Operational and Financial Control of IT Assets
Business Need/Pains
No formal controls to track or manage internal IT assets beyond the point of requisition. . The states, counts, and distribution of IT assets were all unknowns. As a result, managing the cost of IT assets and assuring compliance to contracts and regulatory standards was largely based on guesswork. The organization needed to establish standard Asset Management practices to control an aspect of the business typically absorbing significant cost.
Challenges
- Rare communication between the business units most concerned
- No entity charged with the responsibility of considering Asset Management needs from a holistic, corporate perspective
- No common tools or integration between technologies performing Asset Management related functions
- Constant flux in organizational structure including change CIO, process owner, and executive sponsorship
- Increasing apathy toward need for resolving control gaps and risks
Solution
A standardized process with Remedy Asset as the central technology introduced a control structure in the environment for the first time that was inclusive of the varying needs of a diverse user community. Engagement of executive management down through personnel at the administrator and analyst levels ensured corporate acknowledgement, participation, and acceptance. Incorporating a method for measuring efficiency and effectiveness helps to quantify performance of the solution. This facilitated adoption and enabled a path for continuous improvement.
Benefits
- Centralized data and standardization of IT asset management process
- On-demand, real-time reporting of asset data
- Better alignment between operational and financial tracking of IT assets
- Increased awareness and history of critical dates and events throughout asset life
- More accurate charge and tax allocations of IT assets to organizational divisions
- Better decision support for vendor negotiations and corporate purchasing
- Improved compliance to licensing contracts and Sarbanes-Oxley