IT Asset Management Software System Features
From day to day, the number of various devices used by companies is continually growing. Desktops, laptops, printers, handheld devices, and networked devices such as mobile, telecom, servers, and other appliances used by employees in different departments demand the expansion of the IT department's responsibilities. Using devices by multiple people makes tracking the custody of the assets more and more difficult and therefore requires a new approach to asset management using the newest technologies. Nowadays, all companies from small businesses to large corporations use the IT asset management system to manage and control their assets. The key to a successful IT asset management software system is the hard work performed by choosing the right SAM tool. This process requires good preparation and well knowledge of the company, its personal, business activities, and plans.
Hardware and software of the IT asset management system enable:
~Eliminating the manual paperwork
~Simplifying the asset management process
Today, there are many offers on the market from different software and hardware providers that offer their IT solutions. To make a decision about which asset management system is the best for you, you need to research and find the solution that
will be the best to meet your business needs. Depending on the cost, offered IT asset management systems can provide more or fewer features some of which are necessary and others are only helpful. Which features are indispensable for your company
depends on your company’s size and business industry.
Features included in the IT asset management system should
- Provide real-time information about the asset: serial number, model, manufacturer, location, and so on.
- Afford asset’s contractual details, lease, and software agreements.
- Enable tracking of the depreciation on fixed assets.
- Procure an alert on a maintenance schedule.
- Alert that the asset has not been touched for some period.
- Produce recording of the asset costs and physical information.
- Provide automatic updates and records about custody of the asset.
- Give asset custody throughout its life.
- Provide asset disposal options: reuse, redeployment, resell, recycle.
- Cover software management, tracking software licenses, usage, and compliance.
- Provide reconciling with the asset inventory database.
- Ensure a connection with mobile devices.
- Enable a connection with barcode readers.
- Provide customized reports, including disposal asset reports.
- Enable integration with other software solutions used by the company, including accounting systems and inventory control.
The process of choosing the IT asset management software system includes:
- Estimating the company's current IT environment.
- Establishing the budget that can be spent on buying the SAM system.
- Denoting goals of using the software asset management system.
- Determining the corresponding human resources.
- Designing business processes supporting the company’s business objectives.
- Determining the company’s requirements for the SAM system.
After choosing the IT asset management software system that best meets the company’s needs, the next step is coming; namely, it is a time of implementing the new SAM computerized program.
Main steps of implementing the IT asset management software system
- Performing the inventory of all personal computers hardware and software used by the company by taking into consideration the licensing agreements and installing unauthorized applications.
- Reviewing the usage of software with the purpose to see whether the company has bought too many or few licenses, deallocating unused licenses, and better planning future software consumption.
- Establishing ongoing software asset management processes.
Benefits of implementing effective IT asset management systems
- Reducing the total cost of the software assets via eliminating the manual audits that required much time and defining the overspending on the software licenses.
- Controlling the current software needs and forecasting the future software needs by collecting the company's data and planning technological upgrades.
- Minimizing risks concerned with security through enforcing hardware standards and preventing unauthorized software use.
- Restricting risks concerned with compliance through preventing using personal computers with unlicensed software applications and reporting to sellers in the case of detecting such situations.
Today, software solutions are indispensable tools in performing business activities. Moreover, since computers entered our life, it is difficult and, even impossible, for companies to be competitive without using modern hardware and software. Any organization that uses the software in its business processes needs to provide software asset management (SAM) or, in other words, to control, support, protect and utilize computer programs.
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