At its Inaugural General Meeting (IGM), the ITAM Forum, the new professional body for the advancement of the global IT Asset Management industry, held its first management role elections.
Martin Thompson, the founder of the ITAM Forum, used his position as the temporary chairperson to chair the Inaugural General Meeting, whereupon elections were held for the relevant management positions.
The following roles were nominated and subsequently elected by the Forum’s trustees:
Chair: Melody Ayeli
Vice-Chair: Ron Brill
Treasurer: Bryant Caldwell
Secretary: Brett Zurbrick
Commenting on her new role as chair, Ayeli said: “Throughout my career, I have been passionate about applying new technologies to modernise and bring additional value to the enterprise…[These] programs can provide significant contributions to any organization, but most still fall short of leveraging it properly or giving it the executive-level attention it deserves.”
She continued: “With the onset of digital transformation in recent years, IT has truly become the beating heart of many businesses. In fact, many modern businesses are IT businesses at heart. Their technology is how they differentiate themselves from competitors and is where they focus their R&D budget. Yet without proper management of these IT assets, organisations can be throwing away significant amounts of their money, while also taking on additional security, compliance, and legal risks.
“In the case of software, studies show that companies typically waste one third of their entire software budget. Can you imagine any other part of a business where it would be tolerated to waste one third of the budget? Part of the problem is that this risk and over-expenditure is not often prioritised by and made visible to the right levels of leadership to proactively support ITAM programs, until they are forced to address it by internal or external factors.
“Through my work with the ITAM Forum, I look forward to raising awareness of the benefits of ITAM and working with our board and partners to launch the first organisational certification for ITAM.”
IT asset managers and CIOs — working together to tackle ‘shadow IT’
The ITAM Forum
As a recap, the founding objectives of the ITAM Forum are:
• To educate and evangelise — to encourage more companies to practice IT asset management and to attract new professionals into the industry.
• To promote best practice — provide a collaborative, global forum for IT asset management leaders to come together and share ideas for the advancement of the IT asset management industry (eventually establishing a globally recognised Organisational Certification for ITAM).
At the launch of the ITAM Forum on 20th May 2020, Thompson stated: “ITAM teams enjoy more seniority and board level exposure than ever before.
“Research by The ITAM Review in 2018 suggested that ITAM teams reporting into the CXO has increased from 17% in 2011 to 37% in 2018. That is a staggering shift in such a short time.
“ITAM is moving out of the shadows because more companies are recognising that the smart management of assets is a shrewd business practice which delivers benefits far beyond IT.
“ITAM has a rightful place outside of the niche IT/ITSM domain from where it started, and as a boardroom priority in its own right.
“The ITAM Forum is here to help it achieve this goal, by raising the profile of the IT asset management discipline as much more than a compliance exercise and demonstrating its value to every organisation looking to better manage its assets.”
