ServiceNow IT Asset Management: Optimizing Asset Lifecycle Costs and Maximizing Value

To sustain, build, and transform your business, you need to know the IT assets that drive it. Organizational silos and legacy IT asset management tools that are inefficient make it difficult to manage and optimize technology assets. This wastes a considerable amount of money affecting bottom-line revenue and growth.

This blog will introduce you to ServiceNow ITAM, a single-platform solution for managing and optimizing IT assets.

Let’s begin with a simple explanation of what is ServiceNow IT Asset Management.

What is ServiceNow ITAM?

ServiceNow Asset Management is a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution powered by the Now platform, an intelligent cloud foundation for other ServiceNow products like ITSM, ITOM, etc.

What is ITAM used for? It is used for managing and automating the IT asset lifecycle. These assets could be software, hardware, cloud-based, or non-IT assets like routers, servers, cables, etc.

ITAM monitors all these assets throughout their entire life cycle, which includes planning, requirement analysis, evaluation, purchase, deployment, maintenance, retirement, and ultimately, safe disposal.

Briefly, ServiceNow ITAM unifies all the assets found under the IT umbrella together on a single platform, enabling the following understanding;

• Knowing the assets owned by an organization
• Which assets are in use, and who is using them
• Utilization of assets
• How long asset has been in use, when it was last serviced, and more
• Cost of each asset
• Software licenses, warranties, and more

Types of IT Asset Management

ITSM falls into the different three different categories, as follows;

• Software Asset Management (SAM)
• Hardware Asset Management (HAM)
• Cloud spend optimization

Software Asset Management (SAM)

As the name suggests, ServiceNow Software Asset Management acts as a single source of repository for the software resources including internal, external, on-premise, or cloud.

SAM has the following capabilities;

• License management: Complete picture of the software licenses enabling organizations to effectively manage licensees to prevent conditions like over- or under-licensing.
• Patches management: SAM can automatically install the patches to the software ensuring they are up to date and eliminating security vulnerabilities. It also ensures that patches are compliant with the organizational security standards.
• Software inventory: It keeps track of all the software installed, and where it is located, with other information such as size, version, product ID, and more.
• Software metering: It visualizes the complete picture of the software utilization like how much and how often a software is used. SAM also ensures that they follow certain rules be it legal or rules specific to an organization.
• Application control: It also helps in controlling access to the software. You can define who and what can access the software ensuring that one gets access to the software they are authorized to access.

Hardware Asset Management (HAM)

It tracks and manages the end-to-end lifecycle of all the hardware assets from the time of procurement to retirement. These hardware assets include both physical (like computers, printers, etc) and consumable assets (like printer ink or paper).

Hardware Asset Management has the following capabilities;

• Hardware asset dashboard: A centralized dashboard with visibility into all the hardware assets.
• Hardware normalization: It provides a well-organized catalog of all the hardware-related information manufacturer name, model name, and model number. This makes it easy to find the specific asset.
• Asset lifecycle automation: It automates the hardware asset lifecycle from purchasing to disposal.
• Inventory management: Provide a detailed overview of the assets across all the storage locations like how much of each item is in stock, and any order that has been placed.

Cloud spend optimization

It is dedicated to providing a complete picture of the total cloud spending across SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS of an organization on a single platform, helping in the decision-making process.

Cloud spend optimization has the following capabilities;

• Optimizing cloud cost and optimization: Holistic view of the complete cloud spending and usage, identifying the areas of high spending and underutilized cloud assets.
• Centralized procurement: Bring all the separate purchases made by each department under one system. This helps in finding the purchases that were made without official approvals. Also, it helps in finding opportunities for volume discounts from vendors, helping in saving more.
• Budget cloud spend: Help in planning the budget you can spend according to your needs. With regular tracking, it ensures that you comply with your budget.
• Reporting: It generates accurate reports categorized according to their cost centers, services, applications, etc.

Benefits of ServiceNow ITAM

ServiceNow ITAM is a complete solution for optimizing the asset lifecycle by offering the following benefits;

1. Consolidated View of Assets

This is one of the most significant benefits of ServiceNow IT Asset Management. It provides a single-architecture platform for tracking and managing all the assets such as hardware, software, and cloud services.

This granular level of understanding puts organizations in a position to reduce spending by effectively managing all the assets.

This consolidated view of assets is supported by a native CMDB on one platform, one architecture, and one data model. This enables all the stakeholders, and departments within the organization to connect to assets from a single platform. ITAM can be integrated with ServiceNow ITOM to create a holistic view of all IT assets and their operational status.

ServiceNow ITAM also supports real-time visibility into the data to better align the resources with the current business processes.

2. Automate IT Assets Management Lifecycle

ITAM automates every stage of the IT asset lifecycle from request, fulfillment, development, monitoring, service, and retirement.

Here is how ServiceNow ITAM automates the asset lifecycle;

• Request: The stakeholders can discuss the requirements and make a list of assets that are required. ITAM will create a formal request with all the information related to the assets required.
• Fulfillment: The request will be routed to the teams responsible for the approval. They will have detailed insights into the in-stock assets to ensure the fulfillment of the request. If assets are unavailable, then purchases need to be made.
• Deployment: Once the assets are made available, they will be deployed into the service.
• Monitoring: ITAM keeps collecting the data automatically about the application usage to ensure optimal usage and mitigate potential risks.
• Service: The responsible team will be informed regarding the maintenance, upgrades, or even emergency updates. Furthermore, it integrates with ServiceNow Field Service Management to help field technicians with information on assets such as their location, configuration, and current status enabling them to perform the maintenance or updates of the assets.
• Retirement: Whenever the assets meet the end of life, ITAM can proceed with the selling, recycling, or disposing of them according to the organization’s policy.

3. Key Publisher Compliance Management

ServiceNow ITAM has publisher packs that help businesses manage licenses from major brands such as Oracle, IBM, SAP, Adobe, and more. It helps you understand your licenses even in complex environments such as cloud and hybrid.

It ensures that you are following the rules set by the companies that publish the software you’re using. This enhances your defense against software audits. This understanding also makes it easy to reclaim unused or underused licenses.

4. Strategizing Asset Portfolio

ServiceNow IT Asset Management groups the assets according to their type ( like hardware, software, etc.) and class (like servers, laptops, etc.). Real-time access to the data about the cost, performance, and utilization of assets helps them to find out which type of asset or class offers the best price or performance.

This results in understanding which asset is most valuable to acquire and maintain. In simple words, ITAM helps you understand individual assets in the context of price, utility, usage level, associated cost, maintenance, and more.

5. Setting License Priorities and Handling

ServiceNow ITAM has the tools and provides the information required to set the license priorities. These priorities may include reclaiming underutilized or unused software and reassigning them to better use. It may also include the disposal of unauthorized, unwanted, or obsolete software licenses.

ITAM can automate the process of right reclamation and disposal process to reduce the human efforts that prioritize the work that matters more.

6. Contract and Renewal Management

ITAM lets you proactively manage upcoming contracts across software, hardware, and cloud assets. It provides actionable insights into the assets under the contract and when they are supposed to expire.

It has automated workflows to guide you through each stage of the renewal process from request, contract details, asset selections, terms & conditions, PO, approval, and contract rate.

7. Manage New Hires Efficiently

When you hire new employees, ServiceNow ITAM helps you understand whether you have equipment in inventory or if there is existing hardware that can be reallocated. This ensures all the new employees have access to the assets required to do the job.

ServiceNow ITAM Pricing

ServiceNow ITAM pricing is subject to the requirements of an organization. You can connect with a ServiceNow consulting firm, which will evaluate your requirements and provide you with a custom quote specific to your requirements.

How do you Get Started With ServiceNow ITAM?

ServiceNow ITAM is one of the must-have solutions for businesses for asset management across your organization and remaining adaptive to changing business needs.

The first place to start with ServiceNow ITAM is with a strategy. It’s the most important step in building, defining, and clarifying your entire asset picture. That’s where ServiceNow consulting companies can provide you with the expertise you need.

Cyntexa with more than 400+ in-house technology professionals has expertise in helping businesses leverage the capabilities of ServiceNow ITAM tailored to their needs. Let’s connect with us to climb the first step of making your assets work for you at their best capacity, and we’ll handle the rest for you.