Asset Management Software and its Impact on Information Systems. By: Anthony Jones CS480 Section #1

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1 Asset Management Software and its Impact on Information Systems By: Anthony Jones CS480 Section #1

2 One of the key principles of asset management is that things cannot be managed and costs cannot be controlled if there is no indication that they exist. (Mullen, 1995) 1.0 Introduction In today s highly competitive society, a large amount of pressure is put on businesses to streamline their operations and keeps costs low to maintain their share of the market. This pressure can be felt company wide. However, usually one of the first departments to be scrutinized is the Information Systems (IS) department. In many cases the IS departments have overly inflated budgets with little or no proof of why such high costs are required. One way for IS departments to control these budgets, provide evidence of required budget, and minimize overall costs is to implement a piece of Asset Management Software (AMS). This paper will describe the benefits of using AMS, how to choose the right type of AMS, and some of the typical difficulties that can arise during the implementation of AMS. Choosing to implement AMS is an important and costly step in the growth of a business and therefore all aspects of the situation should be assessed before a final decision is made. 2.0 Benefits Many companies are beginning to implement AMS in order to manage and track the costs related to IS. AMS is capable of storing data on all hardware and software assets as well as tracking all of the IS staff s completed tasks, work in progress, and future assignments. The collection of this information has several benefits. Firstly, it allows the company to track what current hardware is in use, how long it has been used and when the approximate replacement date will be. It also provides a centralized 1

3 database of all software currently in use so that the number of available licenses can be monitored. This in turn can reduce any likelihood of illegal software use, as well as provide a measure of required licenses and software that may be needed in the near future. Having accurate inventories of all physical assets is crucial in order to minimize company spending on IS. According to Gartner, 30% of IS budgets can be saved through the use of effective asset management. (Fixed Asset Tracking, Asset Management Statistics) This is a rather staggering amount when considering the immense amounts of money being budgeted towards IS departments. By performing a weekly check of hardware and software in use it makes it possible for the IS department to track any software installed by employees, as well as the employee s use of external hardware devices which could pose a security threat. Another very beneficial aspect of AMS is the fact that it becomes possible to track the amount of work being performed by the IS department. This is good in two ways. Firstly, it is possible to track the amount of work being put into each machine in the company. It may in fact be possible to determine systems which are overly problematic and this may suggest replacement or upgrade. The advantage is that managers can track the productivity of individuals within the department. This is useful for reviews, promotions, and salary adjustments. By tracking employees it also provides an easy way to monitor the progress of certain projects, or even to look back at past solutions of similar problems in order to enhance productivity. It has become a necessity to provide tracking and management of projects since without proper tools in place the success rates of IT projects drop significantly. (Ben-Menachem et al, 2002) It can now be seen that 2

4 there are plenty of benefits to introducing AMS into a company. However, deciding on the correct type of AMS can be difficult. 3.0 Product Choice There are many off-the-shelf types of AMS which range in price from a few hundred to several thousand dollars. The two things that seem to make the biggest difference in price are the underlying database used (a simple Access database vs. something more complicated such as an SQL database) and the type of support/training offered with the software. For the majority of companies the choice depends on many different factors: spending budget, number of computers, number of IS staff, amount of data to be stored, accessibility requirements, method of data collection, and many more. The majority of these aspects are fairly minor, so the focus here will be on some of the more critical attributes. Firstly, the number of users will have a significant impact on the type of AMS chosen. If either the number of users in the company is greater than 500, or the number of people directly accessing the AMS is greater than 7, then it is highly recommended that the AMS chosen does not have an underlying low-end database (i.e. Microsoft Access). This recommendation is due to the large concurrency and data storage requirements. Another major factor to consider is the method of data collection. Many products offer automated data collection which can be run at user login or at specified intervals. A piece of AMS offering this type of functionality will be more expensive but will also make collection of data much faster, especially in larger corporations. Finally, the last factor is accessibility of data. This is especially noticeable in companies with more than one office or with users who connect externally to the office network. In this case, a web-based interface may be preferable due to bandwidth 3

5 limitations. Also, keep in mind that most AMS companies charge based on a per user / per system rate so it is important to know in advance who will need access to the system in terms of IS staff as well as the expected number of systems to be tracked by the AMS. Choosing the correct AMS is only one critical step. The next even more critical step, is the implementation of the selected system. 4.0 Implementation The implementation of an AMS system can be quite simple, or it can be downright horrendous. My personal experience, with a piece of software named Track IT!, was the latter. The company I was employed by did not make a good software choice. They unfortunately purchased the most economic solution presented to them and consequently the software did not fit the company s requirements. The results were fairly disastrous. Firstly, the underlying database being used was Access. This was convenient during installation since Access requires very little customization in a Windows environment. However, since the company employed more than 600 people and had a total of 10 people actively interacting with the AMS, problems quickly developed. The first problem was that the database would frequently become corrupted. This would require all users logged in to logout of the AMS to allow the database to be rebuilt. Another issue encountered, was that the AMS server was originally installed on a Windows 2000 machine. A large problem arose at this point because the automatic data collection software which ran every morning would require a connection to this machine. However, Windows 2000 limits the maximum number of external computer connections over a network. This lead to error messages appearing on the company employees screens interrupting the process of their typical morning logins. This problem was 4

6 resolved by migrating the software onto a Windows Server machine. Another issue was encountered regarding automatic data collection due to the poor design of the collection software. When used by external employees who connected to the company via a Virtual Private Network this collection software failed to execute correctly. Due to this type of connection not being specifically handled by the AMS, manual updates of all 140 external sales representatives was necessary. This was not an easy task considering that the users were spread across most of North America. One final issue which arose was the use of the software at some of the company s external offices. Although these offices shared direct high speed connections with the head office, housing the AMS server, the amount of data transfer required between the AMS clients and server was so large that the external sites encountered incredibly slow progress when making any changes or entering their daily tasks. This problem was resolved by upgrading the software to include the web based client for use by the external IS staff. Unfortunately, due to the poor quality of the AMS the installation of this web client required that the AMS server itself be fully reinstalled as well. Finally, after two months of struggling the system was up and running. One other issue encountered was that the data collection agent was prone to missing critical pieces of data. This was partially due to the low quality of the data collection tool though it was later discovered that some of these cases were due to the actual hardware configurations themselves. Fortunately, the Track IT! software was backed by a technical support staff who were extremely knowledgeable and helpful. Unfortunately, the support office was located on the west coast and didn t open until 8am PST which led to an obvious lack of support during the morning hours here in Ontario. 5

7 With proper selection and testing of capabilities before purchase many of these issues can be avoided. 5.0 Conclusion There are many reasons why companies should choose to use AMS and with the number of choices available, finding the perfect fit for the company is quite possible. The implementation of such a system is not something to be taken lightly. However, with a little foresight and some planning this process can be completed with few complications. The final product of all this hard work is a system which assists the company in minimizing their hardware and software costs, increasing the success and productivity rates of IS projects, and simplifying the task of planning for the future. With all these benefits and the savings attributed to them it is worth the effort to choose and implement a piece of Asset Management Software. 6

8 6.0 References Ben-Menachem, Mordechai, and Gelbard, Roy. "Integrated IT Management Tool Kit." Communications of the ACM v.45 #4 (April 2002): "Fixed Asset Tracking, Asset Management Statistics." TechTrack. Tech Track. 6 Feb < Fox, Karen C., and Frolick, Mark N. "Creating A Paperless Workflow." Information Systems Management v.16 (Spring 1999): pp Hagerman, John W., and Director, Stephen W. "Improved Tool and Data Selection in Task Management." Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference on Design Automation (DAC'96) (1996): Jones, Anthony. Personal experience working for Pearson Education Canada Ltd. Employed from May 2003 August Kriebel, Norbert. "IT Asset Management Part 1: Asset Management Product Differentiation Makes Concept Vague to End Users." Planning Assumption 12 April Feb 2005 < Muller, Nathan J. "Managing Desktop Assets: An Emerging Core Competency." Information System Management v.12 (Summer 1995): pp

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