It is the start of a new calendar year. Many organizations will be discussing how to meet the strategic and operational demands regarding their IT, and will shiver at the knowledge that .....
...NIS2, sustainability, Cloud demands, forecasting and software audits will be top of mind (again).
Blog - January 2025: Prepare your ITAM team for 2025 with insights on agility, strategy, collaboration, and prioritizing key initiatives to drive success.
In the Flexera 2024 State of ITAM Report the conclusion is:
“The Flexera 2024 State of ITAM Report highlights the pivotal role of cross-team collaboration for ITAM teams this year. Software audits remain a significant expense, with 22% of respondents reporting more than $5 million over the previous three years in audit costs, nearly double the percentage from just two years prior. Responding to these audits has become the top initiative for ITAM teams reporting to the CIO or CTO. Major vendors like Oracle, IBM and ServiceNow have also increased their audit activities.
At the same time, ITAM professionals are increasingly realizing they own data that can help teams across the organization, including FinOps, security and ITSM. ITAM teams are intensifying their interactions across the enterprise—32% of teams engaged with FinOps this year, up from 25% in the previous year. Connections with the C-suite remained steady at 44%, linking with the CIO/CTO. ITAM data is commonly exported to enterprise systems like ServiceNow, BMC, Cherwell and Apptio. However, ITAM responsibilities are broad, with more than half of professionals claiming ownership for tracking SaaS usage, providing security analysis, preparing for contract renewals and maintaining software licensing inventories. ITAM teams must continue to stay nimble and flexible, managing a comprehensive view of data with actionable insights.”
Building a Smarter ITAM Approach for 2025
So how do you decide what and how much you do with your team? What is the art of the possible? And how do you prioritize?
Experience shows that it is important to have a clear understanding of what capabilities you do (and do not) have within your team, and what is on your list already. Simple steps you can take to get started are:
- Create an annual ITAM calendar that has all main activities like renewals/contract negotiations, large projects etc., including the assignees within and outside your ITAM team.
- Perform an assessment on where you are in last year’s ITAM ambitions to see what still needs work and what needs to be picked up for the new year based on the 2025 strategy.
- Plot the outcome on an activity list and see where this fits within the current workload.
- Define priorities and decide if you need assistance on one of more topics.
Many of our customers have benefited from the approach above. Especially when the strategical plan for the new year is baselined against the amount of FTE within the ITAM team. This ‘business case’ could also be used as a solid input for the usual discussions within organizations on the value of ITAM, the need for accurate information and the time and resources that need to be allocated to get the desired results.
If you feel that you would like to have a sparring partner help you to figure out how to be agile enough to deliver data and expertise at the drop of a hat, we can help you! At the same time, we can help you maintain the overall focus regarding your own ITAM strategy. Reach out to us!