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IT can Prove ROI with Tighter Asset Management

The job hiring outlook post-COVID-19 is a mixed one. According to Manpower, the Q3 hiring outlook indicates positive gains for healthcare and education services (+13 per cent) while understandably, leisure and hospitality have evidenced a sharp hiring decline. Essential jobs like nurses and nursing assistants are in top demand while ‘non-essential’ occupations like information technology are seeing a general cooling off. Manpower projects a minus three per cent hiring decline even while jobs like IT security or systems analysts remain on the list of top in-demand occupations. Across the board, businesses are looking carefully at workforce productivity in an environment of recovery and cautious optimism. It’s an excellent opportunity for IT teams to show the C-suite they are on board with cost control and smart use of available resources. Two areas in which IT can measurably demonstrate Return-on-Investment (ROI) is better asset and vendor management.

The recent work-from-home (WFH) shift highlighted the need to track all assets in the organization carefully. IT teams were faced very quickly with trying to manage devices and implement application control on remote and/or rogue devices that previously might have been backup devices at best. On the vendor management side, remote workers could be using software that was not licensed for corporate use, or ‘borrowing’ IDs to use seat licenses, potentially exposing the network to a compliance violation or security risk.

All these issues impact IT’s ability to demonstrate an ROI. By implementing systems and practices to exert more organizational control over assets and vendor management, IT teams can increase their ROI and importantly, free up staff time for more value-add tasks. Here are five practices to consider:

  1. Unify Asset Visibility. A survey of IT professionals revealed 45% use inventory tools as one of their resources for asset tracking; 43% are still using spreadsheets, and 50% are using an endpoint management solution. IT can even be using a mixed combination of all three. A single source of truth – all asset data discovered across these different sources, reconciled, and normalized in one repository – is imperative to reducing wasted IT time trying to locate asset information. It also provides an accurate information resource all IT departments can access to help identify rogue assets that present compliance and security risks and to help manage the lifecycle of any asset.

  2. Retire Assets in Time. A centralized source of asset data can enable IT to better plan for asset retirement, consider replacement purchases and conversely determine if some assets’ useful life can be extended. For example, extending the life of laptops by one year can save an IT organization several million dollars, but this is dependent on consistent tracking of the entire asset lifecycle to determine the health and performance of the laptops in use. There is great ROI upside potential here, but it must start with thorough asset visibility.
  3. Keep Current on Patching. Failure to stay up to date on vulnerability patching opens the door to cyber threats. However, IT can’t patch an asset if the team doesn’t know it exists. Mitigating risk to the network and preventing a costly data breach is linked to IT having complete knowledge of all assets in use and being able to track patching history of the assets.
  4. Manage Vendors with a Sharp Eye. Tracking software licenses is an area of financial discipline in which IT can show a direct result in improved ROI. As part of a centralized asset management system, IT should be able to efficiently monitor contracts, purchase and warranty data. A survey of IT professionals found 28% said they devote hours each week supporting out-of-warranty/out-of-support policy assets, and 20% of them indicate they don’t have insights into which assets are out of date. As a result, IT staff is wasting time fixing assets that should either be retired or reviewed for their current value to the organization.
  5. Strengthen Governance and Compliance. Accountability and transparency – two core pillars of corporate governance – are an important aspect of effective asset management. To support governance, IT must be able to give an accurate report of assets and license commitments. IT also needs to provide visibility into WFH assets connecting remotely to corporate networks. Accountability also includes diligence in seeing that employees and/or contractors are using software that is in compliance with vendor agreements and preventing unauthorized applications from entering the network and creating a security risk.

Better Asset Visibility = Better ROI

IT can get a seat at the executive table. What it takes is thinking like the C-suite. That entails looking at all the ways organizational teams can help nurture long-term growth and sustainability. IT can prove ROI by showing it knows how to be more efficient and cost-conscious. Executing a unified asset and vendor management system that saves staff time, minimizes risk and keeps the company in compliance is a great way to start. When the C-suite sees that IT embraces ROI with similar fervour, the door to the boardroom will be open!

4 posts

Peter Beruk is has been in the IT Asset Management (ITAM) space for over 25 years. During that time, he worked for software vendors including McAfee (now Intel), and vendor focused trade associations including BSA. Peter has advocated during his career that there must be a better approach to software management. During his time at BSA, Peter was instrumental in creating their ISO-aligned ITAM programs that were first to bring the concept of audit forbearance to the marketplace if organizations committed to standardized ITAM. During his time at BSA, he also joined the ISO working group responsible for the ITAM standard (ISO 19770), where he advocated the tiered approach to ITAM (19770-1:2012). During his time at 1E, Peter was their SAM Subject Matter Expert and continues his role in ISO SAM as the Secretary of the working group. He is an expert in audit defense negotiations and has a leadership position in implementing SAM processes to reduce, eliminate audits utilizing 1E ISO Process Implementation and Certification.

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99 posts

Martin is the Open Source Editor of ITAM Channel and has over 20 years’ experience in the software industry specialising in software licensing, IT Governance and risk avoidance. He has seen the challenges of risk management related to various aspects of the software ecosystem. In the past, Martin has worked for Microsoft Limited, FrontRange Solutions, Centennial Software, Snow Software and Express Metrix Limited.
Martin is now focussed on assisting organisations leveraging the benefits of open source software to create bespoke applications in house or through third parties while managing the business risks of intellectual property, open source component licensing, copyrights, security vulnerability management, and operational risk. The result for organisations should be a process of continuous compliance solution alongside a company’s DevOps process.

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29 posts

With a technical background in business and systems analysis, Rory has a wide range of first-hand experience advising numerous companies and organisations on the best practices and principles pertaining to software asset management. This experience has been gained in both military and civil organisations, including the Royal Navy, Compaq, HP, the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) and several software vendors. Rory is the founder and owner of SAM Charter, a process-driven SAM solution company and Committee Member of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 7/WG 21

Away from the office, Rory enjoys the cinema, supporting Derby County, trying to keep fit and day-dreaming about writing the crime fiction novel of the age!

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498 posts

Jesper is a seasoned Professional in Business development, strategy, sales and marketing planning and execution within the Information Technology sector. He has a technical background and his +25 years of experience is primarily in advizory, IT services and software. He was the founder of Identity Management consultancy, IT InterGroup and Software company FastPassCorp that was publicly introduced, via an IPO in 2007, on Nasdaq OMX Copenhagen Exchange.

Jesper ran Software Asset Management consultancy Secorigo before it was sold on to Deloitte in June 2017.
He was co-founder of ITAMOrg, the international membership organization within IT Asset Management that provides best pratices, training & certification, conferences etc. to help mature the industry.

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19 posts

Always looking to make the working lives of her clients that little bit easier, Libby Phillipps is dedicated to helping IT, Finance, Procurement and SAM professionals deliver savings to their organization with License Dashboard. She is also crazy about her pooch Kes and have a love hate relationship with aerobics and running

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