The 4 Secrets About Asset Managers Just A Small Number Of People Know
For many businesses, the efficient tracking of their installed base or in-service equipment, as well as the management of their spare parts inventories are main reasons in determining the prospects for internal productivity and customer service profitability. In contrast, many organizations don't yet utilize a comprehensive asset tracking and management process to ensure the availability of quality data that can be used to generate the business intelligence that can ultimately save them money and improve efficiency. This really is unfortunate, because the tools are readily available - it is simply a matter of making it a top priority.
There are many definitions of "asset management", although most deal primarily with financial things to consider. Some are according to evolving maintenance management systems; some on the management of factory floor equipment configurations; and some for the purposes of monitoring network equipment and even railway car and container locations. On the flip side, regardless of what situation or application your business deals with, the core definition remains constant; asset management is "a systematic process for identifying, cataloging, monitoring, maintaining, operating, upgrading and replacing the physical assets of the business on a cost-effective basis".
To be truly effective, the asset management process has to be built upon a foundation of generally accepted accounting principles, and supported through the proper mix of sound business practices and learn more about www.motherintheknow.com financial acumen. It can provide management with the effective tool that may be used to derive better short- and long-term planning decisions. Consequently, it's an issue that every business should consider adopting - and embracing.
Poor asset management leads to poor data quality - and poor data quality can negatively affect the business over time. In fact, experience shows that there are numerous of common causes that can lead to poor asset management, including lack of business controls for managing and/or updating asset data; lack of ownership for asset data quality; and an out-of-balance investment in people, process, data and technology. Aside from that, some businesses might not consider asset management to be a critical function, concentrating on audits only; while some may not consider asset data to be an essential component of the business's intellectual property.
The primary symptoms of poor asset management are also fairly ubiquitous, and may include anything from numerous compliance and security issues, to uncontrollable capital and/or expense budgets, excessive network downtime and poor performance, under- or over-utilized assets, incompatible software applications, increasing operational costs and headcount, and non-matching asset data derived from different organizations and/or business systems.
Furthermore, poor ongoing asset management practices can impact a business by degrading customer service delivery, polluting the existing installed base of data and distracting sales resources with customer data issues For example, Service Delivery could be impaired by inaccurate depot sparing creating customer entitlement issues, increasing escalations to upper management and lowering client satisfaction. An uncertain installed base lengthens contract renewal cycle-time, limits revenue opportunities and inhibits technology refresh planning.