Report: Companies are wasting 1/3 or more of their IT budget

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Senior executives are actively looking for new ways to save money as 2023 approaches. They are increasingly turning to IT asset managers to uncover savings.

Reducing unnecessary IT expenses is essential. A Flexera report found that, on average, IT asset managers estimate that at least 1/3 of their IT budget is currently wasted. This includes desktop software (38% of wasted spend), data center software (34%), SaaS (33%), and IaaS/PaaS (33%).

Image source: Flexera.

As global economies teeter on the brink of recession, the importance and influence of ITAM teams is growing. This year, Flexera's State of ITAM Report found that 43% of IT Asset Manager (ITAM) teams report directly to the CIO/CTO, nearly twice as many as last year, so that figure was only 22%.

ITAM and SAM savings impacting IT budgets

High-performing ITAM teams continue to focus on cost savings and modernization. Top ITAM managers know how to save money. Software asset management (SAM) programs were most successful in saving money by reusing (non-cloud) licenses to avoid purchasing new ones (83%); better negotiation of supplier contracts (83%); and reduced maintenance spend on unused software (81%). The survey also found that savings from SAM programs increased as the programs matured.

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ITAM managers know how to avoid audits. This remains an important skill. Fifty-two percent of respondents reported an audit by Microsoft in the past three years, followed by IBM (34%) and Oracle (31%). Unfortunately, 14% of companies said they had paid more than $5 million in software vendor audit fees in the past three years, up from just 9% the year before.

Underlining the importance of software asset management, more than half of SAM respondents (53%) said they have implemented "advanced" SAM practices, which the report defines as going beyond response SaaS and cloud usage tracking and auditing, to include software license tracking and optimization. Fewer organizations are as advanced in physical asset management (HAM), with only 36% reporting practicing "advanced" HAM, defined in the report as including end-of-life/end-of-service tracking in addition to inventory, deployment and firmware.< /p> Survey methodology

The Flexera State of ITAM Report explores the thinking...