IT Asset Management (ITAM)

IT Asset Management (ITAM) is the process involving the end-to-end administration of enterprise assets such as hardware and software.

Enterprises typically have large inventories of assets that could often benefit from more effective management to support decision making and lifecycle management in the IT environment. A proper administration of assets helps to save resources, costs, and minimize risks in the long term.

ServiceNow offers a modern solution to design and implement a comprehensive approach along the main ITAM lifecycle stages: procurement, deployment, maintenance, and retirement.

Three main types of IT Assets

Hardware

Hardware assets refer to physical hardware such as computers, laptops, printers, mobile devices, cameras, and other equipment.

Software

Software asset management refers to the administration of software licenses, accounts and provisioning, peripheral IT, and compliance requests.

Cloud

Cloud assets involve cloud resources such as Software as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service, and Platform as a Service.

ITAM planning starts with four key questions:

  • What do we currently own?
  • Are we using what we have?
  • Where are our assets located?
  • Are we buying what we need?

Tracking available assets

Taking stock of available IT assets helps to mitigate risks and maximize investments through ServiceNow’s Service Mapping and Discovery tools. Enterprises can identify and define each item, determine its cost, accountability for managing care or warranties, and monitor lifecycle stages.

Software Asset Management

Organizations can make use of ServiceNow’s easy-to-use platform to administer licenses, access and permissions, updates, software security, deployment instances, and other features from software producers. Software Asset Management (SAM) gives admins back control over an enterprise’s software lifecycles and costs, which in turn helps to provide an improved experience for software users across different departments.

Financial Asset Management

Financial Asset Management tracks item purchase prices, depreciation over time, maintenance costs, and other financial variables that might be defined by the enterprise. Implementing ServiceNow cost models in sync with the rest of the ServiceNow environment helps to provide full visibility into IT costs and ROI to support IT departments better position their technology as business services to decision-makers.

End-to-end IT Asset Lifecycle Management

Having an end-to-end ITAM lifecycle management approach can be a definite factor to ensure a competitive edge, deliver on ROI objectives, and keep up with constant changes in the business landscape. A strategic approach allows to implement a well-defined plan that includes the main phases in the IT asset lifecycle: pre-purchase planning, receiving assets, testing equipment, deployment, maintenance, and retirement.

Benefits

Increased transparency and tracking of assets
Optimized use of resources
Improved compliance of asset management
Reduced warranty cost recovery risk
Reduced costs for maintanane or downtime
Use real-time data through dashboards and reports
Graphical catalogs allow for easy request and incident management

Our team's vast experience with ServiceNow can help maximize your service capabilities and enhance the quality and speed of your IT service delivery.