IT admin's guide to the IT asset management process

IT administrators play a crucial role in managing your organisation’s technology resources. They are at the core of a company’s operations and ensure that the IT infrastructure stands strong.

Can you imagine a world where every employee is responsible for their own IT assets? A world where employees need to handle all IT admin roles themselves – juggling misplaced laptops, updating spreadsheets, ordering replacements, and wrestling with new device setups. A nightmare, right?

Whether it’s hardware, software, or licenses, effective IT asset management is essential for maintaining efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and compliance in your organisation. Let’s explore some key strategies that IT administrators (and anyone involved with the IT asset management process) can take to approach ITAM with confidence.

1. Evaluate the entire IT asset management life cycle:
   
   Start by examining each stage of the IT asset management life cycle: planning, procurement, integration, maintenance, and disposal. Investigate the benefits delivered at each step. Are there gaps within the current process? Are the processes streamlined? Understanding the entire cycle enables you to identify areas for improvement and optimise resource utilisation.
   
   Learn more about the ITAM life cycle.
   
   
2. Align metrics with organisational goals:
   
   IT asset management metrics should align with your organisation’s main goals. Whether it’s cost reduction, risk mitigation, or operational efficiency - ensure that your metrics follow these priorities. Measuring these metrics means that your organisation will have solid data and insights that can help drive decision-making, and better understand the effect of its IT infrastructure.
   
   
3. Analyse IT asset management benefits:
   
   Using internal audits, or scheduled reviews of gathered data, a company can ascertain the benefits of the existing ITAM process. Comparing the amount of money invested in ITAM with the money saved from the same, is one useful metric to see the net financial change resulting from ITAM. Analysing similarly defined metrics can help you keep track of ITAM credibility and validity.
   
   
4. Maintain a savings log:
   
   Keep a detailed record of all cost savings and avoidance associated with the company's ITAM efforts. Have you cancelled unnecessary hardware maintenance contracts? Did you optimise certain software licenses? Regularly update this log with such information. It will not only provide valuable insights for future decision-making but will, again, serve as a testament to the credibility of ITAM.
   

Effective IT asset management requires everyone involved to follow a systematic approach. By evaluating processes, aligning metrics, analysing calculations, and maintaining a savings log, you can ensure that the ITAM process will be effective and impactful for your organisation. Remember that ITAM isn’t just about managing assets, it’s also about maximising their value.