VA Software Asset Management: Adherence to Leading Management Practices Needed to Achieve Intended Outcomes

Executive Summary

Affected segments pending source review.

The GAO found that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has not fully implemented selected leading planning and management practices for its enterprise software asset management (eSAM) program and for the software license inventory project that is part of that effort. GAO judged multiple practice areas as “minimally implemented,” “partially implemented,” or “not implemented,” and noted gaps in oversight, stakeholder engagement, risk documentation and mitigation, governance, and software license management. GAO highlighted that turnover in the IT management organization — including the absence of a permanent Chief Information Officer since January 2025 — has affected oversight, and that until the selected practices are implemented VA risks failing to achieve departmentwide software asset management and foregoing possible cost savings.

Contractors should pay attention now because VA is signaling a likely period of internal reorganization and renewed focus on centralizing software license data and decision-making. GAO’s findings increase the probability that VA will pursue corrective actions (governance, inventory, reporting, stakeholder engagement, and cost-analysis capabilities) that could lead to new requirements, procurements, or contractor engagements to support program planning, implementation, change management, and analytics. Specific procurement actions, timelines, and vehicles are TBD pending solicitation language and further VA actions.

Impact Matrix

eSAM program

• Risk Level: Critical
• Opportunity: VA intends eSAM to change how the department manages software assets and to require offices to coordinate with, and centrally report software license data to, VA’s IT management organization. Contractors may find opportunities to provide program planning support, governance design, change management, software asset management tooling, inventory integration, and analytics capabilities. Specific opportunities TBD pending solicitation language.
• Timeline: Timeline TBD pending source review. Contextual notes from the Summary: VA has been without a permanent CIO since January 2025; GAO referenced fiscal year 2025 planned software spending context (~$985 million).
• Action Required: Prepare offerings and proposals that address program governance, stakeholder engagement, and lifecycle planning. Be ready to demonstrate experience in establishing or operating centralized license inventories, in developing governance frameworks, and in conducting cross-organizational change management. Assemble references and evidence of risk management, inventory reconciliation, and cost-avoidance analyses.
• Competitive Edge: Emphasize integrated solutions that combine inventory implementation, governance support, and stakeholder facilitation (e.g., playbooks for transition from decentralized purchases to centralized reporting), backed by measurable outcomes and prior results. Specific contract vehicles and NAICS codes TBD pending solicitation language.

software license inventory project

• Risk Level: High
• Opportunity: The inventory project is intended to create a centralized software license inventory as part of eSAM. Contractors could support data collection, reconciliation, license management processes, tooling integration, and analytics to enable departmentwide license reporting and optimization. Specific opportunities TBD pending solicitation language.
• Timeline: Timeline TBD pending source review. (GAO reviewed the inventory project as part of its assessments; no implementation deadlines were specified in the Summary.)
• Action Required: Prepare to offer services for discovery and inventory reconciliation, development of a documented risk register with mitigation plans, stakeholder engagement plans, and resource management approaches. Demonstrate capability to work with decentralized acquisition records and to reconcile license entitlements across disparate units.
• Competitive Edge: Offer modular delivery options that rapidly produce verified inventory baselines, accompanied by risk registers and prioritized mitigation actions, plus analytics to estimate potential cost savings from license consolidation. Specific contracting details TBD pending solicitation language.

Cross-Segment Implications

• The success of the software license inventory project is tightly coupled to establishing effective program-level governance for eSAM; weaknesses in one area (for example, governance not implemented) can cascade and undermine the other (inventory accuracy, stakeholder buy-in, risk mitigation).
• Turnover and leadership gaps (CIO vacancy noted since January 2025) increase near-term uncertainty and may slow procurement timelines or change requirements, affecting both program-level services (governance, policy) and project-level technical work (inventory, tooling).
• Because VA programs historically acquired software independently, any move toward centralization will produce transitional workload across organizational boundaries — creating simultaneous demand for stakeholder engagement, change management, and technical integration services.