#ITAMsavesjobs launched to raise awareness of the benefits of ITAM in helping companies retain talent by identifying and realizing cost savings.
IT Asset Management (ITAM), the discipline which seeks to optimize spend on the IT environment, has a very compelling business case to help companies through a recession. The ITAM Forum, which argues for ITAM to become a de facto business practice within all organisations in much the same as marketing, HR, accounting etc., is calling on companies to leverage the cost-cutting benefits of ITAM now as part of their recession planning to help protect jobs and maintain growth.
According to a consensus of its members, organisations that implement ITAM can reasonably save at least 5% on their IT and software costs every year, with most being able to save much more than that. Based on the latest Worldwide IT Spending Forecast by Gartner, ITAM could save companies at least $67.7 billion globally, which, if applied toward talent retention, could protect hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Martin Thompson, founder of the ITAM Forum states, “ITAM has a proven ability to cut costs, enhance security, reduce risks, and boost company agility. All of these attributes are particularly beneficial in a global recession, where any financial savings made through ITAM can be used to prevent cuts elsewhere, in particular the workforce which will be the real engine for growth post-recession.
“While it is impossible to fully correlate the impact of ITAM on job retention, we can illustrate the opportunity with some simple sums. Starting with Gartner’s latest Worldwide IT Spending Forecast, the total spend next year on Data Center Systems, Enterprise Software, and Devices (the three areas of IT spend that ITAM can address) will be $1.35 trillion. If ITAM can reduce this spending by just 5% (which itself is a conservative estimate for the industry), that equates to over $67.7 billion of potential savings from ITAM alone. That is enough to save many hundreds of thousands of jobs.”
Roel Decneut, ITAM Forum trustee and Chief Marketing Officer at Lansweeper, comments on the cost saving benefits of ITAM, “We help over 27,000 customers worldwide discover, identify and manage their IT assets in order to control and reduce their IT costs. In our opinion, the 5% savings suggested by the ITAM Forum is on the conservative side for almost any given ITAM scenario – most ITAM projects save organisations much more than this. However, 5% is a realistic target to start from and reinforces our view that ITAM has the potential to save many hundreds of thousands of jobs.”
George Arezina, ITAM Forum trustee and ISO committee member, assisting with ISO 19770 standard for SAM, also suggests the savings available from ITAM could be much higher than those predicted by the ITAM Forum, “I have worked on many large-scale Software Asset Management (SAM) projects over the last decade. In my experience, most organisations can save 8-10% year-on-year through better management of their software costs alone. Since ITAM incorporates many more areas of IT beyond just software, I am confident that any organisation that invests in ITAM will be able to make significant cost savings in their IT which could indirectly lead to many jobs being saved.”
The ITAM savings that could be diverted to job savings
2021 Worldwide IT Spending directly addressable by ITAM: $1,353,252 million ($1.35 trillion)
Based on:
- Data Center & Systems: $219,086 million
- Enterprise Software: $492,440 million
- Devices: $640,726 million
Approx. 5% IT spend reduction due to ITAM: $67,662,600,000 ($67.7 billion)
Melody Ayeli, chair of the ITAM Forum concludes, “We are not saying that ITAM alone can save every person’s job, but the amount of money that ITAM can save is real, and if these savings are put directly towards job retention then many thousands of jobs can be saved. Even if the deployment of ITAM can save just one job in each company, that is a tremendous win for that employee, their family, the company and the wider economy too. #ITAMsavesjobs”
“It is now up to companies and employers to realize the value of their own ITAM programs and ITAM talent. Instead of targeting those programs and employees for cuts, they should expand and enable their ITAM programs to drive even more value across the business, which in turn will protect the fortunes of the company and its employees.”
NOTE: All trustees of the ITAM Forum have joined in their personal capacity. Unless stated otherwise, any comments made by the trustees on behalf of the ITAM Forum do not represent the views of their employers, nor does their membership as individuals imply endorsement of the ITAM Forum by their respective employers.