December 07, 2008, 2:26 PM — Technology environments are becoming more complex, and are evolving and changing at an increasingly rapid pace. That’s why many companies are turning to IT asset management (ITAM) solutions as a means to more effectively monitor, control, and manage the various components within their architectures.
ITAM solutions help organizations better understand what hardware and software assets they own, where they reside, and how they are used. As a result, they can improve the way they manage and maintain these assets throughout their lifecycle, and ensure that return on investment (ROI) is maximized.
With ITAM in place, companies can improve service levels to end users, and dramatically reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) of technology assets across the enterprise. For example, ITAM can:
- Decrease the costs of system support and administration
- Minimize the expenses associated with internal IT audits
- Reduce potential monetary losses from security breaches
- Ensure compliance with licensing agreements and eliminate the risk of fines
- Enable closer tracking of IT expenses
- Provide in-depth analysis of system usage to minimize asset duplication and underutilization
- Enhance application performance and reliability by facilitating more timely upgrades and replacements
While the benefits of ITAM are clear, many organizations struggle to decide which deployment approach is best. Is an on-premise application the best choice? Or can a hosted solution offer the more economical route?
How the SaaS approach deliveres greater value
This white paper discusses the differences between on-demand ITAM applications (also known as Software-as-a-Service, or SaaS) and on-premise solutions. It highlights the additional benefits that can be achieved by choosing a SaaS-based system, and builds a strong business case that clearly demonstrates that on-demand ITAM solutions are far more cost-effective than their on-premise counterparts.
As research and statistics presented in this paper show, the total cost of ownership for an on-premise ITAM application over the first three years would be 60-200% higher than the cost of an on-demand solution. The cost differences are even more staggering when it comes to the initial funding of the application, with the cost of an on-premise implementation reaching over 3-6 times the cost of a SaaS solution for the first year period.
Finally, readers will learn how to account for and calculate the savings that can be realized through the on-demand approach, so they can be accurately articulated to management to aid in the decision to choose an on-demand ITAM application.
