Blind Spots, Bottlenecks, and Budget Bleeds: Tackling Your Biggest ITAM Challenges

IT asset management is far from a simple task. What were once simple infrastructures made up of on-premises hardware and legacy solutions has now exploded into a labyrinth of assets that becomes increasingly more challenging to monitor and govern.

IT leaders need to account for and manage cloud infrastructure, SaaS tools, mobile and specialty hardware, and remote work technologies at every lifecycle stage to have a clear picture of everything in their environment.

Then there are the added responsibilities of maintaining strong security and control over the assets, tracking and optimizing asset costs, and leading initiatives in AI, automation, and digital transformation. 

All of this hinges on having accurate, complete asset data–which in and of itself can be a challenge for many enterprises.

In the 2025 Spotlight Paper, IDC combines expert research and survey responses from IT leaders to examine the ongoing challenges of ITAM management and why accurate, normalized asset data is central to solving them.

1. Software License Access Remains Disconnected

Essentially every IT team has struggled with managing software licenses. Organizations are paying for multiple licenses that employees are not actually using. Different functions are paying for the same license at different price points. Teams go around IT and purchase software licenses that don’t meet compliance standards.

In some cases, IT may not have any insight into software license usage because they lack updated data about who is using what. As time goes on, duplicate license purchases and inefficient usage inflate budgets and cost enterprises thousands in wasted resources.

To regain control, IT leaders limit the number of licenses they allow other teams to access. Although well-intentioned, this choice negatively impacts employees who need those tools to efficiently do their jobs. As teams wait for IT to release licenses, workflows slow down, putting a strain on productivity.

2. Cloud and Virtual Assets Are Hard to Track

Gone are the days of more easily tracking physical devices that permanently stay inside your offices. Hybrid work environments require IT teams to support virtual tools like cloud storage solutions that employees can access remotely. 

However, IDC reports that many IT leaders face major challenges in governing these assets, improving visibility into cloud environments, and maintaining strong control over their security. Teams are concerned that container and cloud assets can fall outside traditional ITAM processes and leave them with unprotected blind spots. 

So now the question becomes: How do I track cloud and virtual assets effectively?

Without accurate data about these assets, organizations are at an increased risk for misconfigurations, unmanaged access, and data leakage.

3. Information Sharing is Still Siloed

Procurement requires asset usage data to forecast devices and prevent overbuying. Finance needs it to monitor IT budgets and optimize cost savings. Security relies on that data to identify and reduce risks related to individual assets. The list goes on.

Despite the monumental importance of having access to this data, 33% of surveyed IT leaders ranked sharing asset information with other related functions and teams as a top challenge. 

What causes information silos in IT asset management? Often, it's a combination of legacy systems that don't communicate, different teams using separate tools, and a lack of standardized data formats across departments.

When asset data stays siloed, there is no way for the organization to maintain consistent, accurate data. Each team may have something different. This results in:

• Delayed communication about IT assets
• Uncoordinated purchases
• Overbuying and overrun budgets
• Widening security and compliance gaps
• A lack of audit-readiness

4. Staff and Time Constraints Are a Persistent Strain

Consider the assets that a single employee uses each day: A company-provided laptop and cell phone. Cloud storage platforms. Firewall networks. Two dozen software licenses.

As organizations use more devices for more activities, the teams in charge of all of those assets can easily become overwhelmed. Employees have only so much time to discover, track, and manage IT assets. For leaner teams that lack sufficient headcount, things are almost guaranteed to fall through the cracks.

How do I manage ITAM with limited staff and time? The answer lies in automation and strategic prioritization.

Without enough staff to effectively support IT asset management, organizations using manual asset management processes can expect to see:

• Incomplete asset inventories
• Inaccurate IT asset data
• Increased risk of security issues
• Growing noncompliance
• Poor resource allocation
• Missed business opportunities

As a result, ITAM becomes reactive, focused on putting out fires, rather than proactive, planning for strategic improvement.

5. Shadow IT Continues to Grow

Together, these challenges increase concerns about “shadow IT” as business users make purchases and decisions not tracked by IT teams.  While many employees might not see the harm in downloading one-off files for collaboration tools or using personal emails on work devices,  IT knows just how dangerous these “small” actions can be to the enterprise.

All of the unauthorized purchases and untracked assets that fall under shadow IT not only open up your business to glaring security and data breach concerns, but they also contribute to rising costs and wasted budgets. 

Without a way to address non-IT-approved purchases and bring untracked assets back into view, this issue can spiral and derail everything IT works to protect within the enterprise.

Clean, Normalized Asset Data is the Common Denominator

No matter what ITAM challenges IT faces, they all have one root cause: gaps in asset visibility and data quality.  If enterprise IT teams are going to regain control of assets and use them to support strategic initiatives, they first need to establish a foundation of accurate asset data. 

This does much more than simply maintain an inventory.

Respondents to IDC’s IT Asset Management Survey, and forward-thinking IT leaders,  have a clear understanding of the role that reliable asset data plays in driving business continuity, cost control, and automation. 

Some of the most valuable outcomes of effective ITAM include:

• Improving application and site reliability, directly impacting employee productivity
• Reducing mean time to detection and resolution, lowering the cost and disruption of incidents
• Strengthening security posture, preventing downtime and improving data protection
• Improving cost controls by tracking asset and software spend against projects and initiatives
• Optimizing budget allocation through informed financial forecasting
• Automating processes that reduce manual work

IDC’s conversations also acknowledge the impact that accurate data has for AI implementation. The AI agents that make automated ITAM possible need to be guided to make the right decisions based on accurate, trustworthy data. Without reliable information, agents will never produce the results organizations are looking for.

Accurate, real-time IT asset data acts as the connective tissue between IT operations, financial management, and business strategy. Only by unifying your data into a single source of truth can you overcome common challenges and drive value.

Oomnitza’s Asset-Centric Approach to ITAM 

While IT leaders can have a vision for accessing accurate, normalized asset data, Oomnitza is built to make that a reality.

We provide a single pane of glass for all your technology assets by:

• Collecting and normalizing data through 1,500+ turnkey connectors and REST API integrations
• Identifying assets from non-IT purchases to limit shadow IT
• Writing back to other systems, like security, HR, and finance, to unsilo asset data
• Leveraging no code workflows to automate tasks

Our approach not only delivers the governance that IT teams need to transform digital operations, but it provides the clarity to combat the challenges of traditional IT asset management and turn your technology into a strategic advantage with more than 98% accuracy.

Download the full IDC Spotlight Paper to learn where your peers are seeing the greatest need for stronger IT asset data.