
IT Asset Management (ITAM): What is IT Asset Management?
IT asset management is the process of efficiently managing IT equipment throughout its lifecycle or period of ownership to maximize its value to the business.
Also known as “IT asset lifecycle management,” or just “asset lifecycle management,” ITAM is a framework for proactively and strategically managing the acquisition, usage, maintenance, and retirement of IT assets.
Not to be confused with IT operations management, which is concerned with delivering IT services and optimizing system performance, ITAM focuses on implementing and automating processes for managing complex asset inventories from purchase through disposition.

- What are the types of IT asset management?
- What are the stages of IT asset management?
- How does an IT asset management process work?
- What are the benefits of IT asset management?
- The challenges of IT asset management
- ITAM best practices
- ITAM, HPE, and sustainability
What are the types of IT asset management?
IT asset management (ITAM) has several variants, each concentrating on different areas of IT asset management:
- Hardware Asset Management (HAM): HAM manages computers, servers, networking equipment, peripherals, and mobile devices. It involves inventory tracking, maintenance scheduling, and hardware lifecycle management.
- Software Asset Management (SAM): SAM manages software assets acquisition, deployment, usage monitoring, licensing compliance, and optimization. It aids legal compliance, software cost reduction, and software optimization.
- License Management: A subset of SAM that focuses on tracking and managing software licenses. It entails accurate software license records, monitoring license usage, assuring licensing agreement compliance, and optimizing license utilization to save costs.
- IT Financial Management (ITFM): ITFM includes budgeting, cost allocation, chargeback, and financial reporting. It helps companies analyze IT asset and service costs and optimize IT spending.
- Digital Asset Management (DAM): DAM manages multimedia, document, design, and other digital assets. It comprises asset categorization, information management, version control, access control, and DRM.
- Cloud Asset Management: Cloud asset management is critical for managing IT assets in cloud settings as cloud services grow more popular. It entails managing cloud resources, optimizing expenses, monitoring consumption, and complying with cloud provider agreements.
- Mobile Asset Management: Organizations manage cellphones, tablets, and computers. This comprises device provisioning, security management, app deployment, and mobile expenditure management.
- IT Service Management (ITSM): ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) includes IT asset management practices in service delivery and support. ITSM includes incident, issue, change, and asset management to offer IT services effectively.