License Costs Under Full Control

Without a reliable data foundation: Forecasts and strategic decisions were made in the dark 

With more than 300 subsidiaries and 13 airlines, the Lufthansa Group is one of the largest aviation groups in the world. The company centrally manages IT, software license management, and software procurement for all Group companies from its headquarters in Frankfurt.

For more than 10 years USU’s License Management solution has helped Lufthansa Group reliably meet the compliance requirements of major software vendors while maintaining full visibility into its software landscape.

As the group continued to scale, so did the demands for cost transparency and financial control. Lufthansa Group needed a technical solution to centrally capture software costs and allocate them on a monthly basis—accurately, fairly, and traceably—down to individual subsidiaries and business units.

Previously, cost chargebacks were handled manually at year-end. The result: no consistent data foundation for reporting, forecasting, or strategic decision-making. The process was time-consuming, error-prone, and tied up valuable resources both at the corporate center and across affected entities.

Transparency at the corporate level: License costs automatically allocated and reported in a verifiable manner 

After evaluating multiple approaches, decision-makers selected the Financial
Management module within USU’s License Management solution as the right tool to automatically generate chargeback files for SAP. Lufthansa and USU jointly defined precise technical specifications, along with customized views and reports tailored to the group’s needs.

Technical implementation and optimization were carried out iteratively over several months. The close collaboration between Lufthansa’s SAM team and USU’s consultants was critical to project success—with a sharp focus on data quality to prevent incomplete or incorrect invoices from ever reaching the business. 

Another key success factor was the SAM team’s proactive change management approach, which brought subsidiaries into the rollout process early. Through an internal “SAM roadshow,” team leads personally visited local license management teams to build buy-in and establish a shared understanding of Software Asset Management as a strategic business capability—not just an IT function.

Today, the solution automates monthly chargebacks from 15 vendors to more than 140 Lufthansa Group entities, with the ability to onboard new SaaS vendors and subsidiaries quickly and seamlessly. Alongside invoices, entities receive monthly reports that enable individualized analysis—from cost optimization opportunities to budget planning.

An additional high-value use case is automated monitoring of the Microsoft 365 tenant, proactively preventing low-license situations before they impact operations.

Managing and allocating millions of euros in annual license costs

Today, Lufthansa Group manages and allocates tens of millions of euros in annual license costs through the integrated SAM module. With USU Software Asset Management, the company can transparently attribute all software costs to individual subsidiaries and business units—and automate the entire chargeback process. The result is a dramatic reduction in manual effort alongside a measurable improvement in data quality and financial accuracy.

Key outcomes at a glance:

• Enterprise-wide visibility into software and license costs;
• Automated chargebacks across 140+ group entities;
• Significant error reduction through standardized processes;
• Major time savings for the SAM team;
• Faster onboarding of new SaaS products;
• Automatic ticket creation with invoices attached in the correct
  format;
• Stronger forecasting that drives more informed IT and license
  strategy decisions.