ITAM vs. ITSM – What's the Difference?

Companies today use a variety of IT tools to achieve their internal goals. IT Service Management (ITSM) and IT Asset Management (ITAM) are processes that provide effective IT support. Both disciplines have their own unique goals and objectives and focus on different areas, seeing the organization's IT environment from two different perspectives.

Although ITSM and ITAM overlap from time to time, they offer different advantages. Knowing the difference between the two disciplines helps IT managers and businesses take the right approach for their needs.

What is IT Service Management (ITSM)?

IT service management (ITSM) is a strategic approach that helps organizations design, deliver, manage and improve the way they use IT services. IT Service Management (ITSM) isn't just about software tools, it's about processes, people and technology. ITSM encompasses any piece of technology used by everyone in an organization for business purposes, programs and applications used by customers, and a variety of services managed and delivered by your IT team.

The purpose of IT service management is to ensure that the right processes, people, and technology are in place to manage technology and its impact on the entire organization so that the organization can achieve its business objectives.

IT service management (ITSM) encompasses the creation and management of processes such as deploying and supporting enterprise applications, architecting and optimizing IT infrastructure, and helping time support and troubleshooting procedures.

IT service management (ITSM) helps deliver services that enable users to access information and complete processes, thereby adding more value to the organization.

What is IT Asset Management (ITAM)?

IT asset management (ITAM) enables strategic decision-making by combining inventory management, IT contract management, and financial planning and forecasting functions under one roof to improve the way the IT department makes spending and lifecycle support decisions.

Members of the IT team collect a detailed inventory of IT assets (hardware, software, and data) in an organization and make a purchase-deployment decision with this information. When ITAM practices are implemented, IT assets are tracked from acquisition to disposal.

IT asset management (ITAM) covers IT asset claims, approvals, procurement, disposal and redistribution.

The purpose of IT asset management is to help develop strategies and budgets by monitoring all of an organization's assets by collecting detailed information about the organization's useful resources, availability, usage, and potential longevity.

ITAM helps IT asset managers increase control, align with business objectives and reduce costs. However, ITAM provides guidance on establishing standards, processes, policies and metrics to mitigate risk.

IT Asset Management Guide for Banks

What are the Differences Between ITAM and ITSM?

ITAM and ITSM are two IT management disciplines that help organizations maximize their IT resources and achieve optimum IT-business compatibility. Both disciplines view an organization from two different angles. ITAM and ITSM offer advantages that each other cannot. Knowing the differences between these two disciplines helps IT managers and businesses take the right approach for their needs.

ITSM is a relatively all-encompassing term. This means everything related to the design, creation, delivery, management and support of all the services the IT team provides to the organization and external stakeholders. ITAM, on the other hand, is broadly defined as all elements of both hardware and software found anywhere in the business environment. ITAM provides information on where the IT asset is in its lifecycle and other details such as warranty.

It's also a good idea to update the asset's information after completing a service request, which is easier to do if IT assets and services are managed using the same software solution.

What are the Advantages of Integrating ITSM and ITAM?

ITSM and ITAM are different, but both work better together and have much greater reach and deeper impact when paired with each other. When a ticket is submitted to IT services, it allows employees there to know about the asset in question so that the request can be resolved faster. Data sharing between ITSM and ITAM enables better analysis and deeper and more useful insights.

Integrating ITSM and ITAM helps improve both functions. The daily service business flow, which is a large part of ITSM, includes IT assets at one or more than one level. It is natural to capture data for ITAM purposes as a function of ITSM processes. ITAM, on the other hand, can operate as an extension of IT support services. In many organizations, the IT department does not know how much software the company owns. This is because individuals can download apps whenever they want. By integrating IT asset management and IT service management, the software request process can be automated. This basically has two advantages: Acquiring and allocating software and centralizing the IT department and speeding up the automation process.

Combining the ITAM and ITSM platforms provides efficiency while reducing redundancies above all, and generally provides an easier workflow across IT. Data sharing between ITSM and ITAM saves the organization time, effort and money. It allows for better analysis and deeper and more useful insights. In addition to its forecasting and strategy benefits, it also assists change management efforts.

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