Negative user reaction
No organization wants to be seen as draconian by its users and employees. Many users think of their company-issued PC or laptop as ‘theirs’, so license managers, IT Directors and CIO’s worry that any move to remove software applications from a user’s PC will be seen as unnecessarily intrusive.
But research would suggest that many users are well aware of the problem of unused software on their desktops. Over one third of users questioned last year as part of the 1E Help Desk Efficiency Report said that they believed they had five or more applications installed on their machine that they never used.
What if you could demonstrate to every user how much unused software there is on their machine and then show them how much that unused software is costing their organization every year?
In a climate of economic uncertainty, showing your users that you take cost control and efficiency seriously by identifying and removing unused and expensive applications can actually help to improve relationships with your employees. Remember that many of them are more worried about their jobs and pensions than they are about the software on their desktop.
There are several other ways to allay user concerns. For example, you could provide them with an opt-out mechanism, automating the reclaim of licenses across the enterprise while giving every user a choice as to which applications they get to keep and which get removed.
You could also offer them the ability to find, select and download applications they need on demand using an enterprise app store. So if, in a few weeks or months’ time, a user finds that they need access to an application that has been removed, they can reinstall it themselves. Users are less likely to be concerned about the removal of software from their machine if they can get those applications back in a matter of minutes.
AppClarity: https://www.1e.com/appclarity/
