Automating IT Operations with ITAM

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 12:00:01 Z

IT professionals, because of the massive shift to Everywhere Work, have been tasked with blazing the trail for a fast-tracked automation and AI process at their organisation – as well as a move to the cloud.

With constantly expanding IT environments, automation has moved from a luxury to a priority for IT professionals. But for your automation processes to be successful you need to consider investing in IT asset management (ITAM). Why? Because one of the key areas for automation is unifying your existing asset information.

According to EMA research, 18% of respondents plan to manage all asset types on one platform.

15% of IT professionals say that incomplete, siloed, conflicting or inadequate asset information is standing in the way of automation. If you want to introduce AI and automation that will increase efficiency and productivity, investing in an effective asset management solution is a step that can’t be skipped.

How ITAM is a cornerstone for automation

Your AI implementation is only as good as your data. AI and automation won't work well when your data is hard to find and spread out. A lot of EMA respondents are already on the right track; with 43% reporting that AI is aiding their automation.

In addition to increased automation, 55% of EMA research respondents reported that they already use one platform to unify asset visibility, workflow and automation. The consolidation of asset information allows for holistic and comprehensive understanding of processes - including dependencies between assets and software and streamlining processes.

ITAM also provides necessary details when automating or applying AI, especially when you connect it with endpoint management and discovery solutions – helping to provide real-time insights into health, security and performance of all devices.

Being able to have this level of data can help remediate any device issues and security threats before they can cause harm to the IT environment or impact user productivity. With 80% of IT professionals planning to change their current systems either by adding on or doing a complete rip-and-replace, ITAM will be an integral part of the transition to automation and AI for organisations.

How ITAM improves IT operations

An investment in automating your asset management is almost certain to bring value to your operations. IT professionals need to be ready and able to operate at scale and address any issues, while juggling delivering business value and implementing strategic initiatives like speeding up resolution times, reducing costs and improving service quality.

Being able to automate repetitive tasks and leverage AI for proactive identification and remediation of performance and security risks generates operational benefits. Reducing manual tasks will not only take pressure off your team, but you also improve operations by eliminating the possibility of human error, leading to improved accuracy and efficiency.

Eliminating these manual tasks opens new doors for IT professionals to take on innovative and strategic projects for the organisation, such as cloud deployments to accelerate ROI. Even though cloud is the number-one challenge to delivering high-quality IT service, it should be noted that ITAM maturity is highly correlated with having cloud waste below 5%.

With asset management growing in importance for security and employee experience initiatives, having automation will help IT professionals become a strategic partner and enjoy heightened levels of influence.

An overwhelming 85% of respondents rated automation and AI investments as profitable ventures, with an additional 10% as a breakeven proposition. When you’re looking to implement effective AI and automation initiatives in your organisation, having an effective ITAM solution can’t be skipped.

To explore all EMA’s research findings, download the eBook.

Leveraging IT Asset Information to Deliver Outstanding Employee Experience

Thu, 09 Mar 2023 15:38:29 Z

With the rise in Everywhere Work, IT professionals have become burdened with managing their growing IT infrastructure. In fact, some organisations have reported their digital transformation being accelerated by three to five years as they look to build their IT environments.

The volume of assets used for work has grown significantly – averaging 2.6 devices per person. This new wave of assets has opened the door for more issues to occur – reflected by 45% of employees experiencing more tech issues since the start of the pandemic.

Work-from-anywhere means assets are everywhere, bringing asset management challenges from all points of the globe. Now that employee productivity hinges on their experience with devices and systems they use, senior leaders recognise ITAM's critical role in enabling their service teams to better serve employees. Glossing over employee experience is a risk organisations simply can't afford to make.

To avoid high turnover rates, work-related stress and employee burnout, organisations need to rethink their strategy. When 89% of IT professionals say they manage a combination of IT and non-IT assets, ITAM and its various capabilities can help you gain control over your IT investments while redefining employee experiences.

How ITAM elevates the employee experience

A great employee experience helps employees be more productive and efficient. With the average worker using 2.6 devices to complete tasks, their productivity depends on the experiences they have with their tools.

IT asset management has proven to be a Swiss army knife for delivering a great employee experience by:

1. Automating tasks

Quicker ticket resolution enables self-service opportunities, critical in improving efficiency of your service desk. When you eliminate repetitive tasks from your teams' agenda, they can finally get on with this platform consolidation project or that critical system update that has fallen off their priority list. But designing automated workflows is impossible without a full overview of all assets that should be part of the process.

2. Providing a comprehensive understanding of assets

When IT professionals understand what assets they have and when to use them best, they improve asset utilisation and prevent waste. When IT can support all assets, they are able to quickly view each user's assigned devices and identify those that are causing issues.

3. Providing proactive support

When your asset data is connected with your service management platform, you're able to provide more proactive support to your users. The continuous monitoring of assets allows you to resolve issues before the end user even notices – eliminating the need to raise a ticket request!

4. Speeding up the ticket resolution process

Combining asset information with your service management platform means your service desk has all insights into the potential core of the issues and their remediation at their fingertips, including usage, performance details, status updates on warranties and licences. When you're able to get to the centre of issues, you'll create an environment that helps enrich employee experience.

This ability to continuously monitor your assets allows you to provide proactive support, giving your team to identify and remediate problems before they impact users. Instead of filling out ticket requests, employees can spend that time developing or implementing strategic projects for the organisation.

With recent research showing it can take as much as 20 minutes for workers to refocus back on their jobs after an issue has been resolved, you could reclaim hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of lost productivity across your teams.

A great IT asset management tool gives you both increased visibility and context. With a data-driven, proactive support system, your IT team can deter threats before a ticket even hits their inbox.

How ITAM for employee experience improves IT operations and cross-functional workflows

Nearly 15% of organisations say incomplete, siloed, conflicting or inadequate asset information disrupts cross-functional workflows. A shared ITAM system that powers workflows across the organisation, not just within IT teams, allows for improved service delivery across the organisation. Whether employees deal with IT assets or line of business technology, great service is consistently and efficiently delivered.

Connecting everything in the cloud with a single platform significantly enhances your efforts to transition and consolidate onto a single configuration management database (CMDB) or “single source of truth” which can support many additional organisational requirements, such as security. Moreover, integrating assets with your data from patch and discovery makes your IT operations more scalable and efficient.

This heightened efficiency allows for an empowered IT team. When you grant them access to holistic data in context for each device, they will be able to proactively address issues. And, by recognising and automating repetitive tasks, you can lift the workload for overwhelmed IT professionals, helping to deliver a great employee experience to IT teams as well as the users.

Delivering a great employee experience is more than just employee appreciation days and putting arcade games in the break room. It's about giving your employees tools that help them do their jobs to the best of their ability and allow them to focus on the most impactful projects for the business and their own professional growth.

Access EMA's full research eBook on modern ITAM in the modern workplace.

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