Imagine an organization where every IT asset is managed proactively: data is shared between departments and systems, HAM, SAM, Security, and the Help Desk work together and with others to ensure all systems and equipment are running smoothly and assigned to the right individuals to increase workplace efficiency, we can accurately predict IT spend and easily get executive approval for new projects and innovations, etc. This is not possible without a strong, centralized ITAM Program!

When key decision makers don’t share their knowledge, strategies, goals, and priorities with one another you’ll often end up misaligned goals and drivers across the organization. This misalignment often results in conflicting priorities between ITAM and other departments, which could result in one-off purchases or IT acquisitions with which ITAM is not involved, sub-optimal resource allocation, and limited visibility over IT assets and their artifacts and data. All of these issues can spiral out of control and threaten the value of the ITAM Program.

Not including ITAM in ALL IT Acquisitions is a grave mistake!

Acquisition is the gatekeeper for your organization’s IT environment. Organizations must strategically consider hardware and software assets to determine if they meet requirements for functionality, security and risk mitigation, legislation and compliance, cost-efficiency, and more. Siloed acquisition is a guaranteed way to bring confusion, waste, compliance issues, and unnecessary risk to your IT environment.

When requests are not approved by ITAM, negotiations are not facilitated by ITAM, and/or the information about the IT assets is not delivered to ITAM at the time of acquisition, it gets exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to enforce asset standards so that you can manage to the exception. Department managers could purchase software or software assets without even knowing a similar technology already exists in our environment. Software and hardware are brought into the organization without a proper risk assessment. If ITAM doesn’t know that assets are in the environment, or there are details about the assets lacking, how will they be managed through end-of-life?

“You can’t manage what you don’t know you have!” – Dr. Barbara Rembeisa

Even if you have a strong acquisition process, without centralized data and standardized lifecycle management processes, there is no clear view of the IT environment. You can’t know what assets are in the environment, where they’re located, and how they’re being used. Strategic decision making would be impossible because there isn’t enough information available about the current environment, history of IT assets, roles and responsibilities of end-users, etc. If you can’t accurately inventory your assets and link them to their department or end user, how will you know if they’re being used appropriately and providing a true value to the organization? Without complete and centralized visibility over the environment, tasks software license rationalization, calculating Return on Investment, or predicting an accurate date for hardware refresh would be impossible.

Decentralized ITAM results in limited visibility, which leads to sub-optimal resource allocation.

When teams operate in silos, it becomes almost impossible for ITAM to measure usage of hardware and software in order to ensure fair and efficient distribution of resources. This is bound to result in overuse in some areas and shortages in others. If a team or individual lacks the right tools or doesn’t have an appropriate amount allocated, they will likely struggle to complete their tasks and projects on time and within budget.

On the other hand, if a team or individual has tools that they don’t need or more licenses than they could use, the organization is wasting budgetary dollars on these resources that could be more beneficially spent elsewhere. Without a complete and clear visibility and control over an asset’s entire lifecycle, from before the cradle until after the grave, ITAM doesn’t have the power to ensure everyone in the organization is supported with the resources they need to drive efficiency and productivity.

A strong, centralized ITAM Program is the only answer!

Centralized ITAM ensures that the IT Asset Managers are involved with the acquisition process and can therefore track all IT assets throughout their lifecycle to ensure they bring true value to the organization and don’t provide any risk beyond an acceptable level. With a unified approach to ITAM, everyone, including individuals outside of the ITAM Program, is on the same page or at least can quickly find the information needed to make decisions.

We can easily see which licenses are being utilized, make accurate predictions and financial calculations, and even find ways to extend assets’ lifecycles and reduce IT spend. With this visibility, we can create better asset standards to ensure that every individual has the right resources for their job functions. We can facilitate the sharing of resources between departments and ensure that there are no shortages or overages. This is the true value of the ITAM Program! We’re only as strong as our data, so let’s make sure we have a central repository to provide a single record of your program’s history and current state!