Case Study
KCB Bank Kenya Ltd avoids $23.3M in IT costs while achieving 98% asset visibility
At a glance
Industry: Financial Services
Location: Kenya (East Africa)
Company Size: Enterprise (12,000+ employees)
Use Cases: IT Asset Management, License Compliance, Audit Defense
Products: Flexera Snow Atlas, Flexera One SaaS Management, Flexera One Cloud Cost Optimization
Featured results
Financial impact
- $23.3M in cost avoidance through audit defense and license optimization
- 48% ROI with a seven‑month payback period
- $710K in recovered investment
Audit and compliance
- 98% asset visibility across seven countries
- 75% reduction in audit preparation time
- No unexpected non‑compliance penalties over the three years
Operational efficiency
- Eliminated redundant software deployments
- Improved cybersecurity posture through comprehensive asset tracking
- Enabled proactive end‑of‑life management across major platforms
KCB Bank Kenya Limited., East Africa’s largest banking group with more than 12,000 employees across seven countries, faced growing compliance risk and cost exposure after punitive software audits in 2018 and 2019. Limited visibility into its technology estate (below 40%) made it difficult to defend audits, manage licenses, and govern a rapidly expanding hybrid IT environment.
In 2022, KCB implemented Snow’s on-premise solution to address audit risk and limited visibility across its on‑premises and virtualized environment. Within seven months, the bank achieved audit‑ready status. As regulatory demands increased and the IT estate expanded to include more SaaS and cloud services, KCB transitioned to Flexera’s Snow Atlas SaaS-based ITAM solution, and extended governance with Flexera One SaaS Management and Flexera One Cloud Cost Optimization. Over two years, KCB increased asset visibility to more than 98% (a 145% improvement), successfully defended vendor audits, and avoided $23.3 million in unnecessary IT costs, delivering a 48% ROI with a seven‑month payback period.
“With Flexera, there’s no single technology vendor today who can just pull out a card to audit us and we fail to defend that based on the data that we have.”
Dedan Muriuki Kanyuira Senior Manager, IT SAM, KCB Group
The challenge
Limited visibility and rising audit risk
As KCB expanded across East Africa, its IT environment became increasingly complex. The bank operated a mix of on‑premises systems, virtualized infrastructure, multiple cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure), and a growing portfolio of SaaS applications.
At the same time, KCB faced strict regulatory oversight from bodies such as the Central Bank of Kenya, along with requirements under the Kenya Data Protection Act and PCI DSS. Yet technology asset data was fragmented across tools and spreadsheets, reducing visibility to below 40%.
This lack of insight created several critical challenges:
- Increased exposure during software license audits
- Lengthy, manual audit preparation consuming staff time
- Limited ability to govern SaaS usage and cloud spend
- Higher cybersecurity risk due to incomplete asset tracking
- Difficulty managing end‑of‑life and unsupported systems
Without a centralized system of record, audits were reactive; cost control was difficult, and long‑term planning carried significant risk.
The solution
Centralized IT governance with Flexera
In 2022, KCB partnered with Flexera to modernize its IT asset management program, starting with Snow Inventory and Snow License Manager as the foundation for enterprise‑wide discovery, normalization, and compliance reporting.
From the outset, KCB emphasized internal ownership and consistency across subsidiaries. The IT SAM team coordinated deployments across seven countries, standardizing ITAM practices and enabling collaboration through shared deployment sessions.
Within seven months, KCB achieved audit‑ready status and began realizing measurable cost avoidance across the group.
Strengthening audit defense and license compliance
With Flexera in place, KCB unified asset and license data across its subsidiaries.
Accurate, normalized data allowed KCB to respond proactively to audit requests, rationalize software deployments, and eliminate unnecessary licenses. As a result, the bank avoided millions of potential penalties and unplanned spend.
Expanding into SaaS and cloud governance
As the bank’s technology landscape expanded to include more SaaS and multi‑cloud services, KCB transitioned to Flexera Snow Atlas to maintain consistent visibility across an increasingly complex environment. New challenges continued to emerge as KCB’s environment continued to evolve; SaaS adoption accelerated across departments, containerized environments grew, and cloud costs increased across multiple providers.
To maintain governance, KCB expanded its use of Flexera with Flexera One SaaS Management and Flexera One Cloud Cost Optimization. These capabilities extend visibility beyond traditional software assets, helping the bank control SaaS sprawl, identify unused subscriptions, and optimize cloud spend across platforms.
“With the on‑premises version, we couldn’t scale to new locations. Moving to Flexera Snow Atlas a cloud platform enabled us to scale across the entire group.”
Dedan Muriuki Kanyuira Senior Manager, IT SAM, KCB Group
The result
Measurable financial and operational impact
By centralizing IT asset data, KCB transformed fragmented information into a single source of truth that now underpins governance, security, and financial decision‑making. Asset visibility increased to 98%, giving the bank confidence in its compliance posture and the data needed to defend vendor audits. What began as a compliance initiative has since evolved into a strategic governance capability, enabling KCB to support major contract renewals, negotiate from a position of strength, and align IT investments with business priorities.
“The most transformative thing about Flexera One SaaS Management is the visibility we now have into our SaaS subscriptions. We can see usage and sprawl clearly, which helps us advise the business more effectively and optimize costs.”
Dedan Muriuki Kanyuira Senior Manager, IT SAM, KCB Group
