IT Asset Management Policy PDF

While researching how to manage your organization’s IT assets, you’ve probably heard that setting up an asset management policy is an essential step in the process. However, that can lead to several questions. What is an IT asset management policy? How do I integrate the entire policy within my IT asset management system? Keep reading to get all the details.

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Our team at Multiply is here to assist with all your needs. This article will cover all these aspects and more in comprehensive detail. Plus, we’ll provide you with a free IT asset management policy PDF at the end that you can download as a resource in setting up your company’s policy. Keep reading to get all the details.

What Is an IT Asset Management Policy?

Before creating an asset policy for company success, it’s essential to understand what it is and why a policy is important.

At its core, your IT asset management (ITAM) policy is meant to help everyone throughout your organization understand the purpose of your ITAM system and ensure compliance in all the core processes. It’s like any other function of your company. You need rules and regulations to keep everyone on the same page while working toward a shared goal.

How Do You Write an Asset Management Policy?

Writing an asset management policy and procedure requires certain techniques to make it as successful as possible. It’s the same as writing up a business strategy. You’d want it to be clearly written and defined, so everyone can easily follow the necessary processes. Here are a few key tips:

Be clear about roles and requirements: Everything in the policy should be written in a clear and easily understandable way. Essentially, explain each step so that anyone can follow it, even the team members who aren’t very familiar with ITAM.

Emphasize communication procedures: One of the keys to an asset management system is effective communication and teamwork throughout the organization. The processes for how to communicate and inform team members of changes should be defined at each step.

Research legal compliance: A core part of an asset policy is ensuring legal compliance throughout. Do thorough research before you start creating a policy to ensure it complies with local laws and regulations—for example, proper policies for recycling IT equipment in an environmentally friendly way.

Outline before writing: Before writing your policy, ensure you have every step outlined to ensure it is cohesive. It helps avoid confusion or having to rewrite portions several times.

Now let’s take a more detailed look at actually creating the policy itself.

How Do You Create an Asset Management Policy?

If you’re wondering what steps need to be taken to create a company asset policy for employees, we’ve set up a brief template below to give you an overview of the basic steps in the process.

Company Asset Policy Template

[Fill in company name] IT Asset Management Policy

Purpose
- The goals of the asset management policy. For example, creating organized processes, a better work environment, saving money on expenses, etc.

Scope
- The assets covered under the policy.
- Departments the policy applies to.

Responsibilities
- Define specific responsibilities, such as who the asset manager is, who handles procurement, who performs regular equipment maintenance, etc.

Procedures
- Procedures for purchasing equipment or asset disposition requests.
- Describe how the inventory will be maintained.
- Security measures to prevent data breaches or loss.
- When maintenance and updates will be performed.

Security and Compliance
- When and how audits will be completed.
- How data should be managed.
- Industry laws and standards.

Employee training and awareness
- Processes for employee training to ensure ongoing compliance.
- How awareness of the current ITAM standards will be maintained throughout the organization.

Policy review

- How often the policy will be reviewed or updated?
- How changes to the policy will be communicated.

This Template is Just a Starting Point

The template above is a good basic starting point if you’re just looking to see how an ITAM system can be defined throughout an organization. However, you can probably tell there are several layers to each section that must be covered in comprehensive detail.

Many organizations need help with the many complexities of setting up an entire set of IT asset management policies and procedures. If you’re feeling overwhelmed or don’t know where to begin, our team at Multiply is here for all your needs.

Multiply’s team of IT asset and data management pros will have your back throughout. We can help you set up a comprehensive policy that is easy to manage and implement throughout your organization. Plus, we’ll even get in on the ground floor to bridge communications between teams and help with understanding each step of the plan.

What Is the ISO 27001 Asset Management Policy?

ISO 27001 is a system to identify and apply security measures to the IT assets your business owns. The policy under ISO 27001 is a set of protocols that help achieve those measures throughout company operations. It can be used as a part of your overall IT asset management policy, specifically within sections related to information security and compliance.

ISO 27001 Asset Management Checklist Asset Management Policy

When looking through the asset management policy template ISO 27001 protocols provide, there is a specific checklist you’ll want to go through to ensure data security. That includes:

Asset inventory: A big part of ensuring compliance is having a proper inventory of all the equipment you own to organize the data about each piece of equipment.

Ownership/users of assets: Both the ownership of assets and their respective users within the company should be documented to keep systems organized.

Acceptable uses of assets: Defines how assets will be used in operations and the appropriate uses of the information they contain.

Return of assets: If assets are assigned to specific employees, there should be systems in place to ensure they are returned to company possession when employees leave the company or change positions.

Classifications of information: Many assets will have several types of information stored on them. That should be classified into separate categories, such as legal, value, sensitive, and critical.

Management systems for media disposal or transfer: An established process should be in place for when you dispose and transfer digital or physical media. It helps ensure data compliance and security in operations.

Overall, there are several steps involved in the ISO27001 asset management process. If this all seems like a lot of information, our team at Multiply is here to help in the process. We can help you create an easy check-listed system throughout operations to ensure adherence to ISO 27001 policies for information compliance.

Which Clauses and or Annexes in ISO 27001 Provide Requirements for Asset Management?

ISO 27001 is a large resource full of tons of different processes and requirements for company IT systems. If you’re looking to locate the annexes and clauses for asset management, you can find them under Annex A.8.

Specific clauses outlining asset management requirements under this annex are:

A.8.1.1
A.8.1.2
A.8.1.3
A.8.1.4
A.8.2.1
A.8.2.2
A.8.2.3
A.8.3.1
A.8.3.2
A.8.3.3

You should be able to find all the information you’re looking for within these sections. However, once again, it can be a complex process. Having teams like Multiply by your side to help you implement all the information can be an invaluable resource. It makes your life much easier when you have lots of tasks to manage throughout business operations.

What Is the Purpose of IT Asset Management Policy?

Overall, the purpose of asset management policy is to keep everyone in a company on the same page and comply with proper regulations. It ensures you are as successful as possible while also avoiding complications from data leaks or audits that can severely hinder your success in business environments where forward progress is always essential.

What Should an Asset Management Policy Include?

As outlined in the asset management policy template shown above, some essential sections to include are:

Purpose
Scope
Responsibilities
Procedures
Security and Compliance
Employee training and awareness
Policy review

These sections all work together to help keep your asset management system running smoothly. However, their intricacies and details can vary by company and the equipment you use, so they should all be customized to your own needs. Our team at Multiply can help you create custom systems for success based on your requirements.

What Is an IT Asset Management Life Cycle?

An IT asset management lifecycle involves the processes and procedures that go into tracking and optimizing assets from when they are purchased until when they are disposed of.

It’s important to keep track of this in your systems to better plan for when you will need to purchase, maintain, and dispose of the equipment you own. It helps you budget for expenses and optimize your processes further.

With us on your side, we can help you implement the right processes and tools that will make managing all your equipment faster and easier so you can scale these processes across several company locations.

What Is the Asset Life Cycle of ISO 27001?

When reviewing the asset management policy ISO 27001 PDF, you will see the asset life cycle outlined as:

Creation
Processing
Storage
Transmission
Deletion
Destruction

This is very similar to how you would manage all the IT assets you own; just specified to the processes of data management from when the information is created up until it must be deleted or destroyed when it is no longer useful in operations. Optimizing at each step within your asset management policy helps ensure compliance in the process.

Download the IT Asset Management Policy PDF

To give you an extra reference to help you deploy this process successfully, here is a free IT asset management policy PDF and asset management lifecycle PDF that you can download and refer back to.

While the PDF is a great start, companies that want to get the most out of ITAM may need more guidance when they aren’t familiar with these processes. If you feel like you need some additional help, our team at Multiply can be an excellent partner in the process.

How Multiply Can Help

Our team at Multiply has over a decade of experience in IT asset and data management. We’re a team of IT consultants and senior service technicians who can help you perform audits, run asset discovery systems, create inventories, bridge communications between teams, and more.

With Multiply as a partner, you won’t feel like you have to go through these processes alone. Instead, you get to leave it to experts who can help you get the best possible results.