What is IT Asset Management (ITAM)?
Reading time: 5-10 min
Introduction
IT Asset Management (ITAM) is the process of managing your organization's IT assets, including hardware, software, and cloud services. It involves everything from acquiring and tracking the IT assets, managing licenses and contracts, and ensuring that the organization complies with all requirements and regulations. ITAM can help organizations save money by optimizing the use of IT assets and avoiding unnecessary spending on licenses and software that are not used.
In this blog post we will look at what IT Asset Management (ITAM) is and why it is important.
What is IT Asset Management (ITAM)?
In short, IT Asset Management is a system used to keep track of the IT assets of your business. That is, what computers you have connected, what software is installed on them and what cloud services you use. It also makes it possible to ensure that only approved services and applications will be used on employees' work computers.
ITAM includes, among others, the following activities:
Procurement of IT assets: Sustainable adherence to policies for the procurement of IT assets.
Track IT assets: This means having an up-to-date list of all IT assets in the organization, including hardware, software and cloud services.
Manage licenses and contracts: This means making sure your organization has the right number of software and cloud service licenses and that all contracts are respected.
Optimizing the use of IT assets: This means making sure your organization is using all its IT assets efficiently and avoiding unnecessary spending on unused software and cloud services.
Ensure that the organization complies with all requirements and regulations: This means ensuring that the organization complies with all relevant regulations and requirements related to IT assets.
Why is IT Asset Management (ITAM) important?
Keeping track of all your IT assets in a business can be an overwhelming task. It includes laptops, desktops, cell phones, cloud services and much more. This challenge is exactly what Asset Management is trying to address.
IT Asset Management (ITAM) makes it easier and safer to manage changes, resolve incidents and problems.
IT Asset Management is important to organizations for a number of reasons, but can for example touch on:
Cost efficiency: By having a complete overview of the organization's IT assets and how they are used, the organization can identify areas where cost savings can be made by optimizing the use of IT resources.
Risk management: IT Asset Management helps organizations protect their IT assets against threats and risks. This includes identifying potential threats and security risks and taking measures to minimize the risk of damage to IT assets and the organization as a whole.
Increased efficiency: In order for an IT department to function efficiently, staff must have a good knowledge of the company's IT assets. ITAM gives you that knowledge, making ITAM a must for every ITSM organization. By using the assets you track with ITAM, you can take control of and streamline many ITSM processes. For example:
✔ Case management/service desk
✔ Problem management
✔ Change management
