Strategic cost-cutting isn’t a new business strategy by any means, but it is now becoming increasingly critical for business resilience and growth. As a quick path to value and savings, IT teams are taking a deep look into their asset estate to determine what’s owned, what’s being used, where everything is (physically or virtually), and how much everything costs. The insight gained is not only helping identify IT waste but is also revealing inefficiencies in hardware asset management (HAM) processes and activities.
The rise of remote work has made tracking, managing, and servicing assets a bit more interesting—assets are everywhere and asset data is likely scattered across teams, locations, and datacenters. This is where Hardware Normalization can help. But first, here’s a quick question:
Do you know exactly what you have in your asset inventory? Can you prove it?
If your answer is “Maybe” or “I’m not sure” here are some follow-up questions:
- Did you quickly have to adapt and digitally transform the way you procure, receive, deploy, service, and retire assets?
- Does your asset data come from multiple sources – do you have overlapping records?
- Are data gathering or audit processes consistent?
- Are error-prone, manual processes making you question asset data accuracy?
- Do you only perform an inventory audit once a year or never because it’s too labor intensive?
These are all good questions to consider as your business fast tracks to digital transformation. You shouldn’t only be looking to the assets themselves but also to the processes involved in managing those assets. To make the most of every dollar spent you need to know exactly what is owned.
You also need to be able to identify opportunities to simplify and automate processes, mitigate asset risks, and maintain compliance with established security policies and regulatory requirements. How can you secure your corporate environment if you don’t know what’s in it? You can only protect sensitive data if you know what hardware you have, where it is, and what’s on it. Inventory completeness and data accuracy will be your best friend—and it is possible to achieve when you have the right technology.
Asset inventory data often comes from multiple sources and isn’t always consistent. The image below shows three variations of how an Apple Macbook Pro 15” might look as you compile your asset data. ServiceNow® Hardware Asset Management - Hardware Normalization drives the standardizing of asset data. Here’s how it works.
Each hardware item, including a 15” Apple Macbook, has a unique model number (shown as MD322LL/A). This number is used to normalize records with inconsistent product names and manufacturers and aligns assets under one common display name that combines the product name, manufacturer, and model number. This process aligns the values in the database with those in the United Nations Standard Product and Services Code (UNSPSC) which provides the global standard for product recognition. Hardware Normalization compares your data against the data in the Content Library and Content Service including hardware model lifecycle dates from the manufacturer.
The Content Library will automatically populate the inventory with asset metadata that can’t be discovered such as: end of support, end of extended support, and end-of-life dates. Any errors or variations made during the asset receiving process or during an inventory audit are standardized by the normalization process. You can also manually create or update records for any outliers or data that was partially normalized.
What are the benefits of hardware normalization?
You know exactly what you own
Normalization creates a definitive list of assets in your organization. This is your assurance that you do in fact know what assets you own. The clean and reliable data you gain helps you strategically plan for new purchases, asset refreshes, or asset disposal.
Provide quality IT services
You have asset lifecycle data needed to determine risk against service and be a proactive provider of quality IT services. You can better prepare for when assets reach end of support or end of life.
Automate how HAM is done
Take quick action on identified risks and opportunities with intuitive workflows that automate the asset lifecycle.
Watch this video to learn more about Hardware Normalization and other ServiceNow Hardware Asset Management features and capabilities:
Hardware Asset Management Overview Video
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Learn more about Hardware Normalization and other ServiceNow Hardware Asset Management features and capabilities at servicenow.com/ITAM.
Exciting News!!! Hardware Asset Management is now available on the ServiceNow Store:
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