OUTSOURCED IT SERVICES
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Currently, organisations are challenged to maximise value from their existing or shrinking IT budgets. Understanding the financial impacts of properly managing IT assets is the first step towards this challenge. Techies have created this web site to highlight some of the REAL WORLD RISKS that your organisation faces on a daily basis when managing IT assets. This section also provides REAL WORLD SOLUTIONS to these risks, solutions that Techies have been delivering since 1992.
What is Asset Management
IT Asset Management is a process of tracking and analysing technical and financial information about an organisations hardware and software. From requisition through to retirement.
The key word here is “process”. All too often organisations make the mistake of purchasing a tool for IT Asset Management without thinking through the various stages of an IT Asset Management program.
A process approach is necessary because Asset Management (if done correctly) touches so many different parts of the organisation.
How are your IT assets managed?
Here are some initial questions that all organisations should be answering:
- Do you know where all your IT assets are located?
- Do you know who the users are of your IT assets?
- Do you have an inventory of software installed on each computer?
- Who tracks your lease agreements?
- Are you properly accounting for your IT assets?
- Do you have a central purchasing process for IT?
- Do you have a central installation team for new IT assets?
Managing IT assets is a complex proposition. With all the different pressures from the organisation it is vitally important the physical attributes (who?, what?, when?, where? and how?) are maintained.
Unfortunately this is not enough. As we mentioned before, IT Asset Management needs to be a process and therefore the physical attributes need to be integrated into your existing Help Desk, Finance, Change Management processes etc.
Techies have created the following model that demonstrates how all these elements integrate together, to deliver a solution that meets Real world Risks.
Techies View
ASSET LIFECYCLE REAL WORLD RISKS
Techies work towards the industry standard Asset Lifecycle model (see diag below). In order to define a solution that manages IT Assets we need to understand the lifecycle of the IT Assets themselves. This is especially vital as the Techies IT Asset Management Solution works within this Lifecycle model.
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Not properly tracking leases can result in fees and penalties that could have been avoided.
“With poor tracking, enterprises get inadequate information for any planned upgrade of hardware or operating systems.”
Source: Gartner Group
Organisations today cannot calculate the total cost of ownership (TCO) of IT assets.
“Organisations are spending twice as much time on IT procurement”
Source: Gartner Group
Without the correct documentation of IT assets, organisations cannot recover from a disaster in a timely manner.
"Not keeping proper track of distributed computing hardware assets can increase cost by 1 to 10 percent a year”.
Source: Gartner Group
Penalties and fines for installed software without correct licensing.
Real world risks
The start of the IT Asset life cycle. Ensuring that the procurement process is efficient, effective and communicated is essential. Techies will deliver the following activities during the Procurement phase:
- Maintain central Price List
- Price book held on intranet for effective communication within the organisation
- Price book updated once a month
- SLA to respond to any request that is not within the Price Book
- General day-to-day activities i.e. memory upgrades
- SLA Installation Service. New IT assets installed 11 working days after receipt of Purchase Order.
Where do Techies fit in?
Q: How do I ensure I start right?
A: PROCUREMENT
The IT Asset Management Lifecycle model
Procurement
Deploy
Use
Upgrade
Decommission
Salvage
ASSET LIFECYCLE REAL WORLD BENEFITS
Techies work towards the industry standard Asset Lifecycle model (see diag above). In order to define a solution that manages IT
Assets we need to understand the lifecycle of the IT Assets themselves. This is especially vital as the Techies IT Asset Management
Solution works within this Lifecycle model.
Real world benefits
- Lowered cost of ownership for IT assets.
- Increased productivity of employees and assets.
- Improved audit ability and accountability.
- “Developing effective IT asset management strategies and corresponding metric goals are key to successfully managing IT assets. According to Gartner's 2005 IT spending and staffing survey, all life cycle costs associated with IT assets represent 40 percent to 60 percent of the IT operations budget”.
- Source: Gartner Group
- Up-to-date inventory of IT assets.
- Centralised data repository for IT assets leading to easier reporting and querying.
- Improved Procurement process.
Q: So now I have started off right, what next?
A: ASSET LIFECYCLE
Once the Procurement phase is complete it is vital that the IT Assets are registered ready for tracking. Techies will deliver the following activities during this phase of the process:
- Update main inventory repository
- Schedule new software builds (i.e. software onto laptops/desk tops)
- Disposal: If an IT Asset has reached it’s End-of-Life (EOL) then it will be removed from the inventory repository and any data will be removed safely and securely
- Re-allocation: IT Assets may be returned from their users for a number of reasons. Often the IT Assets are still usable, therefore they will be re-allocated within the organisation. The new details are added to the central repository.
- Purchasing: Techies will place any IT Assets that are available on the intranet so that other departments within the organisation can purchase them.
Q: What else do I need to consider?
A: LICENSING
License management is an integral part of the Techies IT Asset Management solution. By managing your enterprise wide licenses you can be sure that your organisation is utlilising your licenses efficiently and that you are not paying for licenses that are not being used. Here are some of the deliverables:
- Techies will send the end user a copy of the license
- Techies will keep the original license in their central database
- Techies will coordinate installations with your organisations Help Desk
- Techies will maintain central Licensing database
- Techies will generate and supply monthly reports detailing usage and changes
- Techies will provide your organisation with License count reports.
STAY IN CONTROL WITH IT SERVICES FROM TECHIES
Since 1992 Techies has been providing its clients in the South of England, the Midlands and East Anglia with high quality IT solutions. This allows
companies to concentrate on their own sectors of business supported by efficient and low maintenance computer technology. We have particularly
become recognised for our expertise and hands-on approach by the professional consumer sector and SMEs who also appreciate the personal
contact and open access to specialists. This friendly relationship leads to a close understanding of clients’ businesses that creates value and agility for
them while aiding competitive edge and client customer retention. We believe that this explains the high level of business gained by recommendation.
Real world benefits
Your organisation will be ready for migrations, helping you accommodate technology changes and deploy new applications more quickly.
Your Help Desk will be more productive, supporting a set of standard hardware and software.
Your organisation will be able to absorb mergers and acquisitions more readily.
Your end users will be more productive with the right set of tools with limited or zero access to time wasting.
Your organisation will have the information necessary for IT budgeting and planning.
Your Help Desk will know what software is loaded on every Laptop / Desktop.
With over nineteen years in delivering IT Solutions to our client base Techies have built a strong Service Portfolio. The model below demonstrates our end to end Service Portfolio and how they are fully integrated.
The IT Asset Management Lifecycle model
IT Security
Broadband
Asset Management
Server Support
Internet Hosting
Cabling
Remote Backup
Internet Filtering