IT asset management best practices

A guide on ITAM best practices and workflow

ITAM or IT Asset Management is not merely a process but a strategic approach to identifying, maintaining, upgrading, and responsibly disposing of vital components. These components can be hardware, software, and data—that propel your organization's business operations forward. 

IT Asset Management transcends a singular project, evolving into an ongoing discipline that demands meticulous planning, seamless execution, and continual refinement. This process encompasses: 

1. Inventory: Aggregating and cataloging information pertaining to all organizational IT assets, including details like location, ownership, status, configuration, and interdependencies.

2. Lifecycle: Effectively overseeing the complete lifecycle of IT assets, from procurement and deployment to maintenance, utilization, and eventual retirement.

3. Optimization: Striving to extract maximum value and performance from IT assets while concurrently minimizing associated risks and costs.

4. Compliance: Upholding adherence to pertinent policies, standards, and regulations, spanning licensing, security, and environmental requisites, to ensure IT assets align seamlessly with organizational benchmarks.

Benefits of IT asset management tools

IT asset management (ITAM) offers numerous advantages for an organization. By effectively organizing assets, it provides clear insights into the inventory, highlighting essential resources and identifying those that are superfluous. To illustrate the potential of ITAM, here are some key benefits it can bring to your organization:

• Cost savings: By eliminating unnecessary purchases, optimizing utilization, and averting penalties and fines, ITAM contributes to a reduction in the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of IT assets. Gartner's study highlights that approximately 30% of IT spending involves hardware, software, and associated maintenance and support costs.

• Risk mitigation: Addressing IT-related risks, such as security breaches, data loss, compliance violations, and service disruptions. ITAM plays a pivotal role in risk prevention and management. Surprisingly, only 38% of organizations have fully implemented IT asset management programs, while 24% have none, according to a Deloitte survey.

• Performance improvement: Enhancing the availability, reliability, and efficiency of IT assets is a hallmark of ITAM. By ensuring proper configuration, regular updates, and timely maintenance, ITAM aids in identifying and resolving issues swiftly and effectively, offering accurate information about IT assets and their dependencies.

• Business alignment: ITAM aligns IT assets with the organization's business needs and goals, providing visibility of the value and impact of IT assets. Furthermore, it supports strategic decision-making and planning by furnishing data and analytics on IT asset performance and trends.

What to consider when selecting the right ITAM platform

Selecting the right ITAM platform is pivotal for a successful ITAM program. Key considerations include:

• Ensuring the platform aligns with the organization's specific needs

• Integrates with existing IT systems

• Scales with organizational growth

• Maintains user-friendly usability

• Caters to both IT and business users

• Scalable adaptability

• User-friendly interface

• Clear reporting

• Training material and support

The asset management system should offer features covering inventory, lifecycle, optimization, and compliance management while supporting diverse IT asset types, like hardware, software, cloud, mobile, and IoT devices. 

Seamless integration with tools such as

• Service desk

• Configuration management

• Network management

• Security management is essential

• Leverages existing data centers or sources to prevent duplication and inconsistency

Best practices for implementing an ITAM program

Implementing an ITAM program is not a simple task but a complex and ongoing process that requires careful planning, execution, and improvement. Here are some best practices for implementing an ITAM program:

1. Assign responsibility and establish roles

IT asset management transcends the IT department, requiring collaboration among various organizational stakeholders, including finance, procurement, legal, and business units. Establishing clear roles and responsibilities is vital.

• Sponsor: A senior executive providing vision, direction, and support, ensuring alignment with business strategy.

• Manager: Oversees and coordinates the program, managing the team and resources.

• Team: Executes activities like inventory, lifecycle, optimization, and compliance for diverse IT asset categories.

• Users: End-users benefiting from IT assets, offering feedback and input for program enhancement.

2. Create a clear ITAM strategy

An ITAM strategy is a concise document outlining the ITAM program's scope, objectives, and roadmap, detailing policies, processes, and procedures governing ITAM activities. Follow the steps to create a clear ITAM strategy:

Define what you consider an IT asset and want to include

An IT asset encompasses hardware, software, or data vital for organizational operations and goals. However, not all assets hold equal importance for ITAM. Thus, it's crucial to define precisely what qualifies as an IT asset within your ITAM program. Criteria may include:

• Financial and operational value

• Risk factors

• Complexity of configuration

Name and tag your IT assets accordingly

Assigning unique identifiers and attributes to each IT asset is a vital phase in IT Asset Management (ITAM). This process of naming and tagging enables efficient identification, tracking, and management of IT assets throughout their lifecycle. Key elements involved in naming and tagging IT assets include:

• ID number

• Name

• Asset type

• Status

• Location

Utilize software licensing solutions for compliance

As per Flexera's findings, 64% of organizations underwent a software audit within the last year, with 23% incurring audit true-up costs exceeding $1 million. Software licensing, a legal agreement governing software use, entails specific terms like user count, devices, duration, or features. Ensuring compliance involves aligning software usage with the agreed license terms to prevent unauthorized or unlawful use.

4. Establish clear policies and procedures

Policies and procedures are the linchpin of IT Asset Management (ITAM), governing activities like inventory management, lifecycle, optimization, and compliance management. They bring standardization and efficiency to ITAM processes by defining roles, responsibilities, inputs, and outputs and employing tools like workflows, scripts, and APIs. This not only streamlines operations but also facilitates the automation and integration of ITAM tasks.

Moreover, policies and procedures ensure the quality and consistency of ITAM data. By stipulating data sources, formats, and standards and employing validation methods, they guarantee the accuracy and reliability of information. These guidelines also play a pivotal role in maintaining data integrity through practices like cleansing, deduplication, and synchronization. Additionally, policies and procedures enforce accountability and compliance within ITAM practices, setting expectations, requirements, performance indicators, measures, and reporting mechanisms. This framework not only ensures adherence but also establishes a robust foundation for monitoring, analyzing, and enhancing ITAM practices over time.

5. Track the entire lifecycle of assets

The IT asset lifecycle, spanning from acquisition to disposal, plays a pivotal role in ITAM. Efficient asset tracking optimizes asset utilization and performance, aligning with business needs and ensuring regular maintenance. This process aids in cost and value management, aligning asset procurement and renewals with budget constraints. 

6. Perform regular audits and maintenance checks

Regular audits and maintenance checks serve as critical components of asset management solutions, ensuring the accuracy, completeness, and currency of IT asset information. These practices aid in detecting and correcting discrepancies or errors within asset data, fostering synchronization with other IT infrastructure. 

Moreover, audits and maintenance checks are instrumental in identifying and eliminating waste or inefficiency in ITAM processes and optimizing resource usage. They play a key role in ensuring and demonstrating ITAM compliance and quality, validating adherence to policies, standards, and regulations and providing documented evidence of ITAM outcomes.

7. Automate asset discovery and tracking processes

Asset discovery and tracking are fundamental processes within ITAM, focused on continuously locating and monitoring IT assets, including details like location, owner, status, configuration, and dependencies. These processes can be automated to maintain a critical, comprehensive and accurate ITAM inventory. 

Additionally, asset discovery and tracking contribute to effective asset lifecycle management and utilization control of IT assets through workflows, scripts, or APIs. These processes also play a pivotal role in monitoring and measuring key metrics, including availability, reliability, and efficiency, using automated tools like dashboards, reports, or alerts.

8. Develop a comprehensive financial management solution

Financial management in ITAM is critical for planning, overseeing, and reporting the financial aspects associated with IT assets, including costs, revenues, and budgets. Its significance lies in optimizing the costs and value of IT assets by aligning acquisitions with budget constraints and ensuring adherence to license terms. This process utilizes methods such as depreciation and valuation to enhance overall asset value and return on investment. 

Financial management enables comprehensive tracking and reporting of IT asset financial performance through tools like accounting and billing, providing organizations with valuable insights into their financial standing and outcomes.

9. Monitor cost of ownership across all assets

Cost of ownership is a comprehensive measure encompassing the total expenditure involved in acquiring, maintaining, and disposing of an IT asset. Within the realm of ITAM, the cost of ownership serves as a pivotal metric, offering several advantages. It facilitates the comparison and selection of the best IT asset options, employing methods like cost-benefit analysis, total cost of ownership (TCO), and return on investment (ROI). 

It also aids in optimizing and reducing IT asset costs by identifying and eliminating unnecessary, redundant, or obsolete assets and aligns and justifies IT asset investments and returns by utilizing cost allocation and recovery methods to distribute costs among stakeholders and beneficiaries.

10. Provide visibility into physical, mobile devices, and technology assets

Visibility into physical, mobile devices, and technology assets, encompassing hardware assets, software or digital assets, SaaS, mobile, and IoT devices, is indispensable for effective ITAM. This visibility enables organizations to manage and control their IT asset inventory and lifecycle using specialized tools like scanners, agents, or sensors. 

It facilitates the real-time update and refresh of the IT asset inventory by employing triggers, events, or schedules to detect and incorporate any changes or updates in the IT asset information. Furthermore, this visibility empowers organizations to monitor and measure the performance and value of IT assets through the use of ITAM tools. There are many tools used, such as dashboards, reports, or alerts, presenting key metrics and indicators like availability, reliability, and efficiency.

11. Create security policies to protect critical assets

Security policies governing the access, protection, and recovery of IT assets play a pivotal role in ITAM. These policies are instrumental in preventing and managing IT-related risks, such as security breaches, data loss, compliance violations, or service disruptions. Leveraging security tools and techniques like encryption, authentication, or backup, they safeguard and restore IT assets and their information. 

Security policies ensure and demonstrate IT asset security and license compliance by verifying adherence to relevant policies, standards, and regulations, encompassing licensing, security, and environmental requirements. They contribute to providing and reporting evidence of IT asset security and compliance through mechanisms like auditing, testing, or certification, offering a robust framework for safeguarding organizational assets.

12. Leverage service management tools for incident response and resolution

IT Service management tools, encompassing applications for service desk, configuration management, change management, and incident management, play a crucial role in incident response and resolution within ITAM software. These tools are instrumental in detecting and resolving IT asset issues and incidents. 

Leveraging techniques like tickets, workflows, and escalations, they record and process problems and requests related to IT assets, such as failures, errors, or malfunctions. Additionally, service management tools aid in diagnosing and troubleshooting issues. It utilizes log alerts and performs root cause analysis to identify and rectify the causes and effects of IT asset problems. 

Furthermore, these tools contribute to enhancing information technology asset availability, reliability, and efficiency through:

• The monitoring and measurement of service levels.

• Customer satisfaction.

• Optimization of service quality and performance.

How to get started with IT asset management

Embarking on the IT asset management process might seem daunting, but it's achievable with these steps:

• Evaluate your ITAM status: Begin by assessing your current ITAM maturity and identifying gaps using tools like the ITAM Process Maturity Self-Assessment Tool. This reveals your capabilities, weaknesses, and areas for improvement.

• Establish vision and goals: Define your ITAM vision and goals using frameworks like ISO/IEC 19770. Align these with your business strategy, setting the scope, objectives, and roadmap for your ITAM initiative.

• Choose platform and tools: Select the right IT asset management software and tools by evaluating criteria such as functionality, integration, scalability, and usability. This ensures you pick a solution tailored to your specific needs.

• Implement program and processes: Execute your ITAM program and processes based on best practices. Assign responsibilities, establish roles, create a clear strategy, and define your IT assets for inventory, lifecycle, optimization, and compliance management.

• Monitor and enhance performance: Keep track of your ITAM performance using metrics like cost of ownership, return on investment, and service level agreements. Use feedback and analysis, including audits and maintenance checks, to identify and implement improvements periodically.