How to Know When You’ve Outgrown Your Asset Management Solution

Higher education institutions have countless assets they manage every day, from laptops and lab equipment to fleets and facilities. If your department is using a homegrown solution or spreadsheets to manage these assets, you’re likely spending a lot of time and manual effort keeping everything up to date.

While your school asset management system may seem to get the job done, it’s worth asking yourself: Are you spending a fair amount of time tracking down assets or information because something fell through the cracks? What would you be able to accomplish if you could get even a portion of that time back? These are just a couple of questions to help you ultimately answer, “Is my asset management solution still meeting my needs?” If the answer is anything but a resounding yes, it’s likely time to search for a better option.

Let’s take a look at 3 common signs that you’ve outgrown your current solution, as well as what to look for in a new asset management platform.

3 Signs that You’ve Already Outgrown Your Current Asset Tracking System

You’re utilizing additional tools or spreadsheets outside of your system to keep track of assets

When your homegrown solution or spreadsheet is no longer cutting it, you may add another tool or spreadsheet into the mix as a quick fix. However, this is really a band-aid solution, as you’re further siloing your asset data and leaving more room for human error – more on this in the next section. 

You’re duplicating work because information is siloed across your teams and applications

With various manual spreadsheets or tools in place, your team has a lot to keep track of. If someone misses a step in an updated process or inputs asset information in the wrong place, this can lead to lost data or, what’s worse, lost assets. This not only hinders communication across your team but also slows everyone down, as they’re having to spend even more time on asset management tasks (and tracking items down if they’re misplaced).

You're spending money to upgrade your legacy system but it’s still not fully meeting your needs

If you’re using a homegrown asset management system, you’ll likely need to upgrade your processes at some point to keep up with ever-evolving technology. However, if you’re suddenly paying more for your asset management solution and not receiving any kind of improvement in features or functionality to streamline your workflows, you’re practically throwing that extra money away.

How to Choose an Effective Higher Ed Asset Management Software Solution

Whether you’re facing one or all of the above challenges, it’s time to make the switch to a more comprehensive school asset management solution. While choosing and adopting new software can seem like quite a feat, it is possible to find a platform that is easy to implement and use – it's simply a matter of knowing what to look for. Here are 4 features to look for when choosing an effective higher ed asset management platform:

• Customizability: Depending on your department, you could be managing IT assets, facilities, or everything in between. This is why it’s essential to find asset management software that is easily customizable to fit your unique assets and use cases. When you can build your existing naming conventions and workflows directly into the platform, your team can quickly adopt the new solution.
• Integrations: While it's important for a platform to match your specific assets, it’s equally important that it fits into your tech stack. This means selecting a solution that offers integrations with the applications you use every day, so you can easily sync information across your entire tech stack for data consistency and accuracy.
• Ability to scale: Another essential feature to look for in asset management software is scalability. Whether your department wants to track additional assets in the platform over time, or other schools would like to adopt the same solution to manage their assets, you need a flexible and scalable platform to do so. When asking a potential asset management provider about this capability, be sure to ask about asset count, number of users, and multi-tenancy options.
• Onboarding and support: When you purchase any software, it is paramount to have comprehensive onboarding. The better your team understands how to use a platform from the get-go, the faster you can streamline your asset management workflows and boost efficiency. Of course, ensure the solution you choose also provides ongoing support after initial training.

Conclusion

Deciding to replace your homegrown asset management solution isn't a split-second decision. But if you’re progressively seeing decreases in efficiency and productivity when it comes to asset management, it could be time to consider the benefits of a more comprehensive platform. Asset Panda's asset management software for schools can help.

Asset Panda is a fully customizable asset management platform for higher education institutions like yours. Our easy-to-use solution can help you manage various assets all in one centralized place to break down data silos. Plus, we integrate with 18+ top software applications so you can sync data across your tech stack in real-time.

Asset Panda has become a top choice in asset management software for many universities and other educational facilities – just see how we’ve helped the University of Connecticut seamlessly track assets across seven locations.

If you’re ready to see how Asset Panda can streamline your asset management workflows, request your demo today.