IT Financial, Procurement & Asset Management (ITAM) becomes more and more significant as the size of the organization grows and not everyone is prepared for it. The annual Gartner Summit 2015 is dedicated to the various issues arising in this area. Naturally, the event saw a healthy participation from the industry. The three-day long summit from November 2-4, in Grapevine, Texas created the perfect platform for the ITAM community to come together to discuss the latest developments, best practices, and futuristic ideas on the topic.

This year’s event was all about cost optimization and risk management in IT. There were varied formats of sessions that ranged from keynotes, case studies, workshops, tutorials, peer networking, and roundtables among many others. The idea was to help the attendees derive maximum benefit from the opportunity. All these sessions covered similar topics from different perspectives, for better understanding of the attendees. Overall the summit targeted anyone working as a CFO, CTO, IT finance managers, IT procurement managers, IT software managers, sourcing managers, vendor managers and other similar roles.

The keynote speaker, Jo Ann Rosenberger, Research VP, Gartner, especially focused on the opportunities to drive collaboration and optimization of cost. It was very well-received, since it has a direct impact on the bottom line. A guest keynote speaker at the event, Joe Navarro, is a former FBI Special Agent as well as an author. He discussed The Power of Nonverbal Communications, and explain how it can play a significant role in optimization of operations in a business. Both these sessions were followed by an animated discussion. This discussion focused on a number of such crucial factors that are essential for the success of a business, but are hardly given much attention in the corporate environment. The new learnings from the summit will definitely help the attendees in managing their own teams as well as the vendors.

One of the tracks at the conference included “IT Asset Management: Build a Foundation to Enable Business Growth” and threw light on the impact on business growth for organizations that have placed due importance on ITAM and those who have not. The discussion in all formats mainly revolved around effective implementation of the best practices and even focusing on improvement in those too, wherever possible and to maximize engagement of all stakeholders to build a solid foundation. Ideas like managing mobile devices, surviving vendor audits were also chipped in the discussions.

Another focus of this year’s summit was on Financial Management and how to drive savings through innovation and collaboration. This particular discussion drew a significant amount of participation from the attendees, specifically how better communication between business leaders and IT managers can be achieved. In fact, multiple strategies were discussed to make the business leaders understand the actual business value of IT, the benefits of employing IT financial management tools, and more.

Speaking of collaboration, the optimization of costs in the procurement strategy and vendor relationships were also of discussion at the event. This included new delivery models, better governance in IT Procurement and also addressing the risks from compliance.  Working with the vendors and the specific contract details were closely linked – offering new tools and techniques for dealing with the vendors, managing their costs and performance, and at the very same time, delivering maximum value.

The summit offered a lot of value to the attendees and in every aspect of ITAM as promised. The financial, IT procurement and asset management is a complex topic and the Gartner Summit 2015 sure simplified it for business leaders and helped them understand the changing landscape of business today. How are you addressing the IT Asset Management in your enterprise?  Are you looking at it as a growth or a cost for your business? What types of optimization are applied today?  Contact the RAY ALLEN Team today to discuss the environment in your enterprise and learn how we can make and impact.