ITAM, Audits, and Finding Your North Star with Martin Thompson

In this episode we welcome Martin Thompson, founder of ITAM Forum, a non-profit trade body run by ITAM professionals designed to educate companies on ITAM with a focus on business value. 

Martin and Craig explain how vendors use audits to force conversations, drive revenue, and steer customers toward shiny new cloud offerings. They discuss pain points companies are facing (like cloud spend, SaaS sprawl, and data quality), the EU vs US's secondary software markets and the differences in software reselling, and practical moves to align ITAM with FinOps.

Martin also highlights North Star Labs, a career transformation consultation agency that helps professionals through cohort-based training, practical tools, and a supportive community to replace burnout with purpose-driven careers.

Follow Martin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinthompson/

Learn more about ITAM Forum at: https://itamf.org/

Learn more about North Star Labs: https://northstarlabs.co.uk/

Transcript

Meet Martin Thompson

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Hello, everybody. My name is Craig Renty, and I'll be your host today for the world's greatest podcast. And I am so happy uh to welcome our guest for the show today. Uh truly uh OG Olgard uh for the uh ITAM world. I know one of the first people that I met when I left uh Big Oracle and started my own little firm, Palisade Compliance. So Martin Thompson, thank you very much for joining us on the show and and welcome.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

You're welcome. Thank you for having me. I mean, world's greatest podcast. It's quite intimidating.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Well, you have to be the world's greatest podcast guest today. So no pressure. That's uh that's the level, anything below that we have to be like you know, the average podcast, the world's most average podcast. So we don't we don't want that for today. So, Martin, you um, you know, you and I were just talking, and I was saying that I was going through your LinkedIn profile uh before we got on here, and you've got the ITAM forum, you've got the ITAM review, you've got the Lisa project. Uh so why don't you uh tell the audience a little bit about sort of your history in the world of software asset management and ITAM and sort of uh all of that. And I thought we could, you know, dig into that a little bit uh before we move on to your North Star Labs passion project.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Cool, sure. So um it's quite a history, so so to stop me if I get a bit dull, but uh, I've been in this field for 25 years now. So um started doing ITAM in the year 2000. I was a uh firm that meant some might remember, which are computer associates, I think they're under the CA Technologies now. Well into and they were quite a big software company at the time. The they're I think they've shrunk a little bit now, but they were quite a contender. And I was in the inside sales team when in my very early 20s, and most of the sales team handled security and storage and stuff that CA Technologies did. And I did the the weirdware, the the minority stuff, one of which happened to be an ITAM tool from CA Technologies, and that was in the year 2000, and I've been in this field for my sins ever since. Um working for different tool manufacturers. Um I've not done the the publisher side like you, Craig, but I've done pretty much everything else in the in the ecosystem. And in 2008, uh set up on my own, and I've been uh a sort of analyst covering this space, the ITAM space, um, since 2008.

Early ITAM Days At CA

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Long time. And you know, I I sort of well, I I left Oracle in 2011 and then started this firm. So I knew of you when I started doing this, and I have been following your work and sort of your writings and uh your blogs and videos uh ever since. So thank you for your contribution to our little niche uh side of the world. But I'm interested in uh your work at CA. You mentioned that they I didn't realize they had a SAM tool or an ITAM tool at uh they had what was it called?

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Um so they had uh they had this big framework for big enterprises called Unicenter, and then they sort of commercialized that into little box products um like ArcServe and the asset one was called Aimit, I think, asset management. So it wasn't it wasn't anything like a Flexair or a ServiceNow or anything like that or or a Snow. It was more like uh asset register, uh doing a bit of discovery, and it was actually pretty cool. And then I went on from there to a consultancy selling that item, and then I don't know if you would have remembered in the UK there was a there was a practice at the time called Federation Against Software Theft in the UK, similar to the BSA.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

I'm not familiar, I know the BSA, I I do know the BSA, but I'm not familiar with the UK version.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Yeah, and even the BSA seems to have dropped off the radar these days, but they the the BSA and the and fast used to be like the red hot poker of the industry saying you must buy your licenses and you must do this, and they've sort of drifted away these days.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

I just went to a conference in DC two or three weeks ago, sponsored by the BSA. It was all about AI regulations and was bringing government officials from around the world to talk about sort of how governments need to get involved or not get involved in the regulation of AI. So had nothing to do with software compliance, but it was more uh like an it it it the organization feels more like a regulation, sort of governing body group of experts rather than, like you said, poke poke the bear trying to generate money for vendors.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Right. And I listened to one of your previous podcasts around Oracle audits and their sort of I think you were speaking to the guest about leaning towards AI and and Oracle's move towards AI infrastructure and everything. And uh I look forward to AI audits because I'm sure they're coming.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

I we we did that whole podcast. We we started asking, I don't know if it was Grok or whoever, ChatGPT, if I'm a user of software and I get an audit letter, should I do everything the vendor says? And it was like, absolutely, you should totally listen to the vendor because they're there to help you. And I mean, it wasn't that bad, but it wasn't good, right? It was not going to leave you in in a good spot. So, but it is getting better, right? This whole world of you know, uh putting in questions into grok versus going to Google and and looking at a series of websites. Uh, the the information is it's not it's not a hundred percent. I wouldn't bet my career on it, uh, but it is a good starting point.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Yeah. And you've got to, you've got um, I listened to that episode as well, and um, I thought it was really good. And it's a sort of warning sign of AI slop, right? It's you know, just got to be careful of the output. Um, but all of these tools thrive on context. So you need to say, I am the customer, I don't trust Oracle. What should I do? You know, you need to give it some grounding about the subject, right? Rather than just giving it a blanket question.

BSA, FAST, And Audit Evolution

SPEAKER_01 6:07

That that's true. So um prompt engineering will be very key in in the future for those of you in university as you're studying, make sure you're going, I want to write this essay as if I didn't use you. So what um, you know, besides AI, because we talk about AI and on on every episode, and I'm happy to do that. What else is hot or new in the world of ITAM or software asset management? What do you what are your um the people you work with, what are they talking about? What are you seeing vendors do?

SPEAKER_00 6:44

So we're um we've just done a member survey. So one of the hats I wear is I I lead an organization called the ITAM Forum. It's a it's a not-for-profit member organization serving people in the ITAM space. And we've recently polled them to say, um, you know, where's your priorities? What's keeping you up at night? What where do you see the focus of the industry? Um, and no surprise really, um uh cloud um operations, so spend compliance, right up there. Um, how how the industry works with FinOps is is uh is a challenge. It's like we've got this up and coming practice around um cloud optimization, cloud economics, and how does traditional ITAM work with this new dynamic uh industry? That's that's and itam forum is working closely with Fin up the FinOps Foundation to to build those bridges. Um SaaS is is hot. Um sprawl going in into sprawl is into SAS, sorry, is is very hot. And people are looking at not just AI but automation. How do I have not got any more staff, I'm not likely to get more staff. How can I automate things to do more with um with the same team basically? Um, and another key concern at the moment is data quality. Um, how do I actually get good, trustworthy data to make smart decisions when my IT estate is spread over so many different systems? It's in the cloud, it's on premise, it's in this in some SaaS applications, it's here, there, and everywhere. And how do I make smart decisions around that? So um that's where our focus is at the moment.

AI, Prompting, And Risky Advice

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Yeah, the data quality thing is is it's so critical. And uh, you know, we see this, you know, we we our uh world is audit defense, you know, you know, we we do a lot obviously with Oracle and you know, helping contracts and negotiations and all of that, but we're also uh moved into the non-Oracle world of just doing audit defense. So if you get an audit letter from someone, uh we we can help you with that. And one of the challenges we see, and I don't care if it's with on-prem software or SaaS, is just data quality and and from the vendors, they're sending reports to our clients with obvious errors or assumptions being made. And even on the client side, they're often coming to us with with we don't know. I don't know. So that's what's worrying them, is like they they just don't know what they don't know. Uh so I feel like that's something that data quality, I've been it's been an issue since I started my work career in 1995, and it is still an issue today. And it's like and and our little firm of Palisade, you know, we're constantly going in there looking at client data and sort of our contractual data with you know, just sort of refreshing it and updating it. It's it's a never-ending thing. Uh, and if you have bad data, especially in the the SAM space and the audit defense space, you you might be making a really big mistake. So, how do you know when your data is good or bad?

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Yeah, and especially in the context of of what you do, what Palisade does, um, what are we looking for in the first place? Um, because many of the uh and and not just Oracle, because I know you do a lot more things these days, but um a lot of the vendors don't actually specify what are we auditing. And when we do audit it, how are we going to measure it in the first place? And what does compliance look like? Um because they deliberately that's that's like uh I'm sure it's not malicious, but uh it's not it's not in the contracts, so you can't do it yourself.

What’s Hot In ITAM Now

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Um so Morton, I've been on both sides of that fence, and it's very intentional. I wouldn't say malicious, but there's a reason why it's not defined, and it's not uh because someone isn't smart enough to think of a good definition. It's it's better for the vendor to not define it because it gives them more freedom. And honestly, you know, for our clients too, uh, if they're willing to um for any company, not just our clients, if you're willing to live in that gray space, it could be very beneficial for you too. Uh the challenge is, you know, being able to deflect and defend your gray space position versus a black and white uh uh position with with customers, with with uh with vendors. Uh and and a lot of companies don't want to do that. They want the finality. We want to know for sure. And then, all right, but that's gonna cost you. That's gonna cost you money. Oh, you're gonna overbuy, you're gonna over provision, you're just gonna uh make those types of mistakes versus other mistakes, which is you know being under provisioned or underbuying. And and so finding that sweet spot is uh you know where we're trying to be. And but I did have one attorney tell me years ago when we were helping with an audit, say Craig, vendors don't audit to find the truth. It's not about the ultimate, it's not like a tax, like an IRS audit or a safety audit. They're looking to find the ultimate truth. Did you pay enough in taxes? Or is like the fire extinguishers and fire sprinklers working, you know? Um this is more of just to get leverage, right? And I think whether you're a SaaS provider or a software provider, you're doing the same thing you did 20 years ago. It's just okay, it's not on-prem anymore, it's in the cloud. It's you know, SaaS. So we've seen SaaS audits, we've seen um, you know, on-prem audits. I I think the SaaS providers have learned a lot. Well, a lot of them started out as software vendors. So they've just sort of taken those practices with them and their journey to the cloud.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Yeah, I I I see it as a form of foreplay from the vendor. It's like uh, how can I get your attention? Uh, there's so many competitors to our solution that I need to get your attention. How do I do that? How do I get that at a senior level? I slap you with an audit, and then I'll have your attention, and then we can talk about my new shiny cloud product or whatever it might be. It's a way of engaging with the customer. I don't think it's going away anytime soon.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

I have been in this space for 30 years, and I don't think I've ever had someone say that an audit is like foreplay. It's awesome. I've I've heard a lot of metaphors, but that is not one of them. How about you buy me a drink? That will get my attention. How about a lunch, a coffee? You know, that might be a little bit better.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

It's a different kind of foreplay. It's a way of monopolizing the management team's time because they've got a million things to do that are strategic and beneficial to the company. How do I pierce through that? How do I cut through the noise and get the attention of the C management team about what we're doing and our revenue and our renewal and everything else? It's get legal and it's it's a tried and tested technique. It works.

Data Quality And Audit Defense

SPEAKER_01 13:41

You know, when I think about how these vendors are auditing, you you bring up an interesting point. And I agree that this, you know, one of the tactics here is to cut through the noise. You know, when you ignore a vendor, they do stupid things like audit you. So there's always like, I need to give them a little bit of time, especially if I'm using their product. I mean, obviously, they can't audit you if you're not using their product. Um, although I'm sure someone has tried that tactic. But um I think where the audit letter goes, you know, can give you some uh inclination as to the goal. If they're sending that audit letter to a C-level executive, you're right. They want your attention, they want a meeting, they want to sit down, they want to talk, uh, they want to show you the brand new thing. But if that audit letter goes to some junior person in some back office, they're really just looking for money. They are not they they you may be talking to them and maybe buying a bunch of stuff from them, but they're trying to get around your audit defenses because you've got this wall of defenses and and they found the back door to to get in uh and get information. So often where that letter goes, I think can give you uh an inclination of what that vendor's goal is with with this thing. And it's intentional, right? It like audits don't just happen, they're not accidents, they're not random lotteries. I don't know one vendor that um audits you by by happenstance. It's there is a a reason why you're getting that audit letter.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Right. Can I ask you a question? I know if your if your podcast, but um I was I was intrigued by one of your previous conversations on the past podcast that said um because I I've always assumed that when they send the letter out, there's a lot of business intelligence behind it because it costs a lot of money to engage and to process the audit. The audit process is expensive, but the your guest seemed to imply that now it's a bit more scatter gun because we're pushing the onus on the customer to do the work, so we can afford to send a lot more letters out and care less about it.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Would you is is it shifted, do you think audits for the vendor cost nothing? There is no cost. They can send out a thousand audit letters, they have the same audit team, they're all making salary. It doesn't go up or down, there's no extra cost. 99.9% of the cost of an audit is born uh on the shoulders of the the the customer. It's it's so I I don't think there is like if if Microsoft or IBM or Oracle send out an audit letter, it doesn't cost them a penny.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

It it's it's I was thinking more of when they're engaging a third party, like an audit firm or a um what's the is it Connor? The um yes that's uh so you know because then if you're paying them, you you you're engaging, they're not gonna do it for free, they're not doing it for love, they're there because they want an outcome, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Yeah, and we've seen, you know, not to mention firms, but we've seen those firms uh on the other side of the table, and they are bounty hunters. So I don't know the commercial relationships that those types of firms, and it's not just Connor, but it's Deloitte and KPMG and all those firms, uh, where big software vendors, SaaS vendors hire someone else to go do their dirty work, let's say. And um, you know, they're commercial, like, hey, I'll do a hundred audits and I'll get 10% of what I keep. I I don't know what that relationship is, uh, but you do know, uh, and I've seen the these vendors say, well, we've hired a third party and they're independent. And I'm like, like, hell they are. Like, just like I'm independent, right? No, I'm an advocate for my customer, not this. I'm I'm independent from the vendor, um, but I'm advocating for my client. So um, yeah, I'm sure there is a cost to that, but um, you know, I'm sure if if I'm pick a name, if I'm SAP, or I think Red Hat is the one that is, or Red Hat is using Connor, or um uh Broadcom is one of those. Broadcom is using Connor, that's probably where we've seen them. Uh, I'm sure there's a commercial relationship there where the more a firm brings in, the more they get paid. So uh these audits are like I said, they're they're so cheap, and they're so uh the reason companies audit is because it works, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:01

If if you were to give them the benefit of the doubt, you would say even if they weren't getting incentivized for doing it, they're certainly going to get more work from that publisher if they've delivered a return, right? So well done that on that last tranche, have another load, you know.

Why Rules Stay Vague

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Listen, if if Broadcom hired Palisade to do audits, which they won't, um, and we said, hey, we did 10 audits and we helped 10 customers be in compliance, we would be fired the next day. That's just the way that works. Listen, I would if I was at Broadcom and I brought in a firm, like your job is to bring people into compliance, uh, is to bring in revenue. Um, I don't know of a an audit practice where one of their KPIs is, you know, we we help the customer save some money and and uh avoid that problem. Like it just doesn't happen. It's how many audits, how fast did you do it, how much did you spend, and how much revenue did you bring in? It's not customer satisfaction, customer loyalty. Did you move them to the new product? Did we get the intelligence we wanted? Like that is what audit practices uh are are all about. Um, so I think when you are um getting that audit letter and it comes from a third party, you know, sometimes you let your guard down and say, oh, it's a third party, they must be independent. And and that again, that's intentional. Uh, there's a reason why uh some big firms do that and hire third parties is they they don't want to get their hands dirty and they want to be able to blame the other one or throw them under the bus or just you know put whatever. Maybe I don't have budget to hire 20 people to do that, so I go to a firm and say, Hey, can you do a hundred of these? Um But yeah, if you're not uh doing the bidding of the software vendor, you're not gonna get contract number two for sure. I could be wrong. I could be wrong. Maybe one of those firms will get on this podcast one day and tell me why I'm wrong. But uh, but uh I do have a hat here when people say that we're wrong. It doesn't happen in this space um when it comes to that kind of thing. There's there's a there's a financial incentive.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

I I was on a call with um a chap from IBM this morning and he was describing the uh I forget the acronym, but the service whereby um if you don't want to audited by IBM, you can pay some money and you'll get protected uh from audit as long as you feed them the data on a regular basis. And it's it's it's just if if you look to our industry from another industry, you just think I was just thinking this must f seem very bizarre, the practices that happen. Because to me, that uh I have to be careful with my words, but it it's it's what they're doing is very close to a protection racket. It's like if you if you pay us, we you won't get hurt, you know.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

That's the metaphor I've definitely heard over the years. This is the mafia, it's the protection racket, give us some money, and we'll go away.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Yeah, but whereas if they were to say that they offer that service by their partners, but also, Mr. Customer, here's how you do it yourself. Uh, you measure these metrics, you do it this way, this is what we're looking for when we come on site, this is what compliance looks like. The customer can then say, you know what, I will go with a partner because I I looking at what the work is involved, I'm gonna choose to use a partner. But they don't do that, it's just the partner only, and I think that's a little bit uh is limiting for the customer.

Third Parties, Bounties, And Leverage

SPEAKER_01 21:36

It is the wild west still. Um you know, I I'll you know, just think about 2011 when when you know I held held out the the Palisade Shingle. There were two firms out there that I was competing with in terms of um one was Belay, the guy's out in in Europe, and there's another company called Miro Consulting, who's based here in in the States, and they're still out there, Miro is. I know Bele got bought by another firm, so um they're doing different things, those guys. But um I was shocked. Like I remember sitting down and I was like, and it wasn't a Bele thing. I was like, wait, you're a reseller for Oracle, and your website says you do Oracle audit defense. Like that was it blew my mind. Like, why would people ever do that? Like, and then I see like you know, sometimes vendors uh, you know, again focusing on Oracle for a second, they have whole programs where they'll go out for free and audit you, and and you know, you have to volunteer to to be and you go through like why like I mean I don't want to say that was a stupid thing for you to do, but man, that was dumb for to invite a vendor in and sort of give them this data without knowing the rules, without knowing how they're gonna process it, without knowing the answer. Like you never give information to anyone if you don't know the answer. Like waiting for a vendor to give you an answer, are you in compliance? Is like mistake number one. Like you tell the vendor. Um but uh so yeah, so we've definitely seen some um, you know, not those companies that I mentioned, but uh as I we've gone from you know two competitors to 50 or 40, but I've seen some crazy, crazy behavior where uh these vendor partners were feeding information back to vendors and and and literally sending emails and like you know, if you were a law firm, and we're not a law firm, but there's ethical standards to how you do this. Like there are no sort of you can lose your ITAM license if you do this certain thing. Like that doesn't exist in our world. Uh so it allows people to do some crazy backdoor deals, which um, you know, thankfully we we've not done that. Uh, you know, we've stayed really pure to be customer advocates. Um, so it's it's just uh and it's frustrating sometimes because you you see customers or prospects make decisions and they'll go with a competitor once in a while, not often, and you're like, man, they're gonna get screwed. Like, I know they're gonna get screwed. I could see it, and then eventually they come back in like a year, and you're like, you know, I couldn't tell. I tried to tell you at the time, but um, so yeah, it's it's still the wild west when it comes to audit defense and and helping customers uh with these big vendors.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

I did a project called the Campaign for Clear Licensing a few years ago, and we were doing some um lobbying in the European Union around the licensing market, and there's we didn't get a huge amount of traction because the European Union in particular is interested in the consumer and they want to protect the consumer rights, and their view of big business is you're big enough and ugly enough to look after yourselves, so it's almost like sort your own you know affairs out because you've got deep pockets to sort it out, and you need to remember that we are you know the licensing industry is completely unregulated, really. It's nobody nobody's overseeing it. Um, and and you have to be you have to be careful.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Well, and I think there's there's a coalition for for software licensing in in the states now, which is I don't know if those that your group and that group is any any connection to each other, but uh, you know, I do follow them, I get their updates every week. And I think our first um uh guest on the podcast was Ryan Triplett, who runs that uh organization. So it was the very first one uh that we had on here. And I know they're doing great work. And I know in in Europe, and I just saw an article the other day where there's a certain way you can resell licenses. Like if I buy a license from Microsoft, I can then sell, which is completely I tell that to people in the States, and they're like, What? Is that legal? I'm like, well, it is over there, uh and you know, it can it can help you sort of figure that out if you want to do that. Um, but it is, it's it's at least in the EU, you're focused on the consumer. Like here, it's like everybody, like forget it. There's no consumer focus, there's no sort of overarching organization that's helping businesses with this. Um, although there are these uh you know, think tanks and lobbying groups and things like that that are that are trying, but it is um, you know, it it's uh it's tough. It's tough. I feel I feel when I when I if I'm uh in procurement or I'm in it, I have a hundred software vendors that I'm dealing with. I'm gonna be out of compliance with some of them all the time. They all have different rules, different processes, different policies, different things I don't know about. So it's just figuring out, you know, how do I minimize the damage sometimes? You know, there's this whole move like FinOps and license optimization, which is great, and you absolutely need to be doing that. But at some point, you know, you're gonna get that audit letter and and there's gonna be a big hole in your ship, and like you gotta plug that leak, and it's just ongoing. It's like playing whack-a-mole with these vendors, right? This one, Anaconda pops up, and then Digital Envoy pops up, and then you get the big one from Oracle, and then you know, Broadcom changes their rules, and um, you know, anybody can change any rule by changing their website. It's you know, I guess what that's why you and I have jobs.

SaaS Audits And C-Level Tactics

SPEAKER_00 26:57

Yeah. Just on the on the secondary market, just to give that some uh context, um, I th I I don't have the the numbers to hand, but uh it runs into billions of dollars, the size of that market. There's quite a few brokers in that space. And if you're shifting everything to the cloud, especially Microsoft, Microsoft is the predominant um software there. If you spent millions on Office and then you want to move to the cloud and go to the latest version, people are cashing in these licenses and selling them. And somebody somewhere wants them because they want to stick on the old version, and there's a good secondary market. And the only reason it doesn't exist in the US is because nobody's tested it. You need to put your head above the parapet, try to sell some, get roasted, and then put the you know, set the precedent in the US market. That's the only reason it's it's not gone anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

That's interesting. You're you're absolutely right. Maybe we'll do that. Maybe we'll can uh yeah, I've got some old office licenses that I can uh that are sitting on the shelf somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

I think if if I'm right, it was an Oracle ruling, actually, that was it was uh somebody versus Oracle that took them on, that set the precedent, and it was a customer or a partner, and they took them on and they they said, just like a book, I've bought the book, I respect the book, I respect the copyright, but when I finish reading it, I've got the right to sell it. Right. Um, which is where all this um subscriptions and software assurance came from. Because basically, I'm gonna put put you on the hook uh for for bits and pieces that are ongoing rather than selling in the IP outright.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

Well, and that's you know, um definitely a shift I've seen in in the last 15 years is this move away from perpetual licensing uh onto subscriptions. You know, the the biggest example was Java, um, that Oracle made that change a few years ago. I'm waiting for them to drop the the next shoe on database and say we're not selling database perpetual anymore, and we're gonna move to this uh you know subscription model. I mean, that would be that I think would generate a lawsuit or two, but uh maybe that's why they're not doing it. But they've been so successful in generating billions from Java just by updating a website, which is amazing to me. I'm gonna try that. I'm gonna update the Palisade website and then go back to my customers and say, you know, I have a policy that you have to give me more money to see how far that goes. So can we if we could just shift gears for a second? And I want to talk about uh um North Star Labs uh and what you are doing there. I know that you have um you know talked a little bit about, not on this show, but elsewhere, about your journey in the education field and organizational psychology. And you've got this passion project that you're uh pursuing now uh called North Star Labs. And I think it's really fantastic. Being someone in the you know, you know, in my 50s. So I've I've gone through sort of the intellectual journey, spiritual journey that you're thinking about here. So maybe you could just tell people what. uh North Star Labs is and and what you're doing there.

The Wild West Of Audit Services

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Sure. And thank you for the opportunity. So so it's been a lifelong um passion project really ever since I was uh at university in my twenties is is psychology. And my particular interest is um why do people do what they do? Where where do they get the sense of calling from for from in a particular direction? And what I love doing is and I've built my own sort of methodology around this five-step methodology is um when you're in mid-career and it's typically people that actually been successful. They've been successful they ticked all the boxes maybe they've had a family maybe they've done the career they've got 2.x kids and they've got a nice German car or whatever the boxes they wanted to set out to tick and then they get this feeling of restlessness that says says actually is this it is is this what I'm here for is this what I'm supposed to be doing and they're looking for a bit more meaning and and I love helping solve that puzzle basically um you know there's there's a there's a ways and a means of addressing that and and finding something a bit more meaningful.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

No that well that hits home and and you know part of the reason um you know for many years we just did Oracle and and just the market's changing. So just the market is is forcing us to do these other things now. But definitely I've uh you know got some new energy in the last year because I get to talk about things that don't start with oh right I get to talk about other things.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

So it is uh for me it's almost like starting another business right we just with the marketing and the research and you know converting clients and sort of you know finding clients um it is exhilarating right but uh as you know life of an entrepreneur is like you're up here one day and then it's like it's like oh my god we're all gonna die the next day it's just no money and there's also a there's a um there's a shift that happens um and and I I feel privileged to be able to talk about this by the way on the world's greatest licensing podcast because it's completely off off the the beaten track but um when you're in your 20s when you come out of college or whenever you enter the workforce your primary motive is to you know find an identity for yourself to fit in to contribute to the company to you know feel part of the tribe as you get through to your 30s and 40s different you know you you don't need to align to the company so much anymore because you've got your own value system you've been places you've done things you've had managers you've had bad managers everyone's had a bad manager and a good manager and you learn your own value system and that's where all this stuff kicks in it's it's actually I want to do my I want to do things by my own drum beat and this is where these feelings come from it's actually I I want to I want to live by my own value system not by that of the company that I'm working for.

Regulation, EU Resale, And Precedent

SPEAKER_01 32:49

And sometimes it's hard you know my experience was you know many years working for a very big company and then I was on the outside sort of starting my own thing um and I think people don't realize all the experience and the successes they've had when they're working for a big company because you know it's always about deadlines and budgets and spreadsheets and you know KPIs and all of that. And then you lift your head out for a while like oh my gosh like I was part of this amazing thing. We did all these great things I I I was able to you know one of the first conversations I had uh starting this company I was talking to a friend of mine and I was like oh I've got no sales experience like this is going to be really hard learning how to sell he's like are you crazy? You sold Oracle on creating this global contract audit team like you you had to sell that to you know seven different G VPs around the world uh and have them give up personnel and hand it to you and sort of like you've been selling and I was like oh I never really looked at it that way so um I think that uh there's so much talent out there that is that's stuck and uh your your point about sort of maybe mid-career or you've done some things in your life and now you want to do something. You know we think about entrepreneurs as like the 22 year old who starts a company and then and is a billionaire. But really it's you know people later in life I think can add a a lot more to that uh that journey and the startup journey and especially in a consulting phase like you just uh you know you've seen it so now you can help companies do it yeah but the the the the the struggle is uh for for somebody like yourself or anyone that's been successful is um is the fear is real because I'm good at what I do you're you're you're brilliant you're world renowned for what you do around Oracle and now other vendors and the fear of stepping into something else it is real you know and people people really feel that it took a lot of years for me to say another vendor's name other than Oracle many years and good for people can push for you people kept pushing me I was like nah I don't want to do it but part of it is like I don't really know that vendor but you know what now you got a team of people right you rely on the people and they know like I've okay I've never personally done an audit helping a client with Anaconda but we have people who've done that like they're they're amazing and so you have to trust them that they're going to you know uh provide the same service around uh around those random vendors um so it's uh yeah so but I love the idea of um you know starting your own business it or is this your third sort of entrepreneurial like how many have you oh my uh I I only talk about the ones that succeeded but yeah I've I've I've yeah I've I've got four companies at the moment but that that part of this as well is knowing yourself and knowing what you're good at and I I love the blank sheet of paper you know let's start something from scratch and other people are better at other things and and part of that when you're looking for something mid-career is actually knowing yourself knowing what your strengths are and getting real perspective on those like your friend has told you about your sales experience you know to have validation of that and and you it really opens up your options. Another talent I've I've learned I've had is vengeance. I love destroying my competitors and sort of bringing them down I don't know if that's a good thing in entrepreneurial but I think you do need to have sort of a competitive spirit. You have to want to win whether it's you want to win for your clients or you want your clients to win uh there is there is that element of um you're always in competition whether it's with yourself or you know the vendor or you know the inertia that is you know helping these people get through um I I definitely see you know the business world is very very competitive even the cons especially the consulting world like a product is one thing like we have a product that you can use but consulting someone comes to you Martin they need to trust that I I'm in this crisis career position and I need to make some big decisions. They need to really be able to trust you. And I think you know your work over the years and again like I said before I've been following following it for years and we you know we've talked many times uh I just think you have that level of credibility. So I have to how are you finding clients? Is this sort of early stages?

SPEAKER_00 37:14

I mean is that North Star Labs yeah yeah yeah um just from I'm doing a bit of uh social media and um just through word of mouth really I'm just starting out and uh very much enjoying the process. Um if someone wanted to you know connect with you for for that project or any of your projects what's the best way for them to um LinkedIn is good and hopefully we can use my LinkedIn profile with this podcast or or go to northarlabs.co.ek and um be pleased to have a chat with you.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

That's awesome. And I definitely recommend it. Uh again having sort of gone through that journey myself before North Star Labs having people to talk to who've been through it and done it I think is uh is is super critical. Um but I I don't think people understand how much potential they have sometimes it's just it's always like no that that that's pretty cool that you did that thing and and now that sort of is the launch pad for the next thing that you want to do.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Absolutely amen to that um well Martin I think you um have been the world's greatest podcast guest today thank you very much for having me and thank you for asking me questions I always feel like I'm asking the questions I guess it's my podcast I have to ask the questions can I can I show you one I know this probably won't make it to the podcast can I show you one thing before we close very quickly show me anything you want come on maybe a second I just need to swivel my screen for you and it's a half half made Millennium Falcon oh look at that I love it it's a it's a monster it's taken us months and months but it's uh it's good because we had Rory on the phone a few weeks ago and on the podcast and he had all of his uh Lego sets behind him as well I don't think he had the Millennium Falcon though did he I don't think he did no he's a Formula One fan but it's got a very therapeutic me and my son sit here we chat away we do it it's nice quality time with him and it's yeah it's really good.

Subscriptions, Java, And The Next Shoe

SPEAKER_01 39:16

That's one of their biggest sets too for the the Millennium that's like thousands of pieces. Yeah it's like where on earth are we going to put this when it's finished it's we're gonna have to build an extension or something we have my son is out of his Lego phase but there was a Lego phase and we have the Roman Colosseum downstairs sitting on a desk and I have no like it's been there for two years now and I'm like what are we going to do with this? Like is he going to take it to university? Like it is a big thing and it's now just sitting there. So um but you have to you know mount that to the ceiling or something and and display it with lights.

SPEAKER_00 39:55

Yeah I think it's it's nice as well because he's at the age where he's sort of he's at the age where he's 12 so he's at the age where he sort of doesn't want to play with dad anymore and he wants to go and play with his friends instead and it's nice to spend some quality time with him and it's a nice con it's a nice way of connecting basically that the Lego hours in front of Legos and puzzles yes that is some good dad sun time for sure.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

Absolutely awesome well Martin thank you again uh for for being a guest and if anybody uh you know wants to uh reach out to Martin about iTem forum uh Lisa uh all of that um please uh connect on LinkedIn you can connect with me and I'll I'll bring you guys together if you like uh and uh thank you martin and thank you everybody for joining us on the world's greatest licensing podcast