Best Practices for Asset Management, Part One

I’ve written before about how installing a sound IT asset management system requires first dealing with the staff’s grief over the need to change, and I’ve also discussed the issue of how proper planning will save lots of headaches later. But what I haven’t talked about before is the fact that you can’t rush things.

If you’re serious about establishing a good ITAM system, get used to the fact that it won’t happen overnight. It takes time to implement a full-blown program. You cannot and should not go into the effort thinking that you can just walk in with a piece of software, load it onto a server, and expect it to “work.” That’s because IT asset management is mostly a manual process. Therein lies the central difficulty in getting it implemented well.

Doing it right requires adopting an organization-wide vision that achieves buy-in from every part of the whole. You must be sure that you know what all the stakeholders that support the various touch points of the asset management effort are doing and thinking, which takes time.

It’s sometimes—well, okay, often--difficult to get senior leaders in the organization to really understand the fact that the implementation of an asset management program, while beneficial, doesn’t achieve its efficiencies from reducing employee headcount. Instead, its main benefits arise from the operational knowledge that is acquired and the subsequent controls that can be implemented to support the organization’s overall policies and strategies. The need to establish controls for adherence to federal regulations makes the knowledge obtained through asset management programs a valuable resource to the company. On the other hand, acquiring, managing and analyzing this knowledge will require a whole new level of internal resources. 

Get used to it: these kinds of projects--establishing the processes and controls to support the management of an organization’s ITAM system—are not sexy. But I would argue that they are essential to a company’s long-term stability and success. Done properly, they also represent a real competitive advantage in the marketplace.

But there are other benefits to doing this correctly. Along the way, you’ll come to better understand the business problems you are trying to solve. Once implemented, this solution will provide you with the operational stability you’ll need to begin to further expand the solution to other areas in the organization in need of the appropriate level of controls, while at the same time you continue to develop enhancements to the original environment that were identified in initially supporting the processes and tools.

The only way to really make it happen is to “just do it.” No two organizations are the same, and no two organizations will implement their asset management programs exactly alike. However, in order to ensure that the implementation follows the most direct path and doesn’t drift off course, you’ll need to follow a common methodology.

The reason that there is not a single best practice in asset management is simple: because the system must be developed to support the business goals of a unique organization. Each asset management implementation plan must take into account the strategic direction of the organization and its top concerns. Thus, no two plans can ever be alike 

Next time, we’ll delve into some of the other issues that come up, from the process of selecting the proper tools to the right way to narrow the scope of the project.

Comments

[Martin Thompson]

Hi Barbara,
I agree, many companies think a piece of ITAM Software will be a silver bullet to answer all their problems.
Long term savings come from a ITAM plan - the old cliche People, Processes and Technology.