SONAX GmbH

It’s best to be prepared for the next audit

SONAX GmbH develops and produces successful products for vehicle care at Neuburg an der Donau. The 13 employees in the information centre, including Andreas Kaltenstadler, system administrator at Sonax, deals with 550 clients throughout the HOFFMANN corporate group at several locations from the Neuburg site. A central IT management solution for inventorisation, user management and  audit-proof licence management aim to reduce the administrative effort and provide a lasting overview of the software products used with the relevant licence assignments.

“During our last licence audit by KPMG we were shown how important professional licence management is. Simply preparing the data for the licence reports took days and the time it took to produce the purchase evidence and contractual data was extensive. On the one hand, because there was no suitable tool to date for creating inventories of the software, and on the other, because we could not precisely determine which programs were running on which PCs,” reports Andreas Kaltenstadler.

Licence management as an integral part of the IT infrastructure.

With the relatively low number of homogeneous client management solutions on the market, the decision was taken relatively quickly. It required functioning licence management which is an integral part of the ongoing IT infrastructure and processes. The manufacturer’s annual roadshow, which also stopped in Munich and at the ITSA in Nuremberg, were the first opportunities we had to study DeskCenter Management Suite in detail. Andreas Kaltenstadler became enthusiastic quickly:

“We wanted to determine the licence levels and requirements in the company precisely and using as little time as possible. The complete inventorisation of all of the systems quickly answered the question of which software was installed where. The results that could be generated from this facilitated our work and we can now  make statements immediately when an audit comes around. We are also able to plan resources better and reduce our long-term IT costs.”

The seal of quality stands for an audit-secure licence balance

Now Andreas Kaltenstadler can remain calm when a licence audit comes around. Thanks to DeskCenter he can create licence balances at the press of a button, including invoices and licence documents, all parameters such as upgrade and downgrade rights, loyalty periods, multiple usage rights and much more besides. The KPMG seal of approval also facilitated the decision. DeskCenter Management Suite is the first KPMG-certified client management solution. The experienced IT administration gives the use of DeskCenter a positive grade on all aspects: “By introducing a software management solution we are able to transparently manage our software and licences throughout. We therefore save valuable administrative time and can also reveal potential savings.”