7 IT Asset Management Best Practices You Can’t Ignore

IT assets like hardware, software, and digital tools are a core part of operations for many of today’s businesses. 

For that reason, it’s vital that IT assets are properly managed throughout their lifecycle, as this helps maximize operational efficiency, lowers costs, and achieves better ROI. 

What is IT Asset Management?

IT Asset Management, also known as ITAM, is the strategic process of managing IT assets to ensure the following:

• They’re accounted for with inventory management
• They’re properly managed, tracked, and maintained
• There’s optimal asset utilization in day-to-day operations
• Outdated assets are either updated or disposed of correctly

If you’re an asset manager at an IT-heavy company, asset lifecycle management is something you should devote your full attention to. For full details, read on. 

IT Asset Management Best Practices

1. Create an ITAM Strategy

Starting from the top, the first ITAM best practice is to identify specific objectives to shape your strategy and approach. In other words, what are you looking to accomplish with your asset management strategy?

For nearly every business, this starts with increasing the visibility of physical assets, software assets, and cloud assets, as well as increasing asset performance and productivity. 

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. 

Some other examples can include lowering costs by optimizing asset usage, maximizing security, and ensuring software licensing compliance. 

The second part of an ITAM strategy involves creating a list of the exact types of assets you want in your asset inventory. 

This can include hardware assets like servers, network equipment, desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. It can include software assets like mobile apps and operating systems. And it can include cloud assets like SaaS and IaaS products, such as virtual data storage.  

Anything you plan on using in your IT infrastructure should be added to this list. 

Third, create a centralized database that allows you to name, store, and manage every single asset your organization uses from one convenient location. 

Finally, determine how you’ll incorporate ongoing improvements to identify inefficiencies in your ITAM process to continually refine and improve it. 

For instance, you may use analytics to pinpoint macro and micro trends, or you may review your asset management strategy quarterly to see what needs to be adjusted.  

Whatever the case, treat the process as an organic process that’s always being refined and improved. 

2. Adopt a Lifecycle Approach

A big part of IT management best practices is developing policies and procedures that enable you to manage the entire asset lifecycle from start to finish. 

With the average lifespan of a laptop being three to five years and a desktop being three to eight years, another of the critical ITAM best practices is having a system that clearly outlines how you’ll acquire assets, deploy, and maintain them. 

You’ll also need to know how you’ll dispose of them once they’ve reached the end of their asset lifecycle. 

Adopting a lifecycle approach is key to getting maximum asset usage and improving cost efficiency — ideally, finding the sweet spot where you get the most out of each IT asset without using it so long that you encounter diminished performance. 

Again, the key components of asset lifecycle management include asset acquisition (IT procurement services are a popular option), deployment, maintenance, and disposal. 

However, you should also take into consideration how you’ll determine when an asset should be upgraded rather than outright replaced and also focus heavily on security protocol to minimize the potential for security risks. 

When it’s all said and done, you should have a holistic overview of the entire lifecycle management process end-to-end. 

3. Ensure Governance and Accountability

Another critical part of IT asset management best practices is making sure that everything in your asset inventory is compliant with both organizational goals and relevant regulations. 

That way, IT assets should be used appropriately, and you can hopefully avoid sticky situations down the line. 

This starts with creating standardized governance policies on the things we mentioned earlier, like acquisition, deployment, maintenance, and disposal, such as laptop retrieval service. 

That way, you should have a baseline level of consistency as your company grows and new team members are brought on board or replaced. 

Accountability is also vitally important in the ITAM process. Clearly defining roles, who is responsible for what, and who answers to who should help establish a chain of command — a hierarchical structure that eliminates any guesswork when it comes to responsibility. 

For example, at the top of the hierarchy, you may appoint an ITAM manager who oversees your collective ITAM process. 

It may be up to them to: 

• Manage your asset estate, including hardware asset management, as well as software and digital tools
• Handle configuration management and service management
• Perform asset discovery and asset tracking
• Perform asset audits
• Monitor compliance
• Oversee the asset lifecycle
• Make adjustments to your ITAM strategy

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Beneath them, you may have someone who’s responsible for IT asset procurement, where they handle asset acquisition and vendor management. You may also have someone who handles finance, where they monitor asset costs and depreciation. And so on. 

4. Engage in Proactive Verification and Auditing

Effective ITAM relies upon taking a proactive, preventative approach. 

Rather than waiting for something to go wrong and sorting through the aftermath, ITAM best practices mandate that it’s better to stay on the offense with continual verification and auditing. 

Verifying your assets ensures you have them, what their location is, and what condition they’re in (for physical assets). This is important for all assets, but it’s especially critical for expensive ones where you’ve made large investments. 

As for auditing, there are three main types of audits you’ll need to perform. 

One is physical audits, where you ensure that the physical assets you have match your inventory database. 

The second is software audits, where you use software asset management to make sure that you’re currently utilizing the products you’re paying for and that you’re in compliance with software licensing standards. 

You should also check to see if you’re using any unauthorized apps. 

Third is security audits, where you ensure all your assets are following safety protocols to minimize vulnerabilities. This can include device, network, application, and data security. 

You can find more information on security audits, as well as a comprehensive checklist here. 

5. Maintain an Accurate IT Asset Inventory

We just explained the importance of verifying assets and tracking them in your inventory database. 

But how do you A) do this efficiently and B) ensure accuracy with employees coming and going, new assets being deployed, and old ones being disposed of?

One of the best options is to streamline the process with an asset management tool, which lets you automate asset inventory. 

With allwhere IT asset management services, for instance, you can see all your devices, including which employees have what and at which location. You can also see which devices are in transit or storage.

You should use asset discovery to classify and catalog everything within your asset inventory. 

And whenever new devices are sent out or old ones are disposed of, everything is automatically synced with your existing IT inventory, giving you an up-to-date, bird’s-eye view of your IT assets at all times. 

6. Software Licensing Management

This serves three main purposes, which include ensuring compliance that meets software terms and conditions, eliminating unnecessary costs, and optimizing the usage of your software assets. 

As for the steps involved with software licensing management, it begins with establishing a software database where you can track things like:

• When software was purchased
• License type
• License agreement
• When a license expires

The next part is reviewing each license agreement to ensure you fully understand the terms and conditions, as well as usage restrictions. 

You’ll also want to create policies to educate your team members on licensing and take measures to ensure licensing agreements are enforced.  

The last part of this asset management process is creating a streamlined system to manage software licensing renewals to prevent disruptions.

7. Policy Development and Documentation

The last of the ITAM best practices is policy development and documentation. These take all of the aforementioned elements and bring them together to make your IT asset management operate like a well-oiled machine throughout the entirety of the asset lifecycle.  

Some core elements to cover in policy development include:

• Asset procurement
• Asset deployment
• Asset discovery
• Asset tagging
• Asset management
• Change management
• Software licensing
• Security protocol
• Asset disposal
• Employee responsibilities

In terms of documentation, you’ll want to use simple, straightforward language that everyone can understand and store the information in a single resource that can be easily accessed by team members. 

Policies should also be periodically reviewed as changes occur, and you should generate consistent feedback so everything is up-to-date and fully optimized.

Common Challenges in ITAM Implementation

Data Accuracy and Completeness

Because a company’s IT asset landscape is constantly shifting with new assets being deployed and disposed of, maintaining complete, accurate asset data is one of the biggest challenges. 

Practical solutions for this are to:

• Have a single source of truth via a centralized data repository
• Avoid manual data input and instead opt for automated syncing with asset management tools
• Offer comprehensive employee training on the importance of data accuracy and how to spot issues 
• Perform regular audits to quickly identify errors with asset information

Integration with Existing Systems

It doesn’t matter how advanced IT asset management software is and its capabilities if it doesn’t integrate with your existing systems. When this happens, it can create data compatibility issues, which can make it difficult to exchange information between systems and disrupt workflows. 

The best solution for this issue is to strategically seek out an IT asset management software that’s integration-centric and syncs with a variety of platforms — specifically the ones you use. 

To be sure there’s smooth implementation, run a test integration on a small subset of your current systems before going all in. 

Compliance and Licensing

Software compliance and licensing can have a lot of complexities and nuances. And with IT infrastructures constantly evolving, unforeseen changes can easily create disruptions. 

As a result, many companies struggle with this aspect of ITAM implementation. 

But these issues can be greatly minimized by:

• Establishing clear compliance and licensing policies
• Properly training employees in this area
• Performing routine audits

Most importantly, use an ITAM tool that features automated licensing management, as this can save you time and ensure a high level of compliance. This doesn’t eliminate the need for audits, but it can be a huge help in achieving effective IT asset management. 

Security

With nearly 4,000 cyber attacks happening every day, cyber security should be a top priority for any company with an abundance of IT assets. If devices and tools aren’t properly managed, it can create major vulnerabilities that can be exploited. 

Fortunately, most ITAM software platforms offer comprehensive security, including widespread asset visibility, access control, and multifactor authentication. 

But to keep your asset management software even more secure, give employees the bare minimum access where they can only use the features they truly need. 

Perform routine vulnerability assessments to maintain an objective overview of any weaknesses in your IT infrastructure so you can correct it.  

Also, track the entire asset lifecycle from procurement to disposal to ensure devices don’t wind up in the wrong hands.  

Streamline Asset Management and Control Your Costs with allwhere

Following asset management best practices is essential for any IT infrastructure. But as we’ve learned, it comes with considerable challenges that you must account for. 

From data accuracy and integration to licensing and security, nothing should be overlooked. 

One of the best ways to streamline IT asset management while simultaneously controlling your costs is with a service management solution like allwhere. 

allwhere takes the hassle out of IT asset logistics, handling procurement, shipping, deployment, management, retrieval, and more from one simple dashboard. 

We only source from reputable vendors and do all the heavy lifting so you can focus on what’s most important — running your business. 

Learn more about allwhere and get started here. 

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