What is IT asset management?
According to the International Association of IT Asset Managers (IAITAM), IT asset management (ITAM) is a "set of business practices that incorporate IT assets into business units within the organization." Along with financial, inventory, contractual and risk management responsibilities, it serves to manage the overall life cycle of assets within a company, including making tactical and strategic decisions. "Assets include all elements of software and hardware that are found in the business environment.
IT asset management is also referred to as IT inventory management, because it usually involves collecting detailed information about hardware and software inventories, which is then used to make decisions about purchases and information and use that is given to the assets.
Having a precise inventory of IT assets helps companies to use their assets more effectively, and avoid unnecessary purchases of assets through the reuse of existing resources and the recycling and IT asset disposal (ITAD).
IT asset management also allows organizations to reduce the risks associated with the costs of inadvertently building new IT projects on outdated or unfamiliar foundations.
IT asset management becomes effective using electronic and metadata records to track and classify the assets of an organization. Metadata is the description of the physical or digital asset, and any supporting information needed to document asset management decisions. The depth of the metadata may vary depending on the needs of the organization.
What is the importance of asset management for IT?
With the rapid advancement of cloud computing and technology, modern IT Asset Management systems can keep track of these and handle them more easily and precisely. Cloud-based systems direct ITAM processes and rely on iterative automation to mature the management system.
IT organizations manage a significant part of the total assets of the company. IT assets are expensive to buy and maintain. As a result, asset management plays a critical role in helping IT team ensure efficient use of organizational resources to support both the needs of users and business functions.
Increasingly, IT organizations are relying on the ease of use and informative value of IT asset data to generate value for the business, rather than simply focusing on the quantity and accuracy of the data.
Some of the fundamental objectives of IT asset management are:
- Ensure compliance with corporate security policies and regulatory requirements.
- Improve productivity by implementing technologies to support users and business needs.
- Reduce license and support costs by eliminating or relocating underutilized resources and licenses.
- Limit the overhead of managing the IT environment.
An essential part of Asset Management is that they must be included, whether they are in use or not. If the company is responsible for an asset or has spent money on it, then it is part of its portfolio.
