Servaplex are proud to supply and service a lot of the leading law firms in Ireland with their IT asset management (ITAM) and as a result are in a rare position to be able to give some advice and suggestions to other law firms who need to improve their IT Asset management. Read on to learn about the key things to know about IT Asset Management for law firms so you can properly manage your IT Assets.
Must Have IT Asset Management Software
The most used and well-known IT software for asset management in law firms over the last few decades has been Servicedesk Plus.
ServiceDesk Plus for Law Firms
ServiceDesk Plus is a game changer in turning IT teams from daily firefighting to delivering awesome customer service. It provides great visibility and central control in dealing with IT issues to ensure that businesses suffer no downtime. For 10 years and running, it has been delivering robust IT asset managment to millions of IT folks, end users, and stakeholders alike.
Biggest IT Asset Management Mistakes
We all know how tricky IT asset management can be. Law firms must make sure they’re keeping record of all the IT assets they have, maintaining them regularly, and using analytics to determine retirement and procurement schedules. All of this must be done simultaneously for all kinds of equipment, keeping in mind the different locations and custodians the assets are linked to. The below outline the biggest and most common IT asset management mistakes we encounter.
1. Sticking to Manual Audits Only
An audit’s main purpose is to maintain accurate assets and business processes. It can also test operational efficiency and drive employee accountability and responsibility for asset-related activities. However, if these IT audits are only done manually, you’re going to struggle to achieve a perfectly audited system. Manually performing the audits can consume time, effort, and money and not produce accurate results.
2. Not Prioritizing Security
When it comes to intangible assets like software and company data companies can sometimes find themselves out of their depth. How do you secure something that isn’t there? A study found that around 44 percent of all cyber security alerts go ignored because of the sheer volume of information security teams must deal with. Therefore, endpoint security is crucial for IT assets, and why it needs to be easy to achieve.
3. The Need to Automate
IT asset management requires rigorous, standardized processes to oversee the needs of your assets effectively. Consistent discovery, in-built security, dynamic data, and preventive maintenance can all contribute towards keeping your IT assets optimized, up-to-date, and secure. An IT asset management software can help you achieve all this by automating these crucial tasks and taking the burden of managing valuable IT assets off your shoulders. It can help by streamlining hardware and software management, and handling maintenance and compliance requirements all under one system.
4. Investing Only in Reactive Maintenance
Maintenance must be planned out in advance, or it can cost your company a huge amount of money in lost business-hours’ time. Of course, reactive maintenance is necessary when things go wrong. However, having a routine maintenance plan in place can stop these one-off incidents from occurring in the first place. This leads to more dependable service operations and improved asset longevity. In the context of IT assets, you need to be able to manage incidents, upgrades, and releases easily and with less of an administrative burden on your team.
Top 3 Tips for IT Managers of Law Firms
So, now that we know some of the common mistakes and pitfalls of IT asset management let’s talk about what you should do to manage your IT assets.
1. Choose the Right Tool for the Job
Our first tip involves choosing the right IT asset management software. You’ll want to look for a tool that provides the functionality you need now, while allowing for future scalability, without overspending on unnecessary features.
To help find this tool, you should ask yourself a few questions:
- Do you need to track hardware, software, or both?
- What’s your budget?
- How important is ease-of-use? Do you need a simple tool, or does your IT staff have the knowledge to work with something more complex?
- Do you need a fully-fledged IT help desk solution, or is asset management enough?
2. Utilise Advanced Reporting & Analytics to Make Smarter Decisions
Thanks to all the data they hold regarding your hardware and software assets, ITAM applications can provide powerful stats and analytics on your entire operation. For best results, you’ll want to leverage this info to help you make more informed decisions regarding your business.
3. Minimise Hardware Loss & Theft
Theft can be a major problem for many small businesses – and this includes data theft. Add in the inevitable accidental damage or loss of equipment, plus the downtime associated with it, and you can quickly end up with a significant hit to your bottom line.
IT Asset Management for Law Firms
You can use IT asset management software to help minimize these problems. Some systems offer tamper-proof tags for hardware that allow precise geolocation. For example, if a password manager were to experience a security breach, an office administrator might not mention the issue if she doesn’t know that two staff members are using the app. Meanwhile, key passwords for apps used at your business may be at risk. Don’t take this risk and make sure to keep your IT asset management under control. If you’ve any doubts about your IT asset management then get in touch with us today.
If you have an IT Problem then we’ve got the IT Solution, call us on +353-1-2304242 or contact us online for more info!
