Ask five people in an IT department where software spend is managed and you may hear five different answers: "That's ITAM." "That's SAM." "Procurement handles SaaS." "FinOps owns the cloud bill." Each answer is partly right, and that is exactly the problem. When four overlapping disciplines each own a slice of technology spend, gaps open between them, and money leaks through the gaps.
This article explains what each discipline covers, who usually owns it, where they overlap, and how to connect them so nothing falls between the cracks. If you are new to the topic, start with our guide to what software asset management is.
IT asset management (ITAM): the umbrella
IT asset management is the practice of tracking and managing every IT asset across its lifecycle, from request and purchase through deployment, maintenance and retirement. That includes hardware such as laptops, servers and network equipment, and software of every kind.
The international standard for the discipline, the ISO/IEC 19770 family, treats ITAM as a management system: a set of policies, processes and responsibilities, not just an inventory. In practice, an ITAM function answers three questions for the business: what do we have, where is it, and what does it cost us?
Typically owned by: an IT asset manager or ITAM team within IT operations, often reporting to the CIO or head of infrastructure.
Software asset management (SAM): the money and the risk
Software asset management is the part of ITAM that deals with software licenses. It is also where most of the financial value and the compliance risk sit, because software is licensed under contractual terms that are easy to break and expensive to get wrong.
SAM connects three sets of data that normally live apart:
- Entitlements: what your contracts allow you to use, in what quantity and under which license metric.
- Deployments and usage: where the software is installed or assigned, and whether people actually use it.
- Spend: what you pay, when you pay it and when the contract renews.
Bring the three together and you get a license position for each product, showing where you are paying for unused licenses and where you are exposed to an audit. That position drives the four savings levers: reclaiming unused licenses, right-sizing plans, consolidating overlapping tools and renegotiating renewals.
Typically owned by: a SAM manager or SAM team inside ITAM, working closely with procurement and finance.
SaaS management: SAM for the subscription era
SaaS management applies SAM to subscription software. The goals are the same, paying only for what is used and staying in control of renewals, but the mechanics differ:
- Usage is measured in sign-ins and seats, not installations. Data comes from identity providers such as Microsoft Entra ID, Okta or Google Workspace, and from each application's admin console.
- Buying is decentralized. Teams can subscribe with a credit card, so discovery has to include expense and accounts-payable data, not just IT purchases.
- Renewals are frequent. Monthly and annual subscriptions renew constantly, often automatically.
Because SaaS now makes up a large share of most software budgets, many organizations treat SaaS management as a core part of SAM rather than a separate practice.
Typically owned by: IT or a SaaS operations function, often shared with procurement. In organizations without a clear owner, SaaS spend is where waste accumulates fastest.
FinOps: from cloud bills to all technology spend
FinOps grew up around public cloud. Cloud infrastructure is consumed on demand, billed by usage, and controlled by engineers rather than buyers, which makes it very different from licensed software. FinOps teams track consumption, allocate costs to the teams that create them, and optimize through reservations, savings plans and right-sizing.
The FinOps Foundation defines FinOps as "an operational framework and cultural practice which maximizes the business value of technology, enables timely data-driven decision making, and creates financial accountability through collaboration between engineering, finance, and business teams." Its current guidance explicitly extends the practice beyond public cloud to SaaS, licensing, data centers and data platforms.
Typically owned by: a FinOps team or cloud center of excellence, bridging engineering and finance.
Side by side
| ITAM | SAM | SaaS management | FinOps | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scope | All IT assets, hardware and software | Software licenses and entitlements | Subscription software | Cloud spend, expanding to SaaS and licensing |
| Core question | What do we have, and where is it? | Are we paying for the right licenses, and are we compliant? | Which subscriptions are used, and by whom? | Is our technology spend creating business value? |
| Main data | Inventory, lifecycle, location | Contracts, entitlements, installs, usage | Sign-ins, seats, expenses | Billing and consumption data |
| Typical savings | Fewer lost or idle assets, better refresh planning | Reclaim, right-size, consolidate, renegotiate | Remove idle seats and duplicate apps | Reservations, right-sizing, waste removal |
| Key risk managed | Lost assets, security gaps | Audit penalties, overspend | Shadow IT, data exposure | Runaway consumption |
| Usual owner | ITAM team | SAM manager | IT or SaaS operations | FinOps team |
Which discipline cares about what
Each discipline has its own center of gravity. The heat map below shows how strongly each one is typically involved in common technology-spend decisions. The hot cells are spread across columns, which is why one team alone cannot manage software spend well.
Where the overlaps cause trouble
The boundaries between the disciplines are not a problem in themselves. Problems start when each team works from its own data and nobody owns the decision.
Marketplace purchases are another. Software bought through a cloud marketplace may show up in the cloud bill managed by FinOps, while the license terms belong to SAM. Without a shared view, it is counted twice or not at all. See AWS Marketplace spend.
Renewals are the most expensive gap. Contracts often sit with procurement, usage data with IT and budgets with finance. When the notice deadline passes before the three are compared, the agreement renews at full volume.
How to bring them together
You do not need to merge teams to get the benefits. You need three things.
Every software contract, subscription and cloud commitment in one place, with renewal date, notice period, owner and value.
Identity, device, SaaS and cloud usage connected to those commitments, so every team works from the same numbers.
For each vendor, one named owner who decides what happens at renewal, with input from IT, procurement and finance.
How MI One connects the pieces
Frequently asked questions
Is SAM part of ITAM?
Yes. SAM is the software discipline within IT asset management. Hardware asset management (HAM) is the other main part.
Do we need separate tools for SAM and SaaS management?
Not necessarily. Many organizations manage both in one platform, because the decisions, such as reclaiming seats or preparing renewals, are the same.
Does FinOps replace SAM?
No. FinOps is expanding into SaaS and licensing, but license compliance, entitlements and contract terms remain SAM expertise. The two work best when they share data.
Who should own software renewals?
One named owner per vendor, usually in IT or procurement, with a clear process for getting usage data from IT and budget approval from finance before the notice deadline.
Talk to us
Not sure who should own what in your organization? Book a 30-minute call and we will map your current setup and show where the gaps are costing you money.
Sources
- FinOps Foundation, "What is FinOps?" (definition updated March 2026). https://www.finops.org/introduction/what-is-finops/
- ISO/IEC 19770 family of IT asset management standards (Part 1: IT asset management systems). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_19770