Implement Hardware Asset Management

Build a process to track assets across their entire lifecycle.

Analyst Perspective

Harness the potential of IT asset data.

An effective hardware asset management (HAM) program will bring visibility to your organization's asset estate in ways that can help you and your stakeholders optimize costs, improve IT service, and manage risks. Visibility is about accurate and actionable data. For asset data to be accurate, you must track hardware assets across their lifecycle.

Asset management is like exercise: everyone is aware of the benefits, but many struggle to get started when the process seems daunting. In this blueprint, we offer a structured way to help you strengthen your asset management program, one step at a time.

Andrew Sharp
Research Director, Infrastructure & Operations Practice
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight
Asset management is never a project that can run itself when completed. Effective asset management requires ongoing support from a smart, collaborative, and dedicated team to ensure that asset data remains accurate, actionable, and accessible to stakeholders who need it.

IT organizations without asset management are leaving value on the table

An effective HAM program will help you deliver value in the following ways:

Deliver value through hardware asset management.

Save and Manage Money

• Develop more accurate forecasts and budgets for new projects and technology refreshes.
• Find and repurpose equipment that is sitting idle instead of purchasing a new device.
• Centralize purchasing to take advantage of bulk pricing.

Improve IT Service

• Streamline requests, procurement, and deployment to get users the equipment they need, when they need it.
• Use asset records to support troubleshooting and problem identification.
• Identify out-of-patch systems to ensure assets are secure and operating properly.

Manage Risk

• Ensure retired equipment is properly disposed of, with sensitive data removed.
• Meet your regulatory requirements to know where your assets are, who they are assigned to, and what their current state is.

Common obstacles

You know that HAM can deliver value, but you're not sure how to implement it.

• Building an effective hardware asset management program from scratch is a significant undertaking. It can take several years to get to a state of maturity that meets organizational requirements.
• Where no one has previously managed asset management, you will probably start with a wide range of hardware and software types, tracking tools and spreadsheets, and disjointed processes.
• It is almost impossible to improve asset management without real buy-in from a range of stakeholders: technicians, infrastructure teams, IT management, and leadership.
• Complicating the process, key stakeholders often see asset management as a lower-importance, administrative function ' even though good asset data is foundational to delivering business value.

Build the case for HAM by demonstrating what can't be done without it.

IT managers, on average,

• Ranked IT asset management as less important than cost and budget management and cost optimization.
• Ranked IT asset management as one of the least important infrastructure and operations processes, behind incident management, change management, and service desk.

And yet all of these processes are made more effective with good asset data.

Source: Info-Tech's Management and Governance Diagnostic, 2022

Need to align with COBIT? This blueprint will help!

Info-Tech's methodology for hardware asset management

Insight Summary

Blueprint Deliverables

Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by key supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:

HAM Maturity Assessment Tool

HAM Process Workflows

HAM Budgeting Tool

HAM Recap and Results Template

Roadmap Tool

Key Deliverable

HAM Standard Operating Procedures

Document the core processes for your asset management program in this standard operating procedures (SOP) template.

Measure the value of this blueprint

An effective HAM program will help you get more for your hardware dollar.

Info-Tech members report saving $27,500 and 23 days* on average when working with an Info-Tech analyst on their Hardware Asset Management project.

*Based on Info-Tech Measured Value Surveys results from clients working through this blueprint, as of May 2023.

Case Study

Cisco reduced costs by over $50 million by implementing HAM

INDUSTRY
Technology

SOURCE
Cisco IT Case Study

Cisco Systems, Inc., is the largest network technology company in the world. Headquartered in San Jose, California, the company employees over 70,000 people.

Hardware Asset Management
Like many technology companies, Cisco boasted a proactive work environment that encouraged individualism among employees. Unfortunately, this high degree of freedom, combined with the rapid mobilization of PCs and other devices, created numerous headaches for asset tracking. At its peak, spending on hardware alone exceeded $100 million per year.

Results
Through a comprehensive ITAM implementation, the asset management program at Cisco was a resounding success. While employees did have to adjust to new rules, the process as a whole has been streamlined and user-satisfaction levels have risen. Centralized purchasing and a smaller number of hardware platforms have allowed Cisco to cut its hardware spend in half, according to Mark Edmondson, manager of IT services expenses for Cisco.

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

A typical GI is 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

Phase 0

Get Started

• Identify project participants
• Design process workflows
• Create a working folder

Phase Outcomes

Identify the roles and participants who must be involved in the project. Create a working folder to facilitate collaboration. Review guidance on building workflows and collecting action items as you go.

Identify project participants

This methodology relies on having the right stakeholders in the room to identify goals, challenges, roles, process improvements, and next steps. Use the table below to translate the recommended roles into specific people in your organization. Note that some people may fill multiple roles.

At a minimum, the core asset management team should be present to work through the entire methodology. At each step in the asset lifecycle, invite stakeholders who are responsible for that portion of the lifecycle to participate and help define the process.

We also recommend scheduling a kickoff session with all participants at the start of the process, as recap session at the end.

Design process workflows

A key output of this blueprint are process workflows for each stage in the asset lifecycle. Below, we outline some best practices to keep in mind as you develop these workflows for your organization.

1. Design each workflow collaboratively with the various roles that have parts to play in the workflow.
2. Document each workflow as you go. The easiest way to do this is often to work from the template library directly and share your screen with participants. You could also draw the workflow on a whiteboard or display it on a table with cue cards or sticky notes.
3. Identify the start and end of each workflow.
4. Document any missing steps or challenges. Identify possible new steps or changes to existing steps.
5. Create a list of possible action items for identified improvement opportunities. Add these items to a running list, which can become part of your roadmap for asset management improvements.
6. Optional: Use dots (see the legend at the right) to identify updates to the ITAM database, steps that are candidates for automation, control points, or proposed new steps.
7. For more guidance on workflows, see our research in Build Better Workflows.

Create a working folder

Setting up a repository for collaboration is an obvious step, but it's one that is often forgotten.

1. Create a working project folder in a shareable repository (e.g. OneDrive, Google Drive, or enterprise file shares). Share this folder with the core group of project participants.
2. If you have not already, go to the webpage for Implement Hardware Asset Management and click the 'Download Research' button to download a zip file with all the materials you'll need to work through this blueprint.
3. Unzip the documents and store them in the 'Templates' subfolder in the project folder.
4. Copy the templates into the root folder as you start to work on them. Save your files to a 'Finished Work' subfolder as you complete the exercises.

Collect action items as you go

Don't wait until the end to write down your good ideas.

• The last exercise in this methodology involves gathering everything you have learned and building a roadmap to improve your ITAM practice.
• The output of the exercises will inform your roadmap, since it will highlight areas with opportunities for improvement.
• Record all the output as you work through the exercises, so you do not forget valuable ideas.
• Keep an idea space ' a whiteboard with sticky notes or a shared document ' to which any of your participants can post an idea for improvement. You can review and consolidate the ideas later.
• Encourage participants to add their ideas at any time during the exercises.

Use the "orange" slides for guidance on specific HAM challenges

We've made our material easier to navigate in this blueprint by moving non-core information out of the main phase-by-phase instruction manual.

1. In Phases 2 and 3, you will see slides like the one on the right. These slides contain a series of links that you can click on to review advice on specific issues.
2. These slides are intended to inform a key decision and provide guidance on getting to action to deliver value to your organization.
3. On most of these slides, you will see a callout box, like the one on the right, that will suggest a way to take action on the advice on the slide.

Why oranges, you ask? Well, why not?

Suggested Next Steps
You will see callout boxes that look like this on a number of slides throughout the blueprint. Review the suggested guidance and, if the next steps apply to you, add them to your running list of action items!