IT Asset Management: From the Data Center to the Desktop

IT Asset Management For banks, effective IT asset management is necessary for both regulatory and contractual compliance. But it also can improve lifecycle management, identify underutilized hardware and software, and reduce inventories, resulting in significant cost savings.

Q: How can IT executives develop effective IT asset management solutions? What tools should be employed?

Voelcker, Deutsche Bank: The aims [of IT asset management] should always remain the same: to empower the executives to make informed decisions on the fundamental issues affecting their environment. The types of tools that make sense are those that fit into present processes and environments with minimal impact. Also, it would seem prudent to automate as many inventorying processes as possible. A significant proportion of budgets can be dictated by IT assets, and tools that enable accurate tracking and management of the asset life cycle are critical to the corporate general ledger.

Iannetta, Evergreen Systems: Effective IT asset management requires combining current Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and ITAM best practices with accurate asset information, ongoing governance and automated asset management tools. Other critical elements include a central repository for all asset data, an accurate and effective reporting strategy, and communicating the asset management strategy to facilitate consistency across users. Good IT asset management tools should be capable of "discovering" assets that are widely dispersed and should enable IT, in an automated fashion, to manage all aspects of the assets, including physical, financial and contractual. The best systems provide complete lifecycle management and Web interfaces for real-time access to asset data.

Q: How can banks gauge the success of IT asset management systems?

Voelcker, Deutsche Bank: Adherence to compliance requirements and minimal impact on processes is a factor in gauging success. Success can be gauged by the flexibility to produce required environment information and the ability to completely support the business need for this data. Reliable metrics such as resource-to-hardware ratios and cost of service provision are crucial to assessing IT asset management systems. Furthermore, successful IT asset management practices will enable efficient technology utilization measurement and will support transformational activities.

O'Neill, Forrester Research: Banks that have a fully implemented ITAM system realize significant efficiency improvements in many basic IT operational processes. Key performance indicators can improve through an ITAM system, including procurement/fulfillment, asset installation, asset disposal, asset tracking, software management, service desk support, leasing management, contract management, vendor management and reporting.

DuScheid, Novell: A clear measure of success for any asset management system is its ability to provide answers to questions about technology migrations, software utilization, contract status, and IT expenditures. Hardware, software and maintenance cost savings also are a good way to gauge the value of an asset management program.

Iannetta, Evergreen Systems: Asset management success should be measured via the key processes that it improves, including procurement, installations, maintenance, retirement and disposal. Quantitative objectives and measures should be established prior to implementing asset management and then measured afterwards for effectiveness. **--Peggy Bresnick Kendler

Peggy Bresnick Kendler has been a writer for 30 years. She has worked as an editor, publicist and school district technology coordinator. During the past decade, Bresnick Kendler has worked for UBM TechWeb on special financialservices technology-centered ... View Full Bio

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