NEWS

What is IT Asset Management (ITAM)?

“IT Asset Management is the business practice joining financial, contractual and inventory functions to support life cycle management for IT environments” - Wikipedia

IT Asset Management (ITAM) is a type of business management that is directly tied to an enterprise's IT infrastructure. With ITAM, professionals review an organisation's total business hardware and software inventory and make comprehensive decisions about sourcing, use and all other aspects related to an asset lifecycle.

Often, ITAM or IT asset management is a sub-part of ITSM or IT service management process but it is also something that needs to be considered by IT Architects and IT Project Managers when considering costs and licensing throughout project phases.   You can find out more about IT Service management on the itSMF Ireland site here.

ITAM can be thought of as the accounting side of IT.  When you are spending potentially millions on hardware and software you need to ensure you are using those assets in a way that maximises your return and that you are also not breaking any rules on usage that might cost you later.

ITAM refers to the set of business practices combining contractual, inventory and financial functions. 'IT assets' generally refers to all hardware and software licenses present in the business environment (not including BYOD). ITAM helps in keeping track record of all asset purchases or rented by the organisation.

The benefits of effectively managing IT assets in a business might include:

• Visibility and control of IT Assets
• Improve utilization of assets
• Compliance with audit requirements
• Compliance with regulatory requirements
• Reduce software and hardware costs
• Support organisational change and projects
• Align IT Asset Costs to Services
• Provide configuration data for Service Management
• ITAM provides the IT Service Team with a data source for the assets they are working with so the business can make accurate decisions about serving users and driving change. 
• ITAM provides Finance with a bird’s eye view of an organisations IT balance sheet and compliance commitments.

If you would like to know more about ITAM you can join the ITAM Special Interest Group in the members area or subscribe for updates here.