Every year, Flexera conducts an annual research survey to assess the status of the ITAM industry. As the global leader in Technology Intelligence, their findings can serve to inform any business’s ventures in IT asset management and benchmark performance and strategy in such a challenging and volatile industry.
This year, the company conducted a survey of 503 IT professionals across diverse industries and organizations of all different sizes worldwide.
Executive summary:
With cloud governance growing, audit defense climbing up the priority ladder, and hardware asset management staying highly relevant, IT asset management (ITAM) has only taken on greater importance for all sorts of industries and organizations. ITAM tackles the processes and strategies involved in obtaining, managing, and optimizing an organization’s software and hardware assets through effective asset lifecycle management.
Rather than leaving IT assets to their own devices, ITAM makes sure those investments are worthwhile and provide returns, whether they help to mitigate risk, improve security, or streamline operations. And there are IT asset management best practices that organizations can follow to maximize those benefits.
Bolstered by the 2024 State of ITAM Report, it’s clear that proactivity is most important to ITAM. Teams need to assume responsibility and be actively involved in oversight of all their resources from procurement and deployment to disposal. Standardization, documentation, and automation are also integral to an optimally functioning ITAM system as it helps businesses stay consistent and compliant.
Something that is also fundamental to ITAM is managing your carbon footprint, carbon footprint meaning the impact IT asset life cycles have on the environment. That starts with the production of those materials all the way to disposal. With all the considerations on the line during purchase, energy efficiency and green strategies should be a primary thought right after alignment with company goals and criticality to business operations.
Summary
- Wasted IT spend: A chief finding from the 2024 State of ITAM Report is that over half of IT teams lack total visibility into their technology assets. Although there might be efforts on the business’s end to avoid wasted IT spending, it seems as if wastage is still a huge issue, estimated between 20% and 30%. The pressure is on, and organizations evidently need to up their asset tracking and management.
- Penny pinching: Rather than find opportunities for cost savings and find a healthy balance between thriftiness and investment, software asset management (SAM) teams are avoiding IT purchasing and refraining from any major moves instead. While frugality is useful, even needed at times, a constant reliance on cost avoidance can mean a lack of growth, stifled innovation, and missed opportunities to advance.
- Expensive software audits: The most popular vendors, including Microsoft and IBM, audit most frequently. If compliance is not diligently maintained, those resulting financial burdens can be hefty, straining already strained budgets. 22% of respondents in the Flexera report claim to have lost more than $5 million in the last three years to auditing alone.
- Lack of IT spend visibility: While visibility isn’t as poor as before, businesses are still struggling to get an accurate and comprehensive view of their IT spend, including their cloud instances. Two-thirds of respondents in the survey felt like their view of IT spend was accurate, but SaaS usage had a lot less visibility overall. With SaaS applications often being decentralized, having more complex subscription models, and a much faster turnover rate, SaaS spending is harder to track.
ITAM with Dots and its advantages
According to Flexera’s State of ITAM, there’s still a need to close the visibility gap and improve visibility and IT inventory management in the ITAM landscape. While having the proper ITAM practices in place is crucial, employing Dots – an end-to-end cloud-based IT asset management software solution, allows for complete tracking, compliance, and optimization across all your assets.
As the platform touches on all essential ITAM practices, Dots is the best IT asset management software to facilitate a holistic approach to asset decision-making and cost management. From procurement to delivery and deployment, you’ll always ensure that your assets are utilized and maintained according to standard.Book a free demo of Dots today and experience the difference an end-to-end solution can make for your business.
