Which IT Asset Management Metrics Matter?

Your IT Asset Management (ITAM) metrics can be the difference between significant savings and audit chaos. So, which ones truly matter? Take a look at the ITAM metrics that will benefit your business the most. 

IT Asset Management (ITAM) metrics may not sound like a flashy or exciting topic, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t mission-critical to your business.

Tracking and managing all of your IT assets can be complicated – especially if your enterprise tech environment is globally distributed and features thousands of devices, services, and systems that need to be managed at a granular level.

Without the right metrics in place, however, your ITAM initiative faces tremendous governance risks and non-compliance potential that can derail the entire business if something goes horribly wrong. Properly measured ITAM can be the difference between significant savings and audit chaos that undermines your team’s success.

So, it’s in your best interest to put metrics in place that ensure your ITAM activities and results stay on track.

But where do you start? While every business is different, let’s take a look at some universally agreed-upon ITAM metrics that can accurately and efficiently measure the overall health of your asset ecosystem.

Best ITAM Metrics for Managing Your Hardware

Managing ITAM at a corporate level is no easy task. And – at the most basic level – you need to ensure your hardware stays safe. Unfortunately, many organizations often fail to consider the physical well-being of their tech until it’s too late. And that means costs that are neglected until they spiral out of control – leaving you to answer some very uncomfortable questions when your IT budget is reviewed at the end of the year.

To prevent this from happening, here are a few hardware ITAM metrics you can use:

  • The average cost to manage an employee workstation
  • The average cost to manage a server
  • The average cost to manage core network infrastructure

Some ITAM Software Metrics to Think About

Whenever you’re inserting software-focused metrics into your ITAM program, it’s beneficial for your business to view these scenarios from the context of an external vendor audit. If you can answer the key questions a potential software partner is likely to ask ahead of time, you’re positioned for sustainable success going forward.

So, consider implementing software ITAM metrics such as:

  • The total number of software assets being managed
  • The total number of software licenses being managed
  • The total number of installed software instances being managed
  • The total number of available licenses being managed
  • The ratio of used to purchased licenses
  • The total number of each application version being managed

ITAM Metrics That Improve Your Operational Efficiency

The right ITAM metrics don’t just make your technology more effective – they make your IT operations (and hopefully your enterprise-wide workflows) as efficient as possible, too. So, which operation-minded metrics should you use?

Here are a few that we’ve found to work best:

  • The percentage of active assets under control
  • The percentage of active assets that aren’t under control
  • The percentage of assets under control that aren’t active
  • The percentage of active assets without a location or owner
  • The percentage of active assets assigned to owners who have left the organization

Take Traditional IT One Step Further

You’re probably being asked to manage more and more asset types every day. Therefore, your ITAM metrics need to consider technology beyond the scope of traditional hardware and software if you want to optimize performance on an ongoing basis.

Thinks like cloud, automation, and virtualization have become crucial building blocks that support your IT landscape – and your ITAM metrics need to reflect this evolution. Otherwise, the time and resources to keep these next-gen assets under control can grow too complex to manage.

To move your ITAM beyond traditional thinking and prepare it for the future, we suggest you track these metrics:

  • Asset depreciation rate
  • Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
  • Number of assets maintained by external partner(s)
  • Number of unauthorized and/or non-corporate assets
  • Number of assets linked to incidents
  • Audit history
  • Cloud asset consumption rate
  • The percentage of virtualized assets under control
  • The percentage of virtualized assets not under control
  • The percentage of assets that require exceptions to be managed
  • The percentage of asset management requests being properly submitted

When the ITAM metrics that truly matter are added into your IT environment, your organization is given industry-leading insights into how successful your performance is and where there’s still room for improvement. Not to mention a variety of more meaningful tools and measurements, too.

With a single glance, you’ll be able to drive greater efficiency, opportunity, and savings. Just like we do every day. If you’d like to learn more about FileWave and how we can make your device management a success, schedule your engineer-led platform demo today.

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