Why Spreadsheets are Inefficient for IT Asset Management?

It is now a necessity for companies to integrate technology into their operations and decision processes to improve customer and employee experience in the digital transformation process. The way to do this is to increase the ability to leverage IT environments to make the most of speed, agility and scaling capabilities.

Companies whose IT infrastructures are growing rapidly day by day need IT asset management for the management of their technology inventories.

What is IT Asset Management (ITAM)?

IT Asset Management is the process of defining, monitoring and evaluating IT infrastructure by maintaining data about historical and current knowledge of all IT assets of an organization. Companies need IT asset management to have more control over their IT inventory. Companies that do not implement ITAM face many problems and threats because they do not have information about their IT environment.

Steps of IT Asset Management

It should be noted that IT Asset Management is not a one-time process. There are some steps that must be followed for an ITAM process to be successful. Companies must take a holistic approach to IT inventory management and implement these steps periodically.

1- Building of IT Inventory

Every step of IT asset management is critical. But the first step, the building of an IT inventory, is critical so that the other steps can really be carried out correctly. In this step, you must detect all kinds of IT assets in your company and add them to your inventory. You should not forget to ask for support from all company employees during the IT inventory creation process.

One of the biggest problems encountered in the ITAM process is informal purchases. Company employees use 3rd party applications to speed up or facilitate their current processes in business processes. This situation poses many security risks and threats.

IT team leaders must know of all software and hardware used in business processes. These technology assets should be included in the company's current IT inventory. Technologies that will pose a risk to business processes must be detected and disposed of.

2- Detailing of IT Inventory

Of course, more information is needed to evaluate the IT inventory. Therefore, identify the information you need in the process of evaluating your IT assets and collect these pieces of information about your assets.

3- Evaluation of IT assets

The main objectives of IT asset management are to optimize the company's IT infrastructure in terms of both performance and cost, and to eliminate security risks. This step is now the stage of evaluation and decision-making. Each technology asset is evaluated for IT value, performance, and cost. For IT assets with high IT value, new investment decisions are made, for assets with low IT value, a decision is made to dispose of or replace with equivalent.

(The IT asset management process is of course not limited to these 3 steps. This number of steps varies according to the IT infrastructures and needs of the companies.)

IT Asset Management Methods

The method of implementation of ITAM varies from company to company. The criteria change the way an enterprise performs IT asset management such as the firm's IT size, IT complexity, how many different locations it operates, etc.

IT Asset Management using Spreadsheets

One of the most traditional methods used for IT inventory management is spreadsheets. Companies create columns in the spreadsheet for information they need in an ITAM process. Then they add the necessary information about the assets in the boxes below these columns. In this way, they can access the necessary information about the assets via this spreadsheet whenever they need it.

IT Asset Management using a Software

IT Asset Management software makes ITAM processes faster, easier and more efficient. With the ITAM tool, companies can monitor and manage all their application, hardware and integration assets, together with their costs, on a single platform. IT asset management also facilitates the decision-making process about their tech inventory of businesses by providing visualized reports and insights.

Spreadsheet vs Software for IT Asset Management

Companies that used to perform ITAM processes with spreadsheets in the past have started to use software for ITAM processes over time. The biggest reason behind this was the inefficient IT inventory management with spreadsheets. Spreadsheet silos became outdated over time and caused information complexity due to multiple management.

It has become impossible for companies with a complex IT structure and different offices to track their inventories through an excel spreadsheet. On the contrary, IT asset management software provides centralized and holistic IT asset management by enabling companies to manage their IT inventory from a single platform.

ITAM software can also provide you with information that you cannot obtain from spreadsheets. ITAM software with the Discovery feature can automatically create an inventory by scanning your entire network. In addition, ITAM software with the tracking feature can provide you with information about the usage status of your assets.

IT Asset Management Software

Start a centralized ITAM process by getting rid of spreadsheet silos with Loggle. Loggle is an end-to-end IT asset management software. Loggle offers application portfolio management, hardware asset management, integration inventory management and IT cost management solutions.

Do not hesitate to contact us for more information about Loggle.