IT Assets Management Software: Is it Worth It?

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Should you invest in IT assets management software? Is it worth the expense and effort required to transition your employees to a formal tracking system? Yes by all means because no matter if you’re a small organization or a multinational corporation, your IT equipment is likely to be your biggest-ticket assets. It simply makes good business sense for you to implement a system in which you can account for your IT assets at any time, determine their respective conditions, maintenance schedules, values, and make informed decisions about when it’s time to replace them. IT asset management software saves companies and organizations of every size and industry measurable time and money. Therefore, the question should be asking yourself isn’t whether you should invest in IT assets management software, but rather why – given all of its inherent advantages and efficiencies – you wouldn’t.

Defining IT Assets

An IT asset is any company-owned system, hardware, software or information used as part of business operations. Each of those assets has an estimated lifecycle dependent on routine preventive maintenance and updates. Unfortunately, many organizations fail to keep up with the maintenance schedules of their IT assets, which results in slow-running, inefficient equipment that becomes increasingly vulnerable to security breaches. Slow equipment creates lower productivity, frustrated employees and potentially even dissatisfied clients.

Where Companies Go Wrong

It’s easier than you think to fall behind on maintenance. Even the most organized IT managers can lose track. Manual asset tracking – most often conducted in an Excel spreadsheet – paves the way for mistakes. An employee or group of employees is usually assigned the task of keeping up with IT asset data. Many IT assets, however, move throughout the organization and change hands. Without a formal tracking system, it’s incredibly easy for companies not to know where their IT assets are at any given time, what kind of condition they’re in, who has them or when they need to be serviced. Ghost assets, or assets that have been lost but not reported, are an unfortunate result of poor IT asset tracking. Companies spend thousands of dollars every year paying insurance for ghost assets that are no longer in their inventory.

Benefits of IT Assets Management Software

IT assets management software kicks all of that inefficiency to the curb. It allows companies to effectively outsource their IT asset tracking and management function to a system that centralizes asset data, tracks it in real time and allows IT managers to set up reminders and alerts so they never miss key service dates again. Best of all, with IT assets management software, organizations maximize the lifespan of their IT assets by keeping them in good working order. IT managers know exactly how many IT assets their companies own, where they’re located and when it’s time to purchase more assets.

Before you implement an IT assets management software, you’ll need to complete an asset inventory, so you know exactly how many IT assets you have, where they’re located, what the respective values of those assets are, when your company acquired them and the expected lifespan of each of those IT assets.

Your best bet is a solution that’s scalable and powerful, yet intuitive so your employees use it with confidence. You’ll also want a product that’s flexible enough to incorporate new technologies as they become available.

Asset Panda’s best-in-class solution delivers clients throughout the world the power of mobile technology and the cloud through a simple, easy-to-use interface. Our customizable features enable you to track your assets any way you want, protect your IT assets and your bottom line.

By:

Courtney Roush

Courtney Roush is a freelance writer, editor, and communications strategist with 25 years of experience. Her favorite discipline is crisis communications – and it’s a highly relevant one in our present times.

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