Has your organization been part of a re-organization, merger or acquisition? It might be time to start thinking about a True Up of your IT and Mobile assets. Maybe it is the end of the calendar year fast approaching. There can be many different events in business that can create the need for a deep dive into our organization’s assets. Many of our service agreements and contracts also have renewals, or auto-renewals, around this time. Audits and compliance concerns that can accompany any of the above-mentioned activities can always be a potential trigger. We can manage our inventory and all the related documents best if we have a current and accurate snapshot of our assets; both on and off network.

Best Practices

This blog post is not meant to get into the entirety of policy and procedures related to a True Up, but to offer a reminder of industry Best Practices. As ITAM professionals we can create significant value for our organization. Being able to provide decision makers with the best data possible to guide the resources where they are needed is only 1 of our value adds. We can contribute to risk mitigation efforts from many angles.

For example, during the November 4th IMUG webinar, a participant mentioned their initiative to assess under-utilized mobile devices for potential re-deployment. This type of data, often unavailable elsewhere in the organization, enables better asset allocation and can help reduce costs, particularly if these assets are tied to service contracts that could be cancelled.

Repository

The repository tool that we use should always be kept current with all our activities and preferably linked to any shared inventory systems of the organization. As IT Asset professionals and Mobile Device professionals we should have a robust and current repository ready to do what we need it to do. We should be able to track and asset “cradle-to-grave” with relative ease. This should also include information about any installs, moves, adds, or changes (IMAC) activities.

Discovery Tools

Being able to see what assets are connected to our operating environment will allow us to begin to add some details to our overall picture. Generate reports that can then be integrated with any other department’s reports or automated records to compare results. Cyber security or other IT security teams will surely have discovery tools that can also generate reports. Remember that these reports are only a snapshot of the data at that given time.

Partnerships

Depending on the size of your organization and the delegation of different responsibilities, partnerships will be the key to a successful and valuable True Up. Procurement or purchasing and possibly receiving can help gather information about what has been purchased and received into the organization since the last time a reconciliation or inventory has been completed. Contract management or legal departments should be able to provide any related documents to equipment leases or mobile service providers. While we do not often report directly to any of these departments nor to us, it is important that we can communicate with any of them to be able to do our job to the best of our abilities.

Value Proposition

Time and resources need to be dedicated in advance with the understanding that it is not an easy task to complete and should not be undertaken without proper consideration. Global trade and supply chain issues along with increased cost and risk mitigation, to name a few, are many ways that we can impact our organization. Being able to provide our end users with the best equipment possible so that they can do what they do should be a sense of pride for us.