The Organisation

North Lincolnshire Council was created on 1 April 1996, taking over an 85,000-hectare area of the former South Humberside. The area has a population of around 153,000 in a mix of urban and rural areas. Scunthorpe is the largest town in North Lincolnshire with a population of 76,000.
With 43 elected councillors and approximately 7,200 employees, this Unitary Council provides the full range of council services ranging from schools and libraries to housing and refuse collection.
Around £165m is spent on providing these services each year.

The Challenge

North Lincolnshire Council approached Phoenix Software to carry out a thorough software audit.

The Benefits

With the compliance issues addressed, North Lincolnshire Council wanted to ensure that this software audit was the start of a continuing process which would maximise the council’s return on investment. 

They quickly realised they then needed a business tool that would fully integrate with Centennial Discovery and extend its reporting capabilities. In addition to this, they wanted to ensure the relational integrity between what is installed on the network and what they are allowed to install was maintained. Licence Dashboard was the tool selected to achieve this goal.

Elayne Smith, Client Services Manager, and Richard Cook, Senior Client Officer, are still the driving force behind the continuing success of North Lincolnshire Council’s software asset management process.

As valued customers of Phoenix Software, North Lincolnshire Council has seen how, over the past few years, the importance of carrying out a successful Software Asset Management process has grown. With the assistance of their dedicated Phoenix Software Asset Management Consultant, the council still strives to maintain this position.

With ISO standards increasingly becoming a requirement for many organisations, North Lincolnshire Council is ready for these changes. The procedures the council now has in place far surpass many in other similar organisations and this is down to Richard Cook’s interest and understanding of what is required, and what motivation it takes, to keep a Software Asset Management project running smoothly.

Richard Cook concluded:

“In approaching Phoenix for software audit and asset management services, the council’s main objective was not only to demonstrate software copyright compliance but, more importantly, to implement a business process that would promote effective management, reduce operational costs and increase return on investment.”