Asset Management

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.

Typically, with IT asset management there would be a detailed gathering of an organisations software, hardware, inventories, and network assets. This information once collected would then be used to make informed business decisions about IT-related purchases and redistribution.

ITAM is about a lot more than just generating an asset inventory. With ITAM the goal is to continually use the captured asset data and drive increased business value whilst minimising risk and maximising returns. Efficiency is improved by ITAM avoiding unnecessary asset purchases and using the best of currently available resources but also cutting costs where needed with avoidable software licensing support costs and wastage.

ITAM can also help companywide to increase the communication and understanding of the IT’s business value as well as the understanding between IT and other departments. Other perks include the enforcement and compliance and cybersecurity policies alongside the regulatory requirements which in turn then limits overhead costs and improves productivity in the management of the IT environment.