Should IT or procurement/finance be leading the SAM (Software Assets Management) initiative?

Great question! The leadership of a Software Asset Management (SAM) initiative often depends on organizational priorities, but here’s the crisp guidance:

Who Should Lead SAM?
IT typically leads because SAM is deeply tied to technology lifecycle management—installation, usage tracking, compliance, and optimization.
Procurement/Finance plays a critical role in cost control, vendor negotiations, and contract compliance.

Best Practice Approach
IT owns operational execution (tools, processes, compliance monitoring).
Procurement/Finance co-leads governance (budgeting, renewals, cost optimization).
Many organizations form a cross-functional SAM committee with IT as the primary driver and Procurement/Finance as strategic partners.

IT should lead, but in reality, it is a shared responsibility. If you have a mature procurement function but your SAM team is not at the same level, then it is likely that stakeholders are going directly to procurement for renewals, RFPs, contract requests, etc. 

You need to foster a relationship with procurement so that you are on the same page when requests come in. You also need to be clear on what the current objectives of your SAM team and ensure you are not overlapping with procurement and creating confusion for your stakeholders.

It made sense for us to lead it in IT. This was mainly because the imperative to ensure technology-specific renewals were being dealt with in a timely way was our responsibility.

IT