To win at ITAM, pick a sweet spot

Best practice

To win at ITAM, pick a sweet spot

09 September 2021

3 minute read

ITAM Review Podcast: Change Makers Series

In our Change Makers podcast series, we speak with ITAM professionals who share their experiences and insights to not only inspire those of us already working in ITAM but to encourage others to join us.

Lance Giles, Global Director, SAM on how to win at ITAM “To be great at one thing. Don’t get bogged down with trying to know everything. Pick a sweet spot, something that interests you.”

In this episode, we speak with Lance Giles whose team won the 2020 Implementation, Team or Project of the Year ITAM Excellence award.

This is a textbook example, from one of the world’s most iconic brands, of standing up an ITAM practice to reduce costs and mitigate risks in a short space of time.

Lance has worked on the consulting side, the publisher side and the end-user side so he has a refreshing, full circle perspective on the whole ITAM journey.

One of the things that struck us the most about speaking with Lance is his interest in and commitment to helping members of his team contribute, develop, progress and succeed.

“It’s about seeing people grow and hopefully, it’s still internally at this organisation, but to see them do well elsewhere, that’s all I need. Anybody that I’ve been able to bring on board, watching them succeed and grow, that out ways any deliverable or any presentation. It always boils down to the people.”

In this 12-minute podcast, we speak with Lance about:

How to select people to join your team from a business and technical skills perspective
How to identify and build relationships with key stakeholders
Why you need to market your ITAM team and why your team members need to think of themselves as marketeers
Why some ITAM teams flourish while others do not
What one thing newcomers to ITAM need to know and remember

To win at ITAM, pick a sweet spot

And, if you’d really like to know what that one thing is…

“To be great at one thing. Don’t get bogged down with trying to know everything. Pick a sweet spot, something that interests you. ITAM is very broad. Have your go to. I’m a mixed martial arts fan. The parallel I’m drawing is that to be successful, you need to be grounded in a discipline, whether that’s wrestling, karate, boxing, jujitsu. Have an area you’re comfortable in. You don’t have to understand everything. It’s not humanly possible.”

Hosts: Martin Thompson and Jennifer Carr.