As corporate purse strings get increasingly tightened in this period of downturn, the need for organisations to perform IT asset tracking is becoming more of a priority.It is the IT manager whose role is to manage this process of auditing and tracking IT assets.I spoke to a number of IT department managers in various businesses and organizations to find out how they deal with IT asset tracking.
Spreadsheets
Many IT managers are still using the somewhat unwieldy method of keeping their [asset register. The procedure goes along the following lines. At first the spreadsheet is created from an initial asset audit, recording all the hardware and software being used.The most commonly recorded information includes location, name of staff member using the item, purchase date, model and serial numbers and warranty details. New purchases of hardware and software are then added to the spreadsheet as and when they occur. The problem with this system is it isn’t scalable. As the company grows, the spreadsheet takes on monstrous proportions.Organizations using the spreadsheet technique also tend not to be able to react effectively to changes in the state of IT assets, such as repairs, depreciation, licenses and getting rid of equipment.The entire sytem stands or falls on usually one person being fastidious with its upkeep.
Barcode Labels & RFID
Asset barcodes have been around for a while and are step up from manual data entry – each asset is given a specific barcode which stores all the relevant information from the asset register. These barcodes can be scanned using barcode scanners during regular asset audits and for helpdesk support purposes. RFID, or Radio Frequency Identification, goes one step beyond traditional barcoding because they allow you to perform a hardware audit without physically scanning each asset. More importantly, RFID asset tracking allows greater flexibility for increasingly mobile equipment such as laptops and PDAs.
Fixed Asset Management Software
A number of software solutions exist to automate and streamline the whole process of asset management. I have come across some companies who have created their own custom asset database using SQL and linking this to the intranet to allow multi-user administration. At the most sophisticated end of the scale is specialised “asset management software” (Google it and you’ll see the wide range of options!) covering the tracking, accounting and reporting of ALL fixed assets, not just IT assets, including property, machinery and vehicles. There are also specially designed solutions to meet the growing plethora of asset accounting and tax regulations that companies need to meet – such as Sarbanes Oxley compliance. The beauty of this integrated approach is it combines the needs of several departments including IT, accounting and management, to allow for a larger budget and amore robust solution.
If you have any other solutions your company uses for asset tracking, I’d be interested to read your comments.