3 Crucial Asset Management Features For The Hybrid Workplace Era

The way work has already been changing for some time, and the pandemic only ramped up the pace of what should have been a gradual transformation.

At the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak, when most employees worked remotely, hardware asset management proved to be the biggest support challenge. Nobody expected the drastic change in asset management strategies that organizations were forced to implement to cope with their entire workforce moving to remote work.

The transformed IT asset management system that IT teams implemented during this time played a critical role in ensuring that their respective companies’ operations continued even through the lockdowns. It was only supposed to be a temporary setup – a Band-Aid solution, if you will.

Today, many businesses are committing to long-term remote and distributed working frameworks. And to support this new working model, organizations will have to reevaluate the current smart asset and inventory management technology driving their day-to-day operations. Doing so can help them cater to the new realities in the workplace.

Here are three asset management features that companies will need to fully enter the world of hybrid working:

1. Comprehensive Hardware Tracking

Keeping track of a company’s valuable physical assets has always been important. Gartner, a research company, found that a laptop is stolen every 53 seconds. More often than not, these laptops contain confidential data.

In the context of a hybrid workplace, where company equipment like laptops and other mobile devices can easily get misplaced, the ability to track these assets has never been more critical.

During the pandemic, companies issued laptops and other IT equipment for employees to use at home. In this setup, when a remote employee decides to leave the company, the organization must account for the assets in their custody.

Unfortunately, the problem is that many organizations still use spreadsheets and other manual processes for tracking IT assets. Furthermore, these assets may or may not be linked to specific users. This increases the risk of equipment being lost, and worse, former employees retaining access to company resources even after their termination.

One way this gets solved is by moving towards a cloud-based environment for tracking IT assets. A smart asset management system’s ability to track assets in real-time, and provide real-time data regarding said assets, can significantly reduce the risk of asset loss and ensure that employee off-boarding procedures go as smoothly as possible.

2. Reliable Software Management

In a hybrid workplace framework, a company’s smart asset management strategy must account for remote software, not just IT hardware. That said, keeping track of software can be pretty intimidating. With so many products and services being used, managing and tracking licenses, feature updates, and security patches become such a daunting task.

A smart asset vending system is a tool that gives you a clear understanding of how many licenses are being used across the organization. With this feature, businesses can stay compliant with software licensing laws. They never have to worry about costly fines and legal action from companies like Microsoft and Adobe.

Moreover, the increased visibility a KW brings helps teams reassign licenses that are no longer being used, making more efficient use of a company’s software assets. And aside from this capability, KWs can also distribute software updates much easier, which helps eliminate potential security risks.

3. Efficient Incident Resolution Framework

Quickly solving technical problems is of utmost importance in most organizations, and it is even more crucial in a world of remote working.

One powerful way to optimize an organization’s smart enterprise asset management strategy is by combining its capabilities with its existing service desk system. Integrated asset management and ticketing platform can equip IT teams with comprehensive information on each ticket submitter’s IT equipment while retaining the capability to anticipate hardware issues.

Additionally, this integration can help IT teams track and identify trends in incidents. For example, if a piece of software is exhibiting compatibility issues with older hardware, the visibility that the IT asset tracking solution and ticketing system’s integration helps technicians identify and resolve the problem before it becomes widespread.

This feature ultimately means you cut down on the back and forth between technicians and endusers, resulting in fewer tickets and more time for other essential tasks.

Another aspect of this feature is the set of smart lockers that IT teams can use to distribute and retrieve assets and perform servicing. There’s no need for an onsite visit. An employee can simply deposit the device that needs servicing on one of the designated lockers and log the issues through the control panel. In that same instant, the administrator can also assign a different device that the employee can use right away while the unit they originally had is being repaired.

Conclusion

As the world transitions to an era of hybrid working, organizations must provide effective and secure tools and technology to enable their workforce for this new era of working.

Every hardware asset must be tracked throughout its entire lifecycle and associated with a specific user responsible for that asset. The software also needs to be tracked. Lastly, IT equipment issues need to be resolved quickly.

With IT asset management solutions like Teqtivity, organizations can tackle the crucial areas outlined in this article, ensuring that their remote asset management readiness takes them to the hybrid workplace era with ease.