Earlier this year, International Association for International Association for IT Asset Management (IAITAM) released a report, “Understanding the Federal Government’s ‘IT Insecurity’ Crisis,” which details massive mismanagement of the IT budget across federal agencies, thus affecting IT security. The White House, Internal Revenue Service, Veterans Affairs and State Department have all experienced IT security disasters, like data breaches, in recent months.

Additionally, the Federal Office of Inspector General released a report recently that details some of the vulnerabilities within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Information Technology Infrastructure and Operations Office, which oversees network and security infrastructure. Some of these IT security holes include a lack of standards and tracking of IT inventory, poor antivirus management, and insufficient patch controls that weaken hackers.

IAITAM recommends professional IT asset management policies and procedures are put in place not only within the federal agencies, but also within IT departments of every organization. IAITAM says this would significantly reduce the misspending, inefficiencies, and miscommunication across the board for ITAM. As of now, no such program exists in federal agencies, and many other private and public organizations have the same challenge.

How does your ITAM process compare? Are there set policies in place? If there are policies in place, are you meeting them? How about communication and organization across all personnel involved? When ITAM is neglected, costs are higher and you increase risks. If the end of life process and IT Asset Disposal (ITAD) part of your ITAM program are not robust, you risk loss of recovery value, environmental non-compliance, regulatory non-compliance (HIPAA, SOX, GLB, PCI, etc), and direct risk of data breach. Gaps in hardware and software inventory tracking at disposition can also result in wasted money in unused or “lost” software licenses.

Your organization may not be as large as a federal agency, but you can still benefit from having good ITAM and ITAD processes in place. No matter the size of your budget and the number of assets you manage, take advantage of the benefits of having and following best practices for ITAM. ITAD will be less of a hassle, you’ll minimize risk, increase value recovery, and gain peace of mind knowing it’s all being done right.

Be sure to read our whitepaper IT Asset Manager’s Guide to Disposition to assess and plan for your ITAD process.