Reasons why you MUST switch to IT asset management software for asset tracking
Despite its versatility and widespread use, Microsoft Excel is not ideal for IT Asset Management (ITAM). While it is powerful and flexible, Excel falls short when it comes to the comprehensive needs of ITAM, and its limitations can expose your organization to risks and inefficiencies. Here’s a detailed exploration of why ITAM software is a better fit for modern ITAM needs.
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IT Asset Management (ITAM) is a structured way to handle all your IT assets. This includes buying, deploying, maintaining, using, and eventually getting rid of them. ITAM ensures that every IT asset in your organization is tracked and managed effectively, leading to better decision-making, cost savings, and reduced risks.
Alloy Navigator offers a comprehensive ITAM solution that stands out in the market. Our software gathers more detailed information compared to competitors and supports both agentless and agent-based data collection methods. This means it can work with different types of devices easily, giving you a significant advantage over using Excel for asset management.
In this video, discover how you can quickly filter, sort, and highlight your collected data in Alloy Navigator, allowing you to gain instant insights and make more informed decisions.
Excel can only provide a static list of assets, which requires constant updates and data entry. This method is prone to errors, inconsistencies, and omissions, making it unreliable for keeping an up-to-date inventory in a dynamic IT environment. Manual spreadsheet creation often leads to mistakes, typos, and inconsistent data.
These problems can escalate into bigger issues like inaccurate reporting, compliance failures, and poor decision-making due to outdated or incorrect information. Additionally, the time and effort needed to constantly update and verify these spreadsheets can be significant, diverting attention from more strategic tasks. As the number of assets grows, so does the complexity of maintaining accurate records, increasing the potential for errors.
In contrast, asset tracking software offers dynamic inventory management with real-time updates, ensuring accuracy and reliability. By automatically capturing and reflecting changes as they happen, ITAM software eliminates the need for manual data entry and reduces the risk of errors. This real-time updating provides a true picture of your assets at any moment, supporting better decision-making and strategic planning. ITAM software also enhances data consistency, making it easier to generate accurate reports and maintain compliance.
For example, ITAM software makes it easy to manage your hardware repairs and maintenance. Imagine having warranty details for your laptops, printers, desktops, or phones right in the asset record. Just like you have the client’s phone number at hand in your CRM. Isn’t it lovely?
Getting the same details in Excel spreadsheets would mean complicated system integrations and constant updates.
Here is an example Alloy Navigator data view that gets updated when the assignee completes the task, or adds some other updates to the ticket. Status, due date, and assignee are examples of fields that can be updated by someone else WHILE you’re actually working on this list.
If you want to discover whether Alloy Navigator is a good fit for your ITAM needs, please contact our sales team.
Excel can’t provide real-time updates on your assets. Without automated tracking, your asset inventory can quickly become outdated, leading to risks and complications. Monitoring assets this way is time-consuming and often impractical, causing delays in spotting issues.
On the other hand, ITAM software connects all your assets and inventory, offering continuous monitoring and real-time status updates. This keeps you informed about the current state of your assets. For example, with the Mobile Inventory Scanner, technicians can update inventory data on the go. They scan the barcodes of the items, which instantly renews the info in the system. This eliminates the need to return to the office and fill out spreadsheets after inspections.
This real-time visibility allows your IT team to proactively manage assets, addressing potential issues before they become major problems. ITAM software lets IT teams focus on strategic improvements and innovation rather than getting bogged down by tedious tracking and reactive maintenance.
Excel files don’t have strong user roles and permissions, so it’s hard to keep track of who’s editing what. You can’t control which parts of the spreadsheet users can change or effectively track changes. Plus, Excel can’t automatically detect and fix similar data entries, which leads to duplicate entries and inconsistencies. Over time, these issues can cause big problems in data management and analysis.
An asset tracking tool like Alloy Navigator solves these problems by allowing you to set user profiles with different permission levels and keeping a history of all activity. This level of control boosts data security and integrity, prevents unauthorized changes, and reduces inaccuracies. ITAM software also keeps a detailed audit trail, so you can track changes and see who made specific edits. This traceability is crucial for maintaining accountability and quickly fixing any data discrepancies.
With ITAM software, automatic data normalization is a breeze. It detects and combines similar data entries, eliminating duplicates and standardizing information. This is key for generating accurate reports and analytics. The automated normalization process saves time and reduces the chance of mistakes, making your data management process smoother and more reliable.
Alloy’s IT Asset Management software (ITAM) platform gives you complete visibility and control of your assets.
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Using Excel to manage software licenses requires a lot of manual effort and is often inaccurate. Vendors might have varying licensing requirements, such as when to pay for it, and how to pay for it. Without proper management, your business risks non-compliance and potential penalties during audits.
With ITAM software, you can automate a wide range of ITAM processes, including alerts, network scanning, inventory updates, and reporting. This frees up your team to focus on more strategic tasks, improving overall efficiency.
Imagine tracking CRM licenses for a sales team using Excel. You’d need to open and update the spreadsheet every time someone leaves or joins the team and rely on a separate app to renew your subscriptions. In contrast, an ITAM platform automates all these tasks, saving you time and hassle.
Excel doesn’t provide automated reporting, so you must create and update reports yourself. This can be very time-consuming and often results in inaccurate data, causing delays in gaining insights. Generating reports involves multiple steps like data extraction, formatting, and analysis, each of which can introduce mistakes. Additionally, the time spent on these tasks takes away from more strategic activities, reducing overall productivity. Frequent updates also increase the chances of inconsistencies and outdated information.
ITAM software, on the other hand, provides customizable, automated reports based on key metrics, delivering timely and accurate insights. It automatically gathers and analyzes data, generating reports without manual effort. This saves time and ensures reports are always up-to-date. You can customize these reports to focus on metrics that matter most to your organization, leading to better decision-making and strategic planning. ITAM software also helps you stay compliant with regulatory requirements and internal standards, reducing the risk of penalties and other issues.
Regular maintenance and updates are crucial for asset performance and security. Manually updating systems is time-consuming and can result in missed updates, increasing cybersecurity risks.
ITAM software simplifies this process by allowing you to easily monitor software versions and asset capacity. It ensures all assets are maintained and updated regularly, reducing security vulnerabilities and ensuring optimal performance.
Excel doesn’t integrate with other IT management tools, so you need separate solutions for tasks like remote access and support. This lack of integration makes asset management less efficient and more complicated.
ITAM software, on the other hand, integrates seamlessly with various IT tools. It provides remote access and enhances productivity, simplifying asset management and boosting efficiency through a unified platform.
Proactive ITAM needs detailed, real-time data on asset performance, usage, and security vulnerabilities. Excel can’t collect or analyze this data effectively, making it hard to anticipate and address issues before they arise.
ITAM software supports a proactive ITAM strategy by providing granular, real-time data on asset performance, usage, and security vulnerabilities. This helps you anticipate issues better and make more informed decisions.
Excel may be a viable solution for very small businesses with limited assets. However, as organizations grow, Excel’s ability to manage assets becomes increasingly limited and harder to scale. Handling more assets with Excel is resource-intensive and error-prone. The more assets you have, the harder it is to maintain accurate records, leading to data inconsistencies, duplications, and omissions. This increased workload can strain your resources, slow down processes, and reduce overall productivity.
In contrast, ITAM software handles a growing number of assets with ease, ensuring scalability and adaptability to evolving business needs. It offers automated data entry, real-time updates, and advanced search and filtering capabilities, making it easy to track many assets without overwhelming your team.
Additionally, ITAM software improves the organization and visualization of data, allowing you to quickly access the information you need. As your organization expands, ITAM software can scale to handle the increasing complexity and volume of your asset management needs, ensuring that your processes run smoothly and reliably. This makes ITAM software suitable for organizations of all sizes.
While Excel is often seen as a cost-effective solution, hidden costs can accumulate. The time and resources spent on data entry, correcting mistakes, and generating reports can quickly become significant. Additionally, the lack of real-time updates and automated processes can result in costly errors and delays.
Investing in ITAM software can ultimately save money by improving accuracy, reducing manual labor, and preventing compliance issues. ITAM providers like Alloy Navigator offer excellent support teams to help you maximize the software’s benefits. Unlike Excel, where you rely on Google searches or internal knowledge, dedicated ITAM software includes professional support to help you navigate challenges and optimize your asset management processes.
Excel remains popular for a few reasons: it’s familiar, accessible, and initially low-cost. For very small teams with a small number of assets, Excel might be sufficient. When asset management needs are minimal and straightforward, Excel’s simplicity and low cost are a benefit.
However, as your organization grows and asset management becomes more complex, Excel’s limitations quickly become apparent. ITAM software is designed to handle these complexities with ease, making it a better long-term solution for most organizations.
Switching from Excel to an ITAM system might seem challenging, but with the right steps, it can be smooth. Here are some practical tips to ensure a successful transition:
Consider Alloy Navigator! 60% of our clients switch to us after using Excel, so we have some experience migrating data from Excel.
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