The second half of the year is a critical period for IT asset managers. As organizations ramp up for year-end reporting, budget planning, contract renewals, and audit season, the ITAM function must proactively address compliance risks, cost optimization, and operational alignment.
This whitepaper presents a mid-year ITAM checklist designed to help organizations across the Netherlands and Europe:
- Reduce exposure to costly software audits
- Identify and eliminate unused assets and licenses
- Improve data quality and reporting for better decision-making
- Prepare ITAM to support broader compliance and security goals
Drawing on ITAM solutions’ experience across public and private sectors, this guide offers practical steps to help your organization finish the year strong, with fewer surprises and more strategic control.
Why Mid-Year Action Matters
Many organizations delay ITAM reviews until Q4, but by then, it’s often too late to correct costly misalignments. By acting now in Q3, you can:
- Get ahead of vendor audits and internal governance reviews
- Influence upcoming renewals with data-driven insights
- Free up budget by identifying waste before annual cycles close
- Increase ITAM’s role in security and regulatory compliance
Mid-year is the strategic opportunity window that most organizations overlook. This is your moment to lead, not just support, IT and financial planning.
The Mid-Year ITAM Checklist
1. Audit Software License Compliance
Audit risk remains high, particularly from Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, and SAP. Mid-year is the ideal time to perform an internal license position assessment to detect issues early.
Key Actions:
- Reconcile software entitlements with actual deployment and usage
- Prioritize high-risk areas: virtual environments, cloud-based use, indirect access
- Confirm accurate license metrics and measurement (e.g. PVU for IBM, core factors for Oracle)
- Address discrepancies or unknown installations proactively
Outcome: Reduced likelihood of compliance claims resulting from audits, and improved internal visibility into your compliance status across top vendors.
2. Clean Up SaaS Sprawl and Shadow IT
SaaS applications continue to grow uncontrolled in many organizations, often because there are no policies or controls in place, leading to hidden costs and security implications.
Key Actions:
- Use financial and identity tools (e.g., Entra ID, Okta, expense data) to discover all SaaS usage
- Identify inactive licenses, underutilized subscriptions, and overlapping tools
- Evaluate contracts for GDPR compliance and data protection clauses
- Decommission or consolidate tools where appropriate
- Implement policies and controls to prevent uncontrolled SaaS growth from recurring
Outcome: Controlled SaaS landscape, better security posture, and lower operational costs.
3. Review Contracts and Renewals
Renewals often proceed without proper utilization reviews or renegotiation, leading to overspend and underperformance.
Key Actions:
- Identify all software and IT contracts renewing in Q3–Q4
- Validate usage and match with entitlements
- Flag opportunities for downsizing, re-scoping, or competitive bidding
- Prepare renewal decision briefs for stakeholders 60–90 days in advance
Outcome: Improved renewal leverage and alignment with actual business needs.
4. Clean and Validate ITAM Data
Accurate, reliable asset data underpins all successful ITAM initiatives. Yet data integrity is frequently overlooked.
Key Actions:
- Run data quality checks across discovery, CMDB, procurement, and contract sources
- De-duplicate asset records and remove stale/inactive entries
- Normalize software titles and match to publishers’ SKUs
- Validate user-to-device and software-to-contract mappings
Outcome: Trusted data foundation to support licensing, compliance, and optimization efforts.
5. Automate Compliance Reporting
Manual reporting creates friction and risk. Automated dashboards provide real-time visibility and stakeholder confidence.
Key Actions:
- Build dashboards in your ITAM/SAM platform to track:
- License compliance status, including whether the correct contracts are in place at the time of deployment
- Software usage patterns to validate entitlements and identify inefficiencies
- Hardware/software lifecycle stage
- Contract timelines and alerts
- Schedule monthly reporting cycles for jey departments (Finance, Security, IT Ops)
Outcome: Transparent reporting that enables informed decisions and proactive management.
6. Align with Security and Governance Teams
With regulations such as NIS2, ISO/IEC 27001, and GDPR in force, ITAM must work alongside Security and Compliance to reduce organizational risk.
Key Actions:
- Share asset inventory data with InfoSec and risk managers
- Identify software with known vulnerabilities (e.g., CVEs, end-of-support)
- Track high-risk categories (e.g., unsanctioned cloud tools, unpatched legacy systems)
- Support incident response with fast asset traceability
Outcome: ITAM contributes directly to organizational risk reduction and compliance assurance.
Tip Timeline: Strategic Actions by Month
Tip: Avoid aligning all contract end dates to a single point in time, such as December 31st. By staggering renewal dates throughout the year, organizations can reduce operational pressure and decision-making bottlenecks during Q4.
Be Proactive, Not Reactive
Mid-year is your best opportunity to shift from firefighting to forward planning. By applying this checklist, your ITAM function can:
- Avoid costly last-minute surprises
- Gain control over software usage and costs
- Align IT operations with security, finance, and compliance goals
- Strengthen your strategic influence within the organization
At ITAM solutions, we help organizations across the Netherlands and Europe move from reactive asset management to proactive, strategic ITAM. Whether you need support with tooling, license optimization, or audit defense, we’re ready to partner with you.
