More Flexibility for SMEs: Controlling Software Costs with SAM

Key Takeaways

Software costs in the Mittelstand can be reduced by ten percent or more – not through months-long inventory projects, but through focused contract optimization over a few weeks. Software Asset Management (SAM) is no longer merely a compliance tool but a strategic steering instrument that puts IT departments on equal footing with major vendors.

Software today determines a company’s innovation strength and competitiveness more than ever – especially in the Mittelstand. However, growing importance also increases dependencies: intransparent price adjustments, deep vendor lock-ins, and unclear data protection rules put companies under pressure.

At the same time, Mittelstand IT departments often have better prerequisites for SAM transformation than is commonly assumed. Lean structures, short decision paths, and strong cost discipline are genuine competitive advantages – when used consistently.

From Service Unit to Strategic Driver

The cliché of reactive Mittelstand IT is outdated. IT departments have long become catalysts for innovation and business objectives – driven by a fundamental shift in the role of software. It no longer simply supports business processes; it shapes them.

Mittelstand software landscapes are now every bit as complex as those of large corporations: hundreds of applications – ERP and CAD systems, collaboration platforms, industry-specific solutions, SaaS applications in sales, HR, or service. Added to this are cloud environments, interfaces, integrations, and data platforms.

The variety of licensing and billing models is growing rapidly: usage-based billing, hybrid contract structures, and dynamic pricing models significantly increase steering and control requirements. The average manufacturing company today spends over 3,000 euros on IT per employee per year – roughly one third of which goes to software.

Classic cost drivers such as large ERP landscapes are increasingly being supplemented by specialized, hard-to-control departmental solutions. According to Gartner, software spending in Europe will grow by 15.6 percent in 2026 – and even that is likely a conservative estimate given AI investments and rising cybersecurity requirements.

What initially looks like an additional burden is in fact a major opportunity: The more important software becomes for value creation, the more strategic its management. Those who have software under control actively support business goals – those who do not manage it are managed by it.

Three Action Areas for Strategic SAM

Practice shows that IT departments that have completed the shift from reactive administration to strategic steering focus on three central action areas. In addition to IT, procurement and business units play an increasingly important role.

Outcome-driven SAM instead of pure compliance: Robust Software Asset Management does not exhaust itself in license management or audit preparation. It is understood as a steering instrument that proactively contributes to value creation – with reliable data on usage and costs, continuous optimization, and forward-looking forecasting for budget and investment decisions.

Active and transparent SaaS management: Business units today frequently procure software independently, sometimes outside established processes. Active SaaS management creates transparency about which tools are in use, how they are utilized, what costs arise, and where corporate data flows. Duplicate structures are avoided, security risks are reduced, and budgets are deployed in a targeted manner. Similar developments are described in my article on Shadow IT and uncontrolled SaaS costs.

A contract management system that lives up to its name: Anyone who wants to achieve real savings must systematically scrutinize the existing contract framework. This includes consolidating vendors, reviewing automatic renewals, clearly assigning responsibilities, and reconciling actual usage against contractual obligations. A cost-oriented overview not only creates financial flexibility but also acts as the most effective countermeasure against unwanted vendor dependencies.

The decisive shift in perspective is to stop viewing SAM as an end in itself or mere audit preparation. Mittelstand virtues such as precision, responsibility, and cost clarity create the ideal foundation for this – and are often more difficult to implement in large corporations than in the Mittelstand.

Case Studies: What Focused SAM Projects Deliver

A mid-sized company in the healthcare sector shows how this works in practice. After a focused SAM project lasting only a few weeks, it reduced annual software costs by more than ten percent without months of detailed inventory work across 2,000 employees.

Specifically, unneeded maintenance contracts were terminated, automatic price increases were identified and renegotiated, functional overlaps between tools were eliminated, requirements from business units were bundled, and solutions with low usage were consistently questioned. A pragmatic, targeted approach – without a major transformation project.

A second example from the plant engineering sector in the Stuttgart region illustrates the negotiating power created by a solid data foundation: A company with nearly 8,000 employees negotiated a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement. With a transparent data situation and deep understanding of the pressure points, the contract volume was even reduced below the original baseline level.

Even with large vendors like SAP or Microsoft, double-digit percentage savings are regularly possible. There is no reason to simply leave money on the table. Especially since many U.S. providers are used to negotiating with corporate structures, unprepared appearances create gaps that can be closed. How cloud sovereignty in the European context is now also being discussed at the political level is shown in our article on Microsoft’s and AWS’ Promise of Digital Sovereignty for Europe.

Don’t Make Yourself Smaller Than You Are – Negotiation Strength in the Mittelstand

Many Mittelstand companies still act too defensively toward large, internationally operating software vendors. The dependencies are real, vendor lock-ins are increasing, and the perceived power imbalance with global vendors is tangible. Yet this power imbalance can be significantly shifted with the right preparation.

Those who precisely know their software landscape, usage, and cost structures do not appear as supplicants, but as equals. Solid data, clear priorities, and a long-term plan noticeably change the dynamics in exchanges with vendors. This presupposes defining contract and renewal strategies two to three years in advance.

Proactive Software Asset Management means in practice: systematically analyzing usage patterns, developing reliable scenarios for cloud and AI costs, as well as regularly consolidating the software portfolio and examining genuine alternatives. The growing importance of AI investments in this context is highlighted in our article on 552 billion euros for AI infrastructure.

In this understanding, Software Asset Management becomes an expression of digital maturity – as an integral part of entrepreneurial steering. IT leadership, controlling, procurement, and business units gain transparency, planning certainty, and measurable savings along the entire software lifecycle.

Pragmatic Start: How to Get Started

A pragmatic start does not begin with a large-scale project. Begin with a focused 90-day cost-cutting project that creates transparency across the company and makes concrete savings potential visible. This quickly creates a success that builds internal trust.

Leverage the AI and SaaS momentum: Bring costs and data flows under control and position IT as an enabler that empowers business units and actively involves them. Those who have AI spending under control also avoid the budget surprises that many companies are only now beginning to experience.

Consistently advance your renewal roadmap. Those who systematically manage contracts – even the smaller ones – become the central node between IT, procurement, and business. Those who begin in a structured way here gain not only short-term savings but also long-term steering capability.

Frequently Asked Questions

Image source: AI-generated (July 2026)

Translated from the German original using artificial intelligence. The German version is authoritative.