ITAM inventory is a major capital investment which is why it is important to optimize its use and gain maximum ROI. IT inventory management is a core function of ITAM software, allowing you to catalog and track the complete lifecycle of your IT equipment — from procurement to retirement.
The result: Complete insight into your ITAM inventory landscape for better, more balanced IT budgets.
Without a dedicated tool and standard procedures, you can run into multiple ITAM inventory management problems including:
- Unused/underutilized inventory items
- Discrepancies in inventory reconciliation
- Failed vendor audits
- Increased identical line items
- Lack of visibility during movement or transfer of inventory items in between locations
- Procurement of non-standard inventory due to the lack of standardized ITAM practices
Learn how AssetSonar’s ITAM inventory management software can help you eliminate these problems and streamline processes.
1. Build an accurate ITAM inventory database
With dedicated software in place, you don’t have to go through a long, manual process of uploading and updating inventory items. With AssetSonar, you can use the Network Agent or other integrated systems such as Jamf Pro, SCCM, Intune, or Google Endpoint Management to help build you an up-to-date ITAM inventory database. By collecting data from Microsoft, iOS, or Chrome devices, the software simplifies your asset discovery process.
If your organization has a bring your own device (BYOD) policy, you can ask your employees to get their devices registered. This way, AssetSonar can track the entire inventory network. Furthermore, while uploading inventory information from spreadsheets, AssetSonar allows you to store relevant information like the state of the inventory, purchase date, cost, and vendor details, etc.
2. Vendor optimization
You can have all vendor information in your database tagged along with the ITAM inventory you have purchased. By tracking all your inventory items and their models and usage, you can have a clear picture of how many vendors you use for each item category and you can leverage the item’s usage information to strategically choose and change vendors when necessary.
To further enhance your procurement processes, use built-in purchase order templates that you can send out with a few clicks. Here, you can also attach custody verification requests to ensure that you get the inventory safely.
3. Inventory classification
AssetSonar allows you to sort your ITAM inventory into groups and subgroups to conveniently categorize and organize according to your business needs. For example, you can create a group for all the Macbooks in your company. It’s easy to take collective action on all the items in a group such as setting a depreciation rate or running reports on them.
For more logical pairing options, you have the flexibility to bundle up your inventory as needed. For example, if you frequently hire new people in your IT organization, you can bundle a laptop, mouse, headset, and a storage device so it can easily be checked out and tracked.
This classification of inventory through groups or bundles makes check-in, checkout, and trackability easier and streamlined for your teams.
4. Audit preparation
One way to secure your ITAM inventory is to conduct regular internal audits. Internal audits highlight any vulnerabilities or weaknesses in your system and serve as a warning. You get a timely chance to rectify processes and strengthen your policies before a vendor audit.
Being compliant with vendor contracts can protect you from hefty penalties. With all your inventory information being updated in real-time and having conducted internal audits, you will always be ready for a hassle-free vendor audit.
5. Reporting for strategic planning
To review the usage of ITAM inventory and identify any trends to make strategic decisions, you can generate different types of reports — standard or custom.
From entire inventory summaries to inventory value, surplus stock, inventory usage, and sales margin reports, you can get a deeper understanding of every aspect of your IT inventory. You can then leverage this data to optimize your inventory management processes instead of going with just guesswork.
6. ITAM inventory lifecycle management
Every organization has its own policies and processes when it comes to procurement, usage, and disposal of IT assets. AssetSonar gives you the flexibility to define your processes and track your ITAM items accordingly.
For example, if a certain part of a server needs to be replaced every six months, the system can notify you about the expiration of that item ahead of time so you can procure a new part and there is no unexpected downtime.
You can also track the depreciation process for your IT inventory to ensure that every item is being used to its full extent. When an item has completed its time, you can review its lifecycle and make the decision of reusing or retiring that piece of inventory.
7. Streamlined ITSM workflows
As mentioned earlier, a robust ITAM inventory management software integrates with multiple business applications that you may be using. If your organization is using a help desk service such as Zendesk or Jira, you can integrate it with your inventory management software and both tools will work better together.
Your employees can put in inventory item requests independently by simply creating a ticket and AssetSonar will show you in real-time if you have the requested item in stock. Your employees can also create tickets for servicing and maintenance to increase the lifespan of assets.
8. Customizable dashboards
In major organizations, employees have different roles when it comes to interacting with ITAM inventory. Staff users, for example, usually need to be assigned the high-value inventory items, while they may be able to check out the basic items by themselves. Administrators plan and allocate items and manage the entire IT inventory management system while executives use custom reports to make strategic decisions and drill down to cost savings.
AssetSonar offers such flexibility with user-friendly dashboards and customizable features that enable your employees to maximize the feature usage and benefits of the software, accelerate user adoption, and hence increase overall productivity.
Accurately tracking every piece of inventory gives you information about the average lifecycle of different inventory items, ghost/stolen items, the total value of your inventory, inventory overspend, and underutilized assets and eventually helps you rectify these shortcomings to achieve your ITAM KPIs and eventually save overhead costs.
Read more: Hardware Inventory Management: Why You Shouldn’t Ignore It Anymore
About AssetSonar
AssetSonar is the leading software asset management tool used by IT-intensive organizations and businesses all over the globe.
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For more assistance, drop us an email at support@ezo.io. You can also visit our blog for detailed support posts.
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