“Microsoft approached us and told us that the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit would help us with our inventory. It’s a great tool—it really is.” Brian Gibb, IT Manager, Carousel Industries After two years of growth through acquisition, Carousel Industries wanted help preparing for its upcoming Microsoft Enterprise Agreement renewal. The company worked with Universal Management Solutions to undergo a Software Asset Management (SAM) Baseline engagement using the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit to gather inventory data. Carousel Industries reconciled assets obtained through growth, while also updating its licensing strategy. Business Needs Carousel Industries has provided tech- nology services to enterprise customers across the United States for 20 years. In 2009, the company entered into a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, part of Microsoft Volume Licensing. Not long after entering into the agreement, Carousel Industries experienced a period of sig- nificant growth through acquisition. In just two years, Carousel Industries doubled its employee count to reach its current size of more than 1,150 employees; three quarters of these employees are remote workers. In early 2012, Carousel Industries began planning for the Microsoft licensing renewal process. Brian Gibb, IT Manager at Carousel Industries, was aware that he needed a better understanding of the company’s IT environment and assets. “One of our biggest concerns was that we had grown tremendously through acquisi- tions and new hiring,” says Gibb. Many of the company’s acquisitions came with hardware and software assets, and the company’s IT team had a difficult time keeping track of so many new assets. “We needed to get an understanding of our current assets,” adds Gibb. Further, Carousel Industries had not used a standard asset management program to monitor new assets, track acquired hard- ware and software, or approve and deploy requested software. “We were trying to dig through our homegrown system to try to track all of it, and to figure out how many copies of this and that and everything else was out there,” says Gibb. “We were running into difficulties.” Finally, company processes for acquiring new software and hardware assets for employees caused delays and cost pro- ductivity. “There was a lot of back-and- forth to get a new user set up,” says Gibb. Solution As Carousel Industries approached the Enterprise Agreement renewal date, Gibb anticipated that there would be expenses involved for the True-Up license recon- ciliation process. Gibb was pleased his Microsoft account manager approached with the suggestion that Carousel Industries participate in a complimentary Software Asset Management (SAM) Baseline inventory engagement. Dell, the Microsoft Large Account Reseller for Carousel Industries, introduced Gibb to Universal Management Solutions (UMS), a member of the Microsoft Partner Network with SAM competency, to conduct the SAM Baseline inventory. UMS held a few conference calls to make introductions and go over the SAM Baseline process. UMS then helped Carousel Industries prepare to deploy the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit. MAP is a highly secure and agentless inventory tool that can be deployed on a single server to Customer: Carousel Industries Website: www.carouselindustries.com Customer Size: 1,150 employees Country or Region: United States Industry: IT services Partner: Universal Management Solutions Customer Profile Based in Exeter, Rhode Island, Carousel Industries is a technology solution con- sultant providing enterprise customers with design, implementation, and main- tenance services for communication networks. Software and Services Microsoft Server Product Portfolio − Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Services − Microsoft Enrollment for Application Platform − Microsoft Enterprise Agreement − Software Asset Management Baseline Technologies − Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit For more information about other Microsoft customer successes, please visit: www.microsoft.com/casestudies Microsoft Software Asset Management Customer Solution Case Study Technology Consultant Handles Growth, Updates Licensing Strategy with SAM