Resources
Back to AllIndustry Insights into the Future of SAM in Government
Overview
The current push to reduce Federal spending while leveraging top industry capabilities aligns well with leveraging SAM in Government, offering a clear opportunity to cut IT costs. By connecting government priorities with industry trends, agencies can identify where strategic investment will deliver the greatest return.
On June 18, Flexera released its “2025 State of ITAM Report,” offering a timely snapshot of the shifting IT landscape. At InSequence, our mission is to bring the best of private-sector IT asset management (ITAM) and Software Asset Management (SAM) practices into the public sector. This year’s report affirms what many government IT leaders already suspect: significant waste persists, visibility remains elusive, and software audits continue to cost organizations millions. Key findings include:
-
- Organizations estimate that over 25% of their IT spend is wasted.
- Complete visibility into IT environments is still out of reach.
- 45% of organizations have faced $1M+ software audits in the past three years.
- The top 10 software vendors are still auditing aggressively.
- The cloud era is accelerating, with 25% of advanced SaaS users reporting waste, and 35% saying it has increased year over year.
These trends demand a strategic shift. SAM in Government must move beyond traditional Software Asset Management and begin adopting an integrated approach that brings together SAM, SaaS Management, Cloud License Management, and FinOps. This convergence is no longer optional, it’s the only way to gain meaningful control over spend, compliance, and optimization in today’s complex IT environments.
Survey Sources
Each year, Flexera surveys hundreds of global IT professionals to assess the evolving state of ITAM, FinOps, security, software asset management, and hardware asset management. The 2025 report reflects the insights of 506 industry practioners from diverse market segments and geographic regions, offering a comprehensive look at challenges and priorities shaping the ITAM landscape.
Key Findings from Industry
Finding 1: IT Spend Waste Remains High
The Flexera 2025 State of ITAM report found that professionals estimate that 25–30% of IT budgets are wasted due to redundant tools, underutilized licenses, and a lack of actionable insight. In an era of fiscal scrutiny, this level of inefficiency is unsustainable.
Finding 2: Visibility Gaps Persist Across IT Environments
The Flexera 2025 State of ITAM report found that despite years of investment, most organizations still lack complete visibility into their on-premises, cloud, and SaaS assets. Even traditional environments like on-prem hardware and software report less than 80% coverage.
Finding 3: Audit Exposure is a Major Financial Risk
The Flexera 2025 State of ITAM report found that nearly half of all organizations have paid more than $1M in audit penalties in the last three years.
The Flexera 2025 State of ITAM report found that the most aggressive vendors include:
- Microsoft
- Adobe
- Oracle
- Salesforce
- ServiceNow
- IBM
- SAP
- Autodesk
- VMware
- McAfee
These vendors are not only aggressive in the private sector—federal agencies are directly impacted. In fact, the Federal CIO recently mandated that agencies inventory licenses with the “top 5” vendors (Microsoft, Adobe, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Oracle) and report by April 2.
The vendors from the Flexera report overlap with the listing of vendors from the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s report “Federal Software Licenses: Agencies Need to Take Action to Achieve Additional Savings (GAO-24-105717)” published on Jan 29, 2024. You can view the GAO report here: GAO-24-105717.
As the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) notes, “the most widely used and highest amounts paid for software products cannot be identified across the 24 agencies because agencies’ license data for products were inconsistent and incomplete.” Agencies continue to struggle with incomplete licensing data, making it difficult to right-size software contracts. The opportunity to reduce waste through better inventory and insight is significant.
Once again, this shows that the challenges of SAM in Government correlate to industry trends.
Finding 3: Cloud, SaaS, and FinOps Complexity is Growing
Finally, the Flexera report found that cloud licensing management is still maturing. There’s no clear ownership model for managing software costs in public cloud environments. Of intermediate and advanced users, 25% believe SaaS spend is wasted, and 35% report an increase in waste year-over-year. Without collaboration between procurement, finance, and IT, SaaS waste will continue to grow unchecked.
Recommendation: Converge SAM and FinOps for the Federal Enterprise
To meet the challenges ahead, Federal agencies must stop treating SAM, FinOps, and SaaS management as siloed initiatives. Instead, agencies need a converged approach that brings together tooling, data, and expertise across all IT spend categories.
The foundation of this strategy is normalized data—without it, the license terms, use rights, and optimization opportunities remain inaccessible. A government-wide approach to SAM in Government can enable strategic sourcing, improve audit readiness, and reduce waste at scale.
InSequence Can Help
InSequence’s SAM365® is available on the GSA Schedule as a managed service that integrates SAM, SaaS, CLM, and FinOps principles. We deliver not just tooling, but expertise and outcomes—with over $250M in validated savings to date, SAM365® pays for itself.
For Federal CIOs and procurement leaders, the message is clear:
If you want to reduce waste, avoid audits, and prepare for the cloud-centric future, you need more than software—you need strategy, governance, and execution.
Let’s build that future together. Learn More: https://www.insequenceinc.com/services/sam365/
Check Out the Flexera Report
There are a lot more details in Flexera’s report. Check out the whole Flexera 2025 State of ITAM Report which is available at the link below:
