What is IT Asset Management (ITAM)?

Why do you need IT Asset Management? What should your strategy be? How do you implement ITAM to increase control and reduce risks? How can ITAM transform your Service Desk?

Before discussing how to manage your IT assets, we need to understand what an asset is:

‘IT Asset’ covers your physical assets such as IT hardware, plus software systems, and other digital resources such as licenses, warranties, and service agreements. It encompasses any component critical to the organization’s IT operations.

Assets are a significant cost to any business, so it’s vital they deliver value to the company throughout their lifecycle and are managed to avoid potential risks to the business.

Business Requirements: Before investing in an ITAM solution, it’s essential to identify your organization’s specific requirements. This includes the size and complexity of your IT infrastructure, the different platforms and environments, the level of control you require over your assets, and any compliance or regulatory requirements you need to meet.

Ease of use: The ease of use of an ITAM solution is critical. Look for a user-friendly and intuitive solution with an interface that is easy to navigate. This will ensure that your team can quickly and easily adopt the solution and will free-up access to information on a daily basis. 

Support: Even the best software can sometimes have technical issues, and you may need help troubleshooting these. Whether you encounter software glitches or difficulty using certain features, the vendor’s customer support quality is important. Look for vendors that have a good reputation for support and customer focus.

Security: ITAM solutions store a lot of essential data about your assets, such as purchase dates, maintenance schedules, and insurance information. Protecting this data from cyber threats like ransomware and malware is essential. Therefore, it’s important to choose software with solid security measures.

Solid ITAM is essential for Software Asset Management. It provides clarity over all deployed software versions and editions, licensing, compliance risk, and over spending that can be eliminated. Ideally, your ITAM software should be fully integrated with your license management software, or even better a single asset management system that covers ITAM, SAM, SaaS and Cloud Management such as Certero.

Efficient IT Asset Management solutions allow businesses to accurately identify the total cost of ownership and make informed decisions throughout the asset lifecycle. Imagine being able to see all of a users devices from desktop to mobile devices to cloud based applications such as Microsoft 365, all through a single pane of glass.

You can’t manage what you can’t see, and gaps in visibility are unacceptable. In gaining complete visibility and control over the Information Technology ecosystem, IT teams can quickly locate any security weaknesses, assess who may be affected and fix issues.

Maintaining efficiency and productivity is a priority for every business. With an IT Asset Management solution, your business can create a standard set of business practices to streamline standardized IT equipment. 

When it comes to IT Asset Management (ITAM) and your IT Service Desk, it’s essential to recognize that each field has its complexities, despite ITAM often being considered a sub-discipline of IT Service Management (ITSM).

To effectively manage ITAM and especially Software Asset Management (SAM), specialized disciplines and best-of-breed solutions are necessary, especially for large-scale enterprises and when dealing with data center vendors like Oracle, IBM, and SAP.

While ITSM solutions may include basic ITAM/SAM features on paper, they often need more depth and breadth of dedicated solutions like Certero. Therefore, we recommend thoroughly assessing your ITAM and SAM requirements when evaluating ITSM solutions.

Additionally, it’s worth noting that robust solutions like Certero can seamlessly integrate with any Service Management solution, allowing you to have the best-of-breed solutions for ITAM, SaaS, Cloud and SAM, as well as your preferred ITSM solution. The more comprehensive the information you input, the better your ITSM processes and solution will perform, ultimately resulting in reduced support costs.

Discover, inventory and manage your end user devices with the Certero for Enterprise ITAM solution or Discovery and Inventory Service.

Track software, centralize purchase orders and optimize licenses through the Certero for Enterprise SAM solution or SAM Managed Services.

Manage your mobile apps and devices through Certero for Mobile.