What Is IT Asset Management?

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What Is IT Asset Management?

What is IT Asset Management?

“IT Asset Management is the business practice joining financial, contractual and inventory functions to support life cycle management for IT environments”
Wikipedia

I once heard someone say that money and legislation drive behaviour in the business world.

The same could be said for ITAM. Although I believe ITAM should be more proactive than a spreadsheet of asset costs, it should include managing assets effectively to enable change.

An example of IT Asset Management providing meaningful levers so that a business can make changes can be seen in action here: “Industry Leading ITAM Implementations“.

The Lynchpin

I see ITAM being the lynchpin between the forces of Finance (Money and Compliance) and Service (Change and Improvement).

For me, ITAM represents all the systems, processes, checks and balances to measure and manage IT Assets in an organisation.

The benefits of effectively managing IT assets in a business might include:

• Visibility and control of IT Assets
• Improve utilization of assets
• Compliance with audit requirements
• Compliance with regulatory requirements
• Reduce software and hardware costs
• Support organisational change and projects
• Align IT Asset Costs to Services
• Provide configuration data for Service Management

ITAM provides Service with a data source for the assets they are working with so the business can make accurate decisions about serving users and driving change. ITAM provides Finance with a bird’s eye view of an organisations IT balance sheet and compliance commitments.

What do you think? What does ITAM mean to you? what benefits have I missed?

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