The Importance of Auditing IT Assets

Audits are an important part of any company’s ongoing operations, and while many already have policies and procedures in place regarding regular financial audits, and even occasional reviews of processes intended to streamline and minimize waste, it’s far less common for companies to undertake IT audits.  If you’ve never done one before, you might not even know what it entails or what the purpose is.

Typically, an IT audit involves an examination of your company’s IT controls, including checking asset inventory (as well as how you inventory), security, general IT asset management and life-cycle planning, ITAD practices, and much more.  In short, the process can be complex and time-consuming, which is why many companies elect to hire outside experts to conduct such audits.

Since there will naturally be some expense associated with the audit, not to mention addressing any problems uncovered during the course of this assessment, you need to understand why auditing IT assets is so important.  Here are a few reasons why your South Dakota business should consider performing this crucial audit.

Increase Security and Minimize Risks

Protecting confidential information has always been a top priority for businesses.  You not only have a legal and ethical obligation to ensure that sensitive consumer and employee information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, but you need to protect your company’s proprietary data, as well.

This has become more critical in recent decades, with the growth of digital data and connected electronic networks, or more accurately, the potential for hackers to access and steal digital data.  The result has been a focus on security measures that protect networks housing data.

However, you also need to secure the physical devices themselves, and this includes tracking where they are at all times and maintaining an accurate inventory.  Regular audits can help you to spot gaps in your IT asset management strategy or the ways you track inventory, providing insight into improvements that could help to minimize risks for loss or theft, potentially preventing data breach and/or identity theft and reducing liability.

Reduce Waste and Boost Profitability

Improving security is a great reason to conduct an IT asset audit, but like anything in business, the bottom line is always a factor.  The good news is an audit can help to uncover areas of waste, such as redundant practices that waste employee time and impact productivity.  When you find ways to streamline practices and simplify operations, you can not only minimize opportunities for errors to occur, but also boost productivity and profitability as a result.

Streamline IT Asset Management

If you have yet to put policies and procedures in place for managing the IT asset life cycle, from purchase to destruction, an audit may provide you with the information needed to formulate a suitable IT asset management plan.  If you already have such a plan in place, chances are an audit can give you the insight needed to make targeted improvements.

If you need help with IT asset management and destruction, contact SEAM, a certified ITAD service provider, at 605-274-7326 (SEAM) or online to learn more and request a quote today.