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Often in larger corporations - those with multiple offices, branches - we see a decentralization of corporate culture that leads to the erosion of standardized practices. The end result? A company with mismanaged IT functions that are getting, at best, half of the performance they could from their systems. We see it most often when companies merge, where a lack of communication between individual business units causes processes to become ineffective. A lack of resources is often an issue in these cases as well; the organization is concerned with combining assets and getting employees functioning and productive, leaving IT asset management on the back burner.

In many cases, we have even seen an organization duplicate efforts - deploying the same or similar products simultaneously in different locations. The importance of IT asset management is especially important in organizations that are undergoing extreme change. Money, time and human resources are sure to be wasted when combining assets across a multinational company.

User rights are often a simple matter that can lead to devastating results when not administered properly. We often see clients that have given administrative access to too many employees, who then delete and/or move things that slow down or even crash a system. Here are some helpful tips to lessen your risk in terms of user rights:

• Limit administrative access. For example, only developers need access to install or re-install applications.
• Assign different levels of administrative rights based on the “needs” for each employee.
• When granting temporary access, be sure to remove the access once the need is fulfilled.
• Be diligent about removing access when employees leave the company or change positions.

Limiting and managing user rights makes IT much easier to manage while increasing the performance of your system by reducing the chances for users cause problems with your system.

Granting fewer rights also allows you to have better control over unauthorized use and access to your system.

Despite the wide array of software choices out there, some companies still find the need to tweak their purchased software to fit their needs. I personally think that the choices and willingness of vendors to meet customer requirements eliminates this need - and in-house customization typically leads to many problems. Altering software often leads to non-compliance with your software licensing agreement, and also causes major issues when upgrading at a later date.

Another downside to altering software is that upkeep falls solely on your shoulders. There won’t be a user group to turn to when issues arise, and vendor technical support usually cannot help if the problem has occurred as a result of your alteration. If the developer who altered the software leaves the company, there goes your in-house knowledge of its inner workings. Whenever possible, do the extra research and find a software solution that is robust enough to meet your demands. If you absolutely must create your own solution, be sure to have inter-departmental cooperation and to strictly enforce policies and processes across the enterprise.

See the ITAM Review article I contributed to on March 17, 2009, entitled Why SAM Projects Fail-Imbalance Between ‘Customization’ and ‘Off the Shelf’ SAM Software.

Another interesting read on the top is Richard McManus’ 2007 blog post How Will Enterprises Deliver Next Generation Internet Applications. It’s an older post, but some relevant information.

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