12 days of ITAM: Day 4 - Procurement

ITAM News & Analysis

12 days of ITAM: Day 4 - Procurement

For day 4 of the “12 days of ITAM” we speak with Harinder Bansal, Head of IT Procurement at Motability Operations discusses the ever-evolving relationship between ITAM and procurement.

What was the most memorable development in your role in 2022?

My most memorable development in my role was recruiting my new team and establishing the new team structure, consisting of ITAM, FinOps and IT Procurement all under one roof. Having these specialisms all under one roof is such an advantage because each of these all care about similar things: cost optimisation, adding value through process improvement and working with suppliers to maximise value from IT investments.

The idea of ITAM and FinOps working closely together going forwards has been a hot topic in the industry for a while and I am pleased that we are embracing the opportunities that this brings, such as balancing the need for speed associated with cloud deployments with the focus on license compliance for BYOL scenarios or the desire to purchase more software products via cloud provider marketplaces to generate value.

I’d like to thank all the amazing ITAM professionals who have advised and guided me along the way to understand more about ITAM. Namely – David Foxen, Kylie Fowler, Rory Canavan and your very own Martin Thompson and Rich Gibbons!

What will be the key focus in 2023 and what can you recommend?

The short answer is – global inflation and the impact this is having on IT contract costs. The tragic situation in Ukraine is having a global impact on supply chains including the supply and demand and costs for goods and services. The other challenge relating to the macro-economy is the fluctuating currency exchange rates.

I would strongly encourage you and your teams to understand which contracts you are paying in a non-GBP currency and to work with your Finance and Treasury teams to see if solutions can be found to de-risk the value of the cash reserves you have ringfenced to pay non-GBP contracts. Another recommendation would be to understand whether your suppliers are converting their pricing proposals ‘into GBP’ and what rates they are using to assess if these are reasonable and fair.

This is where IT Procurement can support both FinOps and ITAM – as they are the ones who should hold a centralised database of all IT contracts including key bits of information such as when they are due to expire, notice periods of termination and whether there are any index linked contract costs (RPI, CPI, Average Weekly Earnings etc).

What should ITAM organisations do now to improve their relationship with procurement, and vice versa?

I am genuinely surprised as to why ITAM doesn’t work with Procurement more often and vice versa. Both teams can add so much value to an organisation but can add even more value by working closer together – which is what synergy is all about. I’d encourage you to explore this further – try this – set up a workshop with your procurement colleagues and identify what each of you care about and how you can help each other out. You’ll be pleasantly surprised to see you have more in common than you think!

Closing words…

I hope you all stay safe and well through these challenging times of the cost of living crisis. Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn if you fancy a friendly chat about anything.

Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!

Can’t find what you’re looking for?