According to the “Survey Summary, State of IT 2023 Survey | July 2022 A Survey Summary[1]” by Aberdeen Strategy & Research, some challenges may be ahead for IT Asset Managers and their program. Let’s take a look at a few of those challenges:
“Top Challenges Expected in 2023”
- “Supply chain disruptions/issues”
- “Increases in product costs”
- “Shipping delays or logistical disruptions”
- “Limited product availability”
- “Chip shortages”
Vendor management has always been part of the ITAM program. If you have not implemented vendor management, now is the time to do so.
To start, you should have already ranked your vendors based on the following criteria:
- Dependency – how dependent is your business operations on the vendor?
- Risk – What are the consequences to your business if the vendor fails? Examples of failures include going out of business or reducing the product and service offerings.
- Spend
Next, regular meetings should be held with your top vendors. The frequency and length of these meetings will depend on the value provided by the vendors identified in the vendor ranking process.
Your vendors should be able to address all of the above challenges. This is why it is so vital you negotiate value and not just price with your vendors. Your key vendors should be your partner, not a discount store.
Plan on meeting with your key vendors sooner rather than later and perhaps more often during these unpredictable times.
“Top 3 Actions Taken to Prepare for a Recession”
“Reducing non-essential spending: 43%”
Drag your ITAM program up to a mirror. It’s time to take a good look. Is your ITAM program considered essential? Non-essential? Somewhere in between? Either way, it’s time to review and refresh your program’s marketing and sales (yes, sales) efforts.
Will your tech refresh schedule be at risk? This decision could be made for you if there are supply chain issues. But many organizations may face a tech refresh disruption because of the pandemic and work from home.
“Re-evaluating vendors / contracts: 30%”
Do you know which vendors you spend the most with?
Can you break down that spending into its respective products and services?
Can you identify how dependent your organization is on each vendor?
Do you know the location of the contracts?
Do you know which contracts are coming due and what value you can get from the negotiations?
Re-evaluating vendors implies you have a baseline. You do not want to be evaluating vendors based on the vendor's value at present or based on a short term goal. Furthermore, you can not necessarily depend on a vendor management department that manages all vendors to the lowest common denominator.
“Decommissioning unnecessary infrastructure or devices: 29%
Can you identify assets that should be decommissioned? Decommissioning an asset based on cost is not the correct approach and can cause collateral damage.
These are just some of the topics addressed in this article, and it would serve you well to read it. There are still many unknowns when it comes to the global economy. The continuing issues with managing cloud assets and the ever-increasing security threats compound the economic challenges. ITAM is meant to keep its eye on all these factors because a challenge in one area often impacts another. Get prepared now because sometimes perceptions become reality.
[1] https://swzd.com/resources/access-state-of-it-2023-tech-buyer-trends/