Flexera 2023 State of IT Asset Management (ITAM) Report Highlights Cost Savings as Top Enterprise Priority

“Flexera’s research highlights a greater focus on corporate efficiencies,” said Cyndi Tackett, SVP of Marketing at Flexera. “Around the globe, ITAM professionals find themselves at the nexus of key enterprise initiatives, including cost savings, FinOps, security, and even ESG programs, such as those that track carbon emissions. This puts more pressure on ITAM teams to stay nimble, flexible, and manage a single source of truth for IT data and insights.”

High-functioning enterprises increasingly rely on ITAM practitioners to tackle new and evolving challenges. The number one initiative for ITAM teams is saving money, but new responsibilities don’t end there. Security teams; environmental, social, and governance (ESG) teams; IT service management (ITSM teams); and enterprise architecture teams are improving their business outcomes by leveraging data from ITAM teams and tools. At the same time, ITAM teams regularly optimize spend across cloud, on-premises and SaaS, shaving millions more off annual spend.

Highlights from the Flexera 2023 State of ITAM Report:

• Enterprises continue to waste IT spending: Despite significant efforts to become more efficient with IT budgets, self-estimates of IT waste remain high. Respondents reported underutilization or wasted IT spending of 36% for desktop software, 33% for data center software, 32% for SaaS and 32% for IaaS/PaaS.
• Major vendors still audit users; the costs are real: Audits are still common with major vendors, with the most audits over the past three years coming from Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Adobe and SAP. As a result of software vendor audits, 15% of respondents have paid more than $5 million over the past three years.
• SAM programs go beyond audits, providing massive savings: SAM programs are saving tens of millions of dollars. Over half (55%) of respondents saved more than $1 million, and 16% claim SAM programs saved more than $10 million in the past year.
• Growing connections of SAM teams: SAM teams are increasingly a critical source of information and insights within enterprises: 68% of SAM teams significantly interact with ITSM teams, 64% with infrastructure and operations teams, and 52% with security teams. FinOps was added to this year’s survey, which revealed that 25% of SAM teams already interact heavily with FinOps teams.
• ITAM and FInOps provide a complete blueprint of IT spending: As ITAM and FinOps tools and processes improve, there’s an increase in respondents who have visibility into their IT estate. Complete visibility improved from 35% last year to 39% this year. Still, 61% of respondents said they don’t have full visibility into IT assets that impact business outcomes.

The full survey results are available in the Flexera 2023 State of ITAM Report, which can be viewed and downloaded at https://info.flexera.com/ITAM-REPORT-State-of-IT-Asset-Management. The report enables IT leaders to benchmark their ITAM practices and results against other organizations. It explores the thinking of 500 global professionals who manage and participate in ITAM, SAM, and HAM processes in medium and large organizations of at least 1,000 employees.