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5 Things Every IT Asset Manager Must Must Do

5 Things Every IT Asset Manager Must Must Do

What are the common issues faced by IT asset managers?

In the present day, the IT department no longer just functions as a support system, it is classified as a key business driver.

And as companies undergo major IT transformations, they are faced with exciting new possibilities as well as growth-oriented challenges.

For IT managers, these roadblocks mean redefining traditional roles and responsibilities to run streamlined business tasks.

So, what are the greatest hurdles facing IT managers and technicians? Here’s a list that we have compiled:

  1. Lack of computing platforms: The evolving nature of IT assets demands a powerful support system. A lack of understanding about how assets work leaves companies with an inaccurate means of data collection. To tackle such issues, a cloud-based central platform enables you to monitor and evaluate IT assets in real-time.
  2. Data acquisition issues: For most IT managers, a common problem is keeping the asset database up to date. This happens due to the absence of a tracking system. If you do not constantly monitor asset performance, there is a high chance of mismanagement through the loss of items.
  3. Poor business analytics: Inaccurate data leads to substandard business reports. This ultimately has a negative impact on the organization’s growth prospects. One way to tackle this issue would be to prepare detailed insights and develop an analytical framework to assess the IT workflow.
  4. The threat of malware: Data and security breaches continue to be one of the top IT asset management issues. To counter such unauthorized access, it is important for organizations to invest in comprehensive maintenance programs. This can be done through real-time monitoring of all critical devices registered on the official network.

5 best practices for an IT asset manager

5 best practices for an IT asset manager

The principle concept for IT asset management is real-time visibility. As the organization grows, IT technicians have to deal with more complicated devices.

Even small to medium-sized firms can struggle with asset overload especially when they have to deal with cloud applications.

In order to deal with such situations, an effective solution is to clearly define the role of IT asset managers.

To start off, it is important to realize that IT software isn’t going to work wonders on its own. The key lies in laying down some fundamental rules and guidelines to follow.

For this purpose, IT managers need to adopt a proactive role and govern how each device and network is utilized.

To help you do so, we have prepared a list of things every IT manager should do:

1. Implement and communicate policy

In order to run successful IT strategies, it is critical to ensure that the team knows which items classify as IT assets.

In addition to this, any related policies should be highlighted to be taken into consideration when laying down the work schedule. To warm things up, first, think of the ultimate goal you want to accomplish.

Generally, the end objective is to benefit the whole company and not just the IT department.

While IT has much to do with efficient management, but finance has to write off cheques for procurement, so it is a good practice to implement a central collaboration forum.

Keeping this in mind, IT managers should communicate common policies to all departments to initiate constructive feedback.

2. Coordinate, govern, and report

Coordinate, govern, and report

The second phase involves supervising whether all stated policies are being implemented in the right manner.

Mainly this includes a set of standard practices and guidelines for everyone to follow when it comes to purchasing or downloading any software. Constant governance only gets half the job done.

Next comes real-time reporting on what assets are part of the organization. Here, it is critical to know which assets are currently deployed, whoever is using them, and where.

While tracking software only monitors user logins, IT managers should focus on the role of different apps in the company. Reports with in-depth insights help you justify renewals through instant visibility.

3. Identify risk-prone situations

The majority of organizations still struggle with assessing the risks involved in IT asset management. Not surprisingly, the reason behind this is poor visibility into the database.

So, after laying down a solid system for real-time tracking, the next stage is to identify any risks associated with your IT landscape.

To do so, just consider a few factors:

  • How likely are the assets vulnerable to malware/viruses/external breaches?
  • What is your first priority when it comes to tackling risks?
  • How severely can these risks affect your business?

By creating a list of possible disaster case scenarios, you can come up with potential solutions to minimize damage.

4. Designate user roles for asset management

Designate user roles for asset management

According to popular opinion, IT asset managers are just required to monitor tools and devices.

However, that is not completely true. In order to revitalize business workflows, it is crucial to assign roles and responsibilities to every team member.

This is because it gets quite tough for one IT manager to handle multiple different types of assets. This is why it is a good idea to delegate.

It often happens that some IT assets are used by one particular department while other applications are used cross-departmentally.

In such cases, it is much simpler to allocate certain assets to employees who can monitor them closely. However, in order to control workflows, make sure all designated workers report to the IT manager.

5. Stay compliant

With every asset policy in place, the higher management needs proof of successful implementation and resource optimization. Here IT managers can make use of the performance reports generated through real-time tracking.

This data enables you to verify ownership and justify each and every asset deployed in the company.

Doing so will generate lesser pushback and faster adoption when everyone can clearly see how tracking is working out for the company. One thing to keep in mind here is the use of a standardized reporting tool.

This way all logged-in information remains uniform in capturing all critical metrics.

Conclusion

IT asset management can turn into this huge insurmountable task if left unsupervised. For this reason, IT managers should set down a few fundamental practices to be followed.

In order to be successful, these policies require constant governance and reporting. To do so, it is a smart idea to delegate user roles to carry out tasks more efficiently.

This way IT managers can monitor all assets by specializing control in all departments. In the end, teamwork plays an important role in pushing the business towards its ultimate goals and objectives.

While everyone is using the same tools, workers still need guidance on what’s working and what’s not.

This is the duty of an IT manager to provide insights on which metrics can produce positive growth and which policies need to be altered.

While IT management isn’t a simple job, you can make it into one by sticking to the five practices discussed above!

AssetSonar is the leading IT asset tracking software with agent-based discovery, software license management, and integrations for better Asset tracking. It enables IT Asset Managers to track their company’s devices by putting in place a complete solution.

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