Maintain Software Audit Readiness and Mitigate Security Risks With Bigfix Inventory

Dan Corcoran is an HCL BigFix Sales Specialist who helps clients reduce the cost of endpoint management. Prior to joining the BigFix team, he was the Director of Client Technology at US Foods, where he managed 15,000 endpoints in more than 60 locations nationwide. In this blog, Dan shares his personal experiences as a BigFix Administrator and now as a product specialist.

Organizations need reliable IT asset management and software asset inventory management capabilities to stay compliant and audit-ready. The BigFix suite is a highly integrated endpoint management platform that includes BigFix Inventory. As a prior user and now as a product specialist, I can relate how BigFix Inventory helps maintain software audit readiness and mitigate security and non-compliance risks. Below are the five ways that BigFix Inventory significantly reduces IT costs, financial exposure, and security risk.

What Is IT Asset Management (ITAM)?

IT Asset Management (ITAM) is the strategic approach to managing an organization’s hardware and software assets throughout their lifecycle. Effective ITAM  ensures compliance, reduces financial risk, and supports operational efficiency. By tracking hardware, software, and licenses, organizations can maintain accurate inventory tracking systems and stay audit-ready. ITAM also integrates with broader inventory management processes, making it a critical component of enterprise IT governance.

Proper ITAM implementation ensures that both software asset inventory management and hardware oversight are aligned with compliance requirements, cost controls, and business objectives. Organizations must also address asset management challenges, such as adapting to cloud computing, SaaS, and hybrid IT environments, which require flexible and comprehensive strategies.

How BigFix Inventory Strengthens ITAM & SAM

Automates Software License Compliance Processes

Software audits, done for internal purposes or in response to requests from software vendors can be time-consuming and costly. For six months, my staff and I spent nearly 10 hours a week collecting and consolidating software installation and licensing data from 15,000 laptops and desktops at 67 distribution centers. The process was very labor-intensive. With our endpoint management software at the time, it was difficult for us to wrap our arms around exactly what software we had and who was using it. Our previous tool didn’t help us distinguish between different applications from the same vendor or between different versions of the same software. It was not dependable enough to support accurate software licence management or audit readiness.

After deploying BigFix, we centralized and streamlined our endpoint management activities, creating a single, reliable source of truth for hardware and software inventory software. This improves compliance and establishes the foundation for an internal software asset management audit checklist. We were able to get consistent, dependable, and reliable data without the labor-intensive manual work that previous tools required.This saved nearly 10 hours per week at 67 distribution centers. That’s 34,000 hours annually.

Reduces Risk of Non-Compliance and Financial Exposure

Software vendors are increasingly vigilant about protecting their licensing revenue and enforcing their agreements. Over deployment can create significant financial exposure.  As a matter of fact, in my prior role, we estimated that BigFix compliance helped us avoid a seven-digit license compliance penalty. How could we have been that out of alignment with what we owned? 

A simple mistake was made on an image used to deploy new laptops and desktops. This propagated to all the new devices. Luckily, internal self-audits.exposed the over-deployment quickly, allowing us to correct the issue. This highlights how BigFix supports IT asset inventory management and license inventory monitoring, ensuring compliance and minimizing financial risk. 

Exposing the over-deployment quickly gave us the opportunity to fix the mistake. When the software vendor knocked on our door, we had eliminated 99% of the problem.

A similar outcome was achieved in the Neovad BigFix compliance case study, where the company improved software visibility, strengthened audit readiness, and reduced compliance risk through accurate, consolidated endpoint data.

Reduces Software Spend

BigFix is also valuable for software asset management, helping procurement and asset managers better understand what is installed and how much it is being used. Using BigFIx in my previous role, we reviewed the software usage of Microsoft Office Suite.  The report showed that of all endpoints which had the Microsoft Office Professional software suite with Microsoft Access software, less than half had ever opened Access software and the majority of users rarely used it. As a result, the company stopped providing the Professional version of Microsoft Office, saving over six figures. This was especially useful in working with senior management. We could base our decision on the specific facts instead of a hunch. We could show that we would not impact the user experience by eliminating the software that was not being used.

BigFix Inventory functions as a powerful software inventory tool, allowing organizations to optimize software usage and implement best practices in inventory management.

BigFix can also show software license consumption trends, allowing procurement staff to better plan and purchase enough licenses. Knowing exactly how many licenses are needed can also help procurement negotiate better-licensing agreements.

There is also a great deal of value in being able to harvest licenses that are not being used and re-deploying them as opposed to always writing the PO for another license. Using BigFix Inventory data, you can see what your delta is on a specific title like Project or Visio and deploy based upon what is already owned. You can also use automation to automatically uninstall from those users who haven’t opened the application in a set time. This can be customized to your need. If someone hasn’t opened MS Project or some other tool for greater than 90 days, are they truly in need of that license seat?

This approach also illustrates best software inventory management practices in real-world enterprise environments. 

Remediates Non-Compliance During a Merger or Acquisition

Mergers and acquisitions are not uncommon in today’s business landscape. Even if the acquired company provides an accurate and complete list of workstations and servers, my staff had the onerous process of ensuring compliance and configuring the systems according to the their operational and security policies. By using outward-facing relays, my team captured accurate hardware and software inventory information and began remediating issues to bring those systems into compliance prior to allowing them onto our corporate network. Using BigFix, I determined that US Foods could retain a significant portion of the acquired company’s hardware and software inventory, saving $70,000 in capital expenditures. This also allowed us to make a minor change to include the new company hardware in our standard operating procedures. Having this information upfront allowed us to focus on the business aspects and cultural change because the IT infrastructure change became a non-event.

BigFix acts as a comprehensive asset tracking system, allowing organizations to retain valuable hardware and software while saving on capital expenditures, as we did at US Foods ($70,000 saved). Having this visibility upfront simplifies IT transitions and enables focus on business and cultural integration.

Enhances Security by Removing Unauthorized Software

BigFix also allows IT and Security organizations to identify and remove unauthorized or risky software from company-owned endpoints enhancing our overall security posture. For example, peer-to-peer (P2P) software can threaten both corporate and individual security resulting in many companies prohibiting the use of P2P software on the devices they own and manage. BigFix can help identify and optionally remove software that poses an enterprise security threat, thereby reducing the opportunity of a costly data breach.

This capability demonstrates how to improve inventory management for software, ensuring unauthorized applications are identified and controlled across the enterprise. 

Enables a Single Source of Truth

BigFIx provides an IT organization with accurate, up-to-date information about the hardware and software assets in the enterprise. A single source of truth is extremely valuable. In many organizations, the configuration management database (CMDB) provides important information to many stakeholders. Keeping a CMBD up to date can be a struggle when you must integrate multiple point solutions to obtain the data. Because BigFix works across operating system platforms, we can use it as the single source of truth and minimize the complexity of seeing what is happening in the enterprise.  Earlier this month, BigFix announced an integration that enables organizations to harness the wealth of near real-time endpoint data to automatically enrich the ServiceNow® CMDB.The integration shows how inventory management software works, centralizing visibility, automating updates, and improving governance across the enterprise. Conversely, it also provides BigFix with access to endpoint metadata and business contexts defined in ServiceNow® CMDB.  The integration reduces the manual effort to update the CMDB with endpoint data while increasing the flexibility of BigFix Administrators to target endpoint actions based upon the business context (e.g. Department, Location, and Environment) from ServiceNow®.

IT Asset Management Audit Checklist

To maintain audit readiness, organizations should follow a structured inventory audit checklist:

1. Maintain an up-to-date IT asset inventory management record.
2. Track software installations using a reliable software inventory tool.
3. Monitor license usage regularly (license inventory monitoring).
4. Reconcile software assets with purchase orders and entitlements.
5. Automate compliance checks using endpoint management tools like BigFix Inventory.

Software Asset Management Audit Checklist

An effective software asset management audit checklist ensures compliance and cost control:

• Verify license allocation and usage.
• Identify unused or over-deployed software.
• Track versions and vendor-specific requirements.
• Integrate findings with procurement and ITAM systems.
• Prepare documentation for internal or external audits.

These steps help organizations maintain accurate software asset inventory management and optimize software investments. 

How BigFix Inventory Strengthens IT Asset Management & Audit Readiness

BigFix Inventory enhances ITAM and SAM maturity by giving organizations accurate, real-time visibility into all hardware and software assets, across every endpoint. 

1. Real-Time Discovery & Accurate Inventory

BigFix automatically identifies hardware and software across all endpoints, normalizes data, and eliminates blind spots keeping asset records accurate without manual updates.

2. Automated License Compliance

It tracks deployments, versions, and usage to surface over-deployment early, prevent compliance gaps, and simplify internal or vendor audits.

3. Continuous Audit Readiness

Audit data installations, entitlements, and usage is consolidated in a single dashboard. This lets teams produce audit-ready reports in minutes rather than weeks of manual work.

4. Cost Optimization & License Reclamation

BigFix identifies unused or rarely used software so licenses can be reclaimed, reducing unnecessary purchases and enabling smarter vendor negotiations.

5. Seamless Integration with IT Operations & CMDB

Integrates with ServiceNow CMDB and other BigFix lifecycle tools to enrich endpoint data, automate updates, and align ITAM processes with security and governance requirements.

Take the Next Step Toward Confident, Compliant IT Operations

BigFix Inventory gives enterprises the clarity, control, and compliance strength needed to manage complex environments with confidence. From improving license accuracy to enhancing security and streamlining audits, it remains a critical enabler of modern IT governance.

Want to see how BigFix Inventory fits into your IT ecosystem? Book a personalized  BigFix Inventory demo to see how it strengthens IT asset management and audit readiness.

FAQs

Q1: What are the 5 P's of asset management?

The 5 P's are: People, Processes, Platforms, Policies, and Performance. Together, they ensure that organizations have the right skills, standardized workflows, reliable tools, governed practices, and measurable outcomes to manage assets efficiently.

Q2: What is the ISO standard for software asset management?

The  global standard for software asset management  is ISO/IEC 19770. It provides a structured framework that helps organizations improve software visibility, maintain license compliance, and reduce operational and financial risk.

Q3: What is the asset management audit process?

An asset management audit typically involves discovery, inventory validation, compliance checks, license reconciliation, and detailed reporting. Tools like BigFix Inventory automate much of this workflow, making audits faster, more accurate, and easier to manage.

Q4: What is IT asset management?

IT Asset Management (ITAM) is the discipline of tracking, managing, and optimizing hardware and software assets across their entire lifecycle. It helps organizations control costs, eliminate compliance risks, improve security posture, and ensure assets are used to their fullest potential.

Q5: What does ITAM include?

ITAM includes software license management, hardware tracking, endpoint management, procurement integration, and reporting.

Q6: How often should IT asset audits be performed?

Regular audits are recommended at least annually or before major mergers/acquisitions. Continuous monitoring with BigFix Inventory enhances audit readiness.

For more information, visit HCL BigFix or contact your BigFix Specialist.