Benefits of Automated IT Asset Management

IT asset management is an important entity for any business, since it can help in optimizing all the assets already present and help in reducing maintenance and support costs. An automated IT asset management works much more comprehensively.

An automated IT asset management will give the benefit of being completely reliable and accurate.  The automated software used IT asset management of a company can keep track of all assets related to IT and will be able to pinpoint exactly where and how they are being utilized.

Another advantage of automating the IT asset management is the servicing of any data or processes. With so much inventory in hand, one can pull out the exact file or process that needs to be assessed or serviced. So, IT technician can fix the problem without having to search the whole list to look for troubleshooting.

A manual IT asset management requires constant vigilance over renewals and lease expires. If automated, an alert system can save on the time required to check and recheck all the dates to have up-to-date software renewals.

Another major benefit of an automated IT asset management is the effective cost saving, it offers in terms of unnecessary extra purchases on software licenses that are not essential to the organization anymore. For a perfect list provides information on all that is available with the company, instead of purchasing anything new, a company can reuse those which are already available, thereby saving the cost to purchase. Having all information available will also ensure that the company does not encounter any lease penalties in the long run.

So, by automating your IT asset management process, you can have high consistency in all activities related to the management of IT assets.

Know More about Microsoft SAM

Software asset management or SAM is the first step towards maintaining a good record of all the software and the licence available with a company. With so much software licences being purchased every day, it becomes mandatory to keep a tab of all those licences and the necessary compliances.

Why do we need SAM?

There are innumerable software licences purchased by an organisation. And, all these software has their licence compliances and maintenance procedures.  Maintaining a simple spread sheet data of all the licences with their date of installation, procedure of maintenance or licence completion date will not be feasible anymore, with quite a huge data to store and also the time spent on doing the whole process.

SAM or the software asset management technique helps in doing the same, but with the advanced techniques to aid in a much faster and efficient storage and maintenance system. And, implementing it takes a few simple steps of taking stock of the whole inventory and organising it efficiently.

Benefits of SAM

With a professional help to implement the software asset management, the whole process can be completed and a maintenance strategy put in place very easily. Doing this will ensure that your organisation gets benefitted in the following aspects:

1.      SAM can help in optimising all software licences and keeping track of purchase, installation, maintenance and removal of software licences. The strategies employed by SAM can keep track of all these important aspects related to existing software.

2.      Reducing the cost of any extra and unwanted software purchase.

3.      Taking care of all software compliance policies.

4.      Annual and lifelong maintenance of all software processes.

5.      Implementing Software asset management can help in saving a lot of time and money.

6.      Reduce redundancy and get more out of your existing software.

Implementation of SAM is essential in today’s competitive business world. It can ease your business process and help you with annual audits. Pick out a good software consultancy services which can help you in the successful implementation of Software asset management techniques.

Why Would You Need Software Audit Services?

A software licensing audit is where a user of software is audited for license compliance by a software vendor such as Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle, and Symantec. The software licensing audit or software compliance audit is an important sub-set of software asset management and component of corporate risk management. When a company is unaware of what software is installed and being used on its machines, it can result in multiple layers of exposure.

The audit deals with the independent review of the software for the purpose of assessing conformities with requirements, specifications, standards, procedures and licensing requirements.

Software Audit Defense processes help customers to get reduce cost and increase performance by assessing your existing software estate to ensure you only invest in new software when and where required.

Advice for organisation’s preparing for s software audit:

Monday Morning:

-          Review key contracts to ensure audit rights are captured in SAM databases.

-          Brief key stakeholders.

Next 90 Days:

-          Develop policy and processes.

-          Carry out risk analysis to identify vendors most likely to audit.

Next 12 Months:

-          Develop standard templates for managing audits.

-          Review compliance status for key vendors when renewing or negotiating new deals.

Principles of IT Asset Management (ITAM)

IT Asset Management (ITAM) is the set of business practices that join financial, contractual and inventory functions to support life cycle management and strategic decision making for the IT environment. Assets include all elements of software and hardware that are found in the business environment.

IT Asset Management (ITAM) is the first step on a Software Asset Management (SAM) journey.

Advanced ITAM is critical for effective licence management but many ITAM tools fail to provide the functionality to match installations to licence entitlements – therefore missing a key step in the licence management process. AssetStudio® can help you to store licence documents and link purchases to deployments in line with the licence requirements.

Amongst the notable features are:

·         Maximum visibility and control over your network IT inventory

·         Identify software usage, license entitlements, and purchasing data related to your IT assets.

·         Seamlessly track and manage your IT asset inventory from purchase
through retirement—and finally abandon those Excel spreadsheets!

You can find out more about ITAM tools and its features and benefits if you visit the official website of IT service providers offering IT Asset Management services to its clients. By visiting the website one can arrange a free demo of the ITAM tools.