Innovation Heroes: Why ITAM progress has stalled (and how to fix it)

For more than a decade, the same number has haunted enterprise IT: 25-30% of technology spend is wasted. Better tools haven’t fixed it. Better services haven’t fixed it. So what’s actually going wrong?

“Tooling has gotten better. Professional services have gotten better. And we’re still saying that thirty percent,” said Shane Cronin, Head of ITAM & FinOps Services at SHI. “It’s that there is profit to be made by constantly changing the rules.”

Host Ed McNamara and Cronin broke down the issue with ITAM on the latest episode of Innovation Heroes.

The Rubik’s Cube effect

The problem isn’t data — it’s action. Cronin describes what he calls the “Rubik’s Cube effect”: every cost-saving recommendation creates a knock-on effect somewhere else in the organization. “I could say there are a hundred Oracle databases that you could remove — they’re not being leveraged,” he said. “But unless you have the right stakeholders in place who understand the actual consequence or the other application dependencies tied to those databases, it’s very unlikely they’re gonna turn it off.”

Reports get delivered. Millions in potential savings are identified. And then nothing happens. The 30% stays right where it is.

Bad branding: ITAM police

Part of the problem is perception. Traditional IT asset management positioned itself as enforcement — the function that tells people what they can’t do.

“ITAM was seen as the police,” Cronin said. “If somebody felt ITAM was coming for them within an organization, it was like probably gonna tell you to stop deploying so many databases or applications.”

FinOps, by contrast, built its foundation on enablement: shared accountability, cultural ownership, and speed without sacrificing governance. The discipline that wins isn’t the one with better data — it’s the one people actually want to work with.

Shift focus to ROI to win

But even the best governance model fails if leadership keeps framing technology as a cost center. Cronin argues the real shift isn’t about cutting spend — it’s about proving value. With AI budgets exploding while overall IT budgets stay flat, CIOs need a different story.

“I’m sure if I told our CEO that I would get ten dollars back for every dollar I spent — and I could keep proving it — I could spend more than what’s in my budget,” Cronin said.

The organizations that finally move the needle won’t be the ones with the fanciest dashboards. They’ll be the ones that connect technology decisions to business outcomes, align stakeholders before recommendations land, and prove ROI instead of just promising savings. The 30% isn’t a technology problem. It’s a culture problem.

NEXT STEPS

Wondering where your 30% is hiding? SHI’s IT Lifecycle Services team can help you look for it. Or are you struggling with complex vendor licensing from Microsoft, Oracle, or VMware? Our license advisory specialists have your back.

Listen to the full conversation here to move your ITAM practice forward. You can also find episodes of the Innovation Heroes podcast on SHI’s Resource Hub, Spotify, and other major podcast platforms, as well as on YouTube in video format.

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