by What is IT Asset Management?
Over the past few decades, the role of technology in businesses has grown tremendously. Today, organizations rely on thousands of IT assets like computers, printers, software licenses to function smoothly. Managing these assets manually through spreadsheets is a tedious and error-prone process. This is where IT Asset Management (ITAM) software comes into the picture.
ITAM software automates and streamlines the entire lifecycle of procuring, deploying, maintaining and retiring IT assets in an organization. Key features of ITAM software include asset discovery, asset tracking, software license management, hardware and software inventory, contract and warranty management, purchase integration etc. Let’s understand some of the main components of ITAM in detail.
Asset Discovery and Inventory
One of the biggest challenges organizations face is not having a clear visibility into all the IT assets in use. Rogue and shadow IT creep in and IT departments have no control over unknown assets. ITAM solutions help discover and inventory all hardware, software and other assets automatically through network scanning. This gives administrators a single source of truth for all assets.
Software License Management
Compliance with software licenses is a serious issue for many businesses. ITAM software connects to various software publishers’ license servers to keep track of what is purchased versus what is deployed. It alerts managers about expired, under-utilized or overdeployed licenses to optimize costs. Vulnerabilities from unlicensed software can be eliminated.
Hardware and Software Maintenance
IT Asset Management (ITAM) software centralizes information about warranty and support expiration dates for hardware and licenses. It automates reminders for preventive maintenance, upgrades and support renewals. Procurement teams get insights into lifetime asset values and total cost of ownership for budgeting and replacements.
Contract and Vendor Management
When procuring new IT, multiple vendors and contracts are often involved. ITAM makes contract terms, obligations, renewal timelines and associated assets easily accessible. This helps ensure service level commitments are met and vendors are held accountable for assets under their responsibility.
Integration with Procurement
The entire IT purchasing process from requisition to receiving can be digitally managed through integration with enterprise resource planning (ERP) and procurement systems. Manual paperwork and errors are avoided. Real-time spend visibility helps exercise better financial control.
Analytics and reporting
Robust reporting features in ITAM solutions analyze asset utilization, warranty status, software license compliance and more. Key performance indicators reveal optimization opportunities. Compliance dashboards give consolidated views for internal and external audits.
Importance of ITAM
Given the scale and importance of technology today, effectively managing the IT estate is critical for most organizations. Here are some key benefits ITAM delivers:
Cost Optimization
ITAM improves visibility into what assets are owned, used and not used. This helps right-size IT budgets by identifying spending leaks and opportunities to reduce licenses, maintenance or hardware. Studies show ITAM brings 7-15% cost savings.
Compliance
Regulatory compliance like SOX, GDPR involves proving controls over IT assets. ITAM automates required controls like software metering, hardware audits and enables justifying asset quantities purchased vs deployed. This significantly reduces compliance risks and related costs.
Increased Productivity
Manual spreadsheet-based tracking is time consuming for IT teams. ITAM automates repetitive tasks like hardware check-ins, software installations, license management etc. This frees up IT personnel to focus more on strategic business initiatives rather than administrative tasks.
Better Decision Making
Real-time visibility and analytics help executives make evidence-based long term investments in IT infrastructure. Historical data on procurement, warranty information aids future budget planning and replacements. Innovation is supported through data-driven decisions.
Risk Mitigation
Issues like support expiration, unknown or unauthorized devices, rogue installations carrying security vulnerabilities are major risks. ITAM discovery and remediation capabilities help proactively identify and address such risks to avoid revenue loss from downtime.
Enhanced User Experience
When IT assets are centrally managed, procuring new equipment or software is streamlined. Employees get faster access to standardized hardware and applications. Downtime due to unavailability of support contracts is minimized improving end user productivity and satisfaction.
Future of ITAM
With integration of emerging technologies like AI, IoT and cloud, the role of ITAM is increasing multifold. Features like predictive failure analysis, self-healing capabilities will be commonplace. ITAM data combined with analytics will become the backbone for driving digital transformation initiatives in organizations globally. Proper ITAM implementation today helps lay foundations for seamless technology management well into the future.
*Note:
1. Source: Coherent Market Insights, Public sources, Desk research
2. We have leveraged AI tools to mine information and compile it
