Why should I measure my ITAM maturity?

Effective IT asset management (ITAM) is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s a strategic imperative. As software estates grow, SaaS and cloud adoption accelerate, and compliance risk climbs, organisations need clear visibility on how mature their ITAM processes are.

In ITAM we’re fortunate that we can usually measure success and evidence our improvements by looking at the amount of money we’ve saved, or costs that we’ve avoided… but as many ITAM managers will know, while cost savings and cost avoidance can be high in the first few years, after a while it becomes more and more difficult to find them as you start running a leaner and meaner ship.

The other issue is that (believe it or not) not all organisations have saving money as their primary driver for ITAM. Some of them focus on supporting information security or demonstrating compliance with regulatory requirements. In contrast, others may be focused on providing high levels of service to their employees and customers, so that, for instance, new joiners aren’t unable to work because the approvals for the equipment or software they need haven’t come through yet.

While these things can be measured at an organisational level, ITAM often plays only a small part in achieving these business outcomes, and that makes justifying ITAM investment challenging. Understanding which processes contribute to which business outcomes, and performing regular process maturity and process capability assessments, can help solve this conundrum while providing you with a baseline to measure improvement from one year to another. You’ll be able to show exactly how you’ve improved and demonstrate that you’re focusing on the right areas of your business.

What the ITAM Maturity Assessment Looks At

The assessment evaluates capabilities across 5 core domains: Governance, Control, Financial Management, Data & Systems, and HAM and SAM Lifecycle.

Inside each domain, thoughtfully designed questions — 116 in total — probe the depth of your practices. For example, under “Governance,” you’ll answer whether there’s a formal ITAM strategy aligned with business goals, and whether there’s an ITAM policy that documents the scope of assets managed within your IT asset management system. The “Data and systems” dimension does what it says on the tin by interrogating the processes that help you achieve trustworthy data, the foundation of ITAM. Through the “HAM and SAM lifecycle” dimension, on the other hand, we assess the processes that actually push assets through their lifecycle, such as request, procurement, deployment, and disposal.

Once completed, the outcome is a maturity profile per domain, giving you clarity on strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. By benchmarking across the 5 domains and understanding how each process contributes to your business outcomes, the assessment doesn’t just show where you stand; it reveals where you need to go. With a structured, repeatable, and ISO/IEC 19770-aligned framework, you gain actionable insights to reduce compliance risk, optimize spend, and align IT assets with broader business goals.

How Organisations Take the Assessment

Using the Licenseware Self Assessment Service (SAS) app, clients can start the process directly from their project dashboard. The steps are straightforward: navigate to the SAS App, select “ITAM Maturity Assessment,” and begin.

Collaboration is built in. You can invite team members to contribute: either full-access collaboration (for broader participation across roles) or per-question invitations (for role-specific input). Invitees need to register, verify their account, switch to the relevant project, and then access the assessment through the SAS application.

All questions must be answered before report generation. Unanswered questions are flagged in the “Reports” tab for completion.

What You Get at the End: Insight + Action

Upon completion, Licenseware generates three-layered reports:

• A Management Summary Report — a high-level view of ITAM maturity aligned with strategic business drivers like cost control, risk, security, compliance, and sustainability.
• A Detailed Findings Report — full gap analysis highlighting where processes, policies, systems, or data governance are weak or missing.
• A Question-by-Question Breakdown — granular detail for internal review, audit readiness, or roadmap planning.
• We also provide a readiness report to help you understand how close you are to being able to achieve certification against ISO19770-1, the International Standard for IT Asset Management.

This output serves as the foundation for your ITAM roadmap, helping you prioritise improvements, allocate resources, and demonstrate governance maturity to stakeholders or auditors.

Tailoring your improvement efforts

Not only does the SAS ITAM maturity and capability assessment help you benchmark and evidence your improvement over time, but it can also help you identify areas where you could potentially do better. This is particularly the case if you have a clear picture of your organisational goals, and then compare the details of your assessment results against the processes that support those goals.

To help you do this, we’ve identified six strategic ITAM-related goals that your organisation may be working towards. These are:

• Cost control and cost savings, and avoidance
• Business agility
• Information security
• Employee satisfaction
• Sustainability

We’ve aligned our questions with each of these business drivers, so you can see how your process maturity and capability scores tee up. Cross-reference this against your processes to identify which processes you should be actively improving to ensure true alignment between your ITAM activities and the reasons your organisation is asking you to manage your IT assets in the first place.

Demonstrating that direct connection between your organisation’s strategic ITAM drivers and the processes that support their achievement will also help justify and build the business case for implementing future process improvements.

Why now?

It’s about adopting a proactive mindset rather than living with the consequences of a reactive one. Because software estates and cloud footprints are exploding, organizational complexity and compliance risk are surging, making effective ITAM maturity no longer optional but critical. And while cost-savings from license compliance and optimization tend to plateau: after the “low-hanging fruit” is picked, further gains only come through disciplined governance and process maturity.

Because regulatory pressure, security demands, and hybrid/cloud SaaS environments make uncontrolled shadow IT, forgotten licenses, and asset sprawl high-risk liabilities, a mature ITAM program becomes a foundational control. Stakeholders (finance, procurement, security, compliance) increasingly demand transparency, audit-readiness, and predictable budgets. Measuring maturity provides a credible, structured benchmark that ties ITAM to business outcomes such as risk reduction, efficiency, and compliance.

With mature ITAM, you unlock scalable, repeatable improvement: once you know your baseline, across strategy, governance, processes, and data, you can build a roadmap, track progress, and transform ITAM from a cost center into a strategic enabler.

It has never been easier to assess your ITAM maturity, so why not start now?

Why Licenseware’s Approach Stands Out

Licenseware’s ITAM Maturity Assessment isn’t just a generic questionnaire. Built with industry experts and aligned to ISO/IEC 19770-1, it combines best-practice frameworks with modern tooling. The SaaS-native platform makes it easy to onboard collaborators, complete the assessment, and generate meaningful output quickly.

✨ Plus, the maturity Assessment is now included in the CORE plan, together with Collector, SIM, LCM, NEO, and GREG. Our broader open-app ecosystem already tackles inventory, contract management, license entitlements, usage data, and analytics; the maturity assessment becomes a natural first step for organisations seeking to scale their SAM/ITAM program. ✨

If you’re not sure where your ITAM program stands today, or you want to validate whether your processes, data, and governance meet industry standards, schedule an assessment today with one of our process maturity experts: Kylie, Rory, or David.

Or get in touch with Chris to get onboarded and start using the SAS App in Licenseware, invite your team, and get a complete maturity snapshot within days. Then use the report to build a roadmap: close gaps, optimise spend, mitigate compliance risk, and turn your ITAM from a cost centre into a strategic enabler.