However, the advancement of non-DP area spending means an increasing amount of IT assets are not being tracked or managed. With more pressure being exerted on departments and divisions, the time for enterprisewide IT asset management has arrived.
Though many governments have begun tracking IT assets at a departmental or functional level, few have attacked the root problem -- the lack of enterprisewide IT asset management. The implications of failing to address this need are profound. IT organizations that fail to address their need for enterprisewide IT asset management will be partially or totally privatized and/or outsourced by 1998 (0.8 probability).
DEFINED
We define IT asset management as a systematic approach to managing IT assets, including DP department staff, end users performing IT support, technology procurement teams, suppliers, facilities, hardware and software. Effective IT asset management optimizes the use and deployment of those assets, using a total-cost-of-ownership (TCO) approach when making IT investment decisions.
The goal of enterprisewide IT asset management is to:
* Optimize the utilization of all assets.
* Enable effective IT risk management.
* Unlock the promise of client/server computing, making knowledge workers more productive and decisive.
While services and technologies can help fight the battle of asset management, the real war is to establish a cultural awareness of the importance of IT assets. Traditionally, end-user awareness of the value and importance of desktop IT assets has been very low. Therefore, asset management must begin at the highest levels of an organization.
The procurement focus must also change. In the past, acquisition of the goods or services were paramount, as were contract negotiations and discount levels. Today, a total life-cycle approach is more important in reducing total costs and more effectively managing assets.
IMPLEMENTATION
Essential procedures for implementing a successful enterprisewide IT asset management plan include:
* A TCO approach, with senior management support.
* A phased approach, incrementally attacking areas of chaos (Rome wasn't built in a day).
* Policies must include a marketing strategy to ensure end users understand the complete costs of desktop computing .
* Every enterprise must have a policy to address the issue of illegal software, and all employees must sign a memo stating they have read and understand that policy.
* Organizations must be staffed to handle the tracking and maintenance of all assets on an ongoing basis.
* IT executives must realize technology life cycles will continue to shrink, and must understand the implications of this trend in frequent changes of direction and strategy.
A PROPOSAL
GartnerGroup proposes enterprises adopt IT asset management best practices, including collection of information about IT disposal and procurement processes, physical inventory, and asset moves and changes. The collected information then serves as an enterprisewide asset database with which to coordinate and facilitate:
* IT budgeting and forecasting -- the allocation of funds and IT asset planning.
* Hardware and software procurement -- a view into the life-cycle costs of assets enables better negotiation leverage and increased clout when dealing with suppliers. It also reduces redundant purchasing.
* Asset disposal -- most enterprises do not have a clear asset disposal policy.
* Help-desk activities -- the service and support that keeps end users productive.
* Training -- the education of IT department staff and end users about new IT hardware, software and services.
BENEFITS?
For most enterprises, the benefits of adopting a single enterprisewide IT asset management repository or database far outweigh the cost of implementing and maintaining the database. Initial savings are derived from savings in hardware maintenance and duplicate software costs (most enterprises' software budgets consist of between 2 percent and 7 percent of "shelfware" -- software acquired but not used in production.)
Significant savings also derive from discerning the degree of software- and hardware-related expenditures under-reported by divisions and program areas. Many organizations report reducing costs by more than 50 percent in this area through the use of IT asset management.
We forecast initial savings in the range of $25 to $75 per year, per desktop. Continued savings result from enterprisewide volume buying of services in the future. While these savings are significant, the major savings are in the form of increased productivity, a prime objective for nearly all government agencies and departments.
In many instances, the single greatest benefit derived from IT asset management is a gain in knowledge workers' productivity. Such gains are made from equipping the help desk with best-in-class tools, including information about installed hardware and software across the enterprise. If workers elect to use the help desk because it is the best source for help, they will not interrupt an associate to discuss their problem.
BOTTOM LINE
An important point for any IT executive to remember is that asset management has more to do with services and organizational approaches than any single product. Only a few of the available offerings are oriented toward point solutions -- in the guise of a "module" or product -- that address pieces of the asset management puzzle, but not an integrated solution.
Finally, the most critical success factor in establishing an enterprisewide IT asset management initiative is the complete support of senior management; without it, an enterprisewide IT asset management effort will achieve only modest short-term success and will fail in reducing long-term costs.
Ian Temple is program director of GartnerGroup's Executive Program for Government. Andrew Dailey is a GartnerGroup analyst.
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