Skip to main content
Blog

Everything You Need to Know About Enterprise Asset Management

By February 25, 2021No Comments6 min read
Enterprise Asset Management

If you want to determine the value of your business, then you should start with the things that you own. Assets are the most important measure that you can use for valuing your organization. Thus, you need a way to manage all the assets that you own.

Enterprise Asset Management or EAM can help you in solving this problem. According to IBM, EAM is an asset lifecycle management process that will help you in supporting entire asset performance. The main aim of EAM is to utilize assets. It will help you in optimizing all the assets throughout the EAM. You can implement new resources, policies, and processes for maintaining and controlling operational equipment and assets. If you are not using this framework, then you can lose your assets. It can lead to inefficient usage and security threats. In this article, we are going to talk about Enterprise Asset Management.

Definition of an asset:

According to the ISO 55000 Standard, an asset is an item, entity, or thing that has some actual value or potential. The value is mostly associated with the financial perspective of the items. However, there are also other non-financial aspects like comfort, competitive advantage, brand, and ease of use.

You can divide the assets into two groups:

  1. Physical Assets: You can touch these assets. For example, properties, inventory, and equipment.
  2. Intangible Assets: These are immaterial assets. For example, digital assets, IP rights, agreements, reputation, and use rights.

You might think that the people are missing from this list. Employees are considered to be the greatest asset of any organization. However, the EAM is not going to consider them in this category. It mainly focuses on all the inanimate objects that can be disposed of, used, sold, or acquired.

What is EAM or Enterprise asset management?

According to ISO 55000, asset management is the process of realizing value from IT assets. Organizations will do coordinated activity for finding the value of assets. These activities will include the following things:

  • The plan.
  • The planning.
  • The approach.

Asset management is a technique that will help you in effectively tracking and optimizing your asset reliability and quality.

EAM Lifecycle:

You need to manage the asset through the entire EAM lifecycle. This will ensure that the value is retained or gained. The main lifecycle steps are:

  1. Budgeting and planning

This is the most important step of the EMA lifecycle. You need to create a strategy first. Also, you need to determine the assets that will be required for achieving your objectives. The planning will mainly include allocating budgets and it will help you in scheduling exact timelines.

  1. Acquisition

This phase will fall between leasing and purchasing. Your enterprise procurement process will be used in this. The assets will be delivered to your enterprise. They will be stored securely in your in-house server. You can easily track the physical assets as they will be logged into your systems. The acquisition contract will also define the supplier’s responsibilities.

  1. Assignment

This will be triggered by either project-based timelines or by a request. You need to develop policies for handling assignments and usage. Some of the assignments will require financial commitment or approval. Records will be logged into the tracking systems. These tracking systems will help you in tracking all the assets. You can also use fixed asset registers for tracking your assets.

You also need to train your users for some of the assets. Digital assets will require customization and configuration during the assignment process.

  1. Usage

In this phase, the IT asset will be put to actual use. This will help you in extracting the real value from your assets. If your assets are in the utilization phase, then you should regularly monitor them. Auditing finances will also help you in tracking the value of your assets. Your assets value will also decrease with time. Thus, you should ensure that you are tracking the real value of your assets.

You should also optimize your assets. This will include things like updates, servicing, and repairs.

  1. Decommissioning

In this step, you need to reverse the assignment of your assets. Make sure that you are removing the asset after the end of its lease period. Sometimes you need to remove assets due to obsolescence or depreciation. If your assets are broken to the point that they can’t be repaired, then you should replace them.

You should make sure that you are updating the records of the asset. It will help you in tracking the final financial value of your assets. You should transfer all your assets to a secure area.

If you have digital assets, then you should archive any information or transform it. After that, you should run security checks for confirming the decommissioning.

  1. Disposal

The disposal phase will depend on your enterprise policy. You can sell some of your assets for making some financial gains. Many companies also donate their assets to charities. You can also destroy some assets if they are useless.

EAM solutions

It is impossible to track all your assets by using manual processes. Thus, most SMBs are using robust solutions for tracking their thousands of assets. The number of devices is increasing due to the age of mobile devices and IoT. According to a report from P&S intelligence, the EAM solution market will be worth $26 billion by 2020.

There are various modern EAM solutions available in the market. They will use cloud-based tools for providing the automated capability to your business. This will ensure that you can manage the entire lifecycle from a remote location. Your enterprise will have a complete view of your assets. It will help you in maximizing the TCO of your assets.

Conclusion

EAM is very important for every modern business. It will help you in tracking the value of your assets. You can also use it for maximizing the value of your assets. It will help you in integrating different business areas like health, safety, IT, and finance. If you don’t have access to an IT team, then you should consider working with an MSP. Experienced MSPs like Bleuwire will help you in implementing the EAM solution. They will help you in tracking all your IT assets. Also, they will help you in tracking the value of your assets. If you need more information regarding EAM, then you can contact Bleuwire.

Contact us today to learn about Bleuwire™  services and solutions in how we can help your business.