BSA capacity building pgm for K'taka PSUs

BANGALORE, INDIA: Business Software Alliance (BSA), in partnership with the Center of E-Governance, Government of Karnataka, on Friday announced the closure of the program 'Relevance of Software Asset Management (SAM) for Public Sector Undertakings'.

The programme trained 10 state-owned enterprises on the business benefits of adopting good and robust IT Governance practices.

With the completion of the programme, Karnataka became the only state to have engaged PSUs on the principles of Software Asset Management.

Jeetendra Singh, officer on special duty, Department of IT, Biotechnology and Science & Technology, government of Karnataka, said, “PSU’s play an important role in providing critical products and services to citizens, hence, it is important that they are educated and trained on optimization and proper deployment of software assets which are a critical tool for production and citizen transactions.”

He added that this will protect PSUs from tangible risks such as security breaches, system breakdowns and liabilities associated with usage and deployment of illegal software.

“Karnataka is a leading state in the usage of IT and we are extremely pleased that we have also led the way for PSU’s to avail the full benefits of the internationally recognized ISO Standard of Software Asset Management,” he added.

Lizum Mishra, director, Business Software Alliance, said, “The core objective of this program was to ensure that Karnataka state owned enterprises understand the importance of software in their everyday functioning and are able to better manage their software assets to stay competitive, secure and productive.”

“We have been fortunate to get the Center of E-Governance, Government of Karnataka’s undivided support in this initiative and are certain that the learnings will enable state PSUs to use the benefits from these trainings to perform efficiently and create significant cost savings on software as well as IT processes and infrastructure,” she continued.

The program was aimed at training PSUs in Karnataka on the principles of the internationally recognized ISO Standard of Software Asset Management (SAM), its salient features and its core business benefits to government organizations.

These principles involve building capabilities on optimizing the purchase, deployment, maintenance, utilization, and disposal of software applications within an organization, reducing IT costs and limit business and legal risk related to the ownership and use of software, while maximizing IT responsiveness and end-user productivity.