IT Asset Management (information technology asset management, or ITAM) is a way of combining certain business functions such as inventory, financial, and contractual functions in order to effectively support lifecycle management with strategic decision making, as well as improving on spending, all within the IT environment. ITAM is often a subset of the IT service management (ITSM) process.
Any company-owned information, system, or hardware that is used as part of business processes is classified as an IT asset and needs to be managed accordingly.