Unusual Facts About Asset Managers
For most businesses, the efficient tracking of their installed base or in-service equipment, and the management of their spare parts inventories are main reasons in determining the prospects for internal productivity and customer service profitability. Conversely, many organizations don't yet utilize a comprehensive asset tracking and management process to be sure the availability of quality data that may be used to generate the business intelligence that may ultimately save them money and improve efficiency. This is unfortunate, because the tools are readily available - it is simply a matter of making it a top priority.
There are several definitions of "asset management", although most deal primarily with financial things to consider. Some are based upon evolving upkeep management systems; some on the management of factory floor equipment configurations; and some for the purpose of monitoring network equipment or even railway car and container locations. Alternatively, irrespective 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 must be built upon a foundation of generally accepted accounting principles, and supported by the proper blend of sound business practices and financial acumen. It can provide management with an effective tool that will be used to derive better short- and long-term planning decisions. As such, it's an element that every business should consider adopting - and embracing.
Poor asset management leads to poor data quality - and poor Full Article data quality can negatively affect the business over-time. In fact, experience shows that there are a number of common causes that will 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. Likewise, some businesses might not consider asset management to be a critical function, centering on audits only; while others may not consider asset data to be a significant component of the business's intellectual property.
The primary symptoms of poor asset management also are fairly ubiquitous, and may include everything 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 produced from different organizations and/or business systems.
Moreover, poor ongoing asset management practices can impact a business by degrading customer service delivery, polluting the current installed base of data and distracting sales resources with customer data issues By way of example, Service Delivery might 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.
