Microsoft licensing can get complicated quickly. An organisation starts with a set of Microsoft 365 licenses that perfectly matches its needs. Then the business evolves. New employees arrive, others leave, roles change, security requirements increase and new technologies such as Microsoft 365 Copilot enter the picture.
A few years later, a simple question can become surprisingly difficult to answer: Are we still using the right Microsoft licenses, for the right people, in the right way?
At Easi, that is exactly the kind of question our Microsoft Licensing Expert Bruno Vijverman helps customers answer.
A lot of expertise at Easi lives with the people who work with our customers and technology every day. In our Meet the Expert series, we put some of those people in the spotlight: who they are, what they do and, most importantly, how their expertise helps our customers.
Bruno specialises in helping organisations understand and optimise their Microsoft licensing environment. But his job isn't simply to count licenses or find the cheapest possible combination.
It starts with understanding the organisation behind them.
How are employees actually using Microsoft 365? Which capabilities do they need? Are licenses still aligned with their roles? Are security and compliance requirements properly covered? And what could upcoming projects such as Copilot mean for the licensing strategy?
"Many organisations initially associate license optimisation with cost savings. That's certainly part of the equation, but the bigger objective is making sure your licensing matches how your organisation actually works today – and where it wants to go tomorrow." — Bruno Vijverman
One of the ways Bruno puts that expertise into practice is through our License Optimization Assessment (LOA).
Quite a lot can, as Microsoft 365 environments are all but static. Employees join or leave, responsibilities change, additional functionality is introduced and licenses accumulate over time.
In the environments Bruno analyses, this can result in situations where:
None of this necessarily means an organisation has managed its environment poorly. Often, it is simply the result of years of growth and change.
That's why taking a fresh look at the environment can be valuable.
A License Optimization Assessment (LOA) goes beyond listing which licenses an organisation owns.
Bruno combines Microsoft 365 usage data, licensing and configuration information, customer discussions and his knowledge of Microsoft's licensing models to understand how well the environment matches the organisation's actual needs.
The findings generally fall into three areas.
These are opportunities that can often be addressed relatively easily, such as unused licenses, inactive accounts or unnecessary assignments.
Not every employee needs the same functionality. By comparing actual usage and requirements with the licenses assigned to users, Bruno can identify where a different license may be a better fit.
The goal isn't to remove useful functionality. It is to make sure people have what they need without paying for capabilities they don't use.
Optimisation doesn't always mean spending less.
An assessment can also reveal that additional licensing is necessary to correctly cover security, compliance or governance requirements. Upcoming projects can change the equation too. A Copilot rollout, for example, raises questions not only about licensing but also about adoption and which users will genuinely benefit.
That insight is just as valuable as identifying a saving.
No, and that's an important distinction. The outcome can be a lower total cost of ownership, but it can equally reveal compliance gaps or areas where additional investment makes sense.
In practice, the result is often a combination of both.
"A good assessment doesn't start with the objective of cutting licenses. It starts with finding the right answer for the customer. Sometimes that's a saving. Sometimes it's closing a compliance gap. Often, it's both." — Bruno Vijverman
What matters is that decisions are no longer based on assumptions. The organisation gets a clear view of its current situation and concrete recommendations on what to do next.
A completed LOA therefore includes more than an assessment report. Depending on the environment, customers receive deliverables such as an interactive heatmap, detailed remediation plan, supporting workbook and executive summary.
And Bruno's work doesn't end when the report is finished. He personally discusses the findings with the customer, explains the reasoning behind the recommendations and helps translate them into priorities and concrete actions.
This is also where the value of having a dedicated licensing expert becomes clear, because licensing touches many other technology decisions: An assessment might show that an organisation should reconsider part of its security setup. It could reveal an identity or governance challenge. Or it could provide the data needed to decide which employees would benefit most from Microsoft 365 Copilot.
For Bruno, the question therefore isn't simply: "Can we reduce our Microsoft licensing costs?" A better question is: "Does our Microsoft environment still match what our organisation needs?"
Sometimes the answer leads to savings. Sometimes it leads to better compliance. Sometimes it creates the foundation for the next Microsoft project. But in every case, it leads to better-informed decisions.
If your Microsoft 365 environment has evolved significantly over the past few years, it may be worth taking another look at whether your licensing has evolved with it.
Our License Optimization Assessment helps identify opportunities, risks and priorities based on how your organisation actually uses Microsoft technology today.
Want to know what that could reveal in your environment? Get in touch with your Easi Account Manager or our Microsoft Licensing Expert Bruno Vijverman.