Management No-Go on ITAM

ITAM is rarely seen as a strategic initiative at the moment, but those few forward-thinking companies that have tied in ITAM as a strategic initiative have started to reap the benefits. Creating and implementing an ITAM initiative is daunting as the likelihood of seeing the benefits over time will bear significant results, but after the initial first big success, the successes over the first year to 18 months after that are more modest, as the ITAM initiative needs constant care and feeding.

Unfortunately, ITAM is often one of the first items to be shut down when an organization hits a rough patch. In these cases, the organizations see ITAM as a nonessential activity, which is in fact not the case. Organizations often end up making decisions that are often shortsighted with a big impact on the long-term health of the company or even industry. Take Microsoft as an example and consider its long wait to get into mobility. That's only one example, but there are so many others to draw upon. It is not the first time IT has teetered on the brink of this particular dilemma, and on more than one occasion, the crows have come home to roost.

In the course Converting Strategy into Action offered by Stanford University, they emphasize the importance of understanding the culture and the structure of a company as a critical input in moving ideas from a vision to a practical solution and indicate that these same aspects have a direct bearing on the adoption and success rates of the endeavors of a company.