Too often IT Asset Management is reactive in nature – trying to manage issues that were caused by the actions of people in the dim and distant past. Even where we ‘proactively’ identify risks, understand the impact and put in place actions to mitigate the issues, we are still reacting to existing circumstances rather than looking forward to prevent new risks and issues from occurring in the first place.

Any ‘techie’ will tell you that it is change that makes things go wrong – that is why technology change is (or should be!) tightly regulated in most companies and organisations.

Most IT Asset Managers understand the importance of engaging with Change Management to identify changes that pose ITAM risk before they are implemented, however the unfortunate truth is that engaging with Change Management is still a reactive process – the best you can do is halt the change, or implement a work around that mitigates issues that were not recognised by the people planning the change in the first place – Programme and Project Managers, Solutions Architects and Business Analysts.

Often these work-arounds are expensive and difficult to implement, with the result that organisations find themselves in situations, such as software licensing audits, where they are forced to spend their way out of trouble.

The people I mentioned above – programme managers, solutions architects etc are change agents – they own and manage the processes which design and implement the major technology changes that create the biggest ITAM risks for organisations.

Truly proactive ITAM requires that we demand that they build good ITAM into their solutions from the ground up, nipping in the bud the ITAM risks that would otherwise turn around and bite us in future years.