Flexera, a leader in technology spend and risk management, recently released its new survey, the Flexera 2025 State of ITAM Report, which found a decline in complete visibility across the tech stack.
IT pros finding pressure to optimize while losing visibility across the stack
Despite rising pressure for teams to optimize costs, Flexera’s report highlights that visibility across the stack has decreased from 43 percent to 47 percent year-over-year.
Even as this trend persists, Flexera reports that the collaboration between IT asset management (ITAM) and cloud (44 percent) and FinOps (38 percent) teams is on the rise to address visibility challenges, increase financial accountability, and drive operational efficiency.
“Complete visibility across IT assets is foundational to every good technology decision,” said Sacha Dawes, VP of product management at Flexera. “The fact that it’s slipping at a time when organizations are under intense pressure to rationalize costs is a real concern. You can’t optimize what you can’t see, and without clear insight into the entire technology stack, it’s nearly impossible to eliminate waste, ensure compliance, or make cost-effective investment decisions. This year’s report showcases why the collaboration between ITAM and FinOps is no longer optional– it’s a strategic imperative.”
Annual report shows where partners can focus attention to best support internal teams
Flexera’s State of ITAM Report is an annual report that surveys global IT professionals on ITAM, FinOps, security, software asset management (SAM), and hardware asset management (HAM), plus the value that these technologies provide. It also looks at IT investment trends across public, hybrid, and SaaS technologies.
Among other highlights from the report are:
- Minimizing SaaS sprawl is increasing in significance. According to the report, 35 percent of respondents stated that SaaS waste has increased over the past year, resulting in organizations incurring costs from underutilized SaaS subscriptions. SAM professionals are doubling down on SaaS oversight, with 59 percent actively tracking usage and 56 percent rightsizing contracts and subscriptions to eliminate unnecessary spend.
- The importance of software use rights: The report highlights the challenge of managing software use rights, which is now ranked as the top concern for SAM teams, up from sixth most concerning a year ago. This increase in concern is mostly attributed to the growing complexity of cloud-based licensing models and the rapid migration of enterprise resources to cloud environments.
- Audits impacting organizations and their bottom line: Approximately 45 percent of respondents have spent over $1 million on software audits in the past three years, and 23 percent have spent more than $5 million on audits in 2025.
- Microsoft continues audit streak: Roughly half the respondents said Microsoft had audited their organization in the past three years. Microsoft remained at the top of the list for the past few reports, followed by IBM (37 percent).
“The role of ITAM is shifting from operational to transformational,” said Phil Perfetti, senior product marketing manager at Flexera. “While visibility into cloud licenses is gradually improving, the complexity of managing hybrid IT environments is also increasing, and any serious blind spots are a problem that modern organizations can no longer afford.”
Along with ensuring visibility across tech stacks, Flexera is also helping organizations track their emissions by integrating carbon metrics into cloud cost tools. Read more about the expansion of their cloud FinOps from Flexera’s Senior Manager of Product Management.