License Management Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2022 - 2027)

The global license management market (henceforth referred to as the market studied) was valued at USD 977 million in 2021, and it is projected to reach USD 1,723.6 million by 2027, registering a CAGR of 10.07% during 2022-2027 (henceforth, referred to as the forecast period).

Key Highlights
There has been a continuous shift toward managing IT services and their applications for short- and long-term strategic decisions. Enterprises are investing heavily in their IT infrastructure to replace their existing legacy systems, depending on the features and capabilities. The competitive upgrades and replacements could profoundly impact change on the broader market share in the future.
With so many new technologies emerging almost every day, it is essential for large and small organizations to understand what software is being used. Managing software licenses has always been a challenge, and in today’s technologically advanced world, it has become increasingly difficult. However, saving money by avoiding duplicate software licenses, over-licensing, and over-or under-spending should be at the top of every organization’s list.
Digital technologies are being adopted across various manufacturing industries due to the rapidly evolving capabilities of the software used, further boosting the market’s growth.
As more companies are increasingly moving to cloud computing and embracing digital at every turn, optimization is an essential part of this growing trend.
The profit margins across organizations are continuously declining, owing to increased competition and rapidly changing technologies. As such, various enterprises are increasingly getting focused on saving operational costs. License management software is one of the ways to reduce cost, as organizations are on the lookout to optimize software usage and avoid any loss due to license non-compliance. License management enables companies to control all agreements, contracts, license entitlements, and software inventory from a centralized location.
The Business Software Alliance (BSA) is a global industry organization whose mission is to advocate for legal software usage and enforce compliance among businesses. To fulfill this duty, the BSA regularly performs court-ordered audits at organizations to ensure they are compliant with all software licenses, whether small mom-and-pop shops, massive enterprises, academic institutions, or government agencies.
The outbreak of COVID-19 across the globe has significantly disrupted the supply chain. Moreover, it has exerted significant pressure on enterprises, whether large or small, due to the worldwide lockdown restrictions, which have forced employees at large-scale to work from home. This has prompted organizations worldwide to adopt several digitalization technologies to collaborate remote working while optimizing productivity. However, large-scale remote working and the sudden wave of digitalization poses several challenges and threats to IT teams across these enterprises.

Key Market Trends

Healthcare Segment to Drive the Market Growth

Healthcare and life sciences are amongst the fastest-growing verticals with respect to the adoption of advanced technologies and services in terms of the license management market. It is, in fact, a highly regulated one. License management solutions can help healthcare organizations, clinics, and hospitals in tracking, monitoring, and managing their licenses and other software assets to improve efficiency.
Healthcare institutions using these solutions for operational activities and management of medical devices have to adhere to regulations as per the laws of governing bodies. In recent years, the focus on the healthcare and life sciences industry vertical has been increasing across the regions.
The risk associated with selecting and managing the appropriate software is of utmost importance to this industry vertical. The strict laws governing the healthcare and life sciences industry vertical encourage the healthcare companies to adopt effective license management solutions and associated services.
Fulfilling the licensing requirements of the healthcare and life sciences industry is fundamental to keeping the business operating in a state. Having updated licenses will allow the organization to enter new markets, open new facilities, hire staff, and obtain financing.
On the other hand, license violations may lead to state-imposed penalties or delinquencies, preventing the business from growing. License Management solutions save organizations from all such violations. It enables management, monitoring, and track all types of licenses and permits effortlessly and efficiently.
Many vendors offer license management solutions in an intuitive dashboard and interface, so the staff requires minimal technical training to use it regularly. These solutions also provide timely notifications that keep the authorities informed about due renewals.

North America to Hold Significant Market Share

Most of the top suppliers in the License Management Software market are headquartered in the United States – Agilis Software, IBM, Micro Focus, Oracle, to name a few. The region is one of the highest revenue-generating ones, as the constituent nations, including the United States and Canada, are largely focusing on technological innovations.
For many years, especially in 2014, the region saw exponential growth in new product offerings by global vendors. For instance, Chronicle Graphics released its new License Management System. This new enterprise-level platform provided a fast and efficient way for OnePager Pro and Express software users to request and activate their license keys automatically over the Internet. The company has licensed its technology to Fortune 500 companies spanning multiple industries and numerous government agencies and is a Microsoft Certified Partner.
Around the same time, Aspera Technologies announced significant business growth in the United States market. Now the company works with leaders in the petroleum, telecommunications, and insurance industries in the United States.
Moreover, in 2021, after listening to its 55,000+ user base, MyMediabox has launched a range of additions to its licensing management software to offer users new productivity tools to aid the licensing process. The Mediabox-GD (Global Dashboard) is enhanced with graphically oriented key performance indicators (KPIs), business intelligence trends, and seamless access to all Mediabox services for licensors keeping track of countless partnerships and consumer products.
Site24x7 surveyed 613 IT professionals across various topics, organization sizes, and geographies in their State of IT Management Survey Report 2020 – 2021. In North America, 41% of respondents use internal software to maintain the organization’s various software licenses, followed by third-party license management software.
Over four years, a report on the cost of unused software collected data from 3.6 million users at 129 companies in the United States and the United Kingdom. Researchers found that 37 % of all installed software was not being used, amounting to USD 259 per desktop and over USD 37 billion in total wasted IT spend.

Competitive Landscape

The market has high competitive rivalry and is fragmented. The companies in the market are engaging in partnerships with other companies to develop and launch advanced solutions in the market. As such, huge investments are being witnessed in the market which is increasing the competition. Additionally, to sustain in the market and retain their clients, companies are developing advanced technologies to play on the competitive edge, thereby intensifying the competitive rivalry in the market.

March 2022 - GEFA BANK, a financing partner for German SMEs and subsidiary of Société Générale, has selected DXC Technology for a digital transformation project. With the "G-Rocket” program, GEFA BANK and DXC Technology will migrate the bank’s mission-critical applications and data from its existing data center to Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. With the move to the Azure cloud, GEFA BANK and DXC will systematically deploy the bank’s application landscape to cloud-native services such as Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
January 2022- Miro Consulting has released the 2022 version of its Oracle Licensing Guide. Miro Consulting is the leading global provider of software asset management services (SAM), specializing in license management, audit advisory, negotiation tactics, support management, and cloud services for Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, Salesforce, and AWS.

Additional Benefits:

The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format
3 months of analyst support