What is Asset Management?
Asset Management is the practice of tracking a companies’ assets, in this case technical or digital assets. This could include desktops, laptops, servers, firewalls, switches…even keyboards.
As companies grow, asset management becomes increasingly complex and diverse. Tracking equipment can be an after thought for small companies, however, as time goes on and inventories grow, it is common for equipment to go missing or misplaced. This can become costly and confusing for I.T. administrators trying to organize and upgrade equipment and software
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Asset management can also be paramount if an insurance claim is required. In the case of disaster recovery, insurance companies require records of equipment that is being claimed as lost or destroyed. Without this record, the insurance company can deny any replacement of undocumented equipment.
Warranty information falls under asset management as well. If you have a piece of equipment that fails, there could be a warranty on it. If warranty information isn’t kept in an organized fashion, it could be forgotten about or lost, again, costing a company money.
Even though many companies view replacing assets as a cost they don’t want to incur, it can actually allow employees to be much more productive. Aging systems often have more issues and slow down due to the amount of software that is installed. Replacing a device can improve employees’ productivity, and even alleviate frustration which will provide a quick return on investment, by allowing the employee to gain efficiency and not be distracted by the odd quirks their system may have developed over time.
In some cases, asset management may be used to help with regulatory requirements. Some equipment may contain sensitive information and knowing what equipment you have and who is using it can help classify the sensitivity of data on the device. These devices may have to be tracked, as well as include special disposal requirements. Tracking these devices can be accomplished through asset management.
When Kansas City Managed IT begins working with a new client, we perform a network assessment. This will provide us with a list of the company’s equipment and specifics of the equipment, such as age, operating system it is running and licensing on the machines. We can not only provide these lists, but also a network diagram of the setup of your network including all of your equipment. As the company grows, we can add to that documentation and set up a replacement schedule for the equipment to make sure the company remains up-to-date.