It’s a well-known fact that comprehensive software asset management can bring huge savings and efficiencies to organizations, especially at scale. But is it a good investment for IT hardware too?In a word, YES. Let’s put it this way: Could your organization definitively say how many laptops and servers it has? Do you know where they are? If not, it could be time to think about investing in IT Asset Lifecycle Management.
Asset management for hardware has lagged somewhat behind processes for software. But that’s changing as more and more organizations discover that taking firm control over IT hardware assets can lead to tighter security, more strategic decision-making around tech procurement, and plenty of efficiency: Just clearing old, slow tech assets out the door can lead to productivity gains — perhaps as much as thousands of dollars per employee.
But first: What is Asset Lifecycle Management? We would define it as the set of processes, practices and investments that allow organizations to manage their assets intelligently, and keep them running smoothly and productively, from the beginning to end of their useful lifespan.
(The short version? Asset Lifecycle Management is about making sure your tech gear is looked after, so it can do its job.)
Here are five key reasons for your organization to get serious about Asset Lifecycle Management:
1. It’s important to know where your hardware is (and you probably don’t)
Are you aware of the whereabouts of your company’s laptops?
At a fundamental level, an organization should have the ability to track its assets, including physical IT assets. Therefore, an effective IT asset lifecycle management program should start by establishing a comprehensive inventory of all the hardware assets within your organization. This typically involves asking every employee to provide a list of the equipment they have, whether it’s located at home or in the office, and whether it’s currently in use or not. It’s a substantial task, but having a baseline inventory is essential.
During this process, you’ll be able to identify any “ghost” assets that exist according to your records but cannot be physically located. This issue may have become more challenging since the start of the pandemic and the rise of remote working.
Additionally, your team should also focus on identifying “zombie” assets, which are assets that your employees possess but are not recorded in any official records.
2. Unaccounted hardware poses a significant risk to your organization.
Closely tracking and managing IT assets introduces accountability to the system, which will reduce the risk of lost and stolen hardware. Lifecycle management also helps ensure that assets don’t fall into the wrong hands — a critical concern in the current context of increasing cyberattacks and data breaches.
To reduce these kinds of risks, ServiceNow recommends that your IT asset management team work with IT security experts to identify opportunities to incorporate security concerns into your organization’s asset lifecycle protocols.
3. Old hardware is a liability
Who hasn’t felt the frustration of watching an outdated computer sluggishly start up and struggle to perform even the simplest tasks? Outdated hardware increases downtime and slows down productive work — and that’s not just a gut feeling, there’s data to back it up: Microsoft commissioned a 2018 study that concluded old computers were costing companies more than US$2,700 each.
“Older computers,” the study said, “are more than twice as likely to experience issues like being slow to boot up, batteries depleting too soon, disk drive crashes causing data losses, application crashes and network connectivity problems. The total cost of owning a PC that is four or more years old is enough to replace it with two or more newer models.”
The result? Letting go of underperforming IT assets is a strategic investment that can significantly boost productivity. Implementing an IT asset lifecycle management program allows your organization to identify and remove sluggish, outdated equipment from your premises, paving the way for improved efficiency and effectiveness.
4. You can’t make strategic IT hardware spending decisions without good data
Your organization cannot truly know how to budget for its IT hardware needs if it doesn’t have an insight on what it already has, how (or whether) it’s being used.
Comprehensive IT asset lifecycle management, on the other hand, allows organizations to optimize how their IT resources are used, potentially reducing technology capital and operating expenditures.
How? By tracking and monitoring assets throughout their lifecycle, businesses can optimize asset allocation, including moving underused assets to areas and departments with higher demand. This active approach ensures that IT assets are deployed efficiently, minimizing waste, reducing costs and saving money.
5. A solution could be easier than you think. (Talk to us.)
To maximize the benefits of an IT hardware asset management program, Automation — featuring smooth and cost-efficient processes, built on a foundation of end-user self-service — is the desired end state.
How do you get there? Signifi’s integrated, flexible, turnkey platform for IT asset management is the only solution on the market that provides complete visibility into all of your organization’s assets remotely, from any device or location. Our cloud software-based tracking, monitoring and control features, in conjunction with smart lockers and other physical investments, will help you get your IT assets in check. As we’ve seen, this will lead to the discovery of cost efficiencies, and the gathering of data that informs better decision-making and enhanced accountability around your hardware assets. (Translation: less “lost” equipment.)
And you can keep using your current IT software management (ITSM) system, because our platform offers integration with ServiceNow, Remedy and other ITSM systems via RESTful APIs.
Because counting (and accounting for) your assets should be as easy as a breeze.
Software asset management got an earlier start because it was easier to automate — software leaves digital footprints that discovery tools can track. Hardware is harder because physical assets don’t announce themselves on a network when they move from one room to another, get handed from one employee to another, or end up sitting in a storage closet. That’s why hardware ITAM automation has lagged. But it’s catching up fast, and for good reason: hardware represents a large share of IT spend, and the consequences of poor hardware tracking — lost devices, security vulnerabilities from unpatched endpoints, budget wasted on assets no one is using — are significant. Modern automation for hardware ITAM combines software-side tracking (inventory management, lifecycle workflows, integration with ITSM) with physical infrastructure like smart lockers that create a digital record every time a device physically moves. Together, they bring hardware tracking close to the real-time accuracy that software SAM has had for years.
The first step is establishing a reliable baseline inventory — and the fastest way to do that is automated discovery. Deploy a network scanning tool that identifies every device connected to your environment, captures hardware specs, and populates your ITAM system without requiring manual data entry. In most organizations, this process surfaces two things immediately: ghost assets (in your records but nowhere to be found) and zombie assets (physically present but not recorded anywhere). Once you have an accurate baseline, prioritize automating the highest-volume, highest-friction process in your lifecycle — for most teams, that’s device provisioning for new hires and equipment returns for departing employees. Those two workflows alone can recover hundreds of IT staff hours per year. Everything else — maintenance tracking, license reconciliation, end-of-life management — can be layered in systematically over subsequent quarters.
The security benefits of ITAM automation are concrete and measurable. First: you can’t patch what you can’t see. Automated asset discovery ensures every device is in your inventory and therefore in scope for your patch management process. Organizations without comprehensive ITAM consistently have unpatched devices that fall outside their security tooling’s visibility — exactly the kind of exposure attackers exploit. Second: automated chain of custody means that when a device is returned or retired, the data wipe workflow is triggered immediately and logged permanently. Without that automation, devices sit in desk drawers or supply rooms for months with sensitive data still on them. Third: when a security incident does occur, automated ITAM gives your response team instant access to device ownership history, configuration data, and access logs — dramatically reducing the time it takes to contain and investigate the incident.
The highest-value integrations are the ones that eliminate the most manual data entry and close the most process gaps. The biggest one: automatic asset record updates triggered by ITSM transactions. When a service ticket is raised for a device issue, your ITSM system should automatically pull the device’s full asset history from ITAM — model, age, maintenance record, current user — so the technician has complete context. When the ticket is resolved and the device is repaired or replaced, the ITAM record should update automatically. Similarly, when IT provisions a new device through the ITSM service catalog, the ITAM system should log it from the moment the request is approved — not after the device is physically handed over. This continuous, bidirectional sync eliminates the gap between what ITSM thinks is happening and what ITAM knows is actually true. That gap is where audit findings and security incidents hide.
The business case for ITAM automation has to be built on quantified current costs, not abstract future benefits. Start by calculating what your IT team spends on manual asset management today: hours per week on inventory reconciliation, device provisioning, audit preparation, tracking down unreturned equipment. Then cost out your current losses: what did device attrition cost you last year? What did you pay in software license true-up fees? How much IT staff time went to audit prep that could have been automated? Finally, add in your risk exposure: what’s the potential cost of a compliance violation or data breach stemming from an untracked device? Lay that against a credible automation investment and payback timeline. Most organizations that do this analysis honestly find that ITAM automation pays for itself within 12–18 months — and that the ongoing efficiency gains compound significantly over a three-to-five-year horizon.
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