The Greatest Challenge Facing IT Asset Management Is….?

Friday 8th July 2022

The Q&A ‘couch session’ at our recent ‘Next Gen ITAM’ event at The Shard was a fascinating exchange of answers and ideas from representatives of three powerhouses of the ITAM industry. Our very own Bytes Solution Specialist, Greg Hallam, was joined on stage by stage by Leigh Martin, Product Director at Snow Software, Sean Robinson, CEO at License Dashboard and David Mathai, Advisory Solution Consultant at ServiceNow.

One of the most interesting questions was “what is the greatest challenge faced by ITAM in the next 5 years?” Having representatives from ITAM and Service Management technology providers, it would have been reasonable to expect a technical answer, and for each representative to disagree with the others in order to weave in a particular strength of their solution. What we actually received was a broad agreement between all parties of a very non-technical nature.

The discussion identified that IT Asset Management is evolving to meet the increased demands of a divergent IT environment, and is now having to answer for on-premises assets as well as a whole litany of ‘as a Service’ acronyms including SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS. Because of the centralisation of data needed to meet this challenge, the focus of ITAM is shifting from reporting and  managing compliance, to reporting and managing software, spend, people, and myriad other aspects of the hybrid workspace. In our previous article it was argued that SAM might just be the secret hero of service management as a result of this change, but the consensus from the panel was that it might not just be Service Management suddenly enticed by the capabilities of ITAM; many other business stakeholders might begin courting the guardians of such valuable data.

The agreement between the representatives of Snow, License Dashboard, and ServiceNow was that the greatest challenge for ITAM in the next 5 years will be an organisational one; how to manage the revolution from ‘software police’ to data champions. How to manage the transformation from the unpopular kid in the corner, to everyone’s new best friend (that was written by someone who works in SAM – he said it was allowed!). The organisational demands on ITAM are going to put it front and centre of IT activity and especially IT Transformation. However, it is this that presents the biggest risk - being overwhelmed by demands for new information and reports.

Bytes’ own ITAM Services have already undergone a similar transformation to now encompass specific Service Management, Procurement, and FinOps capabilities and a growing alignment with Bytes’ existing Hybrid Infrastructure, Modern Workplace, and Cyber Security services pillars. We have felt the stretch to integrate ITAM into a wide variety of business demands and have been busy working to match those new challenges. If you are in an ITAM role, start planning who your key stakeholders are, and who they are going to be – what information you can provide today, and what you will be expected to provide tomorrow – and if that feels like a problem, talk to us at Bytes about how we can help.

If you’d like more information on the ITAM services that Bytes provide, or would like advice on the next steps for your organisation, contact a Bytes Account Manager today at [email protected]

Or, check out some of the services that we offer, making your organisations IT Asset Management that much easier:

Cloud Investment Management Service

Software Audit Response

Cloud Essentials

Commercial Advisory Service


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