IT asset management

Computers, software, and related technology represent some of a business's most significant investments. They drive revenue and deliver a positive return — but only when the company actively manages them.

Some companies use an ad hoc process to oversee their tech, then hit a wall as their environment grows and decentralizes. IT asset management centralizes that oversight, so teams can track resources and use them appropriately throughout their lifecycle to maximize value.

What is IT asset management?

IT asset management (ITAM) is a disciplined process for tracking and overseeing an organization's fixed technology assets. It covers every phase of the equipment's life cycle and gives management confidence that each asset is:

• Accounted for

• Deployed

• Maintained

• Upgraded

• Disposed of when no longer serviceable

IT assets fall into one of three categories.

1. Software

Software asset management is a more complex form of ITAM involving:

• Compliance requirements

• Licensing

• Shadow IT

• Internet of Things (IoT)

Software resources must stay fluid to adjust to shifting requirements, changing market factors, and disruptive new technologies. That takes continuous monitoring and review.

Employees who customize their tools using subscription-based software from marketplaces and app stores create unique management challenges. The process has to be flexible enough to accommodate them while protecting the business.

2. Hardware

An IT ecosystem typically involves physical equipment well beyond the standard laptop and PC. Common asset types include:

• Printers

• Copiers

• Mobile devices

• Servers

• Network devices

• Point of sale units

• Data management hardware

These items need regular maintenance and upgrades to meet contractual obligations and stay viable.

3. Cloud services

More organizations every day switch to software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications, infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) for networking and storage, or platform-as-a-service (PaaS) databases and middleware. Jira Cloud is one well-known example. Companies have to track the cost and usage of each cloud service to avoid redundancy and stay compliant with licensing.

IT resources have a finite lifespan. An organization with a proactive asset management system maximizes resource value by monitoring total cost of ownership and optimizing use across the lifecycle. ITAM also delivers centralized, up-to-date information, letting asset managers:

• Optimize budgets

• Reduce risks and costs

• Support lifecycle management

• Support evidence-based decision-making

Objectives of the IT asset management process

ITAM is not a one-and-done project. It's an ongoing process run by the IT team and led by the asset manager throughout every stage of an application or device's lifecycle.

Although it can be customized, an IT asset's lifecycle generally includes six phases:

1. **Request:** Stakeholders come together to determine the business case for acquiring an asset. 2. **Fulfillment:** The asset manager compares the request to in-house equipment to determine whether the purchase is needed. If so, they move forward with procurement. 3. **Deployment:** Once the asset arrives, technicians put it into service. 4. **Monitoring:** This phase increases asset visibility, ensures optimal usage, and identifies or mitigates operational risks. The data gathered informs future asset strategy. 5. **Service:** Regular service and upgrades keep an asset functional. Emergency repairs happen here too. 6. **Retirement:** At the end of its lifecycle, the organization disposes of and replaces the asset according to established protocols to avoid security breaches.

Different management tasks come into play as goals and tools change across those phases. Here are common ones that fall to the IT team.

Asset inventory

The first step in any ITAM process is to inventory every IT asset. The list should include each resource, its location, its purchase date, and its cost.

Life cycle cost assessment

IT teams should calculate the total lifecycle cost of every asset to keep the inventory accurate and actionable. Additional expenditures include:

• Maintenance

• Capital

• Yearly licensing fees

• Disposal

Tracking

Asset management software like Flexera, Asset Panda, or ManageEngine AssetExplorer tracks and monitors:

• Vendor contracts

• Software licenses

• Warranty expirations

• Service schedules

• Asset depreciation

Proactive reviews and audits let IT teams stay ahead of the maintenance stage.

Maintenance

Maintenance covers asset repair, upgrades, and replacement. The IT team records these activities using the asset management tool to understand overall resource performance.

Financial planning

An organization can start financial planning once it fully understands its assets, their lifecycle position, and their costs. The goal: Budget the level of service IT must provide to maintain or improve each asset's performance.

If an asset is performing well, funding and service should stay at the current level. Weak results signal the need for a higher level of service, and higher cost.

Benefits of IT asset management

ITAM delivers benefits well beyond organizing and tracking assets.

1. Establishes a single source of truth

An asset management tool tames chaos by consolidating an organization's IT data into a single, searchable resource. The software does the heavy lifting — tracking artifacts, monitoring usage, and interpreting dependencies — so IT professionals can focus on high-level work.

2. Improves utilization, decreases risk, and cuts waste

Real-time inventory data lets IT teams eliminate waste and improve resource management. It also keeps the company aligned with legal and security policies, reducing the risk of privacy breaches and regulatory penalties.

3. Boosts productivity while maintaining reliability

Companies embracing DevOps and site reliability engineering (SRE) rely heavily on infrastructure and platform services to improve efficiency. Asset management lets IT oversee consumption of on-demand services while avoiding overprovisioning and idle instances that pile up unnecessary cost.

4. Supports IT and business practices

ITAM systems also support IT service management (ITSM) and IT infrastructure libraries (ITIL) with change, incident, and problem management. HR and finance groups use ITAM tools to map critical resources and their dependencies to:

• Track assets

• Establish security remediation measures

• Manage operations

5. Reduces costs

Organizations consolidate data by consistently assessing IT licenses, instances, and resources. Routine audits let them optimize IT budgets by revealing which assets offer the best value and which are draining resources.

Best practices for IT asset management

Managing IT assets can be complex, but the following best practices set an organization up for success:

1. Secure executive buy-in 2. Select a team to pilot the management initiative 3. Define critical IT resources 4. List cloud-based assets 5. Identify discovery and data integration methods 6. Track assets continuously to avoid over-deploying 7. Decide whether to centralize data using a configuration management database (CMDB) 8. Automate processes with an asset management solution 9. Integrate data and make it available to the entire IT department 10. Insist on IT license familiarity 11. Fuel continuous improvement by gathering feedback, both internally and from other business groups

ITAM with Tempo

Tempo's Capacity Planner helps determine whether your project team has the IT resources it needs. The tool visualizes teams, plans, and shared resources so you can make informed sourcing and allocation decisions.

As you plan projects, you may need certain team members with particular skill sets to deliver on time and on budget. Knowing their availability is critical to any plan. Those individuals may also need particular equipment or assets to do their jobs — another place Capacity Planner supports asset management practices.

You can also use Strategic Roadmaps, Tempo's roadmapping application, to illustrate IT strategies for managing assets so stakeholders can understand and align with your goals.