2020 has certainly brought change; in our personal habit, in family life, how we work, and what we focus on. Many of these changes are going to have long-lasting impacts. While 2020 has been a year of quick adaptation, we want to highlight the priorities IT asset managers should focus on for 2021 so that the new year is one of being proactive. These priorities are in areas of …
- Security
- Preparedness of the next event
- Automation
- Moving to a cloud environment.
Security
Security continues to be a major focus for all companies and organizations. A lot of attention is given to cybersecurity and external threats, however you don’t want to overlook security breaches come from the inside. It’s a security threat when critical assets containing sensitive data leave their locations without authorization and undetected. This is also a concern outside of your building in colocation facilities as well. It’s important to know the status and location of your assets at all times. Asset Vue has always taken security as a priority, and we offer clients a real-time solution that notifies you the moment an asset leaves its intended location.
A 2020 change that will have a long-lasting impact is the increased percentage of the workforce being work-from-anywhere. This will cause assets to be distributed to an even larger amount of locations. We see that the industry will see an increased need for GPS location data, and in 2021 we will release our GPS offering for asset managers.
Preparedness for the next event
You can’t always predict what the next major event will be, but you can prepare for the next disruption. When offices closed in early 2020, we addressed in our blog what do you do when you can’t access your data center? Our blog in a summary, business continuity plans will benefit from eliminating the need for physical audits. Companies can do that through implementing a real-time automated solution.
Automation
Automation enables the business to function while requiring less human interaction, thus improving efficiency and reliability of information. Many may think that automation is out of reach whether due to complexity or costs. Our perspective is that automation can happen in small steps, and therefore becomes a reality for organizations of all sizes. Many companies are still managing assets using spreadsheets. Using a barcode solution can greatly reduce the manual entry of managing assets. Moving from a barcode solution to using an RFID solution for scanning and reporting can further automate operations and reduce manual processes. Using RFID, you can fully automate your asset management operations throughout the asset lifecycle from shipping to decommission. With a fully automated system, asset status and location can update in real-time, with notifications being sent to you immediately.
Move to a cloud environment
More organizations continue to move towards a hybrid cloud environment. Companies spend tens to hundreds of millions of dollars annually in infrastructure maintenance (building upkeep, heat, ac, etc.) to support technology and these are capital costs which have lost opportunity costs throughout the organization. Through having a hybrid cloud environment, this reduces the burden of cost for infrastructure and staff to support it. In turn, these savings can be invested in other functions throughout the company.
For those who work in data centers, we pride ourselves in being proactive and mitigating against down time. Being proactive in areas of security, preparedness, automation, and moving to a cloud environment will help your department and organization succeed in the coming year. We will be happy to help you.
If you’d like to discuss your current operations, feel free to contact us to see how we can help. We serve clients by hosting and maintaining the application and database integrity in our Asset Vue Cloud. We can discuss setting up a fully automated process that will save time, add security, and prepare you for the next major event.
