Understanding Vendor Audits
Vendors Don't Audit Randomly. They Audit When They Have a Reason.
Oracle's License Management Services (LMS) team runs a structured audit pipeline that prioritises targets based on a scoring model. The factors that push an enterprise up that list include: renewal negotiations that went poorly for Oracle, enterprise acquisitions or mergers that create licensing gaps, public information about new deployment activity, and long periods since the last compliance review. SAP uses its USMM and LAW tools to identify indirect access and Digital Access exposure. IBM's sub-capacity ILMT non-compliance is the source of hundreds of millions in annual audit settlements.
The enterprises that avoid costly audit outcomes don't do it by hoping they're compliant. They do it by maintaining accurate licence inventories, running self-assessment programmes, keeping ILMT or equivalent tools properly deployed, and having an independent expert review their position before a vendor does.
Our software audit defence service is available both proactively — to identify and remediate risk before an audit letter arrives — and reactively, to negotiate and defend against an active audit. The earlier we engage, the more options we have and the better your outcome.
90%
of enterprises have some level of software licensing non-compliance at any given time
$4.1M
average cost of an enterprise software audit finding, including remediation licensing and professional fees
60–80%
of audit claims are successfully reduced or eliminated when challenged by an experienced independent advisor