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How Homelane Rightsized Their M365 E5 Licenses and Reclaimed Enterprise Spend

"As our M365 footprint grew, identifying actual E5 usage became critical. CloudEagle.ai revealed 42% of licenses had no premium activity, helping us reclaim 260 seats and cut review time from 3 weeks to 1 day, turning audits into continuous optimization."

- Tanuj Choudhry, Co-founder & COO, Homelane

42%
of M365 E5 licenses found unused
260
licenses harvested and reallocated
1 day
to identify and act on unused licenses

42%

of M365 E5 licenses found unused

260

licenses harvested and reallocated

1 day

to identify and act on unused licenses
Problems
Challenge
  • M365 E5 licenses were purchased company-wide with no visibility into which users were actively using premium features and which were not.
  • License utilization reviews were done manually, requiring exports from multiple admin consoles and days of spreadsheet reconciliation.
  • New employees and teams requesting M365 access triggered new license purchases even when unused licenses already existed across the organization.

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Solutions
Solution
  • CloudEagle.ai pulled live usage data from M365, showing feature-level activity per user across the full E5 license estate.
  • License Management & Harvesting automatically identified licenses with no active usage and flagged them for reallocation before any new seats were purchased.
  • Spend Intelligence gave the CIO a real-time view of M365 spend against actual utilization, with unused licenses surfaced continuously rather than discovered at renewal.

‍

Profit
Result
  • Feature-level usage visibility revealed that 42% of M365 E5 licenses had no premium feature activity across the organization.
  • 260 unused licenses were harvested and reassigned to employees who needed access, avoiding unnecessary new seat purchases.
  • What previously required 3 weeks of manual exports and spreadsheet analysis now takes 1 day through continuous utilization visibility.

‍

Challenge

Homelane had standardized on M365 E5 across the organization, expecting widespread use of its advanced security, compliance, and analytics features. In reality, most employees only used basic tools like email, calendar, and document collaboration, leaving premium capabilities largely unused.

The IT team lacked clear visibility into this gap. Usage data existed but required manual exports, HR cross-referencing, and extensive spreadsheet work, so reviews were done only once a year, typically right before renewal. 

In the meantime, new license requests were fulfilled through fresh purchases instead of reallocating unused licenses.

‍

Solution
  • Spend Intelligence surfaced feature-level M365 usage, showing exactly which premium capabilities each licensed user actually used.
  • License Management & Harvesting automatically identified inactive licenses and routed them for quick reallocation workflows.
  • Application Rationalization highlighted teams that genuinely needed E5 capabilities versus groups suited for lower-cost tiers.
  • Automated low-usage alerts surfaced idle licenses continuously, replacing periodic manual reviews with always-on visibility.
  • Cross-System Correlation matched license assignments with HRIS changes, flagging moved or departed employees automatically.

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Why CloudEagle.ai?

Homelane evaluated several solutions and chose CloudEagle.ai for these reasons:

  • CloudEagle.ai provides feature-level M365 visibility, showing which premium capabilities each licensed employee actually uses.
  • Automated harvesting workflows reclaim unused licenses quickly, preventing idle seats from quietly accumulating across teams.
  • New access requests check reclaimed licenses first, reducing unnecessary purchases before procurement is triggered.
  • Continuous low-usage alerts replace annual audits with always-on license optimization and faster operational action.
  • Cross-system matching with HRIS keeps license assignments aligned with role changes and employee departures.

‍

Impact

Full M365 License Visibility

  • 42% of M365 E5 licenses identified as unused, with feature-level usage data per user available for the first time.
  • IT team able to answer license utilization questions from a live dashboard rather than a manual export exercise.
  • Unused licenses surfaced continuously throughout the year, not just in the weeks before renewal.

‍

260 Licenses Harvested

  • 260 unused M365 licenses harvested and reallocated to employees who needed access, with no new seats purchased.
  • New access requests fulfilled from the harvested pool first, so license spend stopped growing ahead of actual headcount need.
  • License reallocation completed through an automated workflow rather than a manual IT process.

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License Reviews That Take a Day, Not Weeks

  • Time to identify and act on unused M365 licenses reduced from 3 weeks to 1 day.
  • Manual export and spreadsheet reconciliation replaced by a live utilization view updated continuously.
  • IT team time previously spent on license audits reallocated to higher-priority infrastructure work.

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The Transformation

Before CloudEagle
M365 E5 licenses purchased company-wide with no visibility into which users were using premium features.
License utilization reviews done manually once a year, taking up to 3 weeks to complete.
New license requests fulfilled with new purchases rather than from unused licenses already in the pool.
Unused licenses accumulating across the organization between annual review cycles.
No connection between M365 usage data and the HR system, so licenses belonging to departed or moved employees stayed active.
After CloudEagle
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Feature-level M365 usage visible per user in real time, with unused licenses surfaced continuously.
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License utilization reviews completed in 1 day, with no manual exports or spreadsheet work required.
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New license requests checked against the harvested pool before any new purchase is made.
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260 licenses harvested and reallocated, with the pool of available licenses maintained automatically going forward.
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M365 license data matched against HRIS records continuously, so licenses tied to departed or moved employees are flagged and acted on immediately.

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