Network Enabled Assets Can Shift a Bottom Line (Opinion)

I had the opportunity in early March to attend the IBM Pulse Conference in Las Vegas, along with about 6,500 other people. It is one of the “major” conferences that IBM puts on around the world.

It is interesting to see how IBM is shaping its vision of the world. Its umbrella-marketing message is about the “green planet,” although they never really define exactly what a “green planet” is or what IBM’s role is in achieving such a planet.

 What IBM is clear about is the direction that computing is headed and the role the company would like to play in achieving that direction.

Several years ago, IBM bought a company called MRO Software. MRO’s main product was an asset management software package named Maximo – long considered the “top of the line” software in this space.

Asset management is an interesting area. Imagine a computer system that is aware of every “asset” an organization owns. These “assets” might be vehicles, motors, machines, buildings, National Park trails, rail lines, rail switches, rail cars, or just about anything involved in an organization that requires oversight and supervision.

An asset management software system knows where every asset is located, what role it plays, what its maintenance schedule should be, what parts are required to maintain the asset, whether those parts are in inventory or need to be ordered, and any other information concerning the asset that needs to be captured or monitored.

Unfortunately, the historical problem with using an asset management system has been the fact that people have been required to enter a lot of detailed information into the system in order for it to be useful. Read: manual input.

While this serious investment in entering all the information into the system to make it useful tended to have a fairly serious return on investment, most organizations struggled to implement such a system. So, given that this is a system that most organizations struggle to implement, why would IBM buy the company?

IBM, being a large computer company, supports organizations that have very large data centers full of computers, voice and data network equipment, software and all sorts of other computing-related equipment. The need to inventory these assets, monitor them, perform maintenance and repairs, and periodically replace these assets exists in a data center just as it does in a manufacturing plant.

Maximo software was the perfect fit to add into IBM’s software portfolio for the management of data center assets.

It is here where the interesting part begins. The key phrase to remember is “network enabled.”

All of those data center assets tend to “live” on the computer network. Each of them has a unique address and identity. Taking inventory of a computer network does not require someone walking around with a notepad and asset tags, as we traditionally think of performing an asset inventory.

Instead, software is sent to roam around the network and “discover” all the equipment and software that is currently on the network. It’s as if all the network assets can report, “I am here!”

Inventorying and monitoring assets that “report in” is much easier than sending someone around to count, tag and physically inspect assets. These assets that “report in” need something to report to that captures all the information reported.

In IBM’s view, that something is an asset management software system such as Maximo. The direction IBM sees is that this notion of “network enabled” is beginning to extend well beyond the data center. “Network enabled” assets of all types can “report in,” be monitored and be issued instructions through the network.

With many vendors now providing all the needed information about their equipment electronically, the huge data-entry burden that once was faced in getting an asset management system up and running is being minimized. With assets reporting status and being monitored, management of assets becomes much more efficient.

“Network-enabled” assets create opportunities for businesses to change their thinking about managing assets and bring savings to the bottom line. This might not be true for your business yet, but be watchful.

It might be just around the corner. 

Steven Hankins is CEO and co-founder of Accio.US, a technology company providing advisory and management services for small- to medium-sized businesses. He can be reached at [email protected].