Imagine one of your employees contacts IT to troubleshoot an issue. In theory, it should be a quick problem to resolve, but, because your organization manages your hardware and software assets with tried-but-not-so-true spreadsheets, IT needs to put a pause on service.
Now, the employee sits on their end, frustrated and twiddling their thumbs, while the support agent pops in and out of different databases, manually figuring out which device the person has, what software version they are running on, and what connections the device may or may not have. All the while, the employee has more time taken out of their day, hiking up lost labor costs for your enterprise (an average of $4,000 per year for on-site employees and $4,500 for remote).
It’s a nightmare for everyone involved–and it’s having harsh ripple effects for IT. In the last decade, there have been drastic drops in C-Suite leaders’ confidence in IT to deliver basic services–only 50 % of CFOs, 47% of IT leaders, and 36% of CEOs believe their IT functions are effective.
As IT leaders, you know a lot goes on behind-the-scenes in supporting your organization. But when manual processes that use inaccurate and incomplete data leave a lot to be desired on the front end, it can be hard to deliver satisfactory services to the rest of your business, never mind being prepared to support more stringent tests like compliance audits.
That's where modern IT asset management can make a huge difference.
By integrating Zendesk with an advanced ITAM platform (cough, cough, like Oomnitza), you can access full life asset visibility and automation, keeping Zendesk agents actually in Zendesk and ensuring they can service employees much faster and provide a better customer experience.
In a recent webinar, Johan Dowdy, Global Head of IT and IT Security at Asana, talked through his experience moving on from old-fashioned spreadsheets, implementing Oomnitza as a “forever” solution, and the benefits he immediately saw from gaining a technology ecosystem that connects.
Enterprise Relationships are Changing
There’s been a generational shift of CIOs and CISOs becoming the operational leaders and governance stakeholders responsible for ensuring their organizations have strong digital, financial, regulatory, and reputational integrity. To that end, they’re working with cross-functional teams more closely than ever and finding solutions to support the entire enterprise.
Companies have made so many investments to support their enterprises, hoping that the myriad of solutions they’ve purchased will operate together and deliver value back to the business. However, the actual result is a bit different.
In reality, the relationship between ever-growing asset portfolios and desired business outcomes is becoming cloudier and more convoluted because the systems don’t talk to each other or share information.
The result? Too much spending. Too many tickets. A lack of good security. Poor processes and outcomes. A general absence of good quality data that you can run your business on.
Bad IT Data Kills Business Operations
With bad data, you can’t actually become a more efficient organization. You can’t automate your processes because you’re just going to be automating garbage faster and permeating that across your organization.
Unfortunately, countless enterprises still struggle with bad data because they think spreadsheets and static CMDBs will solve their asset and inventory needs.
Even in the unlikely event that one team’s spreadsheet is somehow mostly accurate, if you have four other spreadsheets created by four other teams at different times, all the data is going to be different. The only way you’ll find out the truth is by manually going through each sheet until you get a piece of data that lines up with what you’re looking for.
You don’t have the time to waste digging through those documents… or a help desk system or emails or (we shudder to think) a printout on someone’s desk.
Strong ITAM isn’t just a nice-to-have–it’s a must-have. Whether you’re a small business who needs to carefully track IT assets to manage limited resources or you’re a publicly-traded company with real compliance obligations that depend on your asset management, organizations of all sizes need a better way to instantly have IT asset data right in front of them.
With accurate ITAM from Oomnitza, all the data that agents need simply surfaces up in Zendesk, improving time-to-resolution, reducing security risks, and lowering support costs. More than that, employees can have their tech issues solved much faster.
Accurate ITAM Fuels Zendesk
If you ask Johan, Oomnitza is “the type of solution that connects and integrates with everything that we’re using, and it helps move and reconcile that information back and forth between those systems. You don’t have to spend a ton of time worrying about whether the data is accurate or not. You have a high degree of certainty that it is.”
When you’re looking to move out of the spreadsheet-centered, manual process of ITAM, you want your chosen tool to possess the infrastructure needed to drive efficiency and support your needs. You’re going to look at implementation times, time-to-value, the complexity or simplicity of integration processes, and the longevity of the platform to truly work for you.
Johan’s reflection on his Oomnitza experience offers great insight into how these two platforms partner to deliver the next generation of employee service.
Rapid and Relevant Implementation
A lot of IT teams hesitate to invest in tech solutions because they fear a nine, twelve, or even eighteen-month implementation–and we can’t say we blame them.
With Oomnitza, you don’t have to wait months before you can start using the tool to inform IT operations. You'll spend some time initially reconciling data, since, especially if you've relied on manual, static asset management, there will be some cleaning up to do. However, “the deployment and use of the tool is same-day.”
While enterprise organizations with years worth of legacy data understandably spend more time ingesting information from various sources, smaller organizations, who don’t have as much data, can realize immediate value. For larger companies, time-to-value is still as fast as a few days or weeks.
And what does that value look like? For Johan and Asana, it’s near-perfect data accuracy and all that it supports. “We are above 99% accuracy in our records. That is just because of the stability of the system, the integrity of the data in it, and the way it integrates nicely with other management systems.”
Speaking of integrations…
Built-In Third-Party Connections…No Extra Cost
There's nothing worse than investing in a platform, assuming that you will get all the bells and whistles you saw during a demo, and only realizing after the fact that, if you want to use all the integrations, you'll have to cough up another $200k.
The Oomnitza team understands that third-party integrations are critical for the long-term success of asset management, especially when it comes to using that data within other programs. That's why all of our out-of-the-box integrations with your best-of-breed endpoint, software, network, cloud infrastructure, security, SSO, user management systems and other popular systems are standard within our platform.
Having that straight-line integration between platforms like Zendesk and your ITAM solution allows agents to provide superior service to your employees because all the data they need is right in front of them. “You don't have to look anything up. That is an extra benefit of having this integrated process–it just allows the agent to not seem uncertain and resolve customer problems quicker.”
Those integrations also give your IT team a high degree of certainty because you know you made that investment, connected all the dots with your tech landscape, and know your data is validated whenever you do an actual asset audit.
Johan feels that, “Without a platform like Oomnitza, [that level of certainty] would just be a fantasy world.”
The value of these integrations also plays out in improvements to asset lifecycle management.
Unexpected Value in Reclaiming Assets
Modern ITAM integrated into Zendesk allows for better management of IT inventory, especially after employee offboarding. While Johan expected to get a better view of assets, he was happily surprised that his team at Asana could also now remind users to return old equipment via multiple channels.
While the logistics team typically handles software return, support agents could now help, reminding and reinforcing employees’ returns. “That extra bit of data that we’re getting adds that extra value as well,” he said. When another Oomnitza customer was able to achieve over $700,000 in annual savings because of reclaimed assets, that extra bit of data clearly goes a long way.
Having that data within Zendesk also assisted the Asana team in managing equipment breaks and repairs. Both for the sake of reducing costs and limiting e-waste, Johan and his team want to use things to the absolute end of their usable lifecycle. That means they follow best practices when it comes to replacing damaged equipment–something only successfully possible when they have accurate data on IT users.
“Let's say you have a 3-year refresh cycle and a year and a half in, someone manages to break their laptop. They won't necessarily get a brand new system. We tend to give someone a repurposed system that is in great serviceable condition instead,” he said.
Without accurate, complete IT data, IT teams have no reliable way of knowing when an asset is due for a refresh or collecting assets that can be refurbished. If they have to provide new equipment on a regular basis, that gets very costly over time. In a time when IT is being increasingly tasked with being fiscally responsible, that's not a situation that you should get comfortable with.
Instead, Johan claims, “Especially when you're a public company, you should think of the money that you're spending as money that you need to be accountable for because it's actually what informs the bottom line for all of the shareholders, not just the internal ones.”
Key Factors in Sourcing ITAM Solutions
It's clear that strong ITAM boosts the efficiency and effectiveness that IT teams can have in servicing their organizations. When exploring ITAM solutions to achieve these benefits, there are two bits of advice Johan feels everything IT organizations should keep in mind.
Find Your Forever Solutions
When moving systems, it often feels easier to find a cheap solution that fixes an immediate problem. However, three years later, you're back asking management for more money, ripping out everything you implemented a few years prior, and spending four times the money on something new.
Instead, it's wise to understand the evolution of any tool you're exploring. How will the tool work for you now? Will it be able to work for you as you scale?
Johan advises, “When you're putting your new tools in place, you don't want to put in the tool that solves the problem for today and tomorrow. You ideally actually want to put in the tool that solves your problem forever.”
You need to consider the longevity factor of an ITAM solution to avoid the high costs of change management–both from a financial and productivity standpoint. If you're going to avoid re-implementations and support all areas of your business over time, you should find a solution that can handle the unique needs of both small businesses and large enterprises.
Configure without Consultants
While you're entirely free to bring in IT consultants and higher full teams to manage tech configurations, there's no denying that they cost a pretty penny. Instead, you would benefit more from working with a solution whose team can act as consultants instead.
More than that, for the sake of ease and efficiency, search for a solution that lets you manage configurations yourself. You shouldn't need a full engineer to make changes to how you manage the system–anyone with a basic understanding of the platform or who’s in an admin role should be able to easily manage those configurations.
Johan felt that was part of the beauty of Oomnitza. “It's not like other platforms where you have to hire a team who is going to be building and customizing and developing. It's a solution that actually works right out of the box, [delivering] instant time-to-value with no large implementation or maintenance costs.”
Asset Management Done Right
With Oomnitza and Zendesk, you can securely manage laptops, servers, monitors, and more from anywhere, tracking all your assets with crystal clear clarity.
Pull up asset records and their Zendesk ticket history to make better, more informed decisions. Track the entire asset’s lifecycle. View Zendesk tickets and Oomnitza assets seamlessly, see all devices linked to a ticket, and even tag additional assets through ticket comments.
Want to watch the full webinar replay with Johan and our Chief Product Officer Donna Wilczek? Check it out here.
Curious how you can start powering Zendesk and other systems with Oomnitza’s modern IT asset management solution? Take a self-guided product tour.
