How to select the best software for IT asset management?

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Are you having trouble managing all your organization's SaaS assets, such as software licenses, contracts, and various agreements?

For a medium-sized company with hundreds of SaaS licenses and contracts, manually managing them is not feasible because it can lead to errors and inefficiencies.

For example, if you manually manage software licenses, you might miss renewal reminders. This can lead to interruptions in your SaaS operations and possible penalties during renewals.

So, what's the best way to keep on track in managing your organization's SaaS stack and not worry about those issues anymore? The answer lies in the software for IT asset management (ITAM), a unified solution for managing and tracking all your SaaS assets.

However, you can't just randomly pick any IT asset management solution. It's essential to consider several factors before making a choice. This article will guide you through selecting the best IT asset management software efficiently.

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What is an IT asset management software?

IT asset management (ITAM) tool is software that helps organizations track, manage, and optimize their IT assets throughout their lifecycle. These assets can include software licenses, contracts, SaaS agreements, and other technology-related resources.

With ITAM software, you can have a comprehensive view of your organization’s SaaS stack, making management easier while ensuring compliance. This helps save money and enhances security by identifying and resolving potential issues.

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Why do I need software for IT asset management?

You must use an ITAM tool in your organization for:

Centralized asset tracking: With ITAM tools, you will have a comprehensive view of your organization's IT assets. These tools centralize asset information in a single repository, which helps your IT team easily track software usage, licenses, and other assets across departments and locations.

Improved efficiency: ITAM tools help improve organizational efficiency by automating manual tasks like tracking and managing SaaS assets and licenses. This automation guarantees precise and uniform management of your SaaS resources, ultimately saving time and minimizing errors.

Cost optimization: This tool helps optimize costs by identifying underutilized assets, consolidating licenses, and avoiding unnecessary purchases. This helps you make informed decisions about your IT investments and budget allocation.

Compliance and security: ITAM tools help ensure compliance with licensing agreements and regulatory requirements. It also enhances security by identifying and mitigating risks associated with IT assets, such as outdated software or unauthorized access.

Strategic planning: ITAM empowers you to plan strategically for future SaaS investments. You can make informed decisions by offering insights into your tech assets' utilization and performance.

For instance, if the tool shows that a particular software is essential for your team's productivity but is reaching its limit, you can allocate resources to upgrade or replace it.

This ensures that your IT resources align with your business needs, maximizing efficiency and effectiveness.

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Selecting the right software for IT asset management: Key factors to consider

We discussed the benefits of IT asset management tools, now let's discuss the factors to select the right one. Various ITAM tools are available with different functionalities. However, you can't just choose any software.

First, analyze your requirements and proceed with your desired features while selecting the best value-for-money ITAM tool.

To start, you must select the software for IT asset management that has:

1. Asset discovery and inventory management

As your organization has numerous SaaS contracts, licenses, and other software assets to manage, you need a tool with advanced asset discovery capabilities. Additionally, the tool should assist you in SaaS inventory management.

A tool with easy integration capabilities, such as utilizing third-party integrations and direct connections, will enable you to gain visibility into purchased licenses and their relevant usage. These tools automatically find and gather data on all assets, making it easy to track and organize them in one place.

Also, utilizing AI metadata extraction features makes extracting details from contracts and licenses easy, such as important license types, license renewal dates, license counts, and others. This simplifies asset management, improves organization, and ensures accurate record-keeping.

Imagine a company using various software applications like Microsoft Office, Slack, Salesforce, etc. With an ITAM tool, they can automatically discover all installed software across their network and capture relevant data, such as license details and usage metrics.

This enables them to track and organize these assets in one centralized dashboard, customizing data fields as needed. For example, they can add fields for software version, purchase date, or assigned user.

This streamlined approach simplifies asset management, improves organization, and ensures accurate tracking of software assets.

2. Real-time asset tracking

Having real-time visibility of all contracts is crucial when managing numerous SaaS licenses and contracts in your organization. Thus, when evaluating different ITAM tools, prioritize those with strong real-time visibility and tracking capabilities.

Suppose you have to check the details of different SaaS licenses before their renewal dates, and you can't find them manually promptly; this might lead to breached contracts or auto-renewals.

That's why having an ITAM tool with real-time asset tracking is so valuable. It enhances visibility, control, and security over your IT assets by allowing you to monitor their location in real-time.

Real-time asset tracking doesn't stop at knowing where your IT assets are. It lets you assign different IT assets, like SaaS licenses, to specific users and monitor their use.

You can spot any signs of misuse or unauthorized access by monitoring user interactions with assets. This helps you take action early to prevent security breaches and comply with policies and regulations.

These reports help stakeholders make informed decisions regarding asset management, resource allocation, and risk mitigation strategies.

3. Software license management

Choosing the right ITAM tool is crucial for ensuring your organization stays compliant with licensing agreements, optimizes license usage, and reduces software costs.

When you decide to get one, ensure the ITAM tool can identify SaaS license usage trends, pinpoint underutilized licenses, and optimize license allocations based on actual usage patterns.

Look for ITAM tools that offer license reclamation workflows to deprovision low-usage users and reclaim those unused licenses automatically. This allows you to reassign these licenses to new users, ensuring you make the most of your software investments.

The tool should provide insights into license usage patterns, allowing you to decide whether to keep or retire licenses. This helps reduce unnecessary costs and maximize your return on investment.

Focusing on these features can help you choose an ITAM tool that manages your licenses well and improves overall efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

4. Contract lifecycle management

Organizations can efficiently manage their contracts from creation to renewal or termination with effective software for IT asset management that includes contract lifecycle management capabilities.

Centralized contract management means all contracts are stored and organized in one spot, making it easy to find and handle contract documents. This boosts visibility, reduces the chance of losing or duplicating contracts, and helps ensure everyone follows the contract terms.

If an ITAM tool provides features like centralized contract management, automated AI metadata extraction, and workflows for contract renewals to simplify the process, then you can choose it without second thoughts.

Ai Metadata extraction

Automated AI metadata extraction saves time by retrieving crucial contract details, such as dates and terms, from contract documents. This minimizes errors and allows teams to concentrate on more critical tasks.

For instance, suppose you're managing contracts for your company. Every month, you must track which contracts are due for renewal, remind the designated people about them, start the renewal process, and ensure everything gets approved on time.

It's a lot of work, right? Well, that's where contract renewal workflows come in. They'll remind you when a contract needs to be renewed, start the renewal process automatically, and even send it to the right people for approval.

This saves you a ton of time and makes sure that contracts are always renewed on schedule without you having to stress about it.

5. Automated workflows

You must choose an ITAM tool with advanced workflow capabilities. With built-in workflows, you can streamline repetitive tasks such as reclaiming unused and underused SaaS licenses and sending renewal reminders.

It saves time and reduces manual effort by automatically tracking renewal dates and checking license usage.

These automated workflows enhance organizational efficiency, minimize errors, and enable proactive cost-saving opportunities. However, not all ITAM tools have these capabilities, so when comparing different tools in the market, ensure they offer these features.

Also, check if these workflows are easy to use and can be configured to set up alerts and notifications for license underutilization or overutilization.

6. Reporting and cost optimization capabilities

An effective ITAM solution should be capable of generating various types of reports and optimizing costs, especially in SaaS usage platforms. This includes tracking application usage, license usage, and spending.

With different reports, you can understand your organization’s IT asset usage, manage costs efficiently, and make informed decisions to optimize resource allocation and reduce costs.

ITAM tools' cost optimization capabilities assist organizations in optimizing spending by identifying cost-saving opportunities and streamlining processes.

These tools help manage software subscriptions, avoid unnecessary renewals, and reallocate resources based on actual usage patterns.

By leveraging insights from reports and implementing cost-saving measures, organizations can achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness in managing their IT assets.

Therefore, when selecting your ITAM tool, ensure it includes all the aforementioned features.

7. Evaluate ease of use, scalability, and security

Evaluate the software's ease of use to guarantee that your team can start using it with little training required. For instance, check for user-friendly interfaces and customizable dashboards that make navigating and completing tasks easy.

Also, think about whether the software can grow along with your organization. Opt for a solution with flexible pricing options and the ability to handle a growing number of contracts and users as your business expands.

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CloudEagle - The Right Software for IT Asset Management Software

To effectively manage your organization's IT assets, like software licenses, contracts, and agreements, you need a capable ITAM tool. This tool should offer various features, including comprehensive asset discovery and real-time reporting capabilities.

It should also include license, renewal, contract management functionalities, and automated workflows for completing different tasks to enhance efficiency.

If you need a tool for managing your organization’s IT assets, CloudEagle can help you. It has all the features necessary for effective IT asset management.

CloudEagle is an advanced SaaS management and procurement platform with asset management capabilities. The tool helps you manage, govern, and renew SaaS apps from one single platform.

Let’s explore what CloudEagle has to offer in optimizing IT asset management:

1. Asset discovery

CloudEagle excels in comprehensive IT asset discovery. The tool provides a bird’s-eye view of your entire SaaS stack, including all licenses, contracts, subscriptions, and agreements.

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With CloudEagle, there's no need for tedious back-and-forth searches through piles of documents to find necessary information.

Utilizing a centralized dashboard, you can navigate and access all relevant details effortlessly. This centralized approach not only saves time but also enhances accuracy and organization.

For example, if your organization uses different SaaS apps such as Google Workspace, Slack, and Trello, CloudEagle will automatically identify all apps, capturing relevant data like license details and usage metrics. This information is then organized in a single, easy-to-use dashboard.

2. License management

Managing various SaaS assets using spreadsheets or manual methods can be time-consuming and prone to errors. What if you forget about an upcoming renewal and miss it?

CloudEagle ‘s robust license management solution streamlines and simplifies the entire process of addressing this challenge. The tool sends alerts 30, 60, or 90 days before a license renewal is due.

If you have unused or underused SaaS licenses, the tool will identify these apps and notify you. Based on the insights provided, you can then decide whether to retain or reassign them.

By utilizing license reclamation workflows, you can reclaim and reallocate these licenses to employees who need them.

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With CloudEagle, you are in control. You have ample time to review the contract, assess your current usage, and decide whether to renew, renegotiate, or cancel the license. This level of control and flexibility empowers you in your license management process.

These workflows can handle routine tasks, such as tracking license usage, updating records, and processing renewals, without needing constant manual intervention. This automation reduces the administrative burden on your team and minimizes the chances of human error.

3. Contract management

Managing SaaS contracts and agreements is critical for organizations with numerous service level agreements (SLAs) and software licenses.

Imagine a scenario where your company has dozens of SaaS contracts, each with different renewal dates and terms. Keeping track of these manually could easily lead to missed renewals and potential service disruptions.

We provide a centralized repository for storing and safeguarding all your contracts and agreements to streamline this process.

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This centralized system makes it easy to keep track of your contracts and ensures they are secure and readily accessible when needed.

In addition to storage and organization, the tool offers advanced AI metadata extraction features that take contract management to the next level.

This AI capability helps the tool automatically extract detailed information from your contracts, such as key dates, renewal deadlines, license counts, and other critical details. This automation saves time and reduces the risk of human error.

With CloudEagle’s contract management capability, you can set up automated reminders for upcoming renewals, ensuring you never miss a deadline.

4. Automated workflows

With CloudEagle, you can create custom workflows tailored to your specific needs. This flexibility allows you to design processes that align perfectly with your organization's requirements.

For instance, you can set up workflows to automatically handle software license renewals, ensuring you never miss a renewal date and avoid potential service disruptions.

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Also, if your stack has unused or underused SaaS licenses, you can set up license reclamation workflows to reclaim them.

For instance, suppose you've purchased 300 licenses, of which 180 are in use, while the remaining 120 are unassigned, and approximately 40 of the assigned licenses are underused.

You can create workflows to identify license usage and send emails to the assigned employees, asking if they want to keep them or not. Then, based on their responses, you can decide to take back these licenses and harvest them for later use.

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Conclusion

Start using a asset management tool to increase your organization's efficiency in managing IT assets and enhance overall productivity. However, select the right software for IT asset management to manage your organization's IT assets.

With the right tool, you can streamline operations, enhance security, ensure compliance, and maximize the value of your IT assets. To find the perfect solution, weigh essential factors like asset management features, score for scalability, budget, and support options.

Choosing a tool with flexible pricing and plans allows for easy growth without concerns, ensuring adaptability as your business expands.

For instance, you can use CloudEagle to manage your organization’s different IT assets. The tool has the capabilities necessary for effective IT asset management, from handling software licenses and renewals to managing contracts and other SaaS assets.

If you want to understand how CloudEagle can help you manage your IT assets better, check out this case study on how Aira Centralized their SaaS Contracts and Invoices using CloudEagle.

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