 Why IT Asset
Management?
Inventory
Managing
IT
Assets
Help-Desk
Administrative
and financial
management
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Why the need for IT Asset Management?
In addition to their daily responsibilities, IT
managers are now being asked to handle the:
- management
of technology assets/resources
- monitoring
of technology and company trends
- cost
control
In order to assume these
new tasks while providing their IT services, these managers need
software and methods to organize, manage and optimize the
day-to-day operations of their IT departments.
IT Asset Management is the
generic term used for this kind of management.
Unylogix has provided its knowledge in IT Asset Management to different companies and
can do the same for your organization, by giving you the software
resources and tools you need to anticipate your management
needs.
To have a general overview of the complete Actima Product Line, please click here. Continue reading for more details on how IT asset management can help your organization. Our solution can:
Provide dynamic
overview of IT assets
- to anticipate, organize
and optimize costs for software installation and migration
- to have all the
information needed to plan for resource upgrading: type of
equipment to replace, adapted configurations, choices of
suppliers, determination of workloads, etc.
Help
with technical and financial decision-making
- to anticipate, organize
and optimize costs for software installation and migration
- to have all the
information needed to plan for resource upgrading: type of
equipment to replace, adapted configurations, choices of
suppliers, determination of workloads, etc.
Aid
in reorganization
- anticipating and
planning moves, personnel transfers, company restructuring,
etc.
Security
improvements
- reducing loss and theft
with entirely traceable equipment
- reducing software
piracy by comparing the programs installed with the licenses owned
by the company.
Cost
control and optimization
- paying the right
amounts for business taxes and insurance premiums
- optimizing negotiations
with suppliers with cost-estimated, up-to-date information
- easily calculating the
TCO or average price per equipment type
- rebilling of
expenses for computer equipment purchases to cost centers within
the company
- on-screen display of
the residual value of each piece of equipment and scheduling of
alerts in the event of cost over-runs.
Improving
the quality of user services
- improving the
quality of user services through greater availability of
help-desk teams
- improving
workstation reliability through preventive actions
- establishing
service commitment contracts to guarantee user support from the
help-desk teams within a pre-determined time frame and within
defined conditions
- providing
reliable indicators of help-desk activity in the form of
management charts updated in real time.
Accurate knowledge of IT
assets
Establishing efficient IT management means first
having detailed knowledge and oversight of IT assets through
inventories completed on a regular basis.
Even before the issues of resource and help-desk
management come into play, the taking of inventory is the first step
in the technical and financial oversight of IT assets and in
ensuring users' satisfaction and productivity.
An accurate and factual analysis of the IT assets allows the
IT manager to precisely evaluate the stock for which he or she is
responsible and to manage it based on concrete data provided by the
inventory software:
- Identification of the
hardware characteristics of each workstation: processor,
motherboard, memory, disks, extension boards, operating system,
peripherals, etc.
- Detection
of installed software: "authorized" and "non-authorized"
versions, program name, publisher, version, serial number,
etc.
- User
information: name, location, administrative unit,
etc.
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is the automated inventory software.
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High-performance
management of IT resources
Once the inventory of the IT assets has been completed, the
data collected by the software is compared with the company's real
situation. In other words, IT asset management allows the IT manager
to accurately evaluate the hardware resources available to his/her
"client", the end user, and to provide efficient management on a
day-to-day basis.
The goal of this IT asset management is to give the IT
managers both a decision-making tool as well as a management
tool to enable them to:
- Manage
upgrades of computer systems by anticipating and planning changes
(movements, reorganization of services, software migrations,
hardware upgrades, etc.).
- Reinforce
security by identifying workstations which are at risk (virus,
intrusion, etc.) and combating software piracy
- Controlling
and optimizing costs by obtaining financial and budget information
concerning equipment (optimizing negotiations with suppliers,
leasing management, rebilling, etc.)
- Improving the
quality of user services through perfect integration with Help-desk
tools and systems
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the integrated module of the Actima software package, is
the IT asset management system. |
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Quality of user services
The
activity of providing assistance to computer users is generally
referred to as the Help-Desk, a term which is more specific than
"call center" or customer service. Some now like to use the
term "Service-desk", which reflects today working environment,
service oriented.
The
help-desk is the department that specializes in the internal
handling of user requests.
Improving
the Quality of user services means perfect integration of the
Service-Desk/ Help-Desk system with those for IT
asset management and for inventory.
Only
with this sort of integration and the information that it can
provide about users' environments, can IT managers efficiently
organize their support activity.
- Automation of
request processing
- Establishment
of service commitment contracts
- Creation of
knowledge databases for easier solving of recurring
problems
- Scheduling of
technical work ·
- Preventive maintenance and repairs
- Identification of configurations at risk (insufficient
capacity, configurations too old or workstations requiring
frequent maintenance, etc.)
- Etc.
The
work of the Help-desk can be monitored with the job board, which
analyzes its handling of service requests.
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an integrated module of the Actima software package, is
the Service-Desk/ Help-Desk system. |
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Overview of purchasing and IT budget
The
administrative and financial management of IT assets must be handled
in the same manner as technical hardware management or user
assistance (Help-desk).
Managing
the purchasing cycle, costs and budgets are
the key aspects of IT managers' new responsibilities. The
administrative and financial management system should allow them to
handle the following items:
- Purchasing
cycle: handling of purchase requests from users, financial and
technical validations, choice of suppliers, issuing and receiving
of orders, verification of deliveries, stock management, upgrading
of resources, etc.
- Depreciation:
straight-line or accelerated depreciation, visualizing of residual
value of hardware.
- Budget:
oversight and checking of appropriations by fiscal
year.
- Rebilling of
expenses: allocation of investment or operating expenses to cost
centers, etc.
- Management of
contracts and additional clauses, deadline monitoring,
etc.
- Checking of
supplier invoices, etc.
All
of the financial data for the IT assets can be assembled in the form
of management
charts.
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an integrated module of the Actima software
package, is the administrative and financial management
system.
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