Microsoft Enterprise Agreement: Despite the price increase, Heras achieves significant cost savings

• High license costs due to Microsoft 365 and Azure
• Foreseeable end of the three-year Microsoft Agreement and upcoming renegotiations

• Identification of optimization potentials in license usage with TIMETOACT tool
• Determination of new license requirements as a basis for contract negotiations

• Alignment of license plans with user requirements and removal of inactive users
• Cost savings for Microsoft Azure and M365 of around 11 percent

The aim of Heras and TIMETOACT was to identify optimization potentials in license use, to exploit them in the next contract negotiations with Microsoft and thus to save costs or avoid cost increases. On the one hand, the focus was on the Microsoft 365 product range, and on the other hand, on the cloud computing platform Microsoft Azure, which is used by Heras as a solution for Infrastructure-as-a- Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).

In a first step, TIMETOACT created a common baseline and reviewed the current Microsoft contract as well as the monthly Microsoft Azure costs.

Subsequently, the purchased licenses had to be compared with the actual use of Microsoft products in order to identify possible discrepancies and optimization potential. In order to uncover optimization potential, TIMETOACT uses tools specially developed for optimization projects.

With various standard reports from the Office Admin Portal, the tool can be set up according to the customer‘s needs in just a few minutes and then documents the use of the software – in this case M365 – in the company and compares it with the current license inventory. In this way, different types of users can be determined, depending on the type and intensity of use. If, for example, a light user (low usage) is assigned a very extensive usage license, there is potential for savings and a corresponding need for action.

In the case of Heras, our experts identified various inactive users. In addition, based on the individual requirements of the users, new user profiles could be derived, suitable license plans could be assigned to them and thus optimizations could be made. The identified license requirements served as the basis for the contract discussions with Microsoft on Microsoft Azure and M365. TIMETOACT also stood by Heras and supported them in the negotiations.