Mobile Device & Asset Management Check-List for IT Managers

A well-thought-out mobile device management strategy is the fundamental ingredient for successful deployment to ensure mobility within the organization.

In an ideal situation, the IT department should be aware of the movement of every device that is being used in the organization; from inception till retirement. And to achieve this objective requires a comprehensive plan for mobile device asset management.

In every business, excessive use of laptops, PDA's, handheld scanning devices, smartphones, tablets are growing on a continual basis; inefficient IT oversight and control might lead to disastrous results.

According to the 2012 Osterman Research Study, almost 30% of the companies acknowledge IT department admins cannot manage the usage of smartphones to micro-manage their movement.

The situation gets even worse in the case of tablets and adds to the complication in asset tracking & management.

Mobile Devices are Most Neglected

For many years, IT departments ignored mobile handheld devices and believing the fact that their usage is very limited. On similar lines, even PDA's could not get extended usage and hence attracted very limited attention.

But with new innovative methods, these devices have found their extended usage promising better productivity and require incessant tracking. And it goes without saying that only visible assets can be tracked and managed because invisible/ghost assets are untraceable.

Also Read: Making Employees Responsible for the Assets They Use

Mobile device asset management can facilitate filling the gaps by enabling remote visibility and control over all the mobile and handheld devices used by the employees in an organization.

But this entire activity can be useless if the objective of the process is not defined beforehand and employees contributing towards the asset management. In order to achieve resource optimization, the below-mentioned asset management checklist should be religiously followed.

Achieve Resource Optimization by Following Asset Management Checklist:

Inventory of Mobile Devices - Device tags, Model numbers, firmware version, related daughter assets should be thoroughly tracked.

Classification of Inventory - Categorization of the mobile devices into allotted, unallotted, out for maintenance, decommissioned for grouping; can further streamline the tracking process.

Maintenance of Inventory - Maintenance schedules associated with a device should be readily available to ensure longer usage.

With mobile device asset management, you can know your location anytime anywhere. It can be very beneficial in terms of saving inventory and assets from theft and misplacement.

When you do mobile device asset management it's become very simple to find specific inventory in the huge warehouses.

Asset Tracking - IT Managers should always be updated about the physical whereabouts of any device (If possible with GPS location), to enhance the accountability of employees.

Sign-in & sign-out sheets should be readily available to update the stock status and ensure that users contribute towards the effective management of the mobile devices.

Recommend To Read: Easy Preventive Maintenance by Forming a Preventive Maintenance Checklist - [Infographic]

For effective asset management, mobile devices are very helpful you can get complete information and update the information when you are away from the office.

Supported Platforms - Device management also depends on other variables such as supporting the operating system, vendor/model/version, supports platforms like Apple IOS, Android. It defines the capability of the devices and adds to the long tenure of usage.

Audit of Mobile Assets - Using the stock management sheets in an asset management system, an IT manager will be able to trace the audit trail of mobile assets, which further simplifies inventory management.

Mobile device asset management helps in auditing. You can get all the information on your mobile and see the location of each asset on your mobile that assists in gathering all assets before performing auditing.

Calculate Asset Tenure - Useful life of any remote asset can also be readily calculated with the help of analysis of the maintenance expenses and the depreciated value of the asset is an asset management software.

Over and above all these points, there are few other aspects that play a quintessential role in the asset management for IT Managers like management of spare parts & consumable items, vendor management, average life - servers, scanners, printers, networking devices, and security of data centers.

Management of data centers can be really crucial for IT Managers because the entire organization is dependent on these data centers. Recovery of data at the time of a manmade or natural calamity can be really taxing, and so many organizations are readily moving to cloud-based services for data management and securing the data.

Furthermore, the privacy of data is also important for the organization to efficiently manage the assets. Purging data before discarding the old assets is very important to ensure the sanctity of the processes.

Also Read: What is the Role of Asset Management in Asset Maintenance?

Conclusion

In order to satisfy all the above conditions, Asset Infinity can really work wonders for an organization. It can readily be used to tag the assets, track their movement, maintain logs of sign-in and sign-out for different IT assets, monitor the health of the assets, ensure timely maintenance to enhance the life of assets.

Mobile device asset management is a tool that makes you more flexible and powerful. It allows you to manage assets with your mobile easily.

Thus, IT Managers can easily manage mobile assets spread across different locations effectively and also enable the employees to conduct self-audit of the assets. This will enhance traceability, transparency, and accountability in an organization.