What is Hardware Asset Management?

Hardware Asset Management involves keeping track of every piece of IT equipment your company owns, including accessories like mouses, keyboards, and headsets. By regularly auditing and managing all your IT equipment, you’ll be able to identify which items need to be upgraded, and replaced. 

HAM involves understanding the full hardware life cycle, and creating detailed reports regarding your entire IT estate so you know exactly who is using each piece of equipment, and where it’s located. 

Conducting hardware asset management is a highly specialised skill, so you want to hire someone who knows what they’re doing. Outsourcing this task to another company that are experts in HAM can help keep your IT team focused on the day-to-day requirements of the job and give you the reassurance that your IT estate is being looked after by experts. 

Benefits To Using Hardware Asset Management

There are plenty of advantages to conducting regular HAM audits and keeping on top of your IT estate for your business. At Capital, our National Service Teams can support you with hardware asset management for your company, no matter where you are in the UK. Our friendly and professional team can help you get back on top of your IT estate. 

Prevents Theft

When you don’t know exactly where each piece of equipment is, and who the end-user is, it makes you more vulnerable to theft. Unfortunately, while we want to trust all of our staff members, there are some people who may not return the IT equipment they’ve been given when they quit. If you have a real-time, up-to-date report on where all your IT equipment is located you won’t have to worry about losing track of it and people walking away with your equipment. 

Stops Double Purchasing

Double purchasing happens when you’re not sure what you already own and accidentally buy equipment again because you need it. It’s a common issue for businesses who aren’t keeping up-to-date with their IT estate. If you know exactly what you already own, then you will be aware of what equipment is currently being used and what’s sitting in storage. That means you can ensure everything is being used, keep spare equipment aside for when you need it, and avoid buying duplicated hardware.

Stops Equipment Going Offline

When you’re managing a company, especially with the new way of remote working that covid brought in, you’ll understand how costly failing equipment going offline and having downtime can be. If staff can’t complete their jobs properly, it directly affects your bottom line. 

Carrying out regular hardware audits means you’ll know exactly what stage of the HAM life cycle your equipment is, and be prepared to roll out new equipment and replace out-of-date hardware. You’ll also be able to schedule downtime to run upgrades with as little disruption to your daily operations as possible. You will also have your essential data centre equipment performing at peak functionality because it’s not getting old, and out of date without you realising. 

Having reliable equipment that makes it easy for staff to do what they need to do both helps productivity and morale, as well as helping your profits. 

Saves Your Company Time and Money

If you’ve not been carrying out any asset management, then there will be an initial cost to ensuring you can get a greater handle on your entire IT estate. However, the benefits soon outweigh any cost associated as once you’re keeping on top of your hardware. You’ll be less likely to have equipment stolen, you’ll have the ability to plan ahead, and you’ll easily be able to identify where equipment is and who is using it for running essential updates or rolling out new hardware. 

All of these advantages go into saving your company time and money. You’ll be able to use the regularly updated detailed reports to identify all of your equipment easily, instead of getting lost trying to find something. So the next time a question comes up about your IT estate you’ll have the answers to hand. 

 

Gives You Greater Control of Your Assets

Once you understand where everything is and what point of the HAM life cycle it’s in, you’ll have complete control over your IT hardware. Your entire IT estate is a highly expensive asset to your company, so you want to have a comprehensive understanding of it. 

At Capital, we’ll provide you with a program that has a user-friendly interface to allow you to keep on top of all your assets and access the information from one accessible screen. Helping you keep on top of all your hardware, any scheduled maintenance, and preventing asset loss and duplication. 

You’ll also keep on top of hardware renewals, as our team will verify your entire IT estate, reducing operational costs.