IT assets are essential for most businesses in today’s digital age, and their optimal performance is key in maintaining day-to-day operations. However, monitoring and managing these assets, especially in large IT environments, can be daunting. This is where IT Asset Management (ITAM) Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) come in. ITAM KPIs track asset performance, helping operators ensure they function optimally.

When carefully selected, ITAM KPIs can provide businesses with valuable insights into their IT asset inventory, assist in their ITAM strategy decision-making process, and identify key areas for improvement. This article explores the key metrics for effective IT asset management and includes guidance on how businesses can use them to optimize their operations.

Asset Utilization

Asset utilization is a fundamental metric that gauges whether an asset is used effectively in an organization. It indicates the extent of asset utilization by measuring the percentage of time that the assets are actively used compared to their overall availability. Under or unutilized assets often contribute to losses since they hardly generate value but cost the business maintenance fees. 

Utilization rates could significantly help companies achieve cost optimization since it empowers them to allocate and leverage their resources better for optimum productivity. Tracking the KPI may also prevent unnecessary purchases.

Overall, this metric could help identify an organization’s IT needs and show its budget efficiency. High asset utilization rates signify effective budgeting and resource allocation.

Asset Lifecycle Management

In large enterprises with numerous networked IT assets, tracking the lifespans of products from multiple vendors and replacing or upgrading them on time is often challenging and may have a huge impact on business operations when delayed. The asset lifecycle management KPI monitors IT assets throughout their lifecycle, from acquisition and deployment to disposal.

Receiving alerts for when the assets need upgrades or replacement ensures business operators reduce system downtime, plan for timely upgrades and replacements, and generally maximize value.

Overall, this metric assists in performance optimization, reduction of maintenance costs, and ensures the technology is always up to date.

Software License and Regulatory Standard Compliance

Using unlicensed software may lead to heavy legal and financial consequences. Software license compliance is a critical IT asset management KPI that can help businesses ensure their IT assets (especially software that is crucial for business operations) are license compliant. In addition, tracking the metric may help businesses optimize their spending by identifying areas where they are over or under-licensed.

Regulatory standard compliance is a crucial metric for businesses existing in heavily regulated industries, such as those in data, because failure to meet these laws may result in heavy penalties. The regulatory standards compliance KPI indicates whether the IT assets are in line with relevant existing regulations. Tracking the metric can help businesses avoid punishments and reputational damage.

IT Asset Cost and Return on Investment (ROI)

This metric focuses on the cost of acquiring and managing IT assets. It covers numerous costs including that of hardware, subscriptions, licenses, and maintaining and upgrading the assets. Most operators often overlook important hardware costs such as workstation costs, server hardware costs, and core network hardware costs.

The IT asset cost KPI is critical for most businesses because their aim is to maximize profits and minimize expenses. Using the KPI to track IT expenses enables organizations to identify cost-reduction areas and optimize their maintenance budget.

An effective ITAM strategy should give a positive return on investment (ROI). Tracking ROI could help with eliminating assets that provide less value compared to the resources they take up. It could also assist in assessing the value of assets for future decision-making, especially when senior decision-makers need to be convinced of an asset’s usefulness.

A positive ROI can be achieved by regulating metrics such as cost savings. An organization can achieve cost savings by asset management costs reduction, optimum asset usage, and streamlining procurement services.

Servicing and Maintenance ITAM KPIs

Effective servicing and maintenance practices optimize an IT environment’s performance by reducing system downtime and extending the lifespans of infrastructure. Essential servicing and maintenance metrics include mean time between failures (MTBF), mean time to repair (MTTR), and preventive maintenance compliance.

Mean time between failures (MTBF)

MTBF, often expressed in hours, measures the average time between two consecutive failures of an asset. It is a result of dividing the total operational time of an asset by the number of failures that occur during the period.

For instance, if a hardware equipment operates for 2000 hours and has five failures, its MTBF would be 400 hours.

Mean time to repair (MTTR)

MTTR, also often expressed in hours, measures the average time it takes to restore an asset to full functionality after failure. It is found by dividing the total repair time by the number of repairs.

For example, if it takes 40 hours to repair a system or equipment with 5 failures, the MTTR will be 8. A lower MTTR is more desirable since it signifies less system downtime.

On the other hand, preventive maintenance compliance is the percentage of the number of preventive tasks completed as planned compared to the total number of planned preventive maintenance tasks. This essential metric helps key stakeholders identify delays and take proactive measures to prevent potential failures.

Monitoring these essential KPIs ensures organizations can identify and correct potential bottlenecks, assess the effectiveness of their maintenance processes, and boost asset availability by taking preventive measures.

SGRwin: Your ITAM Solution

Effective IT asset management is critical for today’s businesses that rely on technology for daily operations. Monitoring ITAM metrics offers invaluable insights into an organization’s IT asset inventory, asset operations, how they can be optimized, and cost-reduction strategies.

While tracking and leveraging these KPIs to improve and maintain business operations may be difficult, using the right ITAM system that consolidates multi-vendor devices and applications in one user-friendly and interactive interface may go a long way in improving operations. The most suitable solution should enable an enterprise to manage IT assets effectively such that their infrastructure is always up to date, regulation and license compliant, and optimized for peak performance.

Welcome to our game-changing solution, SGRwin—an indispensable ally in your quest for ITAM KPIs. With SGRwin, you gain access to:

• Comprehensive asset utilization metrics
• Holistic asset lifecycle management data
• Licensing insights
• Support for ROI calculations
• Maintenance task evaluations

and so much more!

If you’re still unsure about how to approach your ITAM metrics, fear not!

We are here to lend a helping hand. Reach out to us today and share your concerns. Contact us now!