IT Asset Management best practices: The complete guide for 2024
Consider your fleet of company devices. Are they all accounted for throughout their lifecycles? Can you swiftly deploy laptops to new hires and retrieve them from former employees worldwide? Can you remotely track, access, and wipe your devices at the touch of a button? Are you using any IT asset management (ITAM) software?
If you answered no to any of these questions, then it is doubtful that your company has the optimal IT asset management program to compete in modern markets.
Fortunately, ITAM solutions solve these problems. With an effective IT asset management strategy, you can quickly determine the value of your IT assets and identify lost assets, which helps you better plan your IT spending.
This guide will cover a range of topics, from defining ITAM and identifying its current challenges to understanding its pivotal role in business growth. Here, you will learn the benefits of ITAM and its best practices.
What is IT Asset Management?
ITAM is a broad field; you can ask ten different IT professionals what it is and get ten different answers. So let’s start with understanding three of its pillars and how they apply to current IT asset management.
Asset management governance
Asset management governance is a framework for establishing the policies, processes, roles, and responsibilities necessary to align ITAM operations with business requirements. It coordinates and integrates ITAM with the organizational and customer governance structures to ensure that IT asset management best practices align with your organization’s needs, policies, and objectives.
In practice, this includes defining the rules and processes used to manage company assets, continuously monitoring compliance with policies, evaluating the effectiveness of policies, and providing detailed reports to keep key stakeholders informed about important updates, such as asset status or process efficiency.
Asset lifecycle management
IT asset lifecycle management (LCM) is an end-to-end process to ensure maximum productivity and ROI from your company’s IT assets from purchase to disposal. In other words, each stage of an asset’s life is analyzed for its performance and utilization, allowing you to make data-based decisions on what and when to purchase. When it's time for asset retirement, lifecycle management also includes disposal or decommission in compliance with the relevant data and environmental standards.
LCM has two sets of asset lifecycles: one for hardware assets, including software asset management, and the other for virtual asset management. These assets include intellectual property, asset data and databases, service platforms, and digital content. Analytics are performed throughout the lifecycle by capturing metrics at data collection points, which can then be used for decision-making.
Discover, audit, reconcile
Discover, Audit, Reconcile (DAR) is a process that enables total visibility of assets across an organization’s entire IT landscape. This works by discovering IT resources via automation, which are then identified and cataloged. Next, regular audits are performed to review asset usage in coordination with your company’s goals. This helps identify any errors, inefficiencies, or ways to reduce costs. If any issues are found, the reconciliation process corrects them by submitting and resolving tickets.
The DAR process should be conducted continuously to maintain an up-to-date ITAM system and ensure its highest efficiency. Asset discovery is the first step toward visibility, especially for hardware assets spread globally with distributed teams.
Key Components of ITAM
Three key IT asset management components keep your business running smoothly in daily IT operations.
Inventory management is responsible for keeping a real-time and accurate inventory of all IT assets, including hardware and software. It sets a foundation for a successful IT asset management program by enabling full visibility over your company’s inventory – this is crucial for accurately tracking assets.
Tracking assets is essential for monitoring their usage and location. This allows for improved optimization when utilizing IT assets across your organization and prevents loss or theft. With IT asset tracking best practices, it becomes a streamlined process to guarantee compliance with regulatory and contractual obligations.
Compliance is a critical component of your ITAM practices. It ensures your organization operates within all the necessary controls to prevent legal or financial penalties. This is particularly important as organizations must adhere to industry-specific regulations and data protection laws.
ITAM vs. ITSM
It’s important to differentiate between ITAM and IT Service Management (ITSM). While there may be some overlap, they each serve a different purpose in IT management. ITAM focuses on assets throughout their entire lifecycle. It’s used to help IT asset managers develop strategies and establish standards according to organizational needs. This ensures that rules and procedures are adequate to enhance productivity, mitigate risks, and lower operational costs.
ITSM practices play a different role in your organization’s IT management and focus on service delivery and management during the operational stage of an asset’s lifecycle. More than just asset management software; it’s the synergy of people, processes, and technology working together toward business objectives. This involves creating and managing the processes required to implement and support organization-wide applications, designing and improving IT systems, providing support, and troubleshooting issues when they arise.
IT asset management vs. IT service management is not an either/or case, as they work together to accomplish your organization’s goals. ITAM is software asset management concerned with all assets' costs, legal and security risks, and compliance risks throughout their entire lifecycle. ITSM focuses on configurable items necessary to deliver continuous service and performance throughout operation.
Why many companies struggle with IT Asset Management
One of the reasons companies struggle with ITAM is that they fail to recognize its strategic importance, and by doing so, they not only miss out on its benefits but can also face the heavy consequences of not having it – think of unaccounted-for inventory and data breaches.
Lack of visibility
A company needs to know what it has, and using IT asset tracking best practices is necessary to record its inventory accurately. This can affect the entire procurement and lifecycle management processes, resulting in operational inefficiencies and wasted resources. Without visibility, companies may overspend on IT costs, former employees may have company devices holding sensitive information, and devices may be improperly disposed of, leading to costly penalties and fines.
Inefficient processes
Technology moves rapidly, and companies are forced to adapt or face extinction. Unfortunately, many businesses still rely on outdated and manual processes for routine tasks, which makes everyday items more prone to errors. This does not work in modern companies, especially if the setup is distributed or hybrid. Imagine onboarding and offboarding employees across six continents without a centralized management system to track and record information; it would only result in lost productivity and resources.
Poor data management
Data is the lifeblood of modern business, and poor data management can lead to poor decision-making, a damaged reputation, regulatory compliance issues, and security risks. Important decisions are made based on data; if inaccurate or incomplete, the company risks making the wrong choice at a critical juncture. The average cost of a data breach in 2024 is $4.88 million, which can easily be averted by employing a complete ITAM strategy.
Case study
When OfferUp decided to expand its workforce into Latin America, it faced numerous challenges in equipping its contractors with company devices. One obstacle was finding vendors to source and deliver Apple Business Manager (ABM) preconfigured devices in each country. Once a contractor was finished, the devices needed to be retrieved. This process was attempted manually, resulting in back-and-forth emails with vendors, delivery delays, and devices needing integration into ABM.
They needed an IT asset management solution, and GroWrk stepped up to deliver.
When they implemented a robust ITAM strategy with GroWrk, they accomplished what they set out to do. Now, they could equip all their contractors with ABM-configured devices regardless of location—all for a competitive price and at the click of a button!
Since then, they’ve reduced onboarding time, recouped thousands of dollars in device retrievals, increased contractors' productivity, and only need to work with one vendor in one time zone.
How ITAM is now key to growth
When ITAM was first implemented, its purpose was reducing costs, optimizing asset usage, enhancing security, and ensuring compliance. The results were so substantial that it became integral to an organization’s strategic planning. Now, businesses have detailed insights into asset utilization and lifecycle management, allowing for informed decision-making for long-term sustainability.
Operational efficiency
Much of the workday is lost to repetitive and mundane tasks, often leading to errors. ITAM improves operational efficiency by automating routine workflows, centralizing device tracking, and optimizing resource use. This reduces downtime and waste, allowing for proactive maintenance that prevents disruptions.
By streamlining procurement and deployment, ITAM speeds up device integration, ensures regulation compliance, and reduces legal risks. These improvements collectively boost productivity, freeing up more resources for strategic projects that add value to the business.
Cost savings
When organizations have a clear overview of their inventory, they can optimize how assets are used and ensure that each piece of equipment, software, or technology is fully leveraged before making additional investments. With asset inventory management and optimizing asset usage, underutilized assets are reallocated to where they are most effective to avoid unnecessary purchases.
Lifecycle management further reduces costs by carefully planning IT assets’ acquisition, deployment, maintenance, and disposal. Extending an asset’s lifespan helps organizations delay costly replacements and opens the potential for resale to recover value. This results in a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and assets – delivering the most value to an organization.
Enhanced security
Security risks may pose the biggest threat to any given organization, and this is where ITAM strategies play a crucial role – ensuring comprehensive device tracking and regulatory compliance. Maintaining a current and detailed inventory of all IT assets provides visibility into which assets are in use, along with their location and configuration. With this level of oversight, it’s possible to identify and mitigate any potential security vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.
When all IT assets adhere to compliance regulations, the risks of penalties and security breaches due to non-compliance are greatly reduced. Performing regular audits while continuously monitoring with ITAM protocols helps enforce security policies to ensure that each asset conforms to organizational security standards. This proactive approach prevents unauthorized access and breaches, as well as strengthens the overall security within an organization.
Understanding the IT Asset Management lifecycle
Requisition and procurement
The ITAM lifecycle starts with identifying the need for new assets and acquiring them. This process involves selecting the appropriate vendors, negotiating contracts, and ensuring the assets meet the company’s needs.
Deployment
Once procured, the assets must be integrated into the IT environment. This is done by configuring them with a configuration management database or an MDM solution, ensuring their compatibility with existing systems, and deploying them to maximize their effectiveness.
Maintenance and support
To ensure that assets continue to function optimally, ongoing maintenance is crucial. This consists of performing regular updates, patches, and technical assistance to prevent issues and troubleshoot them if they arise.
Retirement and disposal
When assets reach the end of their lifecycle, they must be retired and properly disposed of according to data security and environmental compliance standards. Failure to do so can result in consequences such as data breaches and regulatory fines.
Core IT Asset Management roles in a company
An IT department consists of several roles to keep operations up and running smoothly, some essential roles include:
IT asset manager
The IT asset manager is the leader of the IT team. They oversee an organization’s entire IT asset estate. They manage and govern each piece of hardware, software, and technology throughout its lifecycle, from procurement to disposal. This involves coordinating with other departments to develop and implement ITAM policies and procedures for the organization. They must track and maintain accurate inventory of all IT assets and conduct regular audits to enforce compliance with legal requirements and company policies.
ITAM analyst
The ITAM analyst is the team's accountant. They assure data integrity with a company’s IT assets. They perform data analysis to help identify trends, inefficiencies, and improvement opportunities based on data reports. Their efforts enable insights for companies to optimize their inventory and services, resulting in better performances while achieving service level targets.
Procurement specialist
A procurement specialist is the supplier. They are responsible for acquiring an orgainization’s IT assets according to its budget and needs. They must work closely with vendors to negotiate contracts and ensure that purchases align with ITAM policies. The function of this role is to reduce costs, ensure supply continuity, and increase efficiency by maintaining strong vendor relationships while coordinating with inventory management.
Core functions of IT asset management
Maintaining an accurate IT asset inventory is a core responsibility of ITAM. By keeping an updated and consistent record with regular audits, you can verify that assets are properly tracked and documented to ensure optimized usage throughout their lifecycles. For example, the IT team uses a software that keeps tabs on every device in your inventory. They know when a device needs to be replaced or retired.
Software license management is another integral part of ITAM. It consists of managing software licenses in compliance with their agreements to avoid unnecessary expenses.. Its essential purpose is to ensure that each piece of software deployed throughout the company is up to date with their licenses and that they cancel any services that overstay their welcome.
Policy development and documentation are necessary to establish the ITAM guidelines that govern an organization’s IT estate and procedures. These practices allow for complete and accurate documentation used for audits, financial reports, and operational transparency. By implementing standardized ITAM practices organization-wide, the IT team ensures operational efficiency and compliance with the visibility it provides.
7 best practices in asset management
Several key practices must be followed to achieve efficiency, compliance, and sustainability with your ITAM strategy. When successfully implemented, they streamline operations and enhance your organization's overall productivity and security.
Vendor management
Effective vendor management is more than just making asset purchases; it's having solid relationships with your vendors. They are your partners and enemies at the same time. Your frenemies. This is important because it allows you to negotiate more favorable contracts for better pricing and service support. Another benefit of this practice is being continuously supplied with devices as needed. In distributed work environments, this process is more complex with each region of operation requiring its own vendor.
Immediate monitoring
Real-time visibility over your assets provides the data to determine their status, usage, and health. Immediate monitoring helps mitigate risks by identifying and resolving issues before they can escalate into broader problems. Taking a proactive approach to device health is a must for any organization that wants to be on top of their security.
Automation
Automation's role in ITAM is pivotal as it eliminates the need for manual interventions for routine tasks like tracking assets, compliance verifications, software updates, and reports. In practice, automation in ITAM looks like having a dashboard where you can access any function you need to perform. From data analysis, to procurement, to equipping teammates, to servicing devices. Automation increases efficiency and reduces errors, as advanced algorithms can accurately process data at accelerated speeds. The IT staff can shift its focus from repetitive tasks to strategic initiatives.
Continuous tracking
Tracking each asset throughout its lifecycle gives you total visibility and control over your IT environment. This process focuses on asset utilization, ensuring all assets are used to their full potential by identifying underutilized resources and allocating them to where they’re most needed. Having a software where you can view your current inventory regardless of location offers inventory insights, making it easier to decide if an asset needs maintenance or replacement.
Asset recovery and disposal
Recovering assets and disposing of them in compliance with all data protection and environmental regulations is critical in your ITAM strategy. This is necessary so you don’t lose money on any device you purchase, and don’t just throw your laptop into the junkyard. Asset disposal best practices include wiping data once a device has reached the end of its lifecycle or it is recovered from an employee to remove any sensitive information and prevent it from unauthorized access, along with documenting the disposal process to verify compliance during audits.
Integrations
Integrating other IT tools and systems into your ITAM strategy increases the overall effectiveness of your IT management. For example, connecting your HRIS with your ITAM speeds up onboarding. Having an MDM that connects with your ITAM enhances security. This holistic approach maximizes efficiency by allowing seamless data transfers between platforms, which reduces redundancy and allows better visibility.
Using a centralized platform
Managing all your IT assets in one place saves you the time from jumping from platform to platform.. A centralized platform allows you to perform many functions of an IT team from one dashboard. IT is a single source of information that can enhance decision-making and efficiently allocate each resource. Streamlining asset management processes into a singular workflow makes ITAM more efficient in less time.
Exploring ITAM software features
GroWrk’s end-to-end ITAM solutions make it a breeze to apply these best practices to your asset management strategy. From procurement to disposal, the platform provides inventory management, real-time monitoring, and reporting in just a few clicks.
With full lifecycle management and coverage of over 150 countries, you have visibility and control over your IT fleet regardless of location. GroWrk’s procurement and recovery services allow you to equip hires with preconfigured devices anywhere in the world and retrieve them when needed.
User interface and usability
GroWrk’s dashboard was designed with user experience in mind, you can procure country-specific equipment and schedule it to be sent within 7 days. At the same time you can retrieve and service equipment from your inventory in seconds. Monitoring and managing assets across distributed teams is no longer a tedious challenge involving multiple IT tools. The GroWrk dashboard drastically reduces the learning curve in complex ITAM tools like ServiceNow or Snipe IT allowing you to save time and enhance productivity.
Scalability
GroWrk is a platform for companies who want to hire anywhere and continue growing their business. We only charge a monthly fee for each workstation and offer more value depending on the number of employees that you have. The more orders that you place through the GroWrk marketplace, the more you save.
Automation
Reducing the manual workload that many companies spend on device enrollment, asset tracking, onboarding and regular reporting gives time back to your team and money back to your budget.
Integrating ITAM with other IT tools
Integrating ITAM with other IT tools keeps your IT environment synced. GroWrk’s extensive integration capabilities allow you to seamlessly connect with security systems, HR software, and essential IT tools. This level of interoperability provides a unified approach to managing your assets and maximizing their use across all IT systems.
Conclusion
The strategic role ITAM plays in operational efficiency is evident. By cutting IT expenses and boosting data security, its best practices benefit any organization that wants to stay competitive in the modern business landscape. More than just asset management, ITAM is an enabler for growth.
Understanding how ITAM strategies affect your organization’s success and implementing its practices into your IT workflow ensures that decisions are made based on accurate data. This is important for planning out long-term initiatives and reducing wasteful spending. By incorporating these practices into your daily operations, your organization’s ITAM strategy is poised for success.
Learn how to thrive today with a distributed workforce. GroWrk empowers businesses to hire the talent they need anywhere in the world. With comprehensive ITAM solutions to streamline operations and drive efficiency, expanding without borders has never been easier. Start optimizing your ITAM strategy today!
FAQs on IT Asset Management
What is the IT asset management approach?
The IT asset management approach is a strategic method for managing an organization's IT assets throughout its lifecycle, including hardware, software, and digital resources. It involves tracking, optimizing, and maintaining these assets to maximize their value, reduce costs, ensure compliance, and align with the organization's overall business objectives.
What are the three main deliverables of IT asset management? The three main deliverables of IT asset management are:
Lifecycle management: Managing IT assets from acquisition through deployment, maintenance, and disposal to optimize their use and value.
Risk management: Identifying and mitigating risks associated with IT assets, such as compliance violations, security vulnerabilities, and financial inefficiencies.
Performance optimization: Continuously improving the efficiency and effectiveness of IT assets to enhance productivity and support the organization’s goals.
What is the IT asset management process workflow? The typical IT asset management process workflow includes:
Asset requisition: Identifying the need for new assets and initiating the procurement process.
Procurement: Acquiring the necessary assets in line with budget and policy requirements.
Deployment: Integrating the assets into the IT environment and ensuring they are configured correctly.
Maintenance: Regularly servicing and updating assets to ensure optimal performance and compliance.
Disposal: Safely decommissioning and disposing of assets at the end of their useful life, ensuring data security and environmental compliance.
What are the 3 pillars of asset management? The three pillars of IT asset management are:
Asset management governance: Establishing policies, processes, and roles to ensure effective asset management and alignment with business goals.
Asset lifecycle management (LCM): Managing assets through their entire lifecycle, from acquisition to disposal, to maximize their value and efficiency.
Discover, audit, reconcile (DAR): Continuously identifying, auditing, and reconciling IT assets to maintain accurate records, optimize usage, and ensure compliance.
