How a Leading Research University in the US Saved on Secure e-Commerce with Kivuto Cloud

The Goal

A top-rated research university in the United States had recently begun licensing their students for Adobe Creative Cloud through an Enterprise Term License Agreement (ETLA). To keep costs under control, the school wanted a way to resell Adobe licenses to students.

Recovering costs in this fashion would require a sophisticated e-commerce engine to accept online payments. To ensure data security, this e-commerce engine would need to be certified PCI DSS-compliant. It would also need to support variable pricing, enabling the school to apply distinct prices for different user types. Finally, the solution would need to allow self-serve access to Adobe Creative Cloud in order to streamline delivery and minimize back-end work.

The Challenge

Ironically, the university’s biggest barrier to recovering costs was how much it would cost to do so.

After investigating the matter, the university’s IT Technology team determined that developing and implementing their own e-commerce solution in-house would cost the institution approximately $13,000 USD. Based on their projections, this would be more than the school stood to make off charging students and educators for software access, defeating the whole purpose of the cost-recovery initiative.

As a result, the team began exploring third-party solutions. This investigation eventually brought the team to a webinar by Kivuto on the subject of managing Adobe ETLAs in higher education.

The Solution

The university needed a secure and cost-effective way to charge students and faculty for software. To meet these needs, the IT Technology team chose Kivuto Cloud.

Kivuto Cloud is a centralized platform that allows easy management and distribution of software licenses and other digital resources at academic institutions. Built specifically for the unique needs of education, the platform included the secure e-commerce and self-serve functionality the university needed to meet their objectives at a price that fit their budget.

The Result

Today, the university uses Kivuto Cloud to distribute and recover costs on Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions of variable lengths. This has yielded several positive results for the university.

• Cost Savings
  The university had investigated the possibility of developing their own PCI DSS-compliant e-commerce solution but determined that doing so would be too expensive. By leveraging Kivuto Cloud’s e-commerce functionality instead, the institution avoided an estimated expense of $13,000 USD.
• Streamlined Distribution
  Kivuto Cloud provided simple, self-serve access to Adobe Creative Cloud, resulting in a smoother, more intuitive user experience for students. By fully automating the lifecycle management of named-user licenses, the platform has also significantly reduced the back-end work of managing these licenses, saving the school an estimated $5,000 USD in billable IT hours compared to what was required to manage licenses manually.
• Secure Cost Recovery
  Kivuto Cloud’s PCI DSS-compliant e-commerce functionality enabled the institution to start charging students and educators for software in a secure and reliable fashion. Within the first year of adopting Kivuto Cloud, the school recovered over $180,000 USD in costs from students accessing Adobe Creative Cloud. Combined with the avoided cost of developing a solution in house and the IT resources saved by automating distribution, of licensing Adobe Creative Cloud.

About Kivuto

For over 20 years, Kivuto has transformed the way academic software is delivered. Today, Kivuto streamlines the management and delivery of academic digital resources through Kivuto Cloud – a secure and centralized platform for schools to offer any type of digital resource to their students, faculty, and staff.

Find out how Kivuto Cloud can help your institution. View our solution brief or book a demo today.