What Is HAM: Hardware Asset Management?

There’s depth to asset management. If you’re an experienced entrepreneur business manager or have spent a considerable amount of time managing assets, you’d know it has its technicalities. There’s a lot more to it than just jotting down an item’s name and value and storing it away forever. 

Although asset tracking can be made much easier by using asset management software, you still need to learn a thing or two when you’re new to it. This includes the many terms and abbreviations that have developed over the years. One of these is HAM (Hardware Asset Management), among many others, such as AM (Asset Management), ITAM (IT Asset Management), and RFID asset tracking. 

By providing a detailed approach to HAM asset management, businesses can easily track, maintain, and optimise their IT resources, reducing financial costs and operational interruptions. In this blog post, we’ll discover more about HAM, what it really is and all that it involves. In the end, you’ll also come across how itemit lets your business maximise hardware asset management benefits.

Before we define hardware asset management, it’s worthwhile to explore what your hardware assets are. As the name suggests, these are all physical items that are related to IT. In other words, all physical items that can be connected to a computer device, wirelessly or otherwise, fall into the hardware category. 

Not to mention that these are physical IT assets that your business owns. Any rented or borrowed hardware is not an asset. Before we move forward, let’s look at some examples of hardware assets for greater clarity. These include but are not limited to the following: 

Computers

• Desktops
• Laptops
• Workstations
• Mobile Phones
• Tablets and other handheld devices

Removable Media

• USB sticks
• DVDs

Network Hardware

• Servers
• Routers
• Hubs
• Cables
• Firewalls

Peripherals

• Screens
• Printers
• Scanners
• Keyboards
• Mice
• Copiers

Hardware asset management is a subcategory of the wider IT asset management. It pertains to tracking your hardware assets for a range of essential details. This includes the asset’s ID, location, valuation, condition, asset issues, maintenance details, date of acquisition, assignee and more. 

Having a solid strategy when it comes to software and hardware asset management is crucial to any company because it significantly reduces the overlap of assets, enhances procurement procedures, and boosts compliance security. Asset management is a continuous process of recording all relevant information about your assets in an asset register. This means you have all the information you need to make better business decisions. This is where itemit comes in. 

itemit is one of the most advanced but easy-to-use, asset tracking software that’ll help you track your hardware with ease. We let you create unique asset profiles for each item through an intuitive mobile app. You can use these asset profiles to store all the asset information you want in a neat and organised manner. So whenever you need to lookup an asset’s details, it’s only a few touches away in the asset register.

A hardware asset management audit checklist can further simplify the process by verifying the necessary details, including warranty information and maintenance dates, are routinely updated.

The first step would be to have the right asset management tools on hand. itemit is a great all-in-one solution that can help you fulfil all your asset tracking needs from fixed asset management to IT asset management. Once you’ve got it, the action begins by adding your hardware assets to create the asset register.

Adding a piece of hardware to your hardware asset register is as simple as ABC. All you need to do is push the plus icon on the homepage to add a new asset. itemit will immediately take you to a brand new asset profile where you can add different asset details.

We recommend that you get multiple users to add the hardware they use rather than have one person track all items. Distributing the task this way is much more efficient. 

By leveraging hardware asset management software, businesses can ensure that asset profiles remain accurate and up-to-date, reducing the risk of ghost assets or lost equipment. 

Chances are that your business uses multiple hardware assets that are identical to each other. For instance, your employees might all use similar-looking screens or keyboards. Things can get confusing when you’ve got to differentiate identical-looking hardware from each other. 

Surely, there has to be a better way than having each employee mark their devices with a coloured marker. Asset tags are great for this. These are QR code labels that give each device a unique identity and link the physical thing with its virtual profile. Asset tags are essential for effective hardware asset tracking since they guarantee companies may quickly find, recognise, and control their IT hardware assets. 

itemit makes it easy for you to track every change as it happens in real-time. For instance, if a computer was moved from one location to another, we update its location automatically as soon as its asset tag is scanned. Not just that, but every other detail from maintenance to assignee can be updated in just a few seconds via our streamlined app. With asset management hardware solutions, we may obtain a real-time understanding of asset movements, usage patterns, and depreciation rates, so enhancing general efficiency.

Integrating an effective IT hardware asset management strategy not only minimises the loss of assets but also guarantees adherence to legal and security industry standards and regulations. So, it’s time to reap HAM benefits. With an accurate and up-to-date asset register always by your side, you’re empowered to make educated business decisions. It helps you increase workplace productivity, reduce losses, maximise asset life cycles, bust ghost assets and much more. 

A well-structured HAM strategy is more than just keeping track of IT equipment – it plays a critical role in business continuity, financial planning, and operational efficiency.

Ineffective asset management can create the problem of excessive spending in regard to IT hardware. However, with an asset management application, businesses can prevent the purchase of redundant assets, monitor the reduction of value over time, and save money with unused tools.

Regulated industries such as finance and healthcare have stringent requirements when it comes to protecting data. Using hardware asset tracking ensures that devices containing sensitive information are monitored, secured, and properly disposed of when necessary.

IT equipment is not a one-off expense but rather capital expenditures that have to be maintained on an ongoing basis to ensure they are operationally effective. IT hardware asset management allows businesses to monitor and schedule repairs, track associated warranties, avoid over-utilization of assets and extend the life of an asset to proactively eliminate asset demand failure. To get a deeper understanding, check out this guide on the hardware asset management lifecycle and how it impacts overall business efficiency.

HAM asset management enables IT resources to be effectively utilised in the organisation by ensuring that the employees have all the necessary equipment at their disposal. An updated hardware asset management audit checklist will assist in preventing the unnecessary accumulation of assets, better asset allocation and removing unaccounted-for assets.

A good asset management hardware system can detail analytics about an asset’s amount of usage, its current location, and even its lifecycle status. These diagrams help managers make feasible decisions regarding upcoming IT investments, asset replacements, and even the overall business strategy.

Although hardware asset management (HAM) has its advantages, a number of challenges arise that can result in a loss of productivity, breaches in security, and financial losses. Some of the most common challenges faced by organizations today for conducting effective IT hardware asset management are listed below:

1. Tracking Assets Across Multiple Locations

• Companies with different office locations, warehouses, or remote employees find it difficult to track the movement of hardware accurately.
• In case there is no proper system to track the assets, devices can be misplaced, re-assigned without being documented, or completely lost.
• Improperly managed hardware can cause unwanted replacements, loss of money, or even result in security threats.

• An unreliable asset register results in businesses over-purchasing new hardware while underutilized devices remain idle.
• Without continuous updates, operational and financial plans become difficult.
• While hardware asset management software can automate most of the record-updating tasks, companies still require robust internal controls to ensure data is entered consistently.

• Keeping track of maintenance schedules is key when it comes to avoiding unexpected breakdowns of equipment, components, or machines.
• Many businesses lack a hardware asset management audit checklist, leading to missed updates, warranty lapses, and costly repairs.
• Poor lifecycle tracking leads to ghost assets, which are termed for hardware that is financially accounted for, but is no longer usable with the company.

• A piece of hardware that is not secured has the potential risk of suffering from a cyber attack, leakage of data, or even unauthorized exposure.
• The healthcare and finance industries are two of the many that require demanding IT security regulation compliance for any hardware asset.
• Applying secure asset management hardware devices helps businesses with encryption, access control, and secure unemployment procedures.

• As a business matures, manual tracking methods like spreadsheets grow inefficient in tracking various assets.
• Higher-level organizations need high-quality hardware asset management software, which grows proportionately with increasing data size.
• Investing in automated IT hardware asset management solutions ensures businesses can efficiently manage asset growth without human error.

Overcoming these challenges requires a proactive HAM asset management strategy and the right technology-driven tools. By addressing these pain points, businesses can ensure cost efficiency, security, and long-term asset optimization.

Scaling a company makes managing an IT infrastructure a more challenging task. Having no proper asset management tool in place creates unnecessary expenditures and compliance breaches that expose companies to financial losses and security risks. A well-defined strategy for hardware asset management (HAM), however, makes certain that hardware assets are utilised to their optimum potential, thus increasing their life span, minimising costs, and, at the same time, constructively using the resources.

Using both automated centralised asset management tools and dedicated hardware management tools helps a business maintain complete control over the entire IT inventory, increasing the chances of growth and success in the long run. It is not about simply organising business operations when managing IT hardware assets. Proper asset management identifies holes in workflow processes, streamlines them, and ensures that security measures are upgraded, which tremendously increases productivity and ultimately saves money.

Versatile and scalable, itemit’s asset tracking software is the simplest solution for your HAM needs. To learn more about how your business can benefit from our app, drop us an email at team@itemit.com. We are always ready to assist you with any queries you may have. 

Alternatively, you can also choose to take itemit’s asset register out on a test drive with our free 14-day trial. Fill in the form below and test out its features today!