The importance of measuring your ITAM maturity

Why ITAM is mission-critical to reducing costs, mitigating cybersecurity risks and ensuring compliance

IT Asset Management – ITAM – has never been so important. At its heart is a set of guiding principles that enable businesses to gain 360-degree visibility of their IT estates. This helps IT departments understand what technologies are in place – on-premise and in the cloud – which need replacing, or upgrading and those which have become obsolete and can be retired. ITAM can also help IT departments track which software and systems have been implemented without their knowledge by other departments – a worrying and increasingly common occurrence.

In this new series of three articles, we explain what ITAM is and why it matters, how and why businesses should measure their ITAM security and lastly, practical steps for creating an effective roadmap that can optimise efficiency, reduce costs and mitigate compliance and cybersecurity issues.

1. What is ITAM and why does it matter?
2. The importance of measuring your ITAM maturity
3. The importance of having an action plan

In the second of our series of three articles about ITAM, we discuss how businesses can measure their ITAM maturity and create a structured framework that gives leaders full visibility of their IT estate and ensure it is well-managed, compliant, and cost-efficient.

The importance of measuring your ITAM maturity

Imagine two businesses. In one, shadow IT is commonplace. Everyone buys the software they need when they need it – so the business sometimes pays for new instances of SaaS applications it already has or keeps paying for subscriptions that are no longer being used. With no centralised control, IT asset management (ITAM) requires constant firefighting to stay compliant and control waste. The heads of procurement and IT both lose a lot of sleep.

Now picture the second business. In this one, decision-makers can instantly consult an up-to-date inventory of IT assets whenever someone needs new software. Managers and executives are confident there’s no wasteful spending and that tools are decommissioned when they’re no longer needed. This business has full visibility into a well-managed, compliant, and cost-efficient IT landscape. And the heads of procurement and IT sleep like babies.

Your business probably sits somewhere between these two fictional organisations. For many companies, effective ITAM is both a headache and an aspiration. One recent Deloitte survey found that 84% of respondents say their organisation lacks a truly effective ITAM function. And nearly 90% believe that the rapidly changing business, regulatory, and technology environment makes it harder for them to achieve ITAM maturity.

ITAM maturity, though, brings great rewards. Flexera’s State of ITAM Report 2022, for example, found that surveyed companies with effective software asset management programs reported $1 million or more per year in combined savings and avoided costs. What’s more, respondents reported, those savings tended to increase as their ITAM programs matured.

So how can you make sure your organisation’s ITAM program is on the right track?

Why measure your ITAM maturity?

To get to where you need to go, you first need to know where you are. This means measuring your current level of ITAM maturity and understanding your strengths and weaknesses. It requires reviewing your existing capabilities and identifying gaps. You need to understand what people, data, processes, policies, and technology you have in place and where you lack visibility or capabilities.

Before you can improve, you must first fully understand these areas of weakness and risk. Only then can you build a foundation for greater ITAM maturity – as well as the ability to benchmark your practices against others in your industry.

After you’ve gained insights into your current level of ITAM maturity, you can start creating an action plan that’s guided by best practices to address challenges and improve capabilities. With a clear ITAM vision and a well-thought-out roadmap, your entire organisation will understand the benefits of developing your practices.

How do you measure ITAM maturity?

Measuring your ITAM maturity requires you to assess your current capabilities in each of the following areas:

• Strategy and governance – This means measuring the degree to which your organisation has defined its vision for ITAM. How have you outlined the activities and initiatives needed to achieve your vision? Are you actively managing, reviewing, and updating the business case for your ITAM program? Do you have a roadmap and is it updated to reflect progress?
• Organisation – How well have you defined the roles and responsibilities needed to execute and measure ITAM activities? This includes the responsibility for raising overall awareness and communication of the program’s purpose and benefits. Have you identified and documented all hardware and software assets, as well as vendors? Do you have training in place to support the use of ITAM tools and processes?
• Functional processes and controls – How does your organisation manage contractual obligations, contract management, and SLAs?
• Lifecycle – How do you manage software licence negotiations, audits, and end-of-life issues, etc.?
• Technology – What tools do you have in place to identify, track and measure software and cloud usage? What about technology for identifying, tracking, and measuring IT spending and licence fees, etc.? Do you have a tool that can produce accurate and timely reports?

After you’ve assessed your capabilities, you’re ready to undertake a gap analysis to identify what you need to do to improve maturity across each of the above areas. The assessment should also provide industry-specific benchmarks to compare your organisation’s level of maturity with others in your sector.