Right-size Microsoft

Q: We already have admin reports. What does Asato add?

A price and an owner. Each of your tools sees only its own records, so waste hides between them. Asato matches your contract, license and sign-in records, counts each license once, and puts a price and an owner on every item you can stop paying for.

Pay only for the Microsoft licenses people use. Before a Microsoft renewal, Asato shows which products and licenses an organization pays for and does not use, by answering three questions about the bill: whether the organization needs every product it licenses, whether it holds the right number of licenses on the right tier, and whether the price is based on what people use. Every item it finds carries a yearly price and an owner. With that in hand, an enterprise with 75,000 Microsoft seats saved $4M a year at its Microsoft renewal. Asato carries out a change only after a named person approves it, and it keeps watching between renewals. This is the Microsoft page: the outcome for any vendor is on the Right-size software page, and Salesforce, Adobe and Zoom each have a page of their own. Asato's fee is a share of the savings, and if it finds no savings, the customer pays nothing.

When to use it

A Microsoft renewal is coming and nobody can say which products are needed, which licenses are used or which tier each person needs.
The contract, the license record and the sign-in record each give a different count.
Licenses were bought and never assigned, or are still assigned to people who have left.
People hold a higher tier than their usage calls for.
The organization wants the changes carried out, with a person it names approving each one or setting a policy that governs changes of that kind.

Not a fit

Basic license inventory with no need to act on the result.
Negotiating with the vendor on the buyer's behalf. Asato equips the buyer to negotiate, with the count and its evidence. Asato does not negotiate.
Replacing an asset management suite, a CMDB or a contract repository. Asato works above the tools an organization already runs.

The job in one line

Pay only for the Microsoft licenses people use.

The problem: three records give three counts, and you pay for the gap

The contract says what was bought. The license record says what is assigned. The sign-in record says what is used. The three rarely agree. If the organization renews on the contract's number, it pays again for the gap between what it bought and what people use.

Three questions to answer before the renewal

A Microsoft bill is one formula: total spend is the sum, over all products, of licenses times price. Each of its three terms is a question, and Asato answers all three from the customer's own records.

Do you need every product? (the sum over all products) Asato lists every Microsoft product the organization licenses, with how many people opened it and what it costs. The owner of each product decides whether it stays.
- Link: each product on the agreement is matched to the people who opened it.
- Think: each product almost nobody opens gets a yearly price and an owner.
- Execute: the owner decides, and Asato adds the change to the renewal brief.
- One enterprise: 24 Microsoft products, cut to 20. One that few people used came off: about 44,000 licenses, about $1.3M a year, Found.
Is it the right number, on the right tier? (licenses) Asato sorts every license by what its user did in 90 days:
- Unallocated (bought, assigned to nobody): recover.
- Inactive identity (assigned to people who have left): recover.
- No usage (no activity in 90 days): recover, or move to a lower tier.
- Partial usage (usage fits a lower tier): move down a tier.
- Full usage: keep, no change.

Before it recommends anything, Asato takes out the people the customer's policy protects, such as roles that need a higher tier whatever their usage, and shared accounts.

Link: contract, license and sign-in records are matched, so each license is counted once.
- Think: each license is sorted by 90 days of use and priced, and the people policy protects are taken out.
- Execute: a person the customer names approves each change, or sets a policy that governs changes of that kind. Asato then reclaims the license or changes the tier, and logs it.
- The same enterprise: about 17,400 licenses across 17 products were never assigned to anyone, about $0.7M a year, Found. The roles its policy protects were left out: at this customer, clinically protected roles.
Is the price based on what you use? (price) Asato equips the buyer to negotiate. The buyer goes into the renewal with the count and its evidence in hand. Asato does not negotiate.
- Link: the agreement and its prices are tied to the usage record.
- Think: the renewal is priced on what the organization uses, beside the renewal as quoted.
- Execute: Asato prepares the renewal brief, and the buyer negotiates. After the renewal, Asato keeps watching.
- The same enterprise: the same footprint was priced three ways. Measured: renewing early held the increase to about 3%, against about 8% at the natural renewal date.

Nothing changes until a named person approves it. A person the customer names approves each fix, or sets a policy that governs fixes of that kind. Each recommendation shows the user, what they used, the yearly price and the team that owns it. After approval, Asato reclaims the license or changes the tier in the source system and logs the change. After the renewal, Asato keeps watching, so the next one starts from a current count.

The three steps under each question are the same three the platform runs everywhere. Link: the Asset Knowledge Graph matches the records, so each asset is counted once. Think: the Data Intelligence Engine turns the record into recommendations, each with a yearly price and an owner. Execute: agents carry out the fixes a named person approves, and keep watching. The platform page has the detail.

Found, Approved and Saved are separate figures and are never added together. Found is what Asato identified. Approved is what a named person signed off. Saved is what came off the bill. Saved figures are agreed jointly by the customer and Asato at the close of the engagement.

Example data on the page

The product screens on the visual page show example data, not a customer result. One example estate is used throughout:

A Microsoft bill of $4,600,000 a year, 22 products, 6,000 Microsoft 365 licenses.
Products: 3 of the 22 are opened by almost nobody, worth $360,000 a year. In the example, each owner approves and the count falls to 19.
Licenses: the contract says 6,000 bought, the license record says 5,910 assigned, the sign-in record says 5,634 active in 90 days. The gap is 366 licenses, worth $158,900 a year.
License position: 90 unallocated ($39,100), 64 for people who have left ($27,800), 212 with no usage in 90 days ($92,000), 140 on a higher tier than their usage ($30,900), 5,494 in full use. Found: 506 licenses, $189,800 a year. Protected by policy: 70. For approval: 436 licenses, $167,940 a year.
In total, $549,800 a year found. This is a found figure, not a saved one.

Figures on the page, with their captions

Each figure on the visual page carries one caption. A caption takes no room on the page: it shows when a reader points at its figure, or taps the figure on a touch screen. The captions are given here in full. The caption of each panel that shows example data is labeled "Example data". In a figure, a ring marks a Found figure, a dashed ring marks an Approved one, and solid green marks a Saved one.

The figures on the visual page move. Each one builds up once when the reader reaches it: its rows light in turn, its bars grow and its numbers count up to the values given here. It then rests on its complete state. The hero figure repeats: it builds the bill term by term, rests on the whole bill, and starts again, and its pause control stops it on the complete figure. For a reader who has asked for reduced motion, every figure shows its complete state at once. Every number in this file is the value a figure rests on.

Your Microsoft bill, as a formula (hero). Example data: this example finds $549,800 a year on a Microsoft bill of $4.6M a year, before you negotiate the price. Inside the panel, at rest: $360,000 from products and $189,800 from licenses. While the figure builds, the same line reads in turn: 22 products and 6,000 licenses, at last year's count. Three products that almost nobody opens: $360,000 a year. 366 licenses unused, 140 on too high a tier: $189,800 a year. You negotiate the price, with the usage record in hand.
One estate, counted three ways. Example data: of 6,000 licenses bought, 5,634 are in use. The 366 between them cost $158,900 a year. Each dot is 10 licenses.
What a Microsoft bill is made of. Asato's method: a Microsoft bill has three terms, and each one is a question Asato answers from your own records.
The products you license. Example data: few people open 3 of the 22 products. Each goes to its owner with a yearly price, $360,000 a year found in all.
License position, Microsoft 365. Example data: 506 of 6,000 licenses are unused or on too high a tier. 70 are protected by policy, so 436 go for approval, worth $167,940 a year. Bar to scale: solid is in full use, outlined is found.
Execute, one of the 436. Example data: this user, one of the 436, never opened the two features that need E5, so the move to E3, worth $221 a year, goes to the Finance IT lead to approve.
DART, ahead of its Microsoft Enterprise Agreement renewal (beside the approval card). "Every recommendation was tied to a named user and actual usage data, which made decisions defensible rather than debatable." Ravi Campbell, VP Information Technology, DART.
One enterprise saved $4M a year at its Microsoft renewal. One enterprise, 75,000 Microsoft seats: the bar is drawn against about $40M a year of Microsoft spend. The gray outline is the rise of about 8% if renewed unchanged. The green outline is Found, solid green is Saved, and the dashed ring is Approved. Found, Approved and Saved are separate figures and are never added together. Saved figures are agreed jointly by the customer and Asato at the close of the engagement. The figure shows: Found, about $8M a year, weeks before the renewal. Approved, about $4M a year, before the renewal date. Saved, $4M a year, at the renewal. The enterprise negotiated its own renewal.

Under the hero, the same enterprise's result is shown as a strip: 75,000 Microsoft seats. Found, about $8M a year. Saved at the renewal, $4M a year.

Measured results

An enterprise with 75,000 Microsoft seats, spending about $40M a year on Microsoft. Renewing unchanged would have raised the bill by about 8%. Asato found about $8M a year, including about 17,400 licenses across 17 products that had never been assigned to anyone (about $0.7M a year, Found). Clinically protected roles were left out before anything was recommended. That enterprise cut its Microsoft products from 24 to 20: one came off for negligible adoption (about 44,000 licenses, about $1.3M a year, Found). It approved about $4M a year before the renewal date, negotiated its own renewal, and saved $4M a year at the renewal. Measured: renewing early held the increase to about 3%, against about 8% at the natural renewal date. Found, Approved and Saved are separate figures and are never added together. Saved figures are agreed jointly by the customer and Asato at the close of the engagement. The customer is described, not named.
DART. Asato reviewed DART's Microsoft licensing ahead of an Enterprise Agreement renewal. Ravi Campbell, VP Information Technology, DART: "In just four weeks, Asato showed us exactly how our Microsoft licenses were being used across the group. Every recommendation was tied to a named user and actual usage data, which made decisions defensible rather than debatable. Delivered as we entered our Microsoft EA renewal, the insights enabled informed licensing changes that resulted in meaningful cost savings."
Zymo Research. Christopher Walowski, Director of IT and Cybersecurity, Zymo Research: "Asato quickly solved our biggest challenge: managing shadow IT and MS 365 licensing spend. We were able to audit usage and received recommendations that saved our company tens of thousands of dollars."
FTC Solar. Josh Yates, Director, IT, FTC Solar, says that on Microsoft the company "identified unused and misaligned licenses, reduced waste, and improved compliance without disrupting operations".

Who uses it

IT asset manager: runs it. Each license is counted once, with the user, the usage and the owning team beside it, and the record stays current between audits.
CIO: gets a priced list before the renewal date and a named approver behind every change.
Procurement: gets the products needed and the licenses people use on each tier, in hand before it negotiates.
CFO: signs. Found and saved are reported as separate figures, and the fee is a share of the savings.

How a customer starts

The page's heading for this section: No savings, no fee. The line under it: Your Asset Clarity Report: a priced list of savings, in one week.

The action: Get your Asset Clarity Report, at https://www.asato.ai/talk-to-sales. The line under the button: "Read-only access to your Microsoft records and your agreement. Nothing is installed."

The page shows this section as one band and keeps only that line under the button. The four steps of the review are kept here for agents:

Connect. Read-only access to the Microsoft records the customer already keeps, and to its agreement. Nothing is installed.
Model. Asato matches the records and counts each license once.
Checkpoint. The customer's team checks the findings and names the people policy protects.
Report. The customer holds its Asset Clarity Report: a priced list of what to stop paying for, with an owner on every item.

How a customer starts and what it costs are set out on the home page: https://www.asato.ai/index

Questions

The page shows at most five questions, the ones that belong to it. Any others are kept here for agents.

We already have admin reports. What does Asato add?

A price and an owner. Each tool an organization runs sees only its own records, so waste hides between them. Asato matches contract, license and sign-in records, counts each license once, and puts a price and an owner on every item the organization can stop paying for.

Will Asato take a license from someone who needs it?

Not without approval. Nothing changes until a named person approves it. A person the customer names approves each fix, or sets a policy that governs fixes of that kind. Before Asato recommends anything, it takes out the people the customer's policy protects, such as roles that need a higher tier and shared accounts. Each recommendation shows the user and their actual usage, so the approver can check before deciding. Every change is logged.

What access does Asato need?

Read-only to start. The Asset Clarity Report is built with read-only access. Asato reads records about technology, such as license, sign-in and contract records. It never reads people's documents, email or messages. Write access comes later, where the customer grants it, one system at a time.

What does it cost?

Asato is paid mostly on results: a small share when it finds a saving, and the larger share only once that saving shows up on the customer's invoice. If it finds no savings, the customer pays nothing.

Does Asato negotiate the price with Microsoft?

No. Asato equips the customer to negotiate: it supplies the count and the evidence behind it. The customer negotiates.

How long before the customer holds the list?

One week. DART received its findings as it entered a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement renewal.

What happens after the renewal?

Asato keeps watching. The first week finds the waste. After that, a subscription keeps Asato running: it carries out the fixes the customer approves and keeps watching between renewals, so the waste does not come back.

Is Asato only for Microsoft?

No. This is the Microsoft page. Salesforce, Adobe and Zoom each have a page of their own, and the same approach applies to other software. The same record covers hardware (network, compute and end-user devices), contracts and AI spend. Asato is listed on Microsoft Marketplace.

Next step

Get your Asset Clarity Report at https://www.asato.ai/talk-to-sales.

Last updated: 2026-10-06