On this episode of Best Seller TV, author Jeremy Boerger sits down with host Taryn Winter Brill to discuss his book “Rethinking Information Technology Asset Management”. Boerger begins by identifying, in layman’s terms, what information technology asset management – or ITAM, is. He said ITAM is “a segment inside service management that deals with getting the most value out of your hardware, software, server, systems necessary for modern businesses to function.”   
 
Asset management at its core is trying to fight a two-front fight – spending money on IT vs lowering costs. Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine any business existing without an IT infrastructure in place; however, that doesn’t mean businesses should spend money frivolously. Boerger argues that we spend money on cybersecurity tools, photo production tools and even telecommunications, but do we stop to ask what is our ROI? Is there a better way to spend our dollars? Perhaps on employees, salaries and stock returns?  
 
This is where the ‘rethinking’ part comes into play. Boerger explains that according to a 2016 Gartner article, medium-to-large organizations can lower their software spending by about one-third. That can be accomplished with three things: 
 

Recycling already purchased licenses instead of buying more

Ensuring the software features being bought line up with the work that’s being done

Having a system in place that measures how the work is being done so you don’t get penalized by software publishers conducting software audits

 
However, there are other ‘flaws’ that plague the industry, such as having two main operating methodologies: transactional and accountancy. Boerger describes the first as “nothing happens without a receipt” and the latter as “comparing what’s on the left hand side of the ledger with what’s on the right side of the ledger.” In the book, he describes a third methodology to be used – epistemology. Boerger argues that asset management is an exercise in epistemology, which he defines as the study of learning. 
 
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