Jon Hall's presentation from the IAITAM (International Association of IT Asset Managers) Annual Conference and Exhibition in Palm Springs, USA, in 2012
2. The Asset Manager’s Challenge
“It’s clear that we are
struggling without effective
Asset Management, but
how do I convince my CIO?”
“ITAM isn’t a hot topic for my
company”
3. The Asset Manager’s Challenge
• “How can I build an effective
business case for investment in IT
Asset Management?”
• “How can I identify where to
target my ITAM budget for the
best possible results?”
4. The Asset Manager’s Challenge
• “ITIL assessment tells us a
lot about our organization’s
ITSM maturity, but it
doesn’t help us to reflect
our achievements in
operational IT Asset
Management”
5. The Current Landscape
• Benchmarking is well
established in IT... in
some areas.
• Key frameworks have
evolved with limited
reference to ITAM.
• IT Service Management
– ITIL, ISO 20000
• IT Governance
– COBIT
6. The Current Landscape
• Well-established,
trusted assessments
have supported
organizational maturity
for many years.
e.g:
• PinkVerify
• COBIT Process Assessment
Model
7. Why Benchmark?
• Understand where you
and where you can be.
• Build a stronger case for
ITAM investment.
• Get budget, and spend
it more effectively.
• Align your business with
your peers, to
understand how you
are performing.
• Show your business
what you are achieving.
9. Define Maturity Levels
• A simple set of measures enabling
consistent, summarized ranking across a
range of assessments:
LEVEL 1: Immature
LEVEL 2: Control
LEVEL 3: Established
LEVEL 4: Optimized
10. Define Maturity Levels
• Build a clear, generic profile of each
maturity level:
Little or no effective
management, process
or automation.
Evidence of established
processes, automation
and management.
Partial coverage and
value realisation.
Some automation.
LEVEL 1: Immature
LEVEL 2: Control
Fully established and
comprehensive
processes. Centralized
data repository.
Significant
automation.
LEVEL 3: Established
Best-in class processes,
tools and results.
Integral part of wider
business decision
support and strategy.
Extensive automation.
LEVEL 4: Optimized
12. Define the Scope
• Broad categories in which we want to measure maturity:
STRUCTURAL
Data
Processes
Tools
DELIVERY
Value
Compliance
Environmental
13. Define the Scope
• Break each category down into a few component parts:
Structural – Data:
Coverage
Proportion of IT Assets under management
Single Viewpoint
Proportion of IT Assets held in single central repository
Accuracy
Accuracy of data in the IT Asset repository
Asset Characteristics
Depth and breadth of Asset and supporting data
14. Define the Scope
Structural - Processes
Asset Processes
Maturity Level of IT Asset Management processes
Standardization
Degree of usage of standard Asset processes
Software License Mgt
Effectiveness of management of Software Licenses
Supplier Management
Effectiveness of management of Asset suppliers
Structural - Tools
Asset Repository
Effectiveness of the IT Asset Repository
Automation
Degree of embedded automation in ITAM processes
15. Define the Scope
Delivery – Value
Asset Re-Use
Effectiveness of ITAM in avoiding unnecessary purchases
Supplier optimization
Benefits realised through effective ITAM supplier mgt
ITAM efficiency
Cost effectiveness of the ITAM operation
Decision support
Contribution of ITAM to wider IT planning and strategy
Delivery - Compliance
Regulatory compliance Compliance against external regulation
Software license
Compliance against software usage entitlement
17. Define Measurement Detail
• Establish clear levels of maturity for each discipline:
Little or no
effective
management of
the organization’s
IT Assets.
Key parts of the IT
Asset estate under
management, but
some significant
gaps remaining
Majority of the IT
Asset estate is
under
management,
with few gaps
LEVEL 1: Immature
LEVEL 2: Control
LEVEL 3: Established
DATA (structural): COVERAGE
Entire IT Asset
estate under full
management by
the ITAM
function.
LEVEL 4: Optimized
18. Define Measurement Detail
DATA (structural): COVERAGE
Component
Description
Level 1
IMMATURE
Level 2
CONTROL
Level 3
ESTABLISHED
Level 4
OPTIMIZED
Score
Coverage
Proportion of IT Assets
under management
Little or no effective
management of the
organization’s IT
Assets.
Key parts of the IT
Asset estate under
management, but
some significant
gaps remaining
Majority of the IT
Asset estate is under
management, with
few gaps
Entire IT Asset estate
under full
management by the
ITAM function.
3
Single
Viewpoint
Proportion of IT Assets
held in single central
repository
Asset data in
disparate systems
with little knowledge
of definitive source
of data on each
asset.
Recognized single
source of Asset data,
but not all data
effectively
consolidated into it.
Core data on IT
Assets accessed via
single, definitive
source of data.
Comprehensive
single source of
Asset data, including
all data on assets,
plus service and
contractual
dependencies.
2
Etc...
19. Leveraging the Results
DATA (structural): COVERAGE
Component
Description
Level 1
IMMATURE
Level 2
CONTROL
Level 3
ESTABLISHED
Level 4
OPTIMIZED
Score
Asset Re-Use
Effectiveness of ITAM
in avoiding
unnecessary purchases
Procurement is
uncontrolled and
reactive: User
requests typically
result in new
purchases
Some degree of IT
asset inventory,
reclamation, and reuse, but not
comprehensive
Asset requests
typically fulfilled
from
spare/reclaimed
inventory whenever
possible
Highly proactive
avoidance of
unnecessary
purchase, supported
by ITAM processes
and systems.
1
Monthly IT equipment spend:
$100k
Percentage of purchases
avoidable through re-use: 20%
Implementation of effective asset repository and reclamation process
could save $240k per annum in unnecessary equipment purchases
20. What We Gain...
• STRUCTURE
– We can plan and measure our efforts to deliver improvements in key areas.
We know we are planning effectively.
• CONFIDENCE
– Our business cases to our CIO are backed up by solid analysis and evidence.
It’s a strong case, and we know it.
• PROFILE
– The ITAM function can show the business the benefits it is delivering.
People realise the importance of IT Asset Management.
Last week, in London, I watched a leading Gartner analyst in this sector place IT Asset Management tools firmly in the “Trough of Disillusionment”“Interest wanes as experiments and implementations fail to deliver”Can we have a quick show of hands, please? How many of you are directly involved in IT Asset Management? And how many of you feel that your organization invests all it ought to invest.As a product manager, I’m fortunate enough to be able to speak to scores of IT Asset Managers every year. These are some of the challenges we hear about...
Why this topic?Conversation with an analyst. We’re going to look at three typical challenges that we hear from Asset Managers all over the world.There’s the visibility challenge. Asset Managers know what they could deliver to their organizations, but often it can be difficult to get it up the agenda.And if it’s going well, it goes well under the radar.Are they really noticing the cheques they’re NOT having to write, because of the great job you’re doing for them?
Give me a little more money, and I’ll give you really great results.Or... Given what I do have, how am I going to deliver the most valuable outcome?
And of course, we want to show our audience all the great things that we’ve achieved.I worked for an organisation that was really committed to process improvement around an ITIL framework. We built an IT strategy around it. The strategy delivered really great results, and praise was justifiably lavished on ITIL process teams like the Change Management group and the service desk. But at the same time, a small team built up a really superb asset inventory management and request process, which didn’t even get looked at by the ITIL assessors.It’s no surprise whatsoever that the IT Asset Managers just got on with it.Three challenges then – gaining visibility and support, focusing the efforts, and demonstrating the results. Today, we’re going to look at a framework do achieve all three.
Over the last few decades, we have seen the emergence of a number of structured standards in the IT industry. A good example is ITILBut whenever we ask an Asset Management professional about ITIL’s coverage of Asset Management, we tend to get the same answer .
This is a shame, and here’s why: Companies that take notice of strong process frameworks know that they have a clear path to improvement and maturity.
... So let’s look at how we get started with a program like this.
Three phases. Firstly, we need to understand how we’re going to rank the things we’re assessing.
Four levels or five would typically be recommended. We like four.1: We don’t know what we’re doing.2: We know what we’re doing, and we know there is still stuff we’re NOT doing.3: We know what we’re doing!4: We’re redefining how to do it!
We want a ranking system that can be applied to any aspect of what we’re assessing. Make it clear and simple.
Next, we have to frame up what we’re actually measuring...
We’ve used two categories for this.Structural elements are the things that come together to make up our ITAM function – the tools, the data and the work practices that ensure they hold together.Delivery measures reflect the end results we achieve. So now we need to drill into each area...
Let’s take the example of data, which is one of our structural measures.
Walking through our other examples,
So now we have a set of maturity levels which we’re going to apply to aspects of our IT Asset Management... And a list of things to apply them to. Let’s take a look at the next step;
For each of our measured disciplines, we can take our general ranking criteria and get a bit more specific.“Little or no effective management” “Evidence of established processes and management.Partial coverage and value realisation”
...and now we can build that into a worksheet.We had a discussion at BMC about what to do with our Asset framework, but our view is that the best thing we can do is to share it as widely as possible. Let’s help the ITAM industry while tapping into the expertise of all the great ITAM practitioners out there.So please feel free to download our draft copy, from the BMC communities site. If you google BMC Communities Asset Management, you’ll find it there.
As for what we do next... Well there are a huge range of possibilities. We’ve identified the weak areas, and we can start to apply this to the circumstances we find in any particular organization. Typical asset scenario – we find that assets are being purchased whenever a request is made. Does anyone recognize that?If we can reuse assets to fulfil requests which account for 20% of our IT equipment budget, then – in this example – we can find almost quarter of a million in savings. By comparing that against the estimated cost of getting to the elevated level, we have can decide – in a structured and clear way – whether it’s worth proceeding.This structure builds out our business case.In fact, we’ve used it to enable our sales force with a really detailed business case builder.