IT Asset Management Guide for Banks

With the digital transformation, the investments of enterprises on the IT side have increased day by day. We can say that the basis of this is undoubtedly customer satisfaction. With the increase in competition in all sectors, companies focused on improving their business processes and services based on customer satisfaction. The general purpose of the IT investments made in this direction was to improve and facilitate the service offered to the end-user.

As a result of the purchases made on the IT side, the IT infrastructures of the companies have become more complex. As a result, complexity began to undermine the innovative work of companies by making the IT environment cumbersome. This was a sign that companies investing in IT infrastructures now need to evaluate and manage their technology stacks.

Enterprise architecture, IT service management, IT asset management and IT Infrastructure Library are the strategies and methodologies applied to improve the technology portfolio and operations of enterprises.

Role of IT in the Banking Sector

The banking industry is a highly competitive industry all over the world. With the development of financial technologies, traditional banking lost its function day by day. With financial technologies offering solutions that make the lives of consumers easier, banks started to invest in their IT to establish a more dynamic structure.

Banks have to create a secure and functional IT environment in order to provide uninterrupted service to their customers and to protect themselves from potential risks. During the current COVID-19 pandemic, all banks had the opportunity to test their IT capabilities. Banks with sufficient IT went through this process without losing blood, while banks with insufficient IT faced various difficulties.

Risks and Regulations for Banking Sector

Transferring information to digital environments, facilitating access to information, digitalization of infrastructures and widespread use of information management systems bring along serious security risks. The banking sector faces various risks as it provides critical infrastructure services. This requires them to take precautions at the point of IT security.

For these reasons, the banking sector has to comply with the regulations in various fields. On the IT side, banks have various obligations that vary from country to country. Banks aim to protect themselves from potential risks by performing IT audits on their IT infrastructures periodically.

One of the regulations within this scope is that banks create technology inventories and monitor the assets in this inventory. Here, we come across the importance of IT asset management in the banking sector.

What is IT Asset Management?

IT Asset Management (ITAM) represents the process of creating and managing an inventory of assets of all kinds of applications, software, SaaS, hardware, integrations, etc. in an enterprise's IT infrastructure. ITAM helps an organization stay compliant with software licenses, comply with controls, and reduce security as well as legal risks. IT Asset Management also supports other ITIL, IT service management and enterprise architecture processes

Importance of IT Asset Management

Companies often face unnecessary license and maintenance costs for the software and hardware they do not use, especially since there is no statistical data on the use of assets in their IT portfolios. In addition to these, many software and hardware purchases are made due to processes such as lack of coordination between different departments, organizational and project changes.

IT Asset Management plays an important role in defining and controlling an organization's IT infrastructure by maintaining data about the historical and current knowledge of all assets. According to Gartner's definition, ITAM is not limited to managing hardware or software; It also includes taking a holistic approach where all IT infrastructure, the technology used, finances, data procedures and business decisions can be reviewed and organized.

10 Key Benefits of IT Asset Management

1. Provides the creation of an IT inventory of the company by collecting all the technology assets of the company.
2. Shows who use IT assets and at what cost.
3. Provides information about the current active status of IT assets.
4. Shows which systems are integrated with which systems.
5. Facilitates the monitoring of the maintenance and license renewal processes of technology assets.
6. Provides details on the total cost of ownership (TCO) of each IT asset.
7. Saves costs by detecting duplicate assets and licenses.
8. Prevents shadow IT risks.
9. Increases IT visibility.
10. Supports the protection of IT infrastructure from risks and threats.

4 Critical Steps of ITAM

1. Build your IT inventory
2. Detail your IT inventory
3. Manage the lifecycles of your assets
4. Analyze and evaluate your assets

Build Your IT Inventory

The most critical step for an ITAM process to be successful is to create a complete IT inventory. Although the IT asset management process is the responsibility of the IT Asset Manager, all company employees must be actively involved in this process. All company employees should be informed about the ITAM process and their support should be sought when creating the IT inventory.

Detail Your IT Inventory

Of course, the success of an ITAM process is not just about creating an inventory. Necessary information for each asset should be included in this inventory. How many people use this asset? When was it purchased? Who is the supplier? How much does it cost? When is the maintenance and license renewal date? The answers to all these questions and more are the information that should be included in an inventory. Companies need to make decisions based on this information in the process of evaluating IT inventory.

Manage the Lifecycles of Your Assets

IT Inventory Management is not a one-time process. IT Asset Managers are responsible for constantly working in this area. IT asset management covers the entire process from the purchase of assets to their disposal. In this process, all updates related to assets should be recorded. Companies should have access to all historical logs related to an asset.

Analyze and evaluate your assets

The purpose of all ITAM processes carried out at one point is to provide support for a decision. On the IT side, efficiency should be analyzed and evaluated periodically. The business value and costs of applications, hardware, and other assets should be compared and inefficient ones should be disposed of. Insights gained by ITAM help optimize IT costs and increase IT efficiency.

Types of IT Asset Management

There are various sub-components of IT asset management. However, these components should not be considered independently of each other. The combination of these sub-components enables a bank to take full advantage of the IT asset management process.

• Application Portfolio Management
• Software Asset Management
• Hardware Asset Management
• License Management
• Integration Inventory Management
• IT Cost Management

IT Asset Management for Banks

IT Asset Management is one of the core business processes of critical importance for banks. Banks need an effective ITAM policy to manage their ever-growing IT infrastructures more accurately and efficiently. ITAM helps banks monitor their technology stacks, identify security risks and meet regulatory requirements.

In order to create an efficient IT environment, banks must create and evaluate inventories of software, hardware, integration and similar IT assets used in business processes. Within the scope of IT asset management, inventories of on-premise, SaaS, cloud applications, computers, monitors, servers, phones, printers, routers, system integrations, data integrations should be created.

IT Asset Management Software for Banks

Loggle offers an end-to-end IT Asset Management Software that enables banks to manage all their ITAM processes from a single platform. Banks can manage all IT inventories from purchase to disposal through Loggle.

Start today managing all of your IT inventory, with their costs, throughout their lifecycle, from a single platform with Loggle.