Filipa Preston is the only SAM practitioner outside of Europe to meet strict criteria of new SAM Expert Assessment

Perth, Australia, 20 December 2012: Filipa Preston, CEO and founder of Software Optimisation Services, a boutique IT and Software Asset Management (SAM) consultancy practice, has become the first SAM practitioner outside of Europe to meet all of the requirements of KPMG’s SAM Expert Assessment, recognising her skills as an advanced SAM practitioner.

As a globally recognised leader in SAM consultancy, KPMG launched its SAM Expert Assessment service in order to provide employees of Microsoft Certified SAM Partners (Silver/Gold) an advanced assessment of their SAM skills. The assessment, which was carried out by KPMG’s software compliance team in Cologne, Germany, is based on the latest specifications from various internationally recognised SAM methodologies, certifications and frameworks (e.g. ITIL, MOF and COBIT), supplemented with training material for missing or inadequately covered areas of competence, e.g. IT solutions and project management.

Successful completion of the SAM Expert Assessment means that projects under Preston’s leadership at Software Optimisation Services meet KPMG’s strict requirements to deliver quality software licence compliance. Preston is the first and only practitioner outside of Europe to pass KPMG’s SAM Expert Assessment, marking her out as a real expert in her field.

Commenting on her achievement, Preston, says, “It is a wonderful acknowledgement that the comprehensive and highly developed process we follow in our Audit services has been validated by KPMG. As the first software asset management practitioner outside of Europe to achieve this validation, customers can be assured of a mature and sophisticated SAM service at Software Optimisation Services.”

With corporate budgets under scrutiny and Forrester reporting that software asset management is on the rise (http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/infrastructure-and-operations/2012/12/the-rise-fall-and-rise-of-software-asset-management/index.htm), an increasing number of firms are looking to SAM services as a means of reducing their annual software spend while gaining the additional peace of mind of knowing they are compliant if ever audited. With the addition of KPMG accreditation via Preston’s leadership, Software Optimisation Services is well placed to capitalise on this trend and deliver tangible cost savings to its clients.

“Our non-negotiable standards for data integrity and quality sets us apart from the crowd and enables us to find those extra savings that others simply cannot. Our comprehensive and highly developed process ensures we deliver significant reductions in our clients’ software expenditure in every engagement, with each project delivering savings of at least half a million dollars and paying for themselves many times over within the first year,” comments Preston.

Software Optimisation Services (SOS) was founded in 2011 to help organisations achieve the maximum value from their sizeable software investments and to empower CIOs to make a real difference across the whole of the business. “The cost savings available through better management of the IT estate are significant and can deliver far-reaching benefits to the organisation as a whole. It is our goal at SOS to prove that IT and software asset management projects can do more than just pay for themselves, but be a significant profit centre for the organisation that showcase the positive impact of the CIO and their department to the wider business. This is the true power of software asset management,” concludes Preston.