Hardware Asset Management
Partnering with Multiply ensures the safety and security of all your hardware assets from procurement to disposition. Our goal is to help you increase efficiencies in your onboarding and asset refresh processes by taking the complexity of hardware asset management off your IT team’s plate. Not only will this help increase your team’s capacity, but will also save your company money down the road.
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The Benefits are Endless
INCREASE NEW HIRE SATISFACTION
Let Multiply handle the provisioning so no new hire has to contact the IT department on their first day.
DEFINE YOUR REFRESH CYCLE
The best way to maintain your hardware is to know when it is time to replace it. We can help you do that effectively.
EXPAND YOUR IT TEAM'S CAPACITY
Managing hardware assets is time consuming. Let your IT team focus on the bigger picture, we’ll handle the rest.
INCREASE INSIGHT INTO YOUR ASSET INVESTMENTS
Do you know where all your hardware assets are? Or how much they all cost? Multiply can help you make data-backed decisions and track your assets.
LEAD THE WAY IN HARDWARE SUSTAINABILITY
Don’t let old computers end up in landfills. We’ll help you securely remove all company data from your devices so they can be repurposed instead of trashed.
DECREASE EXPENSES RELATED TO REPAIRS
No waiting for customer support to call you back. Turn around requests quickly. Rely on us to coordinate repairs and manage your redeployable stock.
Learn how we can Multiply your team’s success.
Hardware Asset Management
In the business world, one of the most valuable things you will invest in is the technology that runs your operations. It’s the backbone of modern companies and keeps everything running smoothly.
Since your technological hardware is so essential, managing it effectively is a big deal. That’s where hardware asset management comes into play. Hardware management will involve inventorying, monitoring, purchasing, and replacing technical hardware throughout a company.
This article will discuss everything you should know about hardware asset management. We’ll break down:
- What hardware asset management is.
- Examples of how it works in a business setting.
- Why it’s important.
- The roles and responsibilities associated with managing hardware assets.
There’s a lot to cover here with each of these topics. By the end, you’ll have a better idea of how hardware management is effective and why it’s necessary for a business. Keep reading to get all the details.
What is Hardware Asset Management?
Hardware asset management is a subcategory within IT asset management (ITAM). The main purpose of ITAM is to ensure you are accounting for and using the IT equipment you have on hand effectively. It helps you get the most value out of each asset you invest in.
The same can be said for hardware assets. This subcategory applies directly to physical computer hardware. Hardware assets include:
- Laptop/desktop computers
- Hard drives
- Motherboards
- SIM cards
- And more
You’ll likely see a lot of different pieces of physical computer hardware throughout your business. Each needs to be tracked and maintained appropriately. It’s also important to ensure physical IT hardware gets updated and replaced as needed. This process can be time consuming, but is necessary to keep your business operations running smoothly.
How Hardware Asset Management Works
With hardware asset management, you will take a series of steps to account for hardware assets throughout a company. You will:
- Take inventory of hardware assets on hand throughout a company.
- Purchase any new hardware as needed.
- Deploy new computer hardware so employees can use it during daily operations.
- Maintain hardware regularly to ensure it keeps functioning well or gets repaired efficiently if there are issues.
- Replace, sell, and dispose of hardware as it ages and requires updates.
A lot goes into each of these steps to keep the hardware management process running smoothly. It’s also just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to the entire ITAM system that accounts for software, peripherals, fixed assets, and cloud-based assets within a company.
Examples of Hardware Management
To give you a better idea of how hardware asset management works, this section will break down a couple of examples of how it would be used in a business setting.
Example #1
For this first example, let’s take the hard drives that are used to store a lot of information in a business. Every computer will have some kind of hard drive in place to store information. Larger companies may also have critical hard drives and other systems in place to store more complex forms of data.
In recent years, we’ve seen a shift from using hard disc drives (HDD) in personal computers to solid-state drives (SSD). To avoid getting too complicated here, SSDs are more compact and can run faster. So computers with SSDs can load and download information at faster rates.
One of the ways businesses can save money when desktop computers start running slower is to replace HDDs with SSDs. It saves you from having to buy whole new computers.
During this process, your IT team would find that old computers are running slower through hardware management systems. Upon assessing the hardware, they may decide replacing the hard drives would be an effective solution for the problem in the most economical way.
The team then works with vendors to buy new SSDs at the most cost-effective price. Then they replace old HDDs with new SSDs once they are received. This would involve transferring stored information and ensuring the new ones are functioning correctly to avoid interrupting business operations.
And finally, sells the old HDDs to get value back from them after they are no longer in use. Or if they can’t be sold, they will be disposed of properly.
Example #2
For this second example, let’s look at a business expansion where a company is opening up a new office in a different part of town.
It’s great news that business is doing great. However, it also requires quite a bit of work from a hardware management perspective. A growing business will have growing IT hardware needs. You’ll need to invest in new computers, servers, networking hardware like routers and modems, etc.
This can sound demanding, but your trained hardware management team can help this process run smoothly.
During the process, your IT team would go over calculations to see how much hardware the new location will require. They would then review the current inventory of the equipment you have on hand to see if any tech that isn’t in use can be transported to the new office.
Once they have gone through that process, they will have finished calculations for new equipment needs and begin planning to purchase equipment based on the available budget. The aim would be to work with vendors to get the highest possible quality equipment at the most affordable price.
Once the equipment is purchased, it could be set up in the new office. IT professionals would work to make sure everything gets up and running correctly to ensure a smooth transition once the new location begins operations.
After everything is deployed, the new office’s equipment will become part of the overall hardware management system with regular maintenance and audits.
Why Is Hardware Asset Management Important
You can probably tell from the above examples that hardware asset management is extremely important. There’s a lot that goes into these processes within a business environment. It’s difficult to manage it all on your own, so having a trained IT partner that can help is a must.
Here are some of the other main reasons why hardware asset management is so important.
It saves money: Managing hardware assets effectively helps get the most value out of them. Asset life cycles can often be extended through routine maintenance and best practices. In addition, ITAM professionals help buy and sell assets for the best possible prices.
It helps business operations run smoothly: The modern business runs on technology. The hardware components are specifically important because they are needed to access software and programs used in daily operations. So if your hardware isn’t working right, nothing works right.
It increases employee satisfaction: If your technology works well, your employees will be happier. It can be frustrating having IT issues all the time. It’ll probably hurt employee productivity in many ways. So putting a system in place to manage it will help immensely.
As you can see, hardware asset management contributes a lot to a business. It’s something that should be invested in and planned for effectively.
What Is the Difference Between Hardware and Software Assets?
As mentioned earlier, hardware management is just one component of the complete ITAM system. Another type of asset that needs to be managed in a business is software assets.
The main difference between hardware and software assets is that hardware is physical components, whereas software is digital.
That means when hardware needs to be maintained or replaced, it will often require more physical repairs and setup procedures. On the other hand, software requires more digital procedures.
These two types of assets are often managed separately due to the different processes required for each. It simply makes it easier from a planning and maintenance perspective.
To further explain the differences, the next sections will give you some examples of each.
Hardware Assets Examples
Some examples of hardware assets are:
- Desktop/laptop computers
- Tablets
- Mobile phones
- Motherboards
- Hard drives
- SIM cards
- Routers
- Modems
- Switches
- Servers
- Back up systems
All of these are physical components that many businesses will use daily. If even one of these hardware components has an issue, it can affect all business operations. Hardware asset malfunctions can also affect software assets since they won’t be able to be used or accessed properly. An IT partner can help ensure that any issues that arise are handled in a timely and cost-effective manner.
Software Assets Examples
Some examples of software assets are:
- Software programs (accounting software, cybersecurity software, etc.)
- Software licenses
- Data rights
- Documentation
- Maintenance agreements
- Software development agreements
Most businesses use the power of software every day in their operations. Proper tracking systems are required to keep it up-to-date and running smoothly. That’s where software asset management will be necessary.
Hardware Asset Management Roles and Responsibilities
With everything that goes into hardware asset management, it’s important to have defined roles and responsibilities. The roles and responsibilities of the hardware asset management team are:
- Set and communicate policies for managing hardware assets.
- Coordinate who manages what processes and parts of the hardware management system.
- Identify and assess risks before taking action on maintaining, implementing, or replacing hardware.
- Continuously track and monitor all hardware within the business.
- Keep thorough documentation of compliance with laws and regulations.
All these roles work together to manage hardware assets throughout their lifecycle. As you can see from all the information in this article, having a skilled IT team for hardware management is essential. If you need help getting started with this process, Multiply is a team you can trust to get the job done right.
How Multiply Can Help
Multiply is a team of IT consultants. We partner with businesses to help create streamlined systems for managing IT assets and data.
There’s a lot that goes into just managing the hardware components of a company. Let alone all the components that fall under the IT umbrella.
You’ll need a partner you can trust on your side, and Multiply has the knowledge to help you each step of the way as you get started with asset management.
To learn more about how Multiply can help, you can contact us today! We’re here to answer any additional questions you may have.
