an effective programme in place gives people the opportunity to plan, invest and manage their compliance situations in the event of being investigated.  If you have a sound programme in place, you can achieve probably between 30 to 40% in savings, on the software assets that any organisation has through a variety of ways, for example not overspending or buying new licences, being able to re-harvest licences. So if a PC is about to be disposed of because it’s at end of life, you can take the licence off that PC and apply it to a new one and recycle it if you like That’s one of the main reasons a lot of people are here today – and one of the key themes we’re trying to get out.”

Corinne Crannage and colleague Will Davidson travelled from Halesowen College, near Birmingham to attend the event.  Explaining why they had made the journey to Bradford, Corinne said: “We’re looking to implement a software asset management tool, but we’re looking at something that doesn’t include all the additional hardware asset management. We just want a pure software tool and this seemed like the appropriate thing to look at next.”

Conference participant, Sarah Chaffer, from Leeds Trinity and All Saints College said: “In my current role, I’ve been getting more into the licensing aspect of the job, so I thought it would be a good idea to come here today. I’ve learnt a lot so far and hopefully I’ll be able to cascade this information to the rest of the team when I go back to work.”

Presenter, Sean Robinson explained more about the subject matter, he remarked: “Licensing is a black art and a lot of people at universities will find that the complexity of licensing is where the first problem lies.  What we’re trying to do here today is introduce new ways to make licensing that much easier and to simplify the implementation of an effective programme that would enable them to move forward. The key thing with that is whatever solution has to be implemented, it has to be cost effective.  Therefore the solutions that we’re demonstrating here today really emphasise that implementing a software asset management programme is not as expensive as a lot of people would first imagine.  The cost of implementing a sound programme like this is usually a lot less than the savings that they would actually achieve.”

Director of Phoenix Computers, Jonathan Parish explained why he attended the event. Jonathan said: “Bradford College have followed a fantastic compliance strategy which has resulted in them been awarded a Gold Stage 2 FAST accreditation, which is an example to all the other further education and higher education establishments.”

Alan Moore arrived from Middlesbrough College to find out how software asset management could be used effectively within his organisation. Alan said:  “Coming here today has highlighted some of the issues we have regarding asset management, and other people across the country are encountering similar problems to us, so now I don’t feel alone.”

When asked if coming to the presentation had given Alan some possible solutions for his software asset management issues, he said: “It’s given me an overview of the steps that we need to take, starting at the beginning and working through them. It gives me something positive to look at to complete the steps.  It’s definitely been worthwhile coming here today!”

Speaking at the Conference, Rose Kane, I.T Services Manager, Bradford College said: “We’ve been working with Phoenix Software and with the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) and are very proud to have gained our Gold Stage Two (FAST) accreditation this year. We know that the new market for software asset management is still very much education and that there are huge problems in education in term of managing their assets, particular where those have evolved over a multi-school discipline.  We thought we’d host the event to get likeminded people together to talk through these problems and look at what’s changed out there, both in the legal framework and in software tools.”

Commenting on the success of the day, IT Compliance & Procurement Manager for Bradford College, Sue Richardson added:  It’s been a great success.  We’ve had people travel from all over the country to attend the event, including representatives from Manchester College, Sheffield Hallam University and Southampton Solent University. I think it’s great that the College was approached to host this event – it demonstrated how much we’re leading in software compliance.”

Compliance Day - Gallery