I Learned the Hard Way: Why You Need Both ITAM and ITSM (Not Just One)

The $180,000 Mistake I Made in My First Year as IT Manager

I’ll never forget the day our CFO called me into her office with a spreadsheet showing $180,000 in “questionable IT spending.” It was March 2023, I’d been the IT Infrastructure Manager for exactly nine months, and I was about to learn an expensive lesson about the difference between ITAM and ITSM.

“Can you explain why we’re paying for 450 Adobe licenses when we only have 280 employees?” she asked.

I couldn’t. I had no idea.

That conversation changed everything about how I approached IT management. Today, I’m sharing what I learned so you don’t make the same mistakes I did.

How I Got Here: The Service Desk Hero Who Ignored Assets

When I took this job, I came from a pure ITSM background. I’d spent five years running service desk operations at a smaller company, and I was really good at it. Fast incident resolution, happy users, great SLA compliance—that was my world.

So when I started at my new company, I did what I knew best. I immediately focused on improving our ITSM processes. I upgraded our ticketing system, trained the service desk team on ITIL best practices, and implemented new incident management workflows.

Within three months, our average incident resolution time dropped from 8 hours to 2.5 hours. Users loved the improved service. My boss was thrilled. I felt like a rockstar.

But I was completely ignoring our asset management.

We had some spreadsheets tracking purchases. Finance had their procurement system. But nobody was connecting the dots between what we owned, what we were paying for, and what we actually needed. I assumed someone else was handling that part.

That assumption cost us $180,000 in wasted software licenses.

The Wake-Up Call: When ITSM Isn’t Enough

After that brutal CFO meeting, I spent a weekend diving into our IT spending. What I discovered was horrifying:

We were paying for software we didn’t use. Those 450 Adobe licenses? We’d acquired them through three different company acquisitions, and nobody had bothered to consolidate or cancel the duplicates. We were literally paying for the same software three times.

We had no idea what hardware we owned. Our asset inventory showed 340 laptops, but when I actually counted, we had 412. The 72 “missing” devices were sitting in storage, fully licensed, completely unused—while we were buying new laptops for new employees.

Our service desk was flying blind. When users reported issues, my team couldn’t quickly identify which assets supported critical services. We were great at ITSM workflows, but without asset data, we were just processing tickets efficiently without actually understanding our infrastructure.

I realized I’d been treating the symptoms while ignoring the disease. ITSM made our service delivery efficient, but without ITAM, we had no control over what we were actually managing.

What I Wish Someone Had Told Me: ITAM vs ITSM Explained

Here’s what I learned the hard way: ITAM and ITSM aren’t competing approaches—they’re complementary disciplines that both need to work together.

ITAM (IT Asset Management) is about the stuff. It tracks what you own, what you’re paying for, where it’s deployed, and when it needs renewal or replacement. It’s the financial and compliance side of IT management.

ITSM (IT Service Management) is about the service. It focuses on how you deliver IT services to users, resolve incidents, and manage changes. It’s the operational and user experience side.

I’d been so focused on ITSM that I completely neglected ITAM. And that neglect was costing us serious money.

The CFO put it bluntly: “You’ve made our service desk faster, which is great. But you’re efficiently managing assets we shouldn’t even own. That’s not helping the business.”

She was right.

My Journey to Integration: The Three-Phase Fix

I had to fix this mess, and I had to do it fast. Here’s what I did:

Phase 1: Building the ITAM Foundation (Months 1-3)

First, I had to actually understand what we owned. I deployed automated network monitoring tools that discovered every device and software installation across our network.

The results were shocking. We found 127 devices we didn’t know existed—old servers, forgotten workstations, network equipment that was still consuming power and licenses but serving no purpose.

I spent three months reconciling our actual assets against what we were paying for. It was tedious, unglamorous work. But it revealed exactly where our money was going and where we could cut waste.

The hardest part? Admitting to my boss that I should have done this nine months earlier. But he appreciated the honesty and gave me the resources to fix it properly.

Phase 2: Connecting ITAM to ITSM (Months 4-6)

Once I had accurate asset data, I integrated it with our ITSM platform. I built a proper Configuration Management Database (CMDB) that showed which assets supported which services.

This transformed our incident management. When users reported problems, my service desk team could instantly see which devices and software supported the affected service. Resolution times dropped another 40% because we weren’t wasting time identifying infrastructure.

I also connected our asset lifecycle data to change management. Before making any infrastructure changes, we could now see all dependent assets and services. This reduced change-related incidents by 65%.

The breakthrough moment? When a critical application failed, and my team identified the root cause in 15 minutes instead of the 4 hours it would have taken before. That’s when I knew the integration was working.

Phase 3: Optimization and Automation (Months 7-12)

With ITAM and ITSM integrated, I focused on automation. I implemented comprehensive monitoring solutions that automatically discovered new assets, tracked software installations, and updated our CMDB in real-time.

This eliminated the manual inventory updates that had consumed hours of staff time weekly. More importantly, it ensured our asset data stayed current, preventing the “out-of-date records” problem that had plagued us before.

I also automated license compliance checks. The system now alerts us when we’re approaching license limits or when we have unused licenses we can reclaim. No more surprise audit findings or wasted spending.

The Results: What Changed After Integration

Twelve months after that painful CFO meeting, here’s what we achieved:

Cost Savings: $180,000 Annually
We eliminated duplicate licenses, stopped buying unnecessary hardware, and negotiated better vendor contracts based on actual usage data. The CFO was happy. I kept my job.

Faster Incident Resolution: 70% Improvement
Average resolution time dropped from 2.5 hours to 45 minutes because service desk teams had instant access to asset information. Users were even happier than before.

Audit Readiness: Zero Findings
When we faced our next compliance audit, we passed with zero findings. We could instantly produce license documentation and asset tracking reports. The auditors were impressed.

Better Decision-Making
With complete asset visibility, we made smarter infrastructure investments. We avoided a $95,000 server purchase by identifying underutilized existing capacity.

Reduced Stress
Honestly, this might be the biggest benefit. I stopped worrying about surprise audit findings or CFO meetings about wasteful spending. I finally felt like I had control over our IT environment.

What I’d Tell My Past Self (And What I’m Telling You)

If I could go back to my first day as IT Infrastructure Manager, here’s what I’d tell myself:

Don’t assume someone else is handling asset management. In many organizations, nobody owns ITAM until it becomes a crisis. Take ownership early.

Start with ITAM foundations before optimizing ITSM. I did it backward, and it cost us $180,000. Build accurate asset inventory first, then layer ITSM processes on top.

Integration isn’t optional. ITAM and ITSM work exponentially better together than separately. The effort to integrate them pays off immediately.

Automate everything possible. Manual asset tracking can’t keep pace with modern IT environments. Invest in distributed monitoring tools that automatically discover and track assets.

Get executive sponsorship. ITAM involves finance, procurement, and IT. You need CFO support to succeed. Show them the cost savings potential, and they’ll become your biggest advocates.

Don’t confuse inventory with management. I thought we had asset management because we had spreadsheets listing devices. True ITAM includes financial tracking, contract management, and lifecycle planning.

Your Turn: Don’t Make My Mistakes

I learned these lessons the expensive way. You don’t have to.

If you’re currently focused only on ITSM (like I was), take a hard look at your asset management. Do you really know what you own, what you’re paying for, and whether you’re getting value from it?

If you’re struggling with both ITAM and ITSM separately, consider integration. The synergies are real, and the benefits come faster than you’d expect.

And if you’re just starting out in IT management, congratulations—you have the opportunity to build both disciplines correctly from the beginning. Don’t waste it like I did.

Ready to get started? Begin with automated asset discovery. Tools like PRTG Network Monitor can show you exactly what’s on your network within hours, giving you the foundation both ITAM and ITSM require.

Trust me—your future self (and your CFO) will thank you.