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How should SAM and ITAM be categorized and placed within a company?

Submitted by Rita Bowman on Sun, 2005-04-10 14:03. business

In which category SAM and ITAM belong is still confusing. It could be listed under the categories of Purchasing, Technology or Information Technology. Since SAMs and ITAMs address the management of IT assets, the category of "Information Technology" is the most fitting. This isn't to say that the company may place SAM or ITAM in a department other than IT...although I don't recommend it. What is the category in your company?

These are the categories under which I have found SAM and ITAM:

  • Asset-inventory reconciliation
  • Configuration Management
  • Desktop Services, Software Compliance
  • IM Contract Manager
  • IP Management
  • IT Asset Management
  • IT Asset Tracking
  • IT Business Process Improvement
  • ITAM Assessments, Discovery and Solution Design
  • Physical Inventory
  • Software Implementation and Customization
  • Software License Compliance
  • Software License Management
  • Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
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I do not belive there is any

Submitted by Grant Bowman on Mon, 2005-04-11 17:23.

I do not belive there is any one right answer to this issue. Each organization is not only a business but a social collection with internal pressures and procedures of their own. Best practices may suggest a full ITAM program be run under the budget of a CTO but a good program could also be run from other parts of a company depending on the particulars of a company's corporate culture.

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Category Clarification. Th

Submitted by Rita Bowman on Tue, 2005-04-12 10:09.

Category Clarification.

This blog entry speaks to the issue of "key words" when searching for or posting a SAM/ITAM position. Most other fields have been around long enough to have established "key words" to identify their field, which is usually located within its own department.

Currently, SAM and ITAM rarely have a distict department; they are located within other departments. There is confusion about department and category assignment of SAM and ITAM because they span the company globe. Currently, it depends on who initiates the idea of a SAM/ITAM program: Purchasing, Procurement, IT, IT Finance, Asset Management, Legal...the list goes on.

In an ideal world, IT Asset Management (ITAM) would be created as a distict department under the CIO, composed of staff representing the various disciplines involved in technical product life cyles. I've heard of a company that is doing this, with great success.

Until SAM/ITAM is established as a distict department, IT is the most advantageous placement for a successful program since management of technical products are involved, and the IT staff is the group that handles these products within the company on a daily basis. Cooperation with those within your department is human nature. Success is more difficult to come by if there is disconnect between IT and the department within which SAM/ITAM resides.

--
-- Rita Bowman

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New categories... Three ne

Submitted by Rita Bowman on Fri, 2005-04-15 12:11.

New categories...

Three new category ideas came into focus while conducting research:

Process Management: IT Asset Manager or Software Asset Manager
ITAM and SAM are process intensive.

Lifecycle Management: IT Asset Manager or Software Asset Manager
ITAM and SAM deal with the lifecycles of IT assets.

Program Coordinator: IT Asset Mangement or Sofware Asset Manager.
ITAM and SAM are programs composed of projects.

--
-- Rita Bowman

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