IT asset management: a strategic business imperative for today

How effectively do organizations manage their IT assets?

In general, they do it poorly. For example, in my role as a consultant, I recently spoke with a large organization that could not account for 53% of their 300,000 laptops or the corporate data present on them that could be at risk, as a result.

The scope of managing IT assets is only increasing and now includes hardware, software, cloud, code, and data. Given the volume and types of assets, it’s difficult for any organization to cover the breadth of this challenge well.

The competencies required to manage IT assets effectively are also scarce. Many leaders were promoted into their current roles based on their technology experience rather than their ability to manage these technology investments.

The practice of IT asset management views this responsibility through a business lens underpinned by money and risk – elements not normally taught to up-and-coming IT managers and not a topic commonly included in university curricula either.

This is the gap closed by PeopleCert’s new ITIL 4 Specialist: IT Asset Management (ITAM) module.

ITAM: room for improvement

The latest Flexera State of ITAM Report accurately refers to ITAM as a “critical and strategic function in the enterprise”.

Their research, which draws upon the experience of 500 global IT executives, reveals the extent of wasted IT spending. The average reported amount of wasted or underutilized budget was 38% for desktop software, 34% for data centre software, and 33% for software as a service (SaaS).

The report also reveals a lack of maturity in certain software asset management activities.  While almost two-thirds of the surveyed organizations claimed to be advanced in both their ability to discover software in use and to respond to software audit findings, half still categorized themselves as only having beginner-level proficiency.

With only 13% of IT leaders across the US and Europe expecting a “significant” increase in their IT budgets, the pressure is on to manage costs. Yet, as Flexera’s Tech Spend Pulse report shows, only 25% of spend involves people and services, leaving 70% directly related to IT assets.

Security adds yet another layer of complexity and further increases the need for IT asset management best practices. A common occurrence such as staff downloading and installing multiple software applications to corporate systems exacerbates the risks of security breaches and data loss.

In addition, many companies are being hit with multi-million-dollar fines, penalties and legal expenses resulting from vendor audits that determine the use of their software has exceeded the number and/or type of licenses that were purchased.

The organizational stakes for IT asset management have become very high indeed.

Creating a dedicated ITIL 4 module for ITAM

In previous iterations, ITIL had combined ITAM with service configuration management.  While these practices continue to work together closely, current thought leadership has reinforced that they are distinct capabilities that should be managed and improved individually, as well.

In IT asset management, everything organizations purchase, yet don’t use, can become waste and technical debt. While the decision used to be “Do we buy Dell or HP?”, it now involves the full lifecycle of partners, sustainability, total cost of ownership, etc.   This is even more of an imperative following the pandemic, as organizations tighten budgets and focus on cost savings. These assets are investments and must be treated as such.

This makes IT asset management a strategic function and – from an ITIL 4 perspective – means connecting it within the organization’s service value system has become a requirement to ensure activities are performed both correctly and holistically.

Key elements of knowledge and skills in ITIL 4 Specialist: IT Asset Management

The strength of the new ITAM module can be summarised as:

• Viewing ITAM through the four dimensions of service management
• Covering the lifecycle of IT assets from acquisition through to decommissioning
• Offering synergies with other practices: integrating ITAM into service value streams, measuring it and considering all the financial, security, and risk implications like technical debt.

On a practical level, this module helps practitioners see how asset management interfaces with other practices in their service value streams. This results in a systemic approach to ITAM that ensures there is a focus on value that is truly meaningful to stakeholders and the collaborative steps needed to co-create it.

Equally, the emphasis on sustainability reflects a growing awareness in organizations that they need to be on the right side of history: protecting the environment, choosing suppliers who align with the corporate values, and understanding the social and political implications of their asset management decisions.  

So, what can professionals and their organizations expect to achieve by adopting the approaches outlined in ITIL 4 Specialist: IT Asset Management? Above all, making better decisions that recognize financial concerns, security risks, and sustainability goals while integrating ITAM with other ITIL practices, rather than being siloed.

There are significant financial and security consequences if ITAM is poorly managed.   Organizations need to do better and ITIL 4 is here to help.