IT Asset Lifecycle Management in 5 Steps
Whether you’re a small business or an enterprise organisation, we’d be willing to bet you rely on at least a few physical IT assets to function at your optimal performance.
But how do you get the most value out of these assets? How do you make sure they remain in peak condition? And what happens when one starts to malfunction?
In this article, we’ll run through the five stages of the IT asset management lifecycle.
Read on to learn more.
What is the IT asset management lifecycle - and why is it important?
The IT asset management lifecycle is a streamlined process that helps you to acquire the right asset for your business needs, maximise that asset’s lifespan, and dispose of it responsibly at the end of its useful life.
And it’s made up of 5 key stages:
Planning
Acquisition
Implementation
Operation and maintenance
Disposal
Doing these stages effectively will enable you to get the most value out of your assets and maximise return on investment. It also enables you to ensure you’ve got the right resources in place, track asset performance, reduce damage and waste, and minimise overall lifetime costs.
Let’s run through each of these five stages and what they entail.
1. Planning
The planning stage is where you establish your asset requirements and specifications. In other words, it’s about figuring out what you really need.
Start by carefully analysing your business needs - both immediate and long-term. As part of this, evaluate existing assets and determine whether they’re fulfilling these needs.
Next, think about the type of asset you require. Consider what you need from it and what specifications it should have. How is it going to add value to your business and improve operations?
Finally, think about the asset in relation to its entire lifecycle. For example, how much will acquisition cost and what’s your budget? How easy will it be to install and deploy? How costly will it be to operate, maintain and repair? How will you dispose of it responsibly at the end of its useful life?
2. Procurement
Once you’ve determined which type of asset you need, as well as the specifications you require, the next stage is to procure it - as well as any parts you might need for maintenance.
During this stage, you’ll use all the information you gathered during the planning stage to help you identify the right asset for your business. You’ll want to make your choice based on your specifications and requirements, as well as any budgets you’ve set.
This can be time-consuming - but some asset management platforms can help you do this more efficiently and effectively.
For example, our very own fully branded custom portals are a self-service platform that you can log into and order any assets you might need. You can browse a personalised product catalogue with pre-arranged pricing, and get this equipment shipped to wherever you need it by the next day.
3. Deployment
The third stage of the IT asset lifecycle is installation and deployment.
During this stage, the asset is fully assembled, system imaged, inspected for any physical defects, examined for safety issues and prepared for operation. If any problems are identified, they’ll be addressed before use.
As part of this stage, you’ll also likely want to tag your asset so you can log and track its location and performance throughout its entire lifecycle.
You can save time and labour here by buying from a vendor that does all this for you. For example, when you order via our custom portals, we provision, tag and fully configure assets in advance - so they’re ready for you to use out of the box.
4. Operation and maintenance
Stage four is the meat of the IT asset management lifecycle. And it comes in two parts.
Part one involves actually operating your new asset for its intended use - this is what some businesses call the asset’s ‘useful life.’
This includes regularly monitoring the asset’s performance for issues as well as improvements that you could make - including updates and upgrades.
But a huge part of this stage is ensuring the longevity of your asset and maximising its lifespan - so you get the most value out of it. Which brings us to part two.
Part two is carrying out maintenance and repairs on the asset. These can be scheduled (focused on helping maximise the product’s lifespan) or when needed as the result of an error, breakage or just general wear and tear.
5. Disposal
The final stage of the lifecycle is asset disposal.
This happens when your asset has reached the end of its useful life, is no longer functioning as it should be, or costs more to repair than replace. In any of these cases, disposal is likely the most logical choice.
You can go about this in various ways. You could sell the asset to a company that might want to disassemble it for parts, re-purpose some of its parts yourself, or recycle the asset.
Regardless of what you choose to do with the asset, act responsibly when doing so. First, wipe all sensitive data from the asset to prevent data leakages. Second, be conscious of your environmental impact during disposal.
When we dispose of assets at Novatech, we can refurbish them for resale or donate them to specified organisations. Find out more here.
Finally, you’ll likely want to replace that asset that you’ve disposed of. In this case, the cycle starts again. This is why it’s a cycle and not a flowchart.
It doesn’t need to be difficult
Asset management doesn’t need to be a time-consuming process.
In fact, our efficient, cost-effective, and flexible Managed IT Service, D2D makes it a breeze.
Using our service, you can manage your entire asset management lifecycle via a dedicated and fully customisable self-service portal. You can also fully integrate and automate our D2D service by integrating our custom API with your internal systems - making the entire process zero touch.