The Dead Asset Syndrome

Organizations procure assets, both software and hardware, based on certain projections or needs. Also, there are assets which are no longer utilized or rarely utilized. In case of software assets many organization continue to spend on recurring license cost besides spending on support cost for both software as well as hardware support for dead assets. From the organization’s RoI perspective these are dead investments and hence dead assets.

Another concern that organizations have is regarding the utilization rate of their assets. Organizations continue to invest on IT assets whereas they could have optimized their asset utilization, which results in a poor RoI. With passage of time these too contribute to dead assets.

An even more alarming fact is that a number of organizations are not even aware of possessing dead assets. Dead assets not only have poor RoI but poor TCO as well.

If we try to segregate the dead asset in terms of hardware and software assets, then the percentage is higher for software assets. Software assets are more of invisible assets since they are determined by the licenses which are not mostly physically visible or consume physical space.

Since hardware assets consume physical space (data center, desk space, inventory or others), they are visible assets. Thus, comparatively organizations are more proactive in disposing dead hardware assets that have reached end-of-life.

If we plot a graph of asset procurement and its utilization against time over a period it would give a pattern for dead assets. This is what I would term as Dead Asset Syndrome.

It is very important for organizations to come out of Dead Asset Syndrome by proactively eliminating dead assets and improving their asset utilization rate along with RoI for the assets. How this can be done is what I would cover in another blog sometime later.

At this stage it is important to be able to know whether your organization suffers from the dead asset syndrome. If answer to any of the following question is ‘No’ then it is very likely that your organization is a victim of dead asset syndrome:

• Do you have a list of ALL hardware and software assets procured (with details regarding date, cost, depreciation, support, etc.)?
• Do you know where ALL your hardware and software assets are being used?
• Do you know when ALL your hardware and software assets were last used?
• Have you been able to recover ALL your hardware and software assets if it was no longer in use?

Asset and CI: The Relationship

My following three points would help us in understanding the relationship between asset and CI:

1. All assets are not CIs
2. All CIs are not assets
3. Some assets are CIs and some CIs are assets

Confused!!!

Please refer to my previous post "Understanding A Configuration Item (CI)". This post would help you understand how we can validate if an item qualifies to be a CI.

Let me clarify each of these points with an example:

All Assets are not CIs:

Items like phones or our office ACs are assets but these are not delivering any IT service and thus does not qualify to be a CI

All CIs are not Assets:

Various documents like Process Documents, SOP, Agreements, etc. qualify to be a CI. Also, items like freewares, ports, virtual machines, etc. qualify to be a CI. But none of these has a financial value attached to it and thus they do not qualify as an asset.

Some Assets are CIs and some CIs are Assets

Some of the assets like physical servers, licensed softwares, etc. are an asset and qualify to be a CI as well.

Thus, using set theory we can define relationship between Asset and CI as:

KPI: Service Asset & Configuration Management

KPI Definition	Unit of Measure	Frequency	Remarks
Variance in actual CI information with respect to that recorded in CMDB.	Variance	Quarterly	This KPI reflects the accuracy of CI information stored in CMDB.
Variance in actual asset information with respect to that recorded in asset database respectively.	Variance	Quarterly	This KPI reflects the accuracy of Asset information stored in Asset Database.
Average time between two consecutive CMDB reconciliation	Days	Quarterly	This KPI provides information regarding the reconciliation of CMDB. Larger the time span, greater are the chances for inaccuracy in CMDB information.
Average time between two consecutive asset reconciliation	Days	Quarterly	This KPI provides information regarding the reconciliation of Asset Database. Larger the time span, greater are the chances for inaccuracy in Asset information stored in Asset Database.
Percentage of Configuration Items mapped onto IT services in the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) relative to all Configuration Items that can be related to IT services.	%	Quarterly	This KPI highlights the gap w.r.t the services which are yet to be mapped to CIs.
Total number of deviations identified during asset audit	Number	Quarterly	This KPI reflects the accuracy of asset information in Asset Database
Percentage reduction of non recorded CI in CMDB	%	Quarterly	This KPI reflects the accuracy of capturing CIs
Percentage reduction of wrongly recorded CI information in CMDB	%	Quarterly	This KPI reflects the accuracy of update of CI information