Ghost assets drain 25% of IT budgets as ITAM confidence gap widens
A new survey has found that 95% of IT leaders trust the asset data they receive, compared with just 35% of business teams.
Published on 26th August 2025
IT asset management (ITAM) is a critical operational discipline, although it is under increasing pressure.
ITAM is facing pressures from cloud complexity, and according to a new report it is also facing a business confidence challenge. WanAware’s “Closing the ITAM Confidence Gap: 2025 Survey Insights for IT Leaders” surveyed 600 professionals across IT, operations, and management roles at multi-location organisations. The research exposes how ITAM is experienced differently across departments. While IT departments express growing confidence in their asset management capabilities, the rest of the organisation remains sceptical about data accuracy, ROI, and operational impact.
This confidence gap creates operational risks, financial waste, and security vulnerabilities that compound as IT environments become more distributed. The survey results reveal fundamental breakdowns in communication, trust, and operational alignment that threaten both current operations and future digital transformation initiatives.
Key Survey Findings
- 95% of IT leaders trust their asset data accuracy versus only 35% of other managers.
- 80% of IT managers report increased ITAM investment versus 24% of analysts and 35% of other managers who see this investment.
- Up to 25% of IT spending is wasted on "ghost assets."
- Nearly 25% of IT teams still rely on spreadsheets and email for asset tracking.
- 50% of IT managers report that missing assets cause significant disruption versus only 9% of other departments.
- 65% of IT managers use 6+ tools for asset management yet express confidence in their setup.
The Ghost Asset Problem: Beyond Lost Hardware
The survey’s most alarming finding centres on ghost assets. These are IT resources that continue consuming budget and creating risk while providing zero business value. The phantom resources manifest across the entire technology stack, from forgotten cloud instances to untracked SaaS subscriptions.
Collins outlined five primary vectors for ghost asset creation:
- Lifecycle Management Failures: Traditional asset retirement processes haven't adapted to cloud-native and hybrid environments. "A laptop is sent to recycling, but no one updates the system to mark it as disposed," Collins explained.
- Digital Transformation Acceleration: The rush to cloud and remote work has outpaced governance mechanisms.
- Shadow IT and AI Adoption: Departments spinning up their own cloud resources and AI tools bypass traditional procurement channels. This creates invisible infrastructure sprawl.
- Remote Work Distribution: Hardware shipped directly to remote employees often escapes proper tracking. Recovery becomes problematic during offboarding.
- M&A Integration Issues: Combining disparate asset tracking systems creates duplicate, orphaned, and unknown records.
Tool Proliferation Masking Integration Problems
IT departments report confidence in their ITAM capabilities, but the survey data reveals concerning operational realities. Nearly half of IT managers acknowledge that asset tracking requires too many tools. A quarter still rely on manual spreadsheets and email as core workflow components.
The tool sprawl paradox is striking. Sixty-five percent of IT managers use six or more ITAM tools yet express confidence in their setup. Non-IT roles use fewer tools but report significantly lower integration confidence. This suggests IT teams have adapted to complexity through process workarounds rather than achieving true operational efficiency.
The survey reveals what IT teams actually want from their ITAM infrastructure:
- 22% prioritise real-time updates when assets change.
- 19% want clearer methods to prioritise risky or high-value assets
- 15% seek automated responses to missing or at-risk assets.
Growing Disconnect in Distributed Environments
The confidence gap appears to be accelerating as work models evolve. IT teams report improved asset visibility since shifting to remote work. Analysts and operations managers see no such improvement. This divergence suggests IT departments have developed workarounds and processes that aren’t visible to or trusted by other business functions. It’s a trend that is likely to continue.
“Over the next two to three years, I see this confidence gap continuing to widen,” Collins said. “This is primarily fuelled by the rapid acceleration of hybrid work models, mass migration to the cloud, and the burgeoning adoption of artificial intelligence, creating a perfect storm of complexity for IT asset management teams.”
Collins noted that the distributed workforce has shattered the traditional, centralised view of IT assets. Cloud migration introduces shadow IT, ghost assets, and uncontrolled sprawl that bypass traditional procurement channels.
The expanding attack surface created by hybrid work and cloud environments compounds security concerns.
“A lack of complete asset visibility directly translates to a weaker security posture, as unknown and unmanaged assets are prime targets for cybercriminals,” Collins said.
Practical Steps for IT Leaders
For IT leaders seeking to address these challenges, Collins recommends a three-pronged approach based on successful customer implementations:
Create a FinOps Mindset
Implementing financial accountability for cloud spending creates natural alignment between IT and business stakeholders around asset optimisation. “The principles of FinOps are directly aligned with the goals of asset management,” Collins noted.
Adopt AI-Powered Discovery Tools
Automated asset discovery and data normalisation tools can handle the scale and complexity that manual processes can’t address.
“AI-powered ITAM platforms can automate asset discovery, normalise data from disparate sources, and provide predictive insights into software usage and spending,” Collins said.
Prioritise Governance and Compliance
Establishing clear policies for asset lifecycle management, procurement approval workflows, and cross-departmental visibility requirements becomes essential as regulatory pressure increases.
Organisations successfully implementing all three approaches report measurable improvements.
“Our customers that have leveraged and invested in all three areas have had the most success,” Collins said. ” Not only have they minimised ghost assets within their organisations, the resulting confidence that they have delivered within the rest of the business through increased operational uptime and reduced security risks has opened up significant additional investment in IT that has allowed them to further strengthen their infrastructure.”
