SBOM Adoption Guide: Part 1 - Burden or Opportunity?

Hello World

Welcome to the “SBOM Adoption” series – a practical guide designed to navigate the evolving landscape of Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) adoption. As software supply chains grow more complex and interconnected, understanding what’s inside our software is no longer optional; it’s essential for security, compliance, and trust. Fundamentally, an SBOM provides a detailed software inventory, listing the ingredients that make up an application.

This foundational first article is aimed at a broad audience, including technical practitioners, security professionals, procurement managers, legal experts, compliance officers, and business leaders. Our goal here is to establish the strategic “why” and “what” of SBOMs:

Why have SBOMs become so critical across the software ecosystem?
What value do they offer to diverse stakeholders?
How can adopting SBOMs at scale shift from being perceived as a compliance burden to becoming a genuine competitive advantage?

For those new to the concept, a basic definition can be found at SBOM 101. Throughout this series, when we refer to scale regarding SBOMs, we mean the ability to effectively support SBOM generation, consumption, management, and analysis across any number of teams, technologies, and releases – automatically and consistently – without introducing bottlenecks or compromising accuracy.

While this article focuses on the strategic importance and the value proposition of scaled SBOM adoption, subsequent installments in the ‘SBOM Adoption’ series will provide practical, in-depth guidance on how to effectively generate, ingest, monitor, and govern SBOMs, addressing the specific challenges and best practices practitioners need.

If you play any role in building, deploying, buying, selling, securing, or auditing software, understanding the principles discussed here is the crucial first step in harnessing the power of SBOMs.

SBOM Evolution Across the Software Lifecycle

SBOMs adapt as software progresses through the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), offering different benefits and serving different needs at each stage. Given the disparate ways SBOM data can be collected, tool outputs may vary and provide value in different use cases. The following table summarizes the different types of SBOMs and their uses. For a detailed description, see Types of Software Bill of Material (SBOM) Documents published by the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

SBOM Type	Description	SDLC Phase
Design	Represents the initial planned components, libraries, and dependencies.	Planning, Requirements, Design
Source	Generated from source code or package manifests.	Coding (Implementation)
Build	Generated during build to reflect final artifacts.	Build, Test
Analyzed	Enriched with security, license, or risk metadata.	Build, Test
Deployed	Captures what is deployed, including runtime configs or changes.	Deployment
Runtime	Tracks dynamically loaded components during software execution.	Maintenance, Runtime

These contextual shifts highlight the SBOM’s versatility – and complexity – as both a technical artifact and a governance tool.

Stakeholders and SBOM Value

SBOMs matter because they serve a wide range of roles across the software and compliance ecosystem. Each group derives unique value from SBOMs, and each also faces different risks if SBOMs are missing, inaccurate, incomplete, or mismanaged.

Stakeholder	Interaction	Value	Risk
Developers & DevOps Teams	Create, Edit	Accurate dependency tracking and build reproducibility	Incomplete SBOMs increase security and deployment risks
Open-Source Project Maintainers	Create, Publish	Builds trust and transparency with downstream consumers	Lack of SBOMs reduces adoption and impedes vulnerability response
Third-Party Software Integrators	Consume, Edit, Merge	Verifies third-party components meet compliance and security standards	Missing or outdated Third-Party SBOMs make risk assessment difficult
Procurement & Supply Chain Managers	Consume, Monitor	Evaluate software vendors and products for risk and compliance by analyzing their provided software inventory (SBOM)	Inability to scale SBOM intake limits supplier vetting
Security & Compliance Teams	Consume, Analyze, Report	Enables vulnerability, license, and policy enforcement across the software inventory provided by the SBOM	Manual correlation slows response and increases audit risk
Regulators & Auditors	Consume, Analyze, Report	Validates cybersecurity and supply chain controls	Inconsistent or absent SBOMs hinder regulatory enforcement

SBOMs are no longer optional. They’re essential for both operational efficiency and regulatory alignment.

SBOMs as Promise, Contract, and Obligation

A well-managed SBOM is overloaded with multiple meanings:

SBOM as a Developer’s Promise

SBOMs represent transparency: a commitment to disclosing the true makeup of software to internal and external stakeholders.

Accuracy: SBOMs must reflect actual components, serving as the software inventory of record.
Automation: CI/CD pipelines should produce them consistently.
Accessibility: SBOMs should be published in standard formats (SPDX, CycloneDX).

SBOM as an Engineering Contract

Like a contract, an SBOM defines structure, scope, and expectations for component usage.

Standardization: Align with industry schemas for validation and reuse.
Traceability: Log changes across builds and versions.
Validation: Ensure structural integrity through tooling.

SBOM as an Organizational Obligation

Regulators and enterprise buyers increasingly require SBOMs as a condition of doing business.

Compliance Readiness: Aligns with EU CRA, FDA 524B, PCI DSS 4.0, and more.
Due diligence readiness: Establish development maturity, transparency, safety, good governance, and minimized integration effort and risk.
Risk Monitoring: Maintain visibility into vulnerabilities and license risks.
Governance: Establish consistent processes for creation, publication, and retention.

Wrap-up: From Obligation to Opportunity

We began by asking why Software Bills of Materials are increasingly vital and how managing them at scale can become an advantage rather than just a cost. As we’ve explored, the answers lie in the transparency and accountability SBOMs provide across today’s complex software supply chains.

From a developer’s promise of transparency to an engineering contract defining structure and an organizational obligation meeting compliance demands, SBOMs serve multiple critical functions. They offer distinct value to diverse stakeholders, enabling more informed decisions about risk, compliance, and operational efficiency.

Viewing SBOM requirements solely as a mandate misses the larger picture. Organizations that proactively embrace scaled SBOM adoption – establishing clear governance, leveraging automation, and integrating SBOM insights into their workflows – can transform this perceived burden. They build greater trust with customers, streamline audits, mitigate supply chain risks more effectively, and position themselves as leaders prepared for the future of software security and compliance. Understanding this strategic importance, as outlined here, is the essential first step.

Coming Next: Diving into Practical Implementation

Having established the strategic “why” and “what” of SBOM adoption in this article, the next installment in the SBOM Adoption series, “How to Build SBOMs at Scale,” will shift focus to practical implementation. We’ll explore the specific tooling strategies, automation techniques, validation steps, and pipeline integration required for effective generation of SBOMs.

Subsequent deep dives will then address other critical “how-to” aspects for practitioners, including:

Ingesting and managing SBOMs received from third parties at scale.
Understanding and utilizing external SBOM references.
Operationalizing comprehensive SBOM governance programs.

Each post will build on the last, offering actionable steps to help your organization turn SBOM understanding into operational advantage. Stay tuned!

Knowledge Review:

Q1: Why are SBOMs gaining so much traction now?

A: SBOMs are being mandated in high-risk industries because they offer transparency into what software is made of, reducing both technical and legal uncertainty.

Q2: Do all teams need to generate SBOMs?

A: Yes. Developers, OSS maintainers, and integrators all benefit – and in some cases, are required – to generate and share SBOMs.

Q3: What happens if my vendors don’t provide SBOMs?

A: You can request them or incorporate external references into your own composite SBOMs to maintain traceability.

Q4: Are SBOMs only for security teams?

A: No. Procurement, risk, audit, and compliance teams all depend on SBOMs for due diligence and governance.

Q5: If a target company struggles or fails to provide comprehensive SBOMs, what could that suggest to the acquirer?

A: This can be a significant indicator of underlying issues. It might suggest:

Lack of Internal Visibility: The target may not fully understand its own software composition or dependencies.
Immature DevSecOps Practices: They likely haven’t integrated security and transparency into their development lifecycle.
Potential Hidden Risks: Unknown vulnerabilities or license issues may be lurking within the software.
Future Compliance Challenges: The target may struggle to meet increasing regulatory demands for software transparency post-acquisition.
Increased Integration Costs: The acquirer will need to invest more effort post-acquisition to generate baseline SBOMs and assess the inherited portfolio.tion Costs: The acquirer will need to invest more effort post-acquisition to generate baseline SBOMs and assess the inherited portfolio.

Coming Next in the Series

Next up in the SBOM Adoption series: How to Build SBOMs at Scale. We’ll dive into automation, validation, and pipeline integration. Later installments will cover: