We all know the vast majority of IT teams are overwhelmed. Between putting out daily fires, managing service tickets, handling user requests, dealing with unrealistic stakeholder demands, and trying to keep legacy systems from crumbling, there’s little time left to pause, let alone to begin another new project.
Because implementing an IT asset management tool and process is a project. When budgets are tight and you or your team are stretched thin, finding time to map out assets may feel unrealistic.
But ITAM isn't just another job on the to-do list. It's a critical foundation that helps you stop firefighting and start working smarter (at least where assets are concerned). And the earlier you get something in place, the easier it will be. With every asset purchased without an ITAM process, your organisation takes on more risk, and you will need to do more work when you eventually do implement an ITAM process.
So let’s explore why IT asset management is 100% worth squeezing into your time.
1. Reclaim time by reducing operational chaos
Every minute you spend trying to figure out who owns what device, if a device is still in warranty, or if a piece of software is still licensed is a minute you could spend on high-impact work.
With good ITAM in place, you’ve got answers at your fingertips. Asset tags, purchase dates, warranty info, support contracts, assigned users, locations—it’s all there. Yes, you need good processes and automations to keep that data up to date, but it’s significantly less time overall than digging through spreadsheets or Slack/Teams threads trying to find an answer to basic questions.
ITAM gives you control and insight. And with control and insight comes time saving.
2. Protect your budget and your team’s sanity
You know the scramble: someone finds out you’re short on licences or hardware, and suddenly you’re spending thousands for extras you maybe didn’t even need because you’re unsure what you have. Getting a grip on your asset data is critical for saving money in the long run.
“Gartner clients have reported during inquiries that up to 30% of organization assets get lost, and that they address their needs by procuring additional assets.” - Gartner
And it doesn’t just affect physical assets either. Gartner goes on to say:
“Organizations with effective IT asset management processes can reduce software spending by as much as 30%.” - Gartner
That’s money you can put towards innovation and improving your business’s efficiency. And when it’s time for a big hardware refresh or a licence renewal, you have the data you need.
3. Strengthen your security
Security is a constant challenge. Patch cycles, vulnerabilities, and surprise audits. All made harder by the assets you don’t even know exist, like forgotten devices and shadow software. Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky reported that 11% of security issues come from shadow IT.
While you might not get the 100% complete picture with ITAM (thanks to SaaS software being so hard to detect), you can at least get 90+% of it. That means you can spot most risks before they become breaches, deal with software with reported vulnerabilities, and generally make your daily work less stressful.
4. Make audits and compliance simpler
Ever had a stressful scramble pulling together an asset list for an audit? I certainly have, and I can’t say I enjoyed it.
ITAM makes audits far more automatic. Selecting a few filters and hitting a button to produce an up-to-date asset register is a much more pleasant experience. You reduce audit prep time, avoid fines, and earn more trust from leadership.
5. Minimise the impact and likelihood of downtime
According to Carbonite the average cost of IT downtime for smaller businesses can be $427 per minute. Rising to over $9,000 per minute for larger enterprises as reported by the Ponemon Institute. Whatever size your business is, downtime is costly.
If you have critical services running on company assets, whether on-prem or in the cloud, you need to know what those assets are and what they’re doing. So you can keep on top of maintenance schedules for physical assets or identify issues in virtual infrastructure sooner to help avoid incidents. And when incidents do occur, you have more data to help you get back up and running quickly.
Read more: 10 CMDB best practices.
6. Accelerate service request resolution
When a ticket comes in for a laptop problem or a service issue, having your asset information at hand is beyond useful. Because extra context means faster resolution. For example, seeing the history of the laptop, what OS it’s running etc and any previous service requests can help you find the issue faster. Or understanding the history of any assets supporting a service that may be the root cause of the issue.
Not only does it help resolve tickets, it also helps you spot assets you’re not getting a good ROI from. For example, if a specific hardware model is causing many service requests, maybe you can phase them out in favour of something more robust.
7. Streamline employee onboarding and offboarding
From the moment a new hire joins to the day they leave, IT supports their experience. You need to assign the right devices, software, and access. And when someone leaves? You need to recover, revoke, and redeploy what they were using.
A survey from Capterra for HR professionals shows that 71% of employees failed to return all assigned devices. Which is a huge cost for a business and a big security risk.
With ITAM this becomes significantly easier. While we can’t promise it will make your colleagues actually tell you someone is joining or leaving in advance, at least when you do find out, you instantly know what they need or what you need to recover. And with an asset management system that can track software, teams, and job roles, it’s simple to see what access new employees need to which tools and get everything set up quickly.
It will save you significantly more time in the long run, making it well worth the effort to implement.
Final thoughts: ITAM is critical
Yes, setting up IT asset management takes time. But so does firefighting, scrambling to order new hardware, and playing hide-and-seek with your existing devices. If you can block some time to implement ITAM, we believe it will pay you back quickly.
Think of it like this: every minute you spend setting up ITAM is a minute you’re banking for the future when that next urgent request rolls in and you actually have the info ready.
It’s time to take control of asset management and get a system in place.
If you want to cut costs and time and retain full control over your asset management system, Starhive might be a good choice for you.
