12 days of ITAM: Day 10 - ITAM tools trends

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12 days of ITAM: Day 10 - ITAM tools trends

To everything, sang The Byrds, There is a season and with temperatures well below seasonal average here in the UK we’re undoubtedly entering a chilly period for the economy. As we found in the last recession, it’s a busy time for ITAM professionals. Suddenly there’s a renewed focus on cost management across the business, and that I’m sure will take up most of our time in 2023.  

Fortunately, we’re seeing plenty of innovation from tool and service providers to meet this demand from senior stakeholders. What we see from larger tool providers such as Snow, Flexera and USU is a refocusing on IT Visibility, going beyond our traditional remit and making use of ITAM data to address requirements from broader stakeholders such as architecture and even HR. This trend will continue as so much IT Governance work has its foundation in trustworthy data – hardware, software, users, services, and usage are all increasingly important as companies seek to answer questions about the value generated by their technology investments.  

However, this isn’t the only approach. After all, deploying an IT Visibility platform can be expensive and time-consuming, using time and money that we simply haven’t got as we look to rapidly rein in the overspend which happened in the rebound from COVID. Far better perhaps to target key areas and deliver rapid return on tool and service investments.  

Innovation in managing high-cost on-premises enterprise software such as Oracle, SAP, and SQL Server seeks to address this with companies such as Licenseware, Deloitte compass, and SAMBox offering SaaS solutions to deliver cost optimizations with no long-term commitment or long implementation projects required. And this also extends to SaaS Management with myriad companies such as Zylo, Zluri, Trelica, and Torii offering rapid ROI on managing the IT budget’s guilty secret – shadow IT spending.  

Undoubtedly if 2023 has landed you with a cost optimization target it’s SaaS where you should focus your efforts. There will be overspend, under-utilization, and duplication which you can rapidly address by right sizing your 2023 renewals for each product. Prices may be going up – we’ve seen 25-30% increases from major players in 2022 – but by implementing a SaaS Management tool you can rapidly close that gaping hole in your IT budget. 2023 is going to be quite a ride but fortunately we as ITAM managers will have technology available to surf those choppy conditions.  

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