Most companies think that ITAM is a simple project only. However, it is actually a practice that you need to improve with time. Companies mostly implement ITAM as a response to an incident. However, they forget about ITAM after implementing them. ITAM can’t deliver you its true value until you are improving it with time.
Companies should do a quick calculation and find out the value of their hardware and software. This calculation will give you the basic costs of the assets that you are using. However, you also need to think about the value of the business that these assets are providing. ITAM should be a basic practice that you should initiate, improve, and maintain.
You should give full attention to your ITAM. However, you shouldn’t wait for an incident to start this practice. It will help you in avoiding the financial and reputational consequences that poor ITAM can bring. In this article, we are going to share the best practices for successful ITAM.
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Enroll an executive champion
You should first look for an executive sponsor who will act as champion ITAM. It is impossible to do organizational change until some executive sponsor supports your efforts.
If you don’t have the support of executives, then your ITAM initiatives are doomed to fail. An executive can help you in increasing the value of ITAM projects.
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Include your entire ITAM team
You should think carefully before creating your ITAM team. Make sure that you are bringing your ITAM team in the beginning. They will help you in building the best practice from the start. If you are handing a process to your employees, then they will follow it blindly.
Make sure that your team members are involved in the entire process. This will ensure that they are invested in the project.
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Define your critical IT assets
You should define the criteria that critical IT assets need to fulfill. This is very important for every business. Sometimes critical IT assets are going to be special types of hardware. Many companies have access to critical IT software. You can use discovery tools for creating an asset list. However, they will generate a huge IT asset list. You need to filter the critical IT assets from this list.
It is important to protect your critical IT assets from attackers. These critical IT assets will generally have access to some important data. You should make this priority. Make sure that you are first creating a list of your critical IT assets. This will ensure that you can focus on important assets.
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Go for a lifecycle-based approach
If you are implementing ITAM, then you should follow the lifecycle-based approach. There is no benefit of reinventing the wheel again and again. ITAM will start when you are buying a new device for your business and it will end once your device is deprecated. You should follow this approach for tracking your devices.
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Check if you need CMDB
configuration management database (CMDB) can help you in managing your configuration items. It will help you in managing all your IT assets. CMDB will also help you in understanding the connections between assets and configuration items. You can check the different services that they support. It will also help you in normalizing data from various sources.
However, CMDM is not important for all organizations. It will ultimately depend on your organization’s needs. Make sure that you are only including the data in CMDM that will actually add value.
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Automation
Automation is very important for every business. It will help you in improving your ITAM practice. Thus, you should use automation if you want to manage your IT assets. Automation will help you in looking for new opportunities.
If you are doing something manually, then you can automate it. Most of the processes can be automated. Simple scripts will help you in automating monotonous tasks. However, AI can help you in automating even complex tasks. For example, AI can help you in protecting your network from attackers. It will look for anomalies in your network. Thus, it can help you in protecting your business from zero-day attacks. Automation can help you in saving a lot of money. It can help you in patching your systems. You can use automation for application deployment and reporting. All you need to do is set it up once and then just forget about it.
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Exploit your data
Make sure that you are getting most of the data that you are collecting. You should consider the departments that will benefit from the data that you are collecting.
The most common integration of ITAM data is with the service desk. It will help you in reducing the escalations. Also, you can automate some of the requests by using ITAM data. It will improve the satisfaction rate of both the IT and business users.
You can also use ITAM data for change management. It will ensure that the changes won’t result in unplanned outages. You can use ITAM data for avoiding most of the change management issues.
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Check your software licenses
You should know about the software licenses that you have. Organizations will fail software audits due to the over-deployment of some applications. They can’t prove that they have the right to deploy these applications.
Don’t try to guess the date of your software license. Make sure that you have access to the license documentation. You should compare your deployed instances with ITAM processes. This will ensure that you won’t get any nasty surprises.
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Gather feedback
You should gather feedback from your employees. This will help you in improving your ITAM. You will learn by integrating ITAM with your business environment. IT is never going to be a static environment. Thus, you should also improve and change your plan with time.
Conclusion
These are the best practices that you can follow. Make sure that you are continuously improving the ITAM. If you are neglecting ITAM processes, then it will hurt you in long run. Experienced MSPs like Bleuwire can help you in improving your ITAM processes. They can also help you in implementing the best ITAM practice. If you need more information regarding ITAM, then you can contact Bleuwire.
Contact us today to learn about Bleuwire™ services and solutions in how we can help your business.
