What is IT Asset Management? Comprehensive Guide on ITAM

What is IT Asset Management (ITAM)?

IT Asset Management (ITAM) is the process of managing all of the IT assets of an organization - both physical and non-physical throughout their lifecycle. The physical assets include hardware, networking devices, and endpoints, while the intangible assets are software licenses, cloud services, digital subscriptions, etc. The goal of IT asset management is to optimize the ROI of the assets, minimize risks, and ensure safe decommissioning.

Need for IT Asset Management

As organizations and enterprises scale up, their IT environments become increasingly complex. In such instances, having complete visibility over the length and breadth of the environment is imperative to derive optimal ROI and keep them secure.

Here are some of the reasons why a robust ITAM strategy is required for enterprises:

• Minimizing wastage and optimising license costs by identifying unused or underused systems and licenses.
• Ensuring compliance by proactively monitoring for software license violations, expired warranties, support contracts, or any other obligations that might lead to compliance breaches.
• Implementing operational efficiency by providing visibility into what assets you have, where they are located, and which teams/employees are using them. This optimises service delivery, change management, and incident response within the organization.
• Safeguarding against security vulnerabilities by detecting shadow IT within the organization. Additionally, certain IT asset management solutions have native patching capabilities that help detect, identify, and remediate missing patches.

What are the Business Impacts of IT Asset Management?

In addition to the general benefits that ITAM provides, it also has a tremendous impact on businesses. A mature IT asset management strategy directly influences how smoothly an organization operates.

Business impact:

Continual monitoring of IT assets from procurement to retirement helps teams gain clear visibility on what the business owns, how they are being used, and if they are of value.

This visibility, in turn, translates to better decision-making for procurement teams. IT teams can then plan device refresh cycles efficiently, which directly impacts organizational budgeting, finance, and depreciation.

Impact on Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

One of the major benefits of a mature ITAM in place is the reduction in TCO. Complete visibility over the assets (devices, software, licenses) reduces renewal costs year after year by cutting down redundancy.

IT teams can then reclaim the unused budgets, issue right-sized contracts, and decommission idle or obsolete hardware.

Overview of the ITAM process

IT asset management comprises a set of tools and processes to manage and monitor the assets in an enterprise. Here's an overview of the policies and tools involved in the process:

• Centralized inventory database: This centralized console stores the physical, contractual, and financial state of each asset and is often linked to the Configuration Management Database (CMDB).
• Asset discovery and tracking: The assets are discovered via automated scanning. For certain IoTs, barcoding and RFID are also used to inventory and track them. For non-physical assets, for example, software or cloud platforms, their usages are monitored using dedicated dashboards.
• Governance, processes, and policies: The IT teams internally strategize and devise workflows and standards around requests & approvals, change management, and the retirement/disposal policies.
• Integrations: The IT asset management process often interacts and works in sync with IT Service Management (ITSM), change management, incident management, procurement, security, and other relevant internal teams to monitor and maintain the assets.

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Evolution of IT Asset Management

There was a time when ITAM meant pulling up a spreadsheet and hoping it hadn't gone stale. It was a basic, often overlooked task - usually delegated, always tedious. But that era is long gone. As IT infrastructure has grown more diverse, there is a need to track and manage it with far more precision.

ITAM started with Excel

Not long ago, asset tracking meant rows and columns. If you were lucky, your spreadsheet had some color-coded cells and a version history.

IT teams logged serial numbers, purchase dates, and user assignments by hand. There was no automatic sync with procurement or patching systems. If something was lost or decommissioned, you just hoped someone remembered to mark it.

It worked - until it didn't. As organizations grew, so did the chaos. Outdated records led to compliance gaps. Time got wasted reconciling inventory. And audits? A nightmare.

Enter ITIL: Turning Chaos into Process

With ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) gaining traction, things began to change - providing ITAM with a structure. ITIL is a globally recognized framework for IT service management (ITSM) and IT asset management (ITAM) that offers structured practices to help organizations improve their IT services aligned with business goals.

After the implementation of ITIL, asset data supported change management, incident resolution, and service delivery. For context, now, in case a server went down or a laptop went missing, the IT teams had a record they could actually trust.

This marked a significant leap forward - especially for industries like healthcare and finance, where traceability and compliance are mandatory.

The Software Licensing Mess

Then came the rise of SaaS, subscription models, and user-based licensing. Managing

software assets became a headache. What used to be a simple install count became a game of usage audits, renewal terms, and vendor penalties.

That's when Software Asset Management (SAM) came into its own. These tools didn't just log software - they tracked how it was being used, flagged unused licenses, and helped organizations avoid overpaying or undercomplying.

For admins, this meant fewer surprises. No more scrambling when the vendor knocks. No more spreadsheets full of guesswork. Just visibility - and peace of mind.

The Cloud and BYOD Era: Redrawing the ITAM Map

As if things weren't complex enough, the cloud boom hit. Then came BYOD policies. Suddenly, your IT assets weren't just in the server room - they were in someone's living room, or halfway across the country in a data center you didn't own.

Old-school ITAM tools weren't built for this. They couldn't see inside virtual machines. They had no idea what SaaS apps were being used. They didn't know if that MacBook on the network belonged to an employee or their kid.

So ITAM evolved. Modern platforms started integrating with cloud APIs. They tracked ephemeral resources. They extended asset visibility beyond the firewall. And they started supporting mobile device management and endpoint detection natively.

Automation: The Real Game-Changer

Today's ITAM systems do more than store data - they act on it.

They discover devices the moment they hit the network. They raise flags when rogue software gets installed. They spot patterns, forecast failures, and even schedule replacements before anyone submits a ticket.

And because they plug into ITSM systems, the data they collect doesn't just sit idle. It helps the helpdesk. It informs security. It drives smarter, faster decision-making.

This shift - where ITAM became intelligent and responsive - might be the most significant leap since ITIL.

Beyond Operational: The Strategic Side of ITAM

Ask any IT leader what keeps them up at night, and you'll probably hear about cost control, visibility, and risk. ITAM touches all three.

Done right, asset management helps you:

• Cut waste from unused hardware and shelfware.
• Resolve support issues faster by mapping users to devices and configurations.
• Stay ahead of security threats by ensuring every asset is known, monitored, and patched.
• Align IT investments with actual needs - not assumptions.

The Road Ahead: Predictive, Self-Healing ITAM

Here's where things get interesting. The future of ITAM isn't about better tracking - it's about systems that can take action.

Imagine an asset manager who sees a laptop nearing end-of-life and auto-generates a purchase order. Or a system that detects software drift and rolls back changes without needing a ticket. We're heading toward self-healing environments where asset management is invisible - but always at work.

With AI in the mix, ITAM is no longer a system of record. It's becoming a system of intelligence.

What are some of the different types of ITAM?

Overview of the IT Asset Lifecycle

IT asset management entails the management of the IT assets throughout their lifecycle. That being said, here are the various stages in the lifecycle of an IT asset:

• Asset planning involves determining the requirements before procuring the assets, i.e., the specifications, budget, and expected lifespan.
• Procurement involves the purchasing or licensing of the asset and negotiating the contracts.
• Deployment of the assets, i.e., installing, configuring, or onboarding the assets into the environment.
• Monitoring & maintenance to ensure uptime, regular updates, usage tracking, and providing warranties and renewals are in place.
• Evaluation and optimization to check whether the assets are delivering value, being utilised appropriately, and whether the associated costs can be reduced by consolidating licenses or retiring underused resources.
• Secure retirement or disposal of the asset, while ensuring that the data is wiped out completely, so that the assets can be decommissioned, recycled, or sold.

In each stage of the IT asset management process, specific stakeholders and departments have clearly demarcated roles and responsibilities.

ITAM Governance and Organizational Roles

For every tool to work efficiently, there needs to be a governance structure to define how the assets are controlled, how the data is maintained, and how the decisions are made. A functional governance framework for IT asset management, when put in place, eliminates the need for ad-hoc procurement requirements and conflicting asset records.

RACI: Roles & responsibility matrix

With multiple teams involved in the IT asset handling process, the RACI matrix helps clearly define the roles and responsibilities of each team:

• IT Operations - Responsible for day-to-day asset tracking, deployment updates, patching, and maintaining accurate configuration data.
• Procurement - Responsible for managing vendor relations, procurement approvals, contract renewals, and pricing negotiations based on insights from the ITAM tool.
• Finance - Responsible for asset budgeting, depreciation calculation, and cost optimization decisions.
• Security - Responsible for ensuring asset compliance, vulnerability management programs, and adherence to regulatory standards.
• Asset Owner (individual or business unit) - Responsible for the proper use of the asset, license compliance, and reporting changes.

Workflows for policies and approvals

Developing policies for ITAM governance is a must. Here's a look at the various types of policies that exist:

• Procurement policies to standardize how the assets are requested, evaluated, and approved.
• Onboarding & deployment policies to ensure how the assets are configured, tagged, and added to the CMDB before reaching users.
• Usage policies to define the software usage rights, acceptable use guidelines, and role-based access.
• Change policies to capture the hardware upgrades, lateral shift between departments, and software installations.
• Disposal policies to ensure safe retirement, data wiping, and environmental compliance.

Standards and Compliance in IT Asset Management

ISO/IEC 19770 is a globally recognized framework that establishes effective Software Asset Management (SAM) and IT Asset Management practices. This framework defines how the asset data should be collected, maintained, standardized, and governed across the organization, which in turn reduces audit risks and streamlines vendor interactions - maintaining consistency across distributed environments. The key aspects of ISO/IEC 19770 include:

• Standardized terminology for hardware, software, and cloud assets
• Structured data models (like SWID and HWID tags)
• Life-cycle-based asset management processes
• Controls for maintaining accuracy and auditability

Surprise license audits by vendors to verify license usage, without accurate inventory and usage data, can result in penalties and operational disruptions. Strategic IT asset management ensures audit readiness by:

• Maintaining a complete inventory of the installed software.
• Mapping licenses to their actual usage.
• Tracking license renewals and contract limits.
• Identifying over-installations or unauthorized deployments.
• Keeping documentation and purchase records accessible

Regulatory compliance is a must for organizations to maintain control over the data stored on their endpoints and the systems they use. Some of the compliance standards are:

• GDPR that emphasizes data minimization and secure handling of personal information. ITAM helps achieve GDPR compliance by tracking the devices that store sensitive data and ensuring proper data disposal during offboarding.
• HIPAA mandates stringent control over systems that contain healthcare information. ITAM, coupled with data loss prevention, helps identify the devices that handle PHI and enforces appropriate security measures.
• SOX mandates accountability over financial systems. Implementing IT asset management in organizations ensures that the financial applications are run only on authorized, compliant hardware and software, with proper licenses.

Common Challenges in ITAM and their Solutions

Best Practices to Set Up ITAM in Your Organization

For IT admins and teams looking to set up IT asset management in their organizations, here are some of the best practices to follow:

• Assess the current IT landscape of your organization to understand what assets are present, how they are being tracked, and the gaps in the process.
• Define the scope and priorities, i.e., what types to include first (e.g., hardware, software, cloud), and the risks that need to be mitigated first.
• Choosing the required tools to inventory/discover the assets, maintain databases and dashboards, and track licenses.
• Set governance policies to define who owns the assets, how the assets are requested, approved, and retired.
• Implement lifecycle processes to establish workflows for procurement, deployment, monitoring, and retirement.
• Monitor, audit, and improve the data quality, usage, or wastage of the assets; and adjust the policies to scale as per new asset types or new environments.

FAQs on IT Asset Management

1. What is an IT asset?

An IT asset is any hardware or software that IT (Information Technology) organizations use for the continuation of their business activities including storage, processing, control, and sharing of business-critical data.

IT assets can either be classified into hardware assets such as computers, servers, laptops, mobile devices, etc. or software assets such as licensed applications, software inventory or other open-source applications being used in the enterprise's endpoints.

2. ITAM vs. ITSM: What's the difference?

1) ITAM focuses on hardware, software and networks of an organization whereas ITSM focuses on its customer-oriented IT services.
2) ITAM and ITSM are both branches of IT Management but are mutually exclusive in nature.
3) While ITAM aims on magnifying the value of the company's assets using an ITAM solution, ITSM aims at magnifying the IT service delivery of the company.

3. What are the different types of IT Asset Management?

a. Hardware asset management is the part of an ITAM system that involves the management of tangible devices such as laptops, desktops, keyboards, printers, etc. Our ITAM software allows you to categorize your computers based on OS, manufacturer, disk usage, age and device type and hardware assets based on manufacturer and types. You can also configure alerts to notify you if any new hardware is detected in your network with our IT asset management solution.

b. Software asset management of an ITAM system involves the management of all the software applications/executable that are installed on endpoints in a network within an organization using an IT asset management system. It also involves software license management, software metering and much more. You can also prohibit certain applications by adding them on the prohibited software list. Our ITAM software also allows you to configure compliance alerts to stay software license compliant at all times.

c. Digital asset management is a part of an ITAM system that deals with the management of documents, pictures, videos or in general, data in any form that has been paid for, produced or is being managed by your enterprise.

4. What are the ISO standards for ITAM?

The ISO/IEC 19770 series offers a comprehensive framework of standards for IT asset management (ITAM) tools. This framework enhances efficiency, compliance, and resource usage of the IT assets.

5. Why is ITAM important?

For IT organizations, keeping a track of their endpoint assets is a must owing to the sensitive information residing in these assets. Endpoint asset management via IT asset management solutions ensure that the assets are secured and are functioning efficently by adhering to the regulatory compliance standards. Additionally, implementing IT asset management services in your organization also helps reduce manual dependencies and cut down on expenses by automating the redundant IT helpdesk tasks.

About the author

Anupam Kundu is a Product Specialist at ManageEngine in the Unified Endpoint Management and Security suite. With a background in digital marketing, his expertise includes creating technical and long-form content for SEO and user education in the IT and cybersecurity domain.