Good IT Asset Management Can Save You Money

Not keeping proper track of distributed computing hardware assets can increase costs by 7 percent to 10 percent a year. Enterprises should evaluate the quality of their asset management practices.

On 4 June 2002, at a Gartner conference on IT asset management and total cost of ownership, Gartner analysts described how less than a quarter of all enterprises worldwide had a life-cycle IT asset management program that could determine potential risk.

Many enterprises do not fully understand the importance of IT assets to their business needs. Gartner Measurement has found that Gartner clients do not track 40 percent of their distributed computing hardware assets by IT management tools. Either the clients have elaborate manual tracking procedures, or more likely, they don't understand their asset base.

With poor tracking, enterprises get inadequate information for any planned upgrade of hardware or operating systems. Application development groups can also make wrong assumptions about what equipment users actually have and what they should code for. Moreover, enterprises can incur unexpected costs when they plan hardware and software deployments improperly. Having an IT asset management system alerts the IT organization to the enterprise's infrastructure needs and when to deploy IT solutions.

About 90 percent of the sites audited by Gartner Measurement use marginal practices for hardware asset management. This situation increases the risk of poor system manageability, complex change management and below-average service levels. These risks can increase the total cost of ownership for distributed computing by 7 percent to 10 percent a year, or about $560 to $800 per user. Moreover, enterprises that do a poor job of managing hardware assets will likely do poorly in software asset management, which has even higher costs and risks.

IT asset management is a "meta-process" in that it defines best practices that come from other key IT processes — such as change and configuration management, help desk and procurement. IT asset management is a bellwether for the overall state of the digital infrastructure. Therefore, Gartner strongly recommends that enterprises:

• Assess the quality and depth of their asset management programs and processes
• Carry out a full hardware audit if inconsistencies appear
• Implement robust, scalable IT asset management tools
• Ensure closer and better planning between IT and business managers

Analytical Sources: Bill Kirwin and Jack Heine, Gartner Research

Recommended Reading and Related Research

• "IT Asset Management Is a Key Part of Mitigating Risk" (TG-16-2869). IT asset management, used strategically, can help mitigate risks and minimize costs. By Frances O'Brien
• "Betting Your BP: Practical End-User Strategies" (ITSV-WW-PR-0049). Managing user computing is an ongoing struggle for many enterprises. By Bill Kirwin

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