Best Practices

  • 5 min read

IT Asset Management (ITAM) Best Practices in 2024 Across the Globe

Ritish Reddy

4th January, 2024

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IT Asset Management (ITAM) is a collection of business practices to track and manage the lifecycle of  IT assets. It integrates financial, inventorial, and contractual aspects of the IT assets to optimize spending and achieve optimal IT-business alignment.

Any company-owned information, system, or hardware used for business activities is defined as an IT asset, for example, computers, networks, software licenses, and other technologies managed by the IT department or other employees to run business operations.

IT asset manager manages IT systems and assets through a centralized approach. A robust ITAM strategy assists businesses in comprehensively overseeing and optimizing the technologies used by the businesses.  IT asset managers can optimize software licenses and maintain costs, eliminate wastage, and increase efficiency by avoiding unnecessary spending and making the best use of existing resources. 

ITAM also enhances communications and understanding between IT and other departments, and it enforces compliance with cyber security rules and regulatory standards.  It boosts productivity through technical assistance and helps reduce overhead expenses.

Objectives of ITAM Process 

ITAM's key objectives are to gain more visibility and control over the IT environment, organize IT lifecycle management, decrease waste by managing IT asset disposal, and save money by tracking assets. However, ITAM is much more than just keeping track of assets. 

You may find this tracking sheet helpful for SaaS licenses.

IT asset management is about making the most of the asset data you've collected to maximize profits, reduce risk, and boost your company's worth. ITAM covers data centers, software, hardware, mobile and cloud assets, networks, employee or user workstations, and any other corporate technology. 

ITAM is equipped to look into more profound insights into your organization's IT assets and help you understand how the assets benefit the business' goals. It helps IT executives visualize the ROI on IT assets and deliver data to other key stakeholders in a swift and reliable manner. A thorough IT inventory that gives organizations a quick picture of every IT asset within the company is a must-have for a successful ITAM strategy. 

A well-defined ITAM process can help businesses to boost productivity, lower the expenses of hardware, software licenses, and maintenance, increase efficiency in resource allocation and help meet the audit and compliance objectives. In addition to building security visibility and baselines on a foundational level, ITAM facilitates planning for future needs by providing the details of what the organization has with it.

With remote work becoming a practice with most organizations, it is essential to have the IT asset management best practices. Organizations can use ITAM solutions to help with the ITAM process. These apps scan an organization's hardware, software, and network assets, capture, record, and make data available as needed.  

ITAM Best Practices 

ITAM best practices offer cost savings, improved software compliance, empowered IT security, and better customer service. Besides, it provides increased control of IT assets, improved inter-departmental communications, reduced governance risks, and increased security. 

IT asset management begins with determining the critical assets. Decide which assets are critical for your organization. Define the criteria for determining what qualifies as a crucial asset. In ITAM, the discovery tools may provide you with an extensive asset list, and without definite criteria, you'll find it overwhelming to handle the information. 

1. Be Proactive to Avoid Damages 

Don't wait for a costly occurrence to get the ball rolling. When you follow the ITAM procedure consistently, your company will be prepared for audits or other inventory inspections, saving time and chaos at the last minute. 

Rather than trying to respond to specific circumstances, be prepared for anything that comes your way with a well-thought-out ITAM plan. It would help avoid reputational damage and financial implications due to inadequate or nonexistent asset management strategies.

You can use an ITAM tool to keep up-to-date with security and compliance so you don’t have to prepare for a last-minute audit.

2. Collaborate and Communicate 

Involve other departments of your business in developing an ITAM process. This will facilitate continuous development and improvement of the entire process as it evolves across the organization. 

In the long run, ITAM offers disaster recovery preparedness support, improved budgeting, and strategic decision-making. Allow for a feedback mechanism to help you improve over time—plan for process evolution and change. For continuous improvement of ITAM, collect feedback and act on it.

3. Do a Test Run 

Begin with a test run. Don't try to deal with everything at the same time. Firing up your new system all at once is not going to work with ITAM. Hence, choose a small pilot, work on it, test it, and enhance it before expanding it to other areas.

Remember, ITAM implementation is a major task, and it's better to take one step at a time. Choose a starting point and make a detailed plan. Don't attempt to deal with everything at once. To begin with, locate and examine all of your licenses, and move to the next stage once you've completed the first. It is easier to make the IT asset management process efficient if you break it down into simple steps.

4. Introduce Automation

Automation is the key in IT asset management. Establish automation in all possible ways. An asset management system, such as Zluri, is the ideal way to accomplish this. 

Rather than manually keeping track of assets using an out-of-date Excel spreadsheet, automate as many phases of the process as possible. With features like automated employee onboarding & offboarding, configurable compliance reports, and file repositories, applications like Zluri make it a lot easier. Remember, this efficient strategy can save your company a lot of money on IT. 

5. Avoid Over-Deployment

Be mindful of your software licenses. Track continuously to eliminate over-deployment. Many businesses get trapped into the net of fines during audits due to a lack of proof of entitlement. Keep all license agreements and receipts to properly track compliance. An asset management application like Zluri can help accomplish this easily.

In ITAM, it's better to stick to the tried-and-tested lifecycle method. The various stages in the lifecycle method include Requisition, Procurement, Deployment, Maintenance, and Retirement.  ITAM commences with the purchase request and concludes with the device depreciation. Adhering to this strategy is a sure-shot way for error-free asset tracking.

Note that IT asset management is not a project, but it's an ongoing process that needs to be established to track and maintain on a regular basis. IT asset management should not be a result of an audit process that is abandoned after it or an event. In ITAM, don't be reactive but be proactive. A business should start ITAM from Day 1 and have a clear plan for a proactive ITAM.  

For example, you should keep regular track of your software licenses and their usage so that any unused licenses can be removed.

Find out who in your organization would benefit from ITAM data. This will help you to increase both the business user's and IT's overall satisfaction rates. The asset data also helps with change management, making certain that changes don't cause unforeseen outages or other difficulties affecting critical services of your organization.

Use Zluri to Manage Your SaaS Apps

Zluri helps to manage your SaaS apps in the best possible way. The application discovers your business' SaaS subscriptions and performs renewal monitoring. It helps to optimize the cost of your SaaS stack and enables smooth vendor management. Zluri enables your organization to follow IATM best practices in a well-organized and competent way.

With Zluri, you can easily manage all your software agreements and renewals. Zluri gets information to help you negotiate IT contracts and maximize your return on investment. Zluri helps you make decisions based on the current state of the economy and build an approval process.

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the work-from-home boom, Zluri enables you to regain control of your IT assets by keeping critical data and information up to date, organized, accurate, and easily accessible.

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About the author

Ritish Reddy

Ritish is one of the co-founders of Zluri, the SaaS management tool for IT teams. He leads the Marketing and Partnerships as part of his role. Before Zluri, he was part of the founding team at KNOLSKAPE and Co-Founder at Cranium media. Ritish is an MBA graduate and is passionate about building, and scaling businesses ground up. He is an avid reader and loves exploring book stores and libraries in different parts of the world. He loves painting with his 4-year-old daughter.