Information technology (IT) resource management is the process of planning, allocating, and controlling IT resources. IT is a major component of an enterprise used to support operations as well as create value through innovation and efficiencies. An IT resource is any company asset related to IT. These resources can include tangible resources such as hardware, infrastructure, networking devices, storage media, and intangible resources such as software, licenses, and electronic documents and files. IT resources can also include available IT expertise and skills.
IT resource management, along with other IT processes, forms the collective IT management strategy used by a company to ensure that the whole IT business unit supports the company’s goals, mission, and vision. This means any project that requires IT resources needs to undergo IT resource management. Correspondingly, an IT resource being used without any clear contribution or benefit in helping the company achieve its goals can be considered a wasteful use of that resource.
To make sure that IT resource management is effective, different techniques can be applied. Resource allocation is the scheduled assignment of an available resource. Information on the exact time or period a resource is available is important for this technique to be effective.
Resource leveling is another technique that aims to discover under or over utilized resources so that they can be changed to their optimized setting. Resource forecasting is a technique that predicts future resource requirements based on past projects, current demands, upcoming trends, capacity planning, organization growth, and attrition rates.
IT resource management enables companies to use their valuable resources judiciously. Research has shown that the proper and prudent use of IT resources has resulted in the improvement of a company’s financial resources. IT resource management best practices has also increased the capability of companies to augment other resources with IT resources, and all these lead to further performance improvement.
