Poor IT Management Programs Pose Bottom-Line Peril

Compiled ByDeborah Austin More than 75% of companies hazard wasted money because they lack life-cycle information-technology (IT) asset management programs that can determine potential risk, suggests Stamford, Conn.-based research and advisory firm Gartner Inc. "IT asset management" refers to methodically implemented systems of integrated strategies and technologies giving control over a company's IT assets throughout their life cycle. IT-asset life-cycle risks include:

• Business risks -- from lack of flexibility/agility;
• Financial -- from improperly timed hardware/software deployment or loss of system access;
• Operational -- when unreliable infrastructure affects business operations;
• Regulatory -- such as software license noncompliance and copyright infringement.

Poor system manageability, complex change management and below-average service levels can increase yearly hardware asset ownership costs by 7% to 10% -- and costs/risks for software asset management are even higher, says Gartner. It outlines three distinct tools for IT asset management programs:

• Auto-discovery tools, collecting physical data on networked IT assets;
• Repository tools, consolidating asset information for centralized view;
• Software usage tools, helping with server load balancing and license negotiation.