6 Consequences of Not Having IT Inventory Management

Inventory management is the process of managing all inventories in a business. The purpose of inventory management is to increase the traceability of all inventories a company has. On the other hand, IT inventory management covers the management of inventories under the responsibility of the IT department in a company. In this article, we will share information about the effective management of IT inventories, which is an important part of the IT Asset Management concept.

Definition of IT Inventory

IT inventory management is pretty much synonymous with IT Asset Management and IT Asset Tracking. So what is IT inventory? What is covered by the concept of IT inventory? IT inventory is basically hardware and software assets under the responsibility of the IT department. In-house computers, monitors, printers, cables, software, applications, and much more are referred to as IT inventory.

Why is IT Inventory Management Necessary?

The digital transformation process in companies, which started in the 21st century, gained momentum with COVID-19. Businesses of all sizes made various investments to digitize their business processes. So, are these investments alone enough for a successful digital transformation? The answer is of course no. Companies must monitor and measure their investments to get the maximum benefit from the digital transformation process.

With IT Inventory Management, businesses can monitor which applications, software, hardware, etc. assets they own. It is possible to answer questions such as when these purchases took place, how much they cost, how many users use, who is responsible, and many more questions with accurate IT inventory management.

What Happens if IT Inventories are not Managed Effectively?

Complex IT structures pose great risks for companies. Complex IT structure is dominant in companies that do not do IT asset management. Such companies do not have enough information about their IT inventories.

The main problems encountered in the absence of effective IT inventory management are:

• Lack of Information of IT Assets
• Failure to Measure IT Investments
• Recurring IT Purchases (Duplicate Applications)
• Ghost IT Assets
• Unmanaged Licensing Processes
• Loss of IT Assets

Lack of Information of IT Assets

IT auditing is the examination and evaluation of companies' IT infrastructure and assets. The purpose of IT auditing is to measure how effectively and correctly companies manage their IT processes and to detect deficiencies and errors in the processes. Modern companies regularly conduct IT audits to protect their IT infrastructure from risks and threats.

Lack of information about IT Assets is one of the biggest problems that arise in IT audits. The IT infrastructure of companies that do not have sufficient information about their IT assets is inefficient and complex. With an effective IT asset management strategy, companies can control and measure the necessary information about all IT asset management. IT asset/inventory management enables more comprehensive and efficient IT controls and facilitates the detection of IT risks and threats.

Failure to Measure IT Investments

Since the end of the 20th century, the phenomenon of digitalization has gained great importance. Digitization has gradually spread in both daily life and business life. Companies have invested in IT to digitize and automate physical and manual business processes. The main purpose of these investments is basically more profitability and growth of the company. So, if these IT investments cannot be measured, can the efficiency of these investments be determined?

IT asset management enables companies to measure the performance of their IT investments. Department-based costs of IT investments and how many users use it can be tracked with IT asset management. In addition, IT asset management solutions such as Loggle show the lifecycle of an IT investment. Loggle is based on Gartner's TIME model to measure IT investments.

• Tolerate
• Invest
• Migrate
• Eliminate

Companies can make their IT planning and investments more efficient with Loggle.

Recurring IT Purchases (Duplicate Applications)

Recurring IT acquisitions are one of the biggest problems faced by big, multi-center or companies that have undergone an acquisition process. A recurring IT purchase is when the company buys the same or equivalent asset that it owns, even though it doesn't need it. Applications that have the same or the same functionality are called duplicate applications. Duplicate applications are among the unnecessary IT costs in companies.

Duplicate applications pose a serious risk in companies with the above features if there is no IT inventory management process where data is collected in a single center. Because these companies do not have data to detect duplicate applications. With IT asset management, companies can access all the details of the application and the license information of the application.

Ghost IT Assets

Ghost IT assets are IT assets that have been purchased in the past but are currently uninformed. Generally, in companies, it is likely to happen after an employee's offboarding process. In the offboarding process of an employee, the assets owned and responsible for the company must be received. If the company does not know about these assets, the company pays the license costs for these assets every year without realizing it.

Detection of Ghost IT assets is of course possible with an effective IT asset management strategy. Companies that perform IT asset management can easily access the information of all their assets. Thus, Ghost IT asset risks can be easily avoided.

Unmanaged Licensing Processes

For companies, every new asset actually means a cost. Companies make some of their purchases as licensing. For licensed purchases, companies are required to pay a fee for renewal or maintenance each year. So what company is willing to pay a license fee or maintenance fee every year for an asset it doesn't use?

Companies should perform license management as part of ITAM for increased licensing processes. With an effective license management process, businesses can cancel unnecessary licenses and easily track license renewal dates. Companies can reduce their IT costs by 10% each year with effective license management.

Loss of IT Assets

Loss of IT assets is a big problem for companies. New purchases by companies are required to replace these assets. Although the loss of IT assets seems to be a low cost at first, it creates the risk of preparing the ground for bigger problems as the process gets out of control. For this reason, companies need ITAM in order not to lose their IT assets.

What is IT Asset Management Software?

IT Asset Management Software is the solution that enables all IT asset management processes to be managed, monitored, and reported on a single platform. ITAM software provides insights into the modernization of companies' IT infrastructure and IT investments.

Loggle, which is an IT asset management software; With its Application Portfolio Management, Software Asset Management, License Management, Integration Inventory Management, and Hardware Asset Management modules, facilitates all the needs of companies in IT asset management processes.

You can contact us to learn how Loggle simplifies your IT asset management processes in 30 minutes.