IT teams struggle to get visibility into tech assets
A new report into IT asset management (ITAM) shows that 53 percent of IT teams report challenges gaining or maintaining complete visibility of their technology investments.
The study from Flexera also finds nearly a quarter (22 percent) of the global IT leaders surveyed say they have paid more than $5 million in audit costs over the past three years, up from 15 percent in 2023.
"CIOs should be alarmed that 53 percent of IT teams lack complete visibility into technology assets," says Becky Trevino, chief product officer at Flexera. "Organizations that lack complete visibility overspend on technology, face higher cybersecurity and compliance risk, see reduced IT service management (ITSM) data quality, and slow the pace of growth initiatives. One of the root causes of this visibility gap is siloed teams and systems. Flexera encourages a unified approach that integrates technology, people and systems across the disciplines of FinOps and ITAM to support IT in closing the visibility gap."
The report also finds high levels of wasted spending, despite ongoing efforts to optimize IT budgets. Even advanced ITAM practitioners self-estimate 30 percent wasted spend on desktop software, 22 percent on data center software, 21 percent on infrastructure as a service/platform as a service (IaaS/PaaS), and 20 percent on SaaS software.
ITAM teams have increased their interaction with various other enterprise teams. Notably, 32 percent of SAM teams have engaged with FinOps teams, up from 25 percent last year. Meanwhile, the level of interaction with the CIO/CTO has remained stable at 44 percent.
The combination of ITAM and FinOps tools and processes has enhanced visibility across IT environments though. The report shows that approximately two-thirds of respondents feel they have an accurate view of their on-premises software (67 percent), on-premises hardware (65 percent) and cloud instances (64 percent). SaaS usage has less visibility at 54 percent. However, only 19 percent are confident in their bring your own laptop position.
The full report is available from the Flexera site.
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