Infographic: ITAM Process Steps, from inventory to SAM
This article has been contributed by Dmitry Krupenin of ITAM2.ru.
In this infographic, ‘ITAM Process Steps‘ we show examples of stages for IT Asset Management practices. We visualize such stages as: inventory check, IMAC, cost control, purchase control, contract monitoring, TCO, and software asset management stage.
Please note, some stages are specific to Russia. Originally posted in Russian here.
Russian introduction:
В этой инфографике мы покажем возможные примеры шагов для развития практики Управления ИТ-активами. Рассмотрим такие шаги как: Инвентаризация, IMAC, Стоимость, Контроль закупок, ТСО, Сопровождение договоров и Управление активами ПО.
ITAM Process Steps, from inventory to SAM
- Step “Inventory”: Elimination of “chaos” in the account of the equipment
- Step “IMAC”: Tracking changes and movements (IMAC) of IT assets
- Step “Value”: Tracking the cost of procurement and the book value of IT assets, including fixed assets
- Step “Procurement Control”: Control of the supply of IT assets in the procurement
- Step “Accounting for contracts”: Allowance and maintenance contracts
- Step “TCO”: Allowance for costs and TCO in a variety of contexts – at the level of individual assets, groups of assets (information systems), IT services
- Step “SAM”: Software Asset Management (SAM) – registration and license usage control, treatment control software in the organization, to ensure compliance with the licensors and other regulators
Click to enlarge
About Дмитрий Крупенин
A graduate of the Bauman`s Moscow State Technical University, degree of Informatics and control systems.
In the field of information technologies since 2007. Early in his career worked as a web-developer, was involved in the development of the first in the Russian system of official electronic publication of legal acts. Since 2012 has been working in the field of IT service management (ITSM) and IT asset management (ITAM).
This is a great clear example of steps to take to achieve great results in ITAM. But having some experience in ITAM projects I can’t leave unsaid following thought: at least, in specific of our market, it is very unwanted to split given first and second step.
First of all, every project of implementation of something needs some resources. Every decision to involve any resources should be made according to the planning value of this action. Everything is OK with value of all steps, except the first one. Actually, only IT stuff can take advantage of the step – they will spend less time to get to know what computer does user have, how many servers do they have online, etc. This result can’t be used by any manager, first of all because the technical information about assets greatly differs (at least in Russian companies) from the financial information, used in such processes as purchase, budgeting, etc. That means, you can’t justify cost needed to make this step. And, more than that, jumping from the first step to second will take some more efforts and resources to align technical and corporate accounting view on IT assets.
Second thought – if you split first two steps, accuracy of information in IT assets database will go down just like that, in first days after successful finish. That means, you’ll have to re-do at least some events of first step when trying to implement step 2. That willl mean extra-resources and growing project costs.
I surely understand the sense of dividing first step separately: this can turn to be quite a project by itself. But I see some risk in interpretation of this roadmap by those with not a great experience in ITAM projects. There appears some temptation to save resources and have a “temporary” stop between first two steps. And by doing so discredit the whole project of ITAM implementation / automation at least for some time, at least in some companies :-).
Hello Anastasia, thanks for your opinion.
I’m totally agree with you about the merging of first two steps in case of implementing the stage “IMAC” right after the stage “Inventory Check”.
However in my practice where there are couple customers who skip stage “IMAC”, I can say that if the customer wants to understand his total costs of infrastructure ownership, he can implement only “Inventory Check”, “Cost control”, “Contract monitoring” and “TCO” stages and leaves the procurement & IMAC processes as they work without ITAM. So I split first two stages in that case. I specially doesn’t named the stages as 1, 2, 3…N because of possibilities to skip some stages or implement them in other special way.
I am last year student and I want to say big thanks to author of this infographic! This portal and web-site ITAM2.ru really help me to find detailed information about ITAM for my diploma work!
It’s a pity you don’t have a donate button! I’d without a doubt donate to this fantastic blog!
I guess for now i’ll settle for bookmarking and adding your RSS feed to my Google account.
I look forward to fresh updates and will share this blog with
my Facebook group. Chat soon!