Assets are a credit to your business, but they can prove to be a liability too if the cost of operating and maintaining them significantly drains the company coffers. Fortunately, there are solutions specifically geared toward minimizing this expense through efficient asset management.
You can craft a system of best practices for your staff, but it’s more practical to simply invest in a ready-made automation software program that your teams can use both on the field and in the office for the express purpose of reducing costs while increasing efficiency in various functions.
Facilities and Asset Maintenance
Coming into the digital age, there are many traditional practices that have become inefficient. Scribbling work orders on notepaper and using a whiteboard for scheduling may still work, but there’s clearly a more competent way to accomplish these tasks. With the use of smart technologies, you won’t have to worry about slips of paper blowing away or misunderstandings caused by illegible or microscopic writing.
There are many areas in a business where preventable waste occurs. Often, not everybody is made aware of assets that are no longer around, causing confusion and wasted efforts. While there may be critical parts missing, there may also be an inventory of no-longer-necessary spares that also happen to be out of warranty. Even worse, you might have tried to address the issue, but ended up investing in complicated systems that are not being utilized.
If these sound familiar, it’s time to switch to an asset management software program that will effectively streamline your processes for maintaining your facilities and assets. Besides making your operations more efficient, you will also benefit from considerable cost savings.
Automating Asset Management
No matter how well your sales are doing, if you’re running your business in a manner that’s more expensive than necessary, then your bottom line will be less than impressive. This is common sense.
For instance, choosing postpaid contracts for your employees is likely to be more practical than letting them load prepaid credits that they might not even use up before they expire. Prudence should be exercised in every area of business to avoid regrettable losses.
At the end of the day, however, asset maintenance contributes a great deal to your operative expenses. It behooves you to invest in a tool that will allow you to use and take care of your assets in a most efficient way.
When shopping around for maintenance management software, look for key elements that will make the investment worthwhile. You want a program that has an abundance of useful features, flexibility, security, and durability.
You don’t want anything too technical. Your people will likely find it too complicated and be intimidated to learn how to use it. If something requires hardly any supervision or training, then sit up and pay attention. This could be just the tool for your people.
What are the different areas that can be automated?
1. Asset Register
Tracking and scheduling can be automated so that task assignments are done correctly and carried out at the lowest possible cost.
2. Asset Tagging
There is usually a separate program for sorting and labeling assets, but with a comprehensive asset management system, asset tagging automation can be included with maintenance functions.
3. Asset Maintenance
Prevention is better than cure or, when it comes to business assets, preventative maintenance is better than emergency maintenance or, worse, total replacement. Automating facilitation of regular maintenance will extend the life of your assets.
4. Contract Management
It can be difficult to keep track of your assets’ documentation, but with automation you can stay on top of everything, including warranties, service level agreements, etc. You can take advantage of whatever’s available to you as well as avoid fines and penalties.
5. Reports
A program that automatically generates reports for everything related to its various functions will definitely save you a lot of effort in locating records, as well as prevent bottlenecks in the workflow.
All these will reflect on the dashboard, allowing users to see accurate data at once, allowing better decision-making and eliminating inefficiency.
Benefits of a Good Asset Management Program
Software programs vary in many ways, including quality. Make sure you invest in something with the following traits.
1. Flexibility
Find a software program that is adaptable to any kind of business that has assets.
2. Energy and Cost Efficiency
If a maintenance management program is effective, then it would enable you to keep your assets in great condition, allowing them to operate at better energy and cost efficiency.
3. Affordability
A program doesn’t have to be expensive to offer value for money. The most practical option is software that is both useful and affordable. At times, more expensive programs tend to be more complex and, thus, less useful to a company.
The right choice of software will empower your business to be as proactive as possible. Not only will you reduce your costs, but you will also better equip your staff to make informed decisions, as well as prolong the life of your assets and avoid expensive damage control measures.
AUTHOR BIO
Mohammad Daudi is an undergraduate from University College London (UCL) and has been working across the Middle East for the last 14 years. Mohammad has been responsible for the go-to-market strategy for US and UK SaaS and Enterprise Software companies and has led Sales teams to propel regional revenues from a zero-base to consistent YOY growth.