The world of start-ups is unpredictable and it is commonly noted that 90% of start-ups fail. The 10% that survive immediately face another challenge — successfully scaling their business.
As businesses expand operations, their administrative needs become more complex. While successfully spearheading a team of 10 can be challenging, managing 50 employees requires a lot more strategic planning. As you grow your business, be aware of some basic pitfalls which can send the whole business into a tailspin.
One of these is poorly managed physical assets.
From office chairs to state-of-the-art technology, all businesses depend on physical assets to facilitate daily operations. Your employees rely on a well-maintained inventory to deliver on their goals. Lapses such as broken laptops or malfunctioning printers trickle-down leading to inefficiencies in your operations.
The stakes only become higher as you expand.
How to manage a growing inventory?
Tracking items that are being used across multiple offices can be a major administrative hassle. You might not have to worry about a projector placed at a specific location, but once your workspace expands and it is shared across multiple departments, it is important to accurately track it.
Badly-managed inventory hinders business productivity and leads to project delays. Also, you waste valuable time and money. Agile businesses tackle these daily roadblocks with physical asset management.
There are three primary ways to manage physical assets.
- Paper logs: Some companies track their company resources with pen and paper. However, paper logs are prone to errors, tedious to maintain, and susceptible to loss. They also perform poorly in terms of data security.
- Spreadsheets: Spreadsheets store data digitally and offer greater security than paper logs. However, they are static and it is difficult to keep them up-to-date. As more people have access to data, typography and concurrency errors become a problem.
- Software: Asset management software automates asset management and maintains real-time data. It’s typically not free. You have to buy the software and it requires company-wide onboarding so employees can familiarize themselves with the technology.
How do growing teams tackle problems?
Growing businesses have limited budgets and need to set clear priorities. An important area of investment is efficient physical asset management to eliminate clunky processes that hinder productivity and cause delays. Deploy physical asset management software to automate all asset actions and simplify data recording.
This lowers the administrative burden and enables businesses to focus on strategy building instead. Here are the main challenges that growing businesses can tackle by deploying physical asset management software.
1. Missing equipment
Tracking equipment that is used and exchanged by multiple employees and around locations is not easy. As an example, if an employee forgets to log asset information at the time of checkout, locating it for the next project will become a hassle leading to delays. As you grow and take on more projects, you need to plan ahead of time. Reliable asset location and availability information is crucial for scheduling tasks in advance.
WIth physical asset management software, businesses create a single platform to consolidate all asset data. Once populated, employees simply log all checkouts online so every item has an audit trail. This way, it takes only a couple of seconds to verify the current custodian. Once a team has completed their project, they check in the asset so it’s available for use again.
2. Inadequate resources
Resource needs are constantly changing when companies are expanding operations. It’s critical to keep track of your most used assets. Enhance productivity by ensuring you are always well-stocked and ready to take on any project. Eliminate the delays caused by arranging equipment at the last minute.
Asset management software enables companies to monitor asset usage in line with existing quantities. This makes it easy to order adequate supplies in advance so no work tasks are delayed.
3. Mounting service costs
Most companies rely on reactive maintenance when it comes to equipment breakdowns. While this reduces the burden on your technicians, it decreases equipment lifespan and leads to costly repairs that could’ve been avoided.
Be proactive and opt for preventive maintenance. It requires regular servicing and periodic inspections which ensure optimal functionality at all times. In this way, problem areas are identified before any equipment malfunctions occur.
With physical asset management software, companies set up personalized preventive maintenance for all of their items. These sessions have alerts enabled so no service is ever missed and you can lower your service costs. Additionally, it also marks the equipment as unavailable for the duration of the maintenance. Consequently, employees can’t reserve it for the designated period and there are no booking conflicts.
4. Asset data prone to errors
Traditional asset tracking methods have a higher risk of data errors. These stem from illegible employee handwriting, typographical errors, and formula errors in excel. Additionally, employees may forget to record asset activity, meaning that the issued item gets overlooked and potentially lost. Without accurate data logs, you won’t even know where to begin looking.
With automated asset management, your asset data is much more reliable. It gets updated in real-time and is easy to validate with audit trails for all actions. You can also establish who is allowed to update information in the system so concurrency errors aren’t a problem. With software, establish transparency as you scale!
Read more: Asset tracking guide 101
Grow your business confidently
With major industries rapidly moving towards automation, businesses need to pay attention to emerging technologies if they want to remain relevant in the market.
EZOfficeInventory’s asset management software is one such solution that enables companies to manage their entire inventory and its maintenance. It enables businesses all over the globe to increase asset availability and minimize the total cost of ownership. In addition to this, you can manage items by groups, locations, users, and vendors.
