What is ITAM?
ITAM (IT Asset Management) is the combination of Software and Hardware Asset management (SAM & HAM) and refers to the holistic management of IT assets across an organisation. Additionally, a good ITAM function separates the needles from the haystacks of data and gives your business the answers it needs to save money and reduce risk. So, the question arises: where do you start on your ITAM journey?
Define your problem and your scope
Most organisations will have thousands if not tens of thousands of assets. But what exactly is an asset? For instance, are monitors, keyboards, and mice all considered assets? The answer is completely dependent on a) what you want to measure, and b) what you want to achieve.
Identify your stakeholders and supporters
IT Asset Management plays a crucial part in protecting an organisation from unnecessary costs and risks. Moreover, having a unified, business wide, approach to ITAM will allow for more influence at senior level. By building rapport with senior staff, your team can turn stakeholders into supporters, as they are the key to a successful practice.
Reporting
Now that you have your definitions and stakeholders identified, you should be able to define your reporting requirements, assess the toolsets you have and see what’s achievable. Don’t be too ambitious as you might not have all the data you need initially. Keep in mind that not all stakeholders will require all the details; some will just need summaries of the results.
Compliance
You should produce vendor specific strategy documents and using existing toolsets, create a basic compliance report. You may find that you’re under licensed (using more than you have purchased) or over licensed (using less than you have purchased). While your ITAM team will not be able to fix all the issues immediately, by creating vendor-specific strategies, they will be able to reduce compliance risks across your business.
Recognise your success
The hard work of an ITAM team in delivering vital cost savings and risk reductions can often go unnoticed. ITAM is a test of communication and collaboration involving multiple functions of a business and the support and recognition from key stakeholders is crucial to its success.
bedigital are a fully independent provider of specialist SAM, HAM and ITAM capabilities, guiding organisations through software audits, ELA exits, ITAM transformations, coaching and skills development programs.
Get in touch today to find out how bedigital can help your business.
