The 3 Pillars of Effective Modern IT Asset Management

Modern IT asset management (ITAM) is complex due to the multitude of software, hardware, and data involved. It goes beyond getting software and devices into employees’ hands. Organizations must also implement the appropriate processes and controls to maximize ROI. 

Ineffective ITAM may lead to many negative consequences like confusion, wastage, security risks, penalties, over-provisioning, underutilization, operational downtime, a frustrating employee experience, and more. 

Do you have a comprehensive framework to guide your ITAM strategy and implementation? This post examines the outcomes you can expect from a holistic ITAM approach and the three pillars to include in your strategy. 

The Benefits of a Holistic, Modern ITAM Approach 

Your ITAM strategy should help you achieve these outcomes: 

• Enhance asset visibility: Achieve a comprehensive view of IT assets, including hardware, software, licenses, and warranties, across all teams and locations. 

• Optimize cost: Identify and eliminate underutilized or redundant IT assets to reduce capital expenses and save costs. 

• Comply with software licensing agreements and IT-related regulations: Avoid potential fines and legal consequences. 

• Minimize downtime: Proactively manage IT assets to optimize performance and ensure timely maintenance to prevent costly, unexpected downtime or outages. 

• Mitigate data security risks: Maintain up-to-date security patches, monitor vulnerabilities, and protect sensitive data with the latest best practices. 

• Manage software licenses: Prevent over-licensing or non-compliance to reduce costs and avoid audits and penalties. 

• Ensure business continuity: Support disaster recovery by implementing comprehensive backup plans for critical IT assets. 

• Enhance sustainability efforts: Facilitate responsible disposal of obsolete IT assets and promote green asset lifecycle management practices. 

• Optimize IT investment: Extend IT asset lifespan, reduce premature replacements, and make informed decisions on asset upgrades or replacements. 

• Increase ITAM maturity: Implement policies and procedures to align IT resources with business strategy and objectives. 

•  Improve IT Service Management (ITSM) integration: Deliver a seamless user experience for requesting, deploying, and managing IT assets. 

• Increase employee productivity and satisfaction: Provide access to the right tools and devices so employees can perform their tasks efficiently. 

The 3 Pillars of Modern IT Asset Management 

Modern ITAM involves a lot more than what meets the eye. You must set a solid foundation to manage all the moving parts and achieve the desired outcomes. Let’s review the three pillars essential for executing a robust strategy: 

ITAM Pillar #1: Asset Management Governance 

IT asset management governance establishes policies, processes, roles, and responsibilities for handling asset management projects, tasks, and issues. It involves these essential components: 

1. Interface with organizational and customer governance frameworks to align ITAM operations with business requirements. 

2. Create and maintain an ITAM governance framework that reflects the latest end-user needs and policy requirements. 

3. Conduct internal compliance reviews to ensure AM operations adhere to the strategy and meet its objectives.  

4. Handle escalations: Respond to issues the AM technical domain structure can’t resolve through the AM governing structure. 

5. Manage attestations: Collect evidence to demonstrate responsible or accountable parties have met conditions or requirements. 

6. Evaluate AM performance: Regularly assess AM activities against pre-defined performance criteria to support continuous improvement. 

7. Generate and distribute reports: Inform stakeholders of critical findings like data quality, asset status, process efficiency and effectiveness, etc. 

ITAM Pillar #2: Asset Lifecycle Management (LCM) 

An LCM framework helps organizations manage IT assets effectively to increase productivity and ROI by making informed decisions about IT needs and services. For example, you may improve purchasing decisions by analyzing various resources' lifecycle stages, performance, and utilization. 

The LCM macro process consists of seven lifecycle stages for physical software assets and three lifecycle stages for virtual assets. It also includes data collection points to capture metrics throughout device lifecycles for analytics to inform decision-making. 

ITAM Pillar #3: Discover, Audit, Reconcile (DAR) 

IT asset discovery automatically identifies and catalogs an organization’s IT resources to provide complete visibility into the IT asset landscape. Meanwhile, IT asset audits analyze IT assets and usage data to ensure effective management and alignment with the company’s goals. 

The discovery and audit processes identify errors, inefficiencies, and opportunities for cost control. Then, the reconciliation workflow involves submitting defect tickets and addressing the issues. You should perform DAR continuously and on all assets for comprehensive ITAM. 

How To Choose an ITAM Partner 

Effective ITAM requires specialized knowledge, expertise, and tools. Partnering with the right service provider is key to reaping the most benefits. However, finding a technology ally with all the capabilities under one roof to create synergies and efficiencies while eliminating blind spots is challenging. 

Seek a partner who can meet you where you are and help you leverage your current investments in tools, resources, and processes to address ITAM requirements. For example, Compugen’s platform-agnostic approach helps our clients gain ITAM maturity based on their existing infrastructure and business priorities. 

Your partner should also help you align the consumption of cost with the realization of value via a pragmatic plan to execute your ITAM strategy. The outcome-oriented approach should use gated milestones to keep your investment manageable and predictable. 

Lastly, your ally should support adoption to close consumption gaps and maximize ROI. For instance, when you partner with us, our Organizational Change & Adoption professionals will help employees maximize productivity with the new assets and processes. 

Unlock ITAM Efficiency and Maximize Your ROI 

Compugen’s outcome-aligned capabilities not only address the 3 pillars of modern ITAM. We support you from assessment to implementation and adoption to drive business value. 

For over 40 years, global organizations, including Fortune 50 enterprises, have trusted our asset lifecycle management (ALM) services to handle modern acquisition, asset identification, warehousing, inventory management, modern deployment, asset decommissioning, and safe and responsible IT asset disposal. 

Meanwhile, our asset management consultation services help you audit and assess existing IT assets, analyze usage patterns, identify inefficiencies, and recommend opportunities for cost optimization. We also leverage historical data and industry expertise to reduce risk and inform procurement decisions. 

Learn more about our end-to-end ITAM capabilities to see how we can help you achieve long-term success.