Hope Is Not a Strategy: Keeping up With Global ITAM Practices

In the US, it seems as though IT Asset Management (ITAM) is only a priority when there is an event, such as an audit or contract renewal, or when a specific cost-saving initiative is in play. In comparison, many European organizations are proactively placing people, process and tools behind an effective asset management strategy. Why are European organizations adopting holistic ITAM solutions at a higher rate than their American counterparts? GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).

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GDPR's impact on the global asset management market cannot be understated. Countries that are in the European Union (EU), where GDPR is administered, have a more compelling reason to invest in their ITAM strategy to support their security and compliance initiatives, or otherwise face penalties (often in the form of hefty fines). However, the country that a company resides in is only one measure of GDPR regulation. Companies located outside of the European Union are required to comply with GDPR if any end users are located within the EU. This means that organizations located outside of the EU can still face regulations, compliance and fines. All companies need to be paying close attention.

If your organization does not face GDPR regulations, proactive asset management should still be top of mind. ITAM is a set of best practices that allow organizations to gain visibility and control over IT investments. Without this visibility and control, organizations leave themselves open not only to financial risks, but to security and data privacy concerns.   

For example, legacy perpetual software licenses created financial risk for the software publishers who were not collecting licensing fees for deployed software. The shift to SaaS (software as a service) moved the financial risk to organizations utilizing the subscriptions. If these organizations do not have the proper controls in place to manage their subscriptions, they have significant risk of running and paying for unused subscriptions.

The world is changing. By viewing information as a business asset, the need to shift from reactive to proactive asset management is clear. Companies cannot afford to roll the dice on licensing shortfalls, the threat of audits, paying for unneeded subscriptions, or spinning up resources to manually (and ineffectually) track assets in excel.

If your organization isn’t actively planning the move to proactive ITAM – ask yourselves this, if not now, when?