Does your business have a disciplined approach to acquiring, using and disposing of IT?
How are you defining lifecycles for the different technology assets deployed?
Are you sweating your IT products or are there clear pathways to decommissioning and strategies to maximise value and reduce downtime
In this blog post, we explore IT Governance, understanding its benefits some baseline examples, and some tools that can assist you in highlighting its importance.
When viewed from the lens of Technology, Asset Management and Governance have a unique meaning. In the case of Asset Management, it describes the systems and processes a firm has in place to track the asset both physically and track the information related to it for example its exact specification, serial number, warranty information and even the receipt.
Why Asset Management is important.
As your business grows, the number of assets may multiply, and departments or individuals may independently procure them. An asset can mean anything from server and networking infrastructure to printers, laptops, tablets, phones, and even accessories. It’s important to quickly take stock of the number of assets in use and consider those that have been replaced but not adequately decommissioned. These assets may still hold sensitive information, and proper decommissioning is crucial to ensure data security and minimize risk
What is Governance? And why is it important?
IT governance refers to the framework and processes established within an organisation to ensure that information technology resources are used effectively, efficiently, and in alignment with business objectives. What does it look like in practice? Governance in practice is a holistic strategy which is being implemented to speed up the decision-making process for procuring, installing and decommissioning IT assets with a fixed lifecycle that could be based on usage or time or even warranties
Here is an example of a simple IT lifecycle Matrix
Asset Type | Recommended Lifcycle (Years) | Included Warranty | Extended Warranty | Data Destruction |
Computers Desktops Laptops | 2-4 | 1-3 | Yes | Yes |
Infrastructure Servers, Routers, Switches | 3-5 | 2-5 | Yes | Yes |
Storage Devices HDD, SSD, NAS | 3-5 | 2-5 | Yes | Yes |
Printers and Scanners | On-Lease / Otherwise 3-5 | 1-3 | Yes | Yes |
Mobile Devices Smartphones + Tablets | 2 | 1-2 | Yes | Yes |
Peripherals Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse | 3-5 | 1 | No | No |
IT Governance is a valuable tool to mitigate risks and reduce IT failure and inefficiency. It helps organizations establish robust risk management processes, develop incident response plans, build resilient infrastructure, ensure smooth change management, monitor performance, engage with reliable vendors, and drive continuous improvement. These efforts collectively contribute to minimizing downtime and maintaining reliable IT operations. This gives a business clear timeline on when their IT may start becoming a liability both in terms of direct costs of repairs and maintenance but also in terms of employee downtime.
We have built a simple calculator so that you can calculate what your downtime could be costing your firm.
IT Governance is great tool to reduce the time it takes to make decisions in a complex organisation by creating a systematic process of review, decision-making and reporting. Increasing efficiency and creating synergy between the I.T and finance departments.