2024 State of ITAM Report
Proper IT asset management is foundational to managing your hybrid IT estate, but it comes with its own set of unique challenges. It’s an essential process that enables organizations to optimize their IT assets by improving performance, mitigating security risks and reducing costs. However, ITAM tools and processes are evolving quickly as the IT landscape becomes more complex across hybrid on-premises, SaaS and the cloud.
Organizations are dealing with a noticeable increase in the cost of software audits. At the same time, a wide range of stakeholders use data from ITAM platforms, including security, procurement, FinOps and finance. The Flexera 2024 State of ITAM Report provides insight into the makeup and focus of ITAM teams at enterprise-level organizations and offers perspective and advice on current trends. The report takes a high-level view of IT investments across public, hybrid and SaaS technologies.
Report highlights
Here’s a sample of key findings from this year’s report, which represent trends in ITAM, based on a worldwide survey of 503 IT professionals.
What’s your estimated wasted spend across your IT estate?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 18)
How much do you estimate your organization has paid in software vendor audits over the past 3 years?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 30)
How relevant are these technologies to your SAM program?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 27)
Which of the following teams does your SAM team have significant interaction with?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 10)
In what areas have you realized actual savings in the past year due to your SAM program?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 33)
Methodology
The Flexera State of ITAM survey tapped 503 technical professionals worldwide in early 2024. The network includes professionals across industries and context areas.
Flexera sources participants from an independent panel that is rigorously maintained and is comprised of vetted respondents with detailed profiles. All numbers and percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number.
At numerous points throughout the report, we’ve provided our own interpretation of the data as Flexera points of view (POV).
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Commonly used terms:
BYOL: Bring your own license
CCOE: Cloud center of excellence
CMDB: Configuration management database
ESG: Environmental, social and governance
EOL/EOS: End of life/end of service
HAM: Hardware asset management
IaaS: Infrastructure as a service
ITAD: IT asset disposition
ITAM: IT asset management
ITFM: IT financial management
ITSM: IT service management
PaaS: Platform as a service
SaaS: Software as a service
SAM: Software asset management
The Flexera State of ITAM Report reveals:
Demographics
This year’s survey is weighted heavily toward larger companies; 91% of respondents were from organizations with more than 2,000 employees and 11% were from organizations with more than 50,000 employees.
What size is your organization?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 1)
More than half (58%) of the respondents are from North America, and one-third come from the UK (22%), Germany (7%) or France (4%).
Where are your headquarters located?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 2)
Financial services (22%), tech: software (13%) and healthcare (11%) are the most prominent industries represented.
What’s your company’s industry?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 3)
ITAM is a critical and strategic function in the enterprise
The ITAM function continues to broaden in response to the growth of FinOps, SaaS and the cloud. The top two respondent job functions remained the same year over year: ITAM (ITAM, SAM, HAM, ITAD) and IT infrastructure/operations/cloud. IT infrastructure/operations/cloud was down from 34% last year, and IT service management increased to 5% this year, up from 1% last year.
What best describes your function?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 4)
Nearly three-quarters of respondents describe their function as ITAM or IT infrastructure, operations or cloud
What’s your role?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 5)
69%
of respondents
are manager level
or higher
23%
are VP level
or higher
Almost half of respondents (46%) say that their ITAM teams now report directly to the CIO or CTO, up from 40% last year and 22% in 2022.
Where does your ITAM team report?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 6)
ITAM has become more strategic. Over the past two years, the percentage of ITAM teams reporting directly to the CIO or CTO has more than doubled
CCOEs are a centralized way to manage an organization’s cloud journey. Respondents indicate this remains the norm (72%), similar to last year.
Does your organization have a central cloud team such as a CCOE?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 7)
Does a member of your ITAM/SAM team participate in, or contribute to, your organization’s cloud central team/CCOE?
N=360
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 8)
88%
of CCOEs have an ITAM/SAM member on the
team. The CCOE will have the most exposure and
influence on an organization’s cloud
journey
Enterprises should include ITAM practitioners in CCOEs to ensure software licensing is incorporated into cloud-cost planning and deployment.
Does your organization have a FinOps team?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 9)
77%
of respondents’ organizations
have a FinOps team
SAM teams are an essential component of any organization, and they interact with teams across an enterprise. This year, 32% of SAM teams interacted with FinOps teams, up from 25% last year. Interactions with the CIO/CTO increased to 44% from 40% last year. Fifty percent of SAM teams interact with security teams, similar to last year.
Which of the following teams does your SAM team
have significant interaction with?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 10)
32%
of SAM teams interact with FinOps
teams, up from 25% last year
Asset management challenges
Forty-one percent of respondents report advanced SAM practices, including ongoing tracking plus optimization of software licenses beyond just audits as well as tracking SaaS and cloud usage.
Which statement best describes where you are in implementing SAM in your organization?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 11)
This year’s survey had an increase in beginner respondents, up to 39% from 27% last year
ITAM is no longer an option as additional regulations and mandates continue to emerge, requiring better visibility and control of IT assets. As SaaS and cloud usage and costs eclipse that of on-premises software, ITAM professionals should continue increasing their collaboration with FinOps teams.
ITAM teams encompass a broad set of responsibilities. More than half of ITAM and SAM professionals claim nine different responsibilities, including tracking usage of SaaS (56%), providing data/analysis to support security (56%), preparing for software vendor contract renewals (58%) and maintaining an accurate inventory of licensed software use (72%).
Responding to audits jumped to the most common activity for ITAM teams this year (74% compared to 66% YoY). Tracking the use of software licenses on-premises dropped to 61% from 70% YoY. This could be tied to this year’s report’s increased percentage of beginner respondents.
What SAM-focused responsibilities does your ITAM team have?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 12)
Responding to audits increased year over year (YoY) no matter the maturity level. Advanced users reported an increase from 74% last year to 78% this year; intermediate users rose from 67% to 75%; and beginners increased from 52% to 70%. This year, the most significant delta between beginners and advanced practitioners was tracking the use of software licenses on- premises: 44% of beginners named this a responsibility, compared to 74% of advanced users.
SAM responsibility by maturity
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 13)
Almost two thirds (63%) of advanced users track the use of licenses in the public cloud
The growth in audit-based responsibilities indicates that audits are becoming a higher priority, even as SAM professionals are also expected to help with processes ranging from FinOps to security.
HAM practices and processes are maturing. Thirty-nine percent of respondents are advanced HAM users (tracking inventory, deployment, firmware EOL/EOS, sustainability requirements), which is close to the 41% of respondents who reported advanced SAM practices or similar.
Which statement best describes where you are in implementing HAM in your organization?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 14)
HAM teams are maturing and catching up to historically more mature SAM counterparts.
Discovering and inventorying assets remain the top priorities for HAM practitioners. Tracking lifecycles of hardware assets dropped slightly YoY, as did tracking warranty or maintenance.
What HAM-focused responsibilities
does your ITAM team have?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 15)
As previously mentioned, the highest percentage of ITAM teams report to the CIO/CTO (46%), infrastructure management teams (25%), and operations teams (14%).
For SAM teams reporting to the CIO/CTO, cost-related activities such as responding to audits (67% to 71% YoY) and tracking usage of SaaS (52% to 57% YoY) increased.
SAM team responsibilities and where they report
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 16)
HAM teams reporting on the discovery of devices in use saw a sizeable YoY gain when reporting to the CIO/CTO (72% compared to 65% YoY) as well as when reporting to infrastructure management (82% from 66% YoY).
HAM team responsibilities and where they report
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 17)
What's your estimated wasted spend across your IT estate?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 18)
Wasted IT spend is improving compared to prior years but remains a challenge. Not surprisingly, beginner teams see higher rates of wasted spend.
Forty-one percent of respondents said wasted SaaS spend increased from 33% last year, and 37% said wasted IaaS/PaaS increased, compared to 33% last year.
How do you feel wasted spend has changed in the past year?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 19)
41%
of respondents said wasted
SaaS increased over the past year
Thirty-seven percent of respondents named finding ways to optimize software use as a significant challenge (up from 31% YoY), whereas 36% indicated their biggest issue was dealing with new environments and 35% said it was the complexity of software vendor use rights.
What are your challenges with SAM?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 20)
Tools and processes are helping to find assets, but optimizing software costs is challenging as vendor use rights and software bundles become more complex.
The most common SAM challenge for beginners is the amount of time/money spent responding to audits (45%). For intermediate and advanced users, dealing with new environments (SaaS, cloud, containers) is the most common challenge (45% and 37%, respectively).
SAM challenges by maturity
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 21)
SAM tools have become more accessible and practical. Eighty-nine percent of advanced users don’t find difficulty in using SAM tools
Top initiatives for SAM teams
More than half of respondents manage SaaS by tracking usage by SaaS users and rightsizing their subscription level (57%), linking all major SaaS apps to single sign-on (SSO) (52%), and tracking usage and rightsizing overall SaaS contracts (52%). The most significant drop this year was in negotiating contract terms with software vendors, which decreased significantly from 50% to 32% YoY.
What practices have you implemented for managing SaaS?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 22)
Processes and practices for tracking usage are increasing, but the massive YoY drop in negotiating contract terms with software vendors represents an opportunity for significant savings through negotiations.
Over the next three years, SAM professionals expect their focus to increase significantly on SaaS solutions (38%) and use of the public cloud (38%). On-premises software is declining (19% of respondents reported a decline in focus on data center software, and 18% reported a decline in focus on desktop software). SaaS solutions, use of public cloud and IoT all decreased significantly by 1%.”
For your SAM practice, how do you expect your focus on the
following areas to change in the next 3 years?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 23)
The focus on finding savings within software spend continues to gain traction. Optimizing and finding savings in software spend (36%), expanding the number of vendors we cover (24%) and improving reclamation of underused or unused software (20%) are the top three initiatives that respondents want to progress on.
What are the top 3 SAM initiatives you want to advance in the next year?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 24)
SAM practices’ focus on improving SaaS management in the next twelve months has increased YoY from 10% to 18%
Almost all (95%) organizations have some plan for aging hardware. Sixty-three percent plan on recycling, 53% plan on longer retention periods, 51% plan to refurbish/reuse hardware and 46% plan to utilize product takebacks (return to vendor for disposal). (Note that respondents could select more than one option.)
What do your hardware sustainability policies include?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 25)
95%
of companies have defined sustainability policies for hardware assets
Respondents indicated the highest percentage of SAM teams’ time is spent on collaboration with non-ITAM internal stakeholders (22%). More than half of their time (55%) is still spent on internal, regulatory and publisher audit-related activities.
Estimate the percentage of your SAM team’s
time that’s spent responding to audits
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 26)
Despite growing complexity, as advanced ITAM tools improve usability and allow deeper insights into the hybrid IT estate, time spent supporting publisher audits should decrease.
Vendor snapshot: Prevalence of audits
When asked to rate, on a scale from 1 to 5, how relevant technologies are to a SAM program, Microsoft had
the top three spots with Microsoft licensed software (3.97), Microsoft SaaS products (3.95) and Microsoft Azure public cloud (3.71).
How relevant are these technologies to your SAM program?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 27)
SAM teams continue to focus holistically on Microsoft, most likely driven by Microsoft’s Enterprise Agreements.
How relevant are these software vendors to your SAM program?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 28)
Microsoft, IBM and Oracle are the most likely to have audited respondents in the past three years. Microsoft was down slightly YoY (50% from 53%), and IBM and Oracle increased slightly (IBM is up to 42% from 37% YoY; Oracle is up to 31% from 28% YoY). Twenty percent of respondents reported a ServiceNow audit this year, a new addition to the vendor list.
Which vendors have audited your organization in the past 3 years?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 29)
50%
of respondents reported at least one Microsoft audit in the past three years
Software audits continue to become more expensive. Twenty-two percent of respondents said they paid more than $5 million due to software vendor audits over the last three years (up from 15% in 2023 and 9% in 2022). The number of organizations spending more than $10 million nearly doubled (from 7% to 12% YoY).
How much do you estimate your organization has paid
in software vendor audits over the past 3 years?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 30)
22% of respondents reported paying over $5 million as a result of software audits over the past three years
SAM and HAM success metrics focus on saving money
The top three metrics for measuring the success of SAM initiatives are audit compliance, hard savings on software and compliance with regulatory or internal audits, which are all tied at 47%.
What metrics are used to measure success of your SAM initiatives?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 31)
This year, HAM programs are much more focused on costs. The top three measures of success for HAM teams are a reduction in hardware purchases (50%), maintenance contract spend (43%) and facility costs (36%). Twenty-nine percent of HAM initiatives measure their organization’s carbon footprint.
What metrics are used to measure success of your HAM initiatives?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 32)
Nearly one-third of HAM programs are measuring
their organization’s carbon footprint
SAM programs were most successful in realizing savings through reuse of licenses to avoid buying new ones (non-cloud), better negotiation of vendor contracts and the reduction of maintenance spend on unused software.
In what areas have you realized actual savings
in the past year due to your SAM program?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 33)
91%
of respondents find savings by reusing licenses to avoid buying new ones (non-cloud)
Beginner, intermediate and advanced SAM teams generate the most savings via the reuse of licenses to avoid
buying new ones (non-cloud).
SAM-generated savings by maturity level
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 34)
Advanced SAM teams also generate savings via better negotiation of vendor contracts (85%) and reduction of maintenance spend on unused software (85%)
Role of CMDBs and demand for greater visibility into IT assets
This year’s report showed that approximately two-thirds of respondents feel they have an accurate view of their on-premises software (67%), on-premises hardware (65%) and cloud instances (64%). SaaS usage has less visibility (54%), and most respondents don’t feel confident in their BYOL positioning (19%).
Do you have accurate visibility into the following
environments within your IT estate?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 35)
Maturing collaboration between ITAM and FinOps will drive more efficiencies in the coming years and illuminate the significant visibility gap regarding licenses for software running in the cloud.
Nearly half (47%) of respondents say they have complete visibility into IT assets and impact on business outcomes, whereas 51% say somewhat.
Does your organization have complete visibility into IT assets
and their impact on business outcomes?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 36)
As ITAM and FinOps tools and processes are widely adopted, we expect the percentage of respondents with complete visibility into their IT assets to continue to grow.
Do you use a CMDB in your ITAM practice?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 37)
More than three-quarters of respondents use CMDBs
As organizations increase their use of transient assets—such as cloud instances and containers—they must reassess their IT asset tracking procedures to ensure their CMDBs don’t become bloated with outdated entries.
Organizations are continuing to use CMDBs to track broader assets. Sixty-six percent track private cloud instances, 64% on-premises virtual machines (VMs) and 61% public cloud instances.
What assets do you track in your CMDB?
N=389
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 38)
Respondents are most likely to export data from asset management tools into enterprise systems or CMDBs such as ServiceNow (61%), BMC (36%), Cherwell (13%) and Apptio (10%).
Do you export data from your asset management tools into
any of the following enterprise systems or CMDBs?
N=503
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 39)
Having high-quality data about your IT estate is essential to the performance of your organization. Teams such as security or enterprise architecture depend upon data accuracy just as much as platforms like CMDBs do.
European spotlight
In Europe, this year’s survey is weighted more heavily toward larger companies. Ninety percent of European respondents are in organizations with more than 2,000 employees, and 19% are in organizations with more than 20,000 workers.
What size is your organization?
N=179
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 40)
In this year’s survey, Europe had more beginners (50% as opposed to 31% in North America), and North America had more advanced users (47% versus 34% in Europe).
Which statement best describes where you are
in implementing SAM in your organization?
Europe N=179 North America N=308
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 41)
As with the global survey, many European ITAM teams report directly to the CIO or CTO (44%). Reporting to the CIO/CTO enables more visibility within the organization and the ability to accomplish goals.
Where does your ITAM team report in your organization?
N=179
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 42)
Does your organization have a FinOps team?
N=179
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 43)
79%
of European respondents’ organizations have a FinOps team, compared to 77% globally
In Europe, 66% of respondents claim SAM teams have significant interaction with infrastructure and operations, 63% with IT service management and 48% with security. These numbers are similar to those of global respondents.
Which of the following teams does your SAM team
have significant interaction with?
N=179
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 44)
Currently, European SAM teams focus on a broad set of activities, including responding to audits (73%), maintaining an accurate usage inventory of licensed software (71%) and discovering software in use (69%).
What SAM-focused responsibilities
does your ITAM team have?
N=179
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 45)
European respondents indicate that the top three challenges include a lack of resources on the SAM team, finding ways to optimize software use and increasing the maturity of their SAM practice.
What are your challenges with SAM?
N=179
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 46)
Similar to global findings, optimizing and finding savings in software spend is a top initiative for European respondents this year, with 41% ranking it as their top initiative. Last year, only 22% said it was their top initiative.
What are the top 3 SAM initiatives you want
to advance in the next year?
N=179
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 47)
The significant increase in European respondents taking the initiative to optimize and find opportunities to save on software spend underscores the importance of prioritizing cost-saving initiatives.
Much as with the global results, European survey respondents have been audited the most by IBM (49%), Microsoft (45%), Oracle (32%) and SAP (32%) over the past three years. European respondents reported more IBM audits than what is reflected in global results (49% in Europe compared to 42% globally).
Which of the following vendors have audited your
organization in the past 3 years?
N=179
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 48)
Hard savings on software is the most used success metric in Europe (51%), followed by audit compliance (47%) and cost avoidance (43%).
What metrics are used to measure success of your SAM initiatives?
N=179
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 49)
As with global respondents, the most savings (92%) came from the reuse of licenses to avoid buying
new ones (non-cloud).
In what areas have you realized actual savings
in the past year due to your SAM program?
N=179
Source: Flexera 2024 State of ITAM (Figure 50)
Global summary
The Flexera 2024 State of ITAM Report highlights the pivotal role of cross-team collaboration for ITAM teams this year.
Software audits remain a significant expense, with 22% of respondents reporting more than $5 million over the previous three years in audit costs, nearly double the percentage from just two years prior. Responding to these audits has become the top initiative for ITAM teams reporting to the CIO or CTO. Major vendors like Oracle, IBM and ServiceNow have also increased their audit activities.
At the same time, ITAM professionals are increasingly realizing they own data that can help teams across the organization, including FinOps, security and ITSM. ITAM teams are intensifying their interactions across the enterprise—32% of teams engaged with FinOps this year, up from 25% in the previous year. Connections with the C-suite remained steady at 44%, linking with the CIO/CTO. ITAM data is commonly exported to enterprise systems like ServiceNow, BMC, Cherwell and Apptio. However, ITAM responsibilities are broad, with more than half of professionals claiming ownership for tracking SaaS usage, providing security analysis, preparing for contract renewals and maintaining software licensing inventories. ITAM teams must continue to stay nimble and flexible, managing a comprehensive view of data with actionable insights.
About Flexera
Flexera helps organizations understand and maximize the value of their technology, saving billions of dollars in wasted spend. Powered by the Flexera Technology Intelligence Platform, our award-winning hybrid IT asset management and FinOps solutions provide comprehensive visibility and actionable insights on an organization’s entire IT ecosystem. This intelligence enables IT, finance, procurement and cloud teams to address skyrocketing costs, optimize spend, mitigate risk, and identifies opportunities to create positive business outcomes.
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