How to organize the inventory of your company?

The COVID-19 pandemic made many companies in the market to adopt the Home Office way of working for the majority of their respective collaborators. With this, it has become a challenge to have an adequate management of the devices that the users utilize.This is because the equipment (such as notebooks, IP phones, among others) that formerly would be installed in the respective working bases, were migrated by the collaborators for their houses.

In parallel to that, the Companies continue increasing their respective professional staffs, creating the necessity for the acquisition of new equipment or products to meet the needs of the users.

However, how can we know if it is necessary to acquire, for example, a quantitative X of notebooks or a quantitative Y of software licenses, without the due inventory?

How is it possible to have an internal organization of the technological resources utilized by the company?

It is about this subject that we will address in this article.

WHAT SHOULD CONTAIN IN AN INVENTORY?

Firstly, let’s consider that a traditional Home Office environment normally, utilizes:

• 1 notebook.
• 1 IP desktop phone (being able to be replaced by a licensing of software which can do the function of telephony).
• Licensing of necessary software according to the user’s profile.
• Accessories, such as mouse and screens.
• Other equipment that are normally provided by the users, such as, an adequate environment for Home Office work, printer, Internet link, table, chair, among others.

In this aspect, we can observe above that there are elements provided by the own collaborator. However, there are others that the companies normally make available such as notebooks, IP phones and software licenses.

With that, the company needs to have an inventory that considers the utilization of all the resources that it makes available for the users.

Many companies can believe that an inventory, must encompass only the hardware assets, such as notebooks, phones, among others. However, without doubts, this is a great mistake.

A correct inventory must list all the resources made available by the company for all the collaborators, encompassing also the software licensing that perhaps the users utilize.

With that, let’s see on the following some important technical recommendations for having an organized and updated inventory:

ORGANIZATION OF THE INVENTORY

Segmentation per department and profile of the collaborator

Like in any company, each department possesses its respective collaborators which will be associated to the correspondent profiles. In this aspect, it is essential for the IT technical team to organize the inventory per department. Including all the resources that every professional utilizes, such as notebooks, phones, software licensing, among others.

This besides helping in an efficient organization, will help the company to have an overview about how many and which resources are being spent in each department with products and software.

Managing and monitoring the utilized resources

In many cases, after a determined period, the users start to not utilizing the same resources that were utilized formerly.

One example of that, it is the utilization of an IP phone for a user that is working remotely. With the advance of the technologies of unified communications, the IP phone device has been replaced gradually by licensing of software which emulate the functionalities of the device in the computer of the user.

However, if the user starts to utilize only the software and not the device anymore, it is fundamental that the IT technical team is notified about when the user exactly stopped using the resource.

With that, is fundamental that the IT technical team monitor all the resources that are being utilized. Therefore, in case there is any resource which apparently is not consumed anymore by a certain user, it can be migrated to another collaborator that needs it.

This monitoring should be carried out, preferably, through software tools that enable the visualization of the consumption of the resources of the users according to the respective applications utilized in the company.

Constant updating of the inventory

Once having a correct mapping of the products that are being utilized by the users, it is important that an internal policy is indicating an updating of the inventory.

This updating is primordial, because without it the inventory can be constantly outdated, not evidencing in this manner, the current scenery of consumption of the company’s resources.

Another point that is important to observe is if the applications that will be utilized by the collaborators, are compatible with the products made available at the time by the company.

One example of that, is the usage of a certain application that is compatible only with a certain operational system. If the user needs to utilize this application and it is authorized internally by the responsible area of the company, it is fundamental that the necessary resources are provided for that such user can utilize the application.

In this case, it is important that the inventory to also highlight technical information which justify specific cases in the company, such as the utilization of a different operational systems for a determined department due to the need of utilizing specific resources.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

As we can observe in the course of this article, a well-organized inventory helps the company in several points, such as:

• Reduction of costs by the reutilization of products that already belong to the company.
• Justifies the hiring of new products or services, by means of technical confirmation that there is really a need.
• Helps the IT technical team in the monitoring of the resources hat are being consumed and consequently improves the maintenance of the technological park of the company.

With this, all the companies that desire to improve their own resources and aim towards new investments in the technological area, must have a precise and detailed mapping about all the respective technological park.

In this sense, there are no doubts about the importance of investing in network management. In this manner, we are able to not only bring benefits for the visibility of the infrastructure, but also representing a way to guarantee greater agility and capacity of anticipating to problems.

Thinking about that,  Telcomanager, leader in Latin America in the sector of software for network management, since 2002 in the market with a unique and innovative methodology, makes available smart solutions for the monitoring of data in order to provide complete visibility to the infrastructure of the client, allowing your Company to accompany the main aspects of your network.