Practitioner writing on asset management, licensing, and the economics of technology spend — published by the bodies that set the standards for this discipline.
Programs are rarely defunded for being bad at the work. They are defunded because they cannot answer one question — and the question is always the same. Written from the uncomfortable side of the budget table: the chair most ITAM practitioners never occupy, and the one that would change how they present their work.
When a budget holder looks at a line item, they are not evaluating whether the function is worthwhile. They are answering one question: what breaks if I stop paying for this? Security passes easily. Service desk passes. Asset management frequently does not — not because the answer is wrong, but because the consequence it describes is delayed, diffuse, and impossible to attribute.
In one sentence, without hedging: if our asset management function stopped on Friday, by the end of the quarter the organization would ___________. If you cannot finish that sentence with something specific, near-term, and attributable to a named part of the business, your funding currently depends on nobody asking.
IAITAM is the certifying body for this discipline. Its ITAK journal is read by the practitioners and program owners who do this work daily — an audience that can tell the difference between experience and marketing.
The same thinking, in longer form — every podcast episode is published with a full written transcript.
The 90-Day Pre-Renewal Readiness Checklist and the SaaS Application Inventory Template exist to produce exactly the kind of documented baseline the article argues for — the number that has to exist somewhere before you can show you moved it.