As the global leader in user-centered IT management, Ivanti was thrilled to be named Champion in the IT Asset Management Vendor Landscape Report by the Info-Tech Research Group earlier this month! (Read the full report below.)

CEO Steve Daly commented, “Ivanti offers the most comprehensive IT and software asset management software out there, and we love that prominent influencers are pointing IT and finance leaders our way.”

Being recognized on this level inspired us to sit down with a few members of the ITAM team to get their reactions to the report. Below are some questions and answers from ITAM evangelist, Patricia Adams.

1. Prior to  joining Ivanti, you were a research director at Gartner for 21 years. Why did you decide to join Ivanti?

After a long tenure with Gartner, I began reflecting on the next step in my career and realized that I wanted to try being on the vendor side. I spent most of my career advising vendors on functionality that customers were looking for in tools or problems that they wanted to solve. With this knowledge of the marketplace, I felt that Ivanti was the vendor best positioned to offer a complete one-stop-shop for ITAM.

With discovery and inventory, client management, security, and service desk, Ivanti had solutions that supported adjacent problems that ITAM/SAM either intersected with or provided data for. Helping to build the best ITAM complete solution in the market was a very appealing challenge.

2. Talk about the Info-Tech report. What are the big takeaways for you about the ITAM space? 

I’m not aware of any other IT research firms that conducted a comprehensive analysis of the ITAM/SAM market and graphically depicted it. Info-Tech looked at the different aspects of what asset managers need from a solution and evaluated the vendors against 15 different criteria.

The criteria are all meaningful to a successful ITAM program. Just focusing on one or a few elements, such as discovery and normalization complex licensing, is not enough to completely understand and differentiate the tools. Knowing whether you are buying a solution that will address the majority of your asset-related problems instead of just one or two of them is critical when purchasing a solution.

3. You attend a lot of events and talk to a lot of customers. What are the biggest trends in ITAM right now? Which way are the industry winds blowing?

One of the top ITAM trends that has persisted since 2008 is software vendor audits. I would love for this problem to be solved in the next decade, but vendors keep changing their licensing models. Additionally, new technologies are introduced that suddenly change the rules of the licensing game. We saw this happen with virtualization and more recently with broad adoption of cloud applications. BYOD and Bring Your Own App (BYOA) are also posing new challenges to asset managers.

BYOD and Bring Your Own App (BYOA) are also posing new challenges to asset managers.

Other trends that are going to have an impact on ITAM within the next five to ten years are Internet of Things (IoT), open source software, and artificial intelligence. However, the greatest impact will be felt on the security side. With increasing numbers of security incidents, it is paramount that asset managers adopt a proactive stance to reduce corporate risk and support the security goals.

4. Why should IT departments consider an ITAM solution right now?

One of my favorite sayings is that ITAM is equivalent to an insurance policy. Insurance is a key piece of any corporate strategy. When an event happens, such as an audit, a company will be very happy that they invested the time and effort to have visibility needed to respond to an audit.

The average cost of an audit for a medium-sized business runs about $250K,  just for internal expenses. Justifying the investment in an ITAM/SAM program after three or four audits, especially if they happen annually, can be very easy.

5. What’s your favorite movie ever? 

I’m so happy you asked about movies instead of favorite song (although I am really enjoying the soundtrack for the Broadway musical Hamilton right now). Hmm… favorite movie… right now I am enjoying a lot of the foreign films that Delta Air Lines has on their movie menu. The movies all have subtitles so it makes it hard to work at the same time because I have to read to follow the plot.