Breakthrough of the year

Heineken

Winner

Heineken, the world-renowned brewer operating in over 150 countries, has embraced a bold digital transformation strategy—blending tradition with innovation to become the best-connected brewer. With thousands of servers and workstations spanning SAP, Microsoft, and Oracle platforms, Heineken needed a smarter, more efficient way to govern software, reduce risk, and unlock value from its sprawling IT estate.

By deploying Flexera One ITAM, IT Visibility, and Application Readiness, Heineken turned software asset management into a powerhouse of data-driven decision-making—achieving €4 million in cost savings, slashing audit risk, and delivering outstanding ROI on business case projections. But what truly sets this initiative apart is the way Heineken is infusing discovery and advanced analytics into its operational DNA.

Heineken’s D&T team—led by Michał Sawicki, Senior Contract and License Lead,—used Flexera’s insights to power smarter license optimization, drive global alignment between IT, finance, and procurement, and lay the groundwork for the future AI-fueled automation in software management. This initiative exemplifies the modern enterprise: globally scaled, insight-driven, and digitally fearless.

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Impact of the Year

Vodafone

Winner

Vodafone is a leading European and African telecoms company. They provide mobile and fixed services to over 340 million customers in 15 countries, partner with mobile networks in over 45 more and have one of the world’s largest IoT platforms. In Africa, their financial technology businesses serve almost 83 million customers across seven countries – managing more transactions than any other provider.

Using Flexera’s Snow License Manager, Vodafone launched a cross-functional, multi-country initiative to identify, trace, and remove any unwanted applications. Rather than patching, the focus shifted to removal, supported by deny/authorize list and user-level insights.

Key to success were establishing quarterly targets, ticket tracking, and strong stakeholder alignment. The initiative both reduced risk and also showcased Flexera’s value beyond license compliance—driving collaboration across IT, security, and finance.

Impact of the Year

Turkcell

Honorable Mention

Turkcell’s Software Asset Management (SAM) journey represents a strategic transformation powered by enhanced governance, automation, and enterprise-wide visibility. Building on its long-standing Flexera FNMS foundation, Turkcell expanded the program’s scope in 2024 to establish a centralized and dynamic platform for license optimization, risk mitigation, and strategic decision support. Through automated license measurement processes and executive-level reporting, Turkcell implemented a sustainable monitoring system via Flexera dashboards.

These efforts enabled a unified license inventory across the organization and reinforced centralized governance across key software assets. The initiative also brought Turkcell’s SAM practices closer to ISO/IEC 19770-1 standards, supporting continuous improvement. In the current phase, the scope has further expanded to include SAP license measurements using Snow Optimizer, comprehensive inventory assessments for vendors such as Microsoft and VMware, and exploratory efforts to manage cloud-based software assets.

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Innovation of the Year

Mphasis

Winner

Mphasis transformed its global software deployment and compliance workflows through automation—resolving over 80% of monthly application tickets (out of approximately 2,500–3,000 average monthly count) without manual intervention. This shift significantly accelerated deployment processes from days & hours to 2-4 hours upon ticket creation, greatly enhancing onboarding efficiency and boosting employee productivity across global teams. We are actively exploring additional solutions to shorten the manual ticket resolution time, with the goal of addressing issues on the first day rather than on subsequent days. By integrating Flexera’s compliance and entitlement data with automation platforms like ServiceNow, SCCM, and Intune, Mphasis ensured that every deployment was not only fast but audit-ready. Their phased rollout, co-designed with risk teams, embedded automated license validation, unauthorized install flagging, and full traceability into every workflow—reducing risk and boosting stakeholder confidence.

Over three years, this shift has improved governance, aligned IT and compliance, and turned automation from a tactical tool into a strategic differentiator—proving that innovation at scale is possible, even in complex, regulated environments.

Innovation of the Year

ABB

Honorable Mention

ABB transformed End-of-Life (EOL) risk management from a reactive IT task into a strategic business initiative. By leveraging Flexera’s IT Visibility and Technology Intelligence platform, ABB developed dynamic dashboards that integrated ESU pricing, ownership data, and lifecycle insights. This allowed cost center owners to clearly see the financial impact of outdated systems like Windows Server 2016. Automated updates using PowerShell scripts and contextual APIs ensured real-time accuracy, while C-level leaders gained actionable visibility into infrastructure risk, compliance exposure, and cost optimization opportunities.

This innovation not only accelerated decision-making and reduced ESU-related costs, but also fostered a culture of accountability across IT, finance, and business units. ABB’s forward-thinking approach influenced Flexera’s product roadmap and sparked internal demand for similar dashboards across other vendors. By combining financial and lifecycle data, ABB unlocked a new dimension of Technology Intelligence—one that drives compliance, optimization, and business-aligned technology decisions at scale.

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ITAM Excellence

Department for Education

Winner

The UK Department for Education is responsible for children’s services and education, including early years, schools, higher and further education policy, apprenticeships and wider skills in England. They provide children’s services, education and skills training that ensures opportunity is equal for all, no matter background, family circumstances, or need.

DfE's bold IT vision focused on becoming a digital-first organization, leveraging cloud-native platforms, data analytics, and secure infrastructure to modernize legacy systems and reduce administrative burdens. Partnering with Flexera, DfE gained critical insights into software assets, enabling smarter decisions and cost savings.

The transformation supported improved service delivery and enabled agile responses to emerging challenges. Key outcomes included £60,000 in initial cost savings, and a 122% achievement in end-of-life software reduction, greatly enhancing IT security and resilience. With Flexera’s insights, the DfE gained greater visibility and understanding of its technology landscape, enabling smarter decisions and more strategic investments.

ITAM Excellence

Aviva

Honorable Mention

Aviva is a leading multinational insurance company headquartered in the United Kingdom, serving over 18 million customers across Europe, Canada, and Asia. With a workforce of more than 22,000, Aviva offers a broad portfolio of life, general, and health insurance products, alongside asset management services.

As part of its digital transformation, Aviva is pursuing a cloud-first, automation-driven IT strategy to build a resilient, agile, and data-centric enterprise. By leveraging technologies such as Microsoft Azure, ServiceNow, Snowflake, and SAP, the company is aligning IT capabilities with business objectives to enhance operational efficiency and customer engagement.

To modernize its IT asset management (ITAM), Aviva partnered with Flexera to overcome challenges like limited asset visibility and fragmented manual processes. Starting with a small, focused team, they achieved early wins that laid the groundwork for broader transformation. Through the implementation of the Flexera One, Aviva automated workflows, integrated systems, and supported key digital initiatives. This effort delivered £75 million in cost savings & avoidance over five years, achieved 100% audit risk mitigation in two IBM audits, and fully automated desktop software asset reconciliation. Aviva’s strategic approach has elevated ITAM into a core driver of business value and operational excellence.

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SaaS Management Excellence

Thames Water

Winner

Thames Water is leading a major digital transformation to become a digitally empowered utility. As the UK’s largest water and wastewater services provider, it serves over 15 million customers with a workforce of 8,000.

With a commitment to digital transformation, the company has prioritized addressing its legacy systems, refreshing its end-user computing environment, and reducing its data center footprint. In response to challenges such as aging infrastructure, Thames Water has adopted more intelligent strategies for configuration management, including enhanced asset management and the use of digital discovery tools.

With support from Flexera, Thames Water has gained greater visibility into its technology assets, enabling better decision-making and stronger alignment between IT operations and strategic goals.

SaaS Management Excellence

KCB Bank Kenya

Honorable Mention

KCB Group Plc, East Africa’s largest commercial bank, embarked on a major digital transformation to modernize its IT infrastructure and deliver secure, agile, and customer-centric services across seven countries.

With over 12,000 employees, including more than 600 in the Technology Division, and a complex environment of over 12,000 devices, KCB’s strategy focused on hybrid cloud adoption, cybersecurity, and automation to meet growing demands and streamline operations.

Facing the need to scale smart governance and shift from legacy systems, KCB aligned IT with business goals and empowered teams to innovate efficiently. Flexera played a key role by providing software intelligence, enabling KCB to optimize investments, ensure compliance, and free up resources for innovation.

This transformation showcased KCB’s leadership in digital banking across Africa. The results were significant: $23.3M in software and cloud cost avoidance, 48% ROI with a 7-month payback, and over 95% IT asset visibility—reinforcing that strong partnerships and vision can drive impactful, measurable change.

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FinOps Excellence

Zoomcar

Winner

Zoomcar is the largest p2p car-sharing marketplace in India and used its cloud migration initiative as a catalyst to overhaul cost visibility, governance, and operational efficiency. Leveraging Spot.io for intelligent workload automation and Flexera One for centralized cost visibility and governance, the team achieved a 45% reduction in infrastructure costs and a 50% increase in system reliability. They also implemented strategic policies for tagging and budgeting, improving cross-functional collaboration across engineering, finance, and operations.

The result? 50% faster decision-making through recommendations, and a significant reduction in infrastructure costs.

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Technology for Good

ABB

Winner

As ABB advances its large-scale cloud transformation across Azure, AWS, and other platforms, sustainability has become a top priority. In collaboration with Flexera and GreenPixie, ABB is developing an integrated cloud sustainability dashboard to track Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions tied to cloud usage. Using Flexera’s Cloud Cost Optimization and IT Visibility modules, the initiative surfaces carbon impact by region, provider, and business unit—enabling ABB to embed sustainability into IT governance, reduce its environmental footprint, and meet emerging ESG reporting requirements. The project is part of a broader vision to weigh environmental cost alongside financial cost in ITAM and FinOps strategies. ABB’s use of Flexera’s contextualization APIs and cloud provider sustainability data allows for granular insights that support ESG compliance and long-term planning. Even in its early stages, the initiative has broken down silos between IT, procurement, and sustainability teams, fostered internal awareness of digital carbon responsibility, and positioned ABB as a pioneer in Green IT. This effort is not just about compliance—it’s about leading by example and integrating technology for good into every layer of digital strategy.

Technology for Good

PepsiCo

Honorable Mention

PepsiCo launched a global software optimization initiative using Flexera One to reduce waste, cut costs, and advance its enterprise-wide sustainability goals. Operating across hundreds of thousands of devices in a hybrid IT environment, the team tackled the financial and environmental impact of unused software—often hidden across business units and geographies. By centralizing visibility and aligning software entitlements with actual usage, PepsiCo avoided costly renewals, streamlined true-ups, and reduced shelfware. These actions directly supported Scope 3 emissions goals by minimizing the energy footprint of underused applications. The initiative also fostered tighter collaboration between procurement, finance, and technology teams—embedding smarter, data-driven decision-making into PepsiCo’s day-to-day operations and reinforcing its long-term digital and ESG strategy.

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Rookie of the Year

Manildra Group

Winner

Manildra Group, a leading Australian agribusiness, is accelerating its digital transformation to support global operations and sustainable growth. With over 1,200 employees and a vertically integrated model, the company is leveraging scalable technology ecosystems to drive innovation and operational excellence.

A key milestone in this journey was the modernization of its IT infrastructure and the implementation of SAP systems for unified data management. In its first year using Flexera solutions, Manildra Group faced an urgent SAP audit and launched a fast-paced project using Snow Optimizer for SAP. Between 7 March and 24 April 2025, the team reduced license consumption from approximately 450 to 188—within just eight weeks.

This rapid time-to-value helped avoid substantial cost exposure and significantly improved SAP compliance. These efforts reflect Manildra Group’s commitment to data-driven decision-making, software optimization, and long-term digital resilience.

Rookie of the Year

Wabtec

Honorable Mention

Wabtec Corporation transitioned from a largely unused, on-premises FNMS deployment toa fully modernized Flexera One environment—implemented in less than 12 weeks.

By aligning Flexera One, SaaS Manager, and IT Visibility with Tanium and ServiceNow, Wabtec created a powerful, integrated asset management ecosystem. This transformation enabled a 30% reduction in Adobe licenses within weeks, visibility into over 2 million installations, and projected $300K in annual software savings. The move from disconnected legacy tools to a connected ITAM strategy has positioned Wabtec to support growth, optimize spend, and power better decision-making across software, SaaS, and cloud.

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