The ISO 55000 mentions several benefits of implementing asset management. How valid and practical are these benefits? In the IAM Academic Research Network Working Group on "Measuring the Benefits of Asset Management" we want to develop a framework/methodology to identify the critical success factors that ensure that the benefits to an organisation by implementing good asset management practices are achieved. To begin with we are interested in how various organisations have identified, quantified, and tracked “benefits” of asset management activities over time.
Dear Sirs,
Interesting question, but requires a complex answer. In companies, as part of the accounting reports, you have an overview of the situation and changes of the only visible part of corporate assets. However, the greatest value of the Company assets consist of the value of the portfolio company's customers, and they are invisible assets. All the company works, the way it manages the visible property companies has a direct impact on the value of the portfolio company's customers. What is the value of the portfolio company's customers greater, the greater the confidence in the future achievement of profitable operations and survival of firms in the market. This is the basis of creating goodwill (although in accordance with International Accounting Standards internally generated goodwill is not recorded). Details about this can be read in an article that I published and you have it on my profile.
"Asset Management" as defined by the group which created the ISO standard is a buzzword and not a business concept or management concept. For some reason that group had decided to EXCLUDE the widest use of the term "asset", namely for financial items.
Because if one INCLUDES financial assets, then -
- everything
which an enterprise or organization (or a private person or group such as a family)
holds in possession and uses for its agreed upon purposes
- which is valued in monetary terms over its useful life
is an asset. Bingo.
So a legal or physical person is OBLIGED, by the nature of its activities and by the reasons why it decides to bring assets into its possession in the first place, to MANAGE ASSETS in its possession resp. under its responsibility.
This is not a choice, but an obligation.
Therefore the question is not IF asset management per se brings "benefits",
only HOW ARE ASSETS TO BE MANAGED responsibly and, as resources in the form of assets are by the nature of our world scarce, optimally.
For me a sensible research question might go into two directions:
1. What are the CONSEQUENCES of NEGLIGENT or LACKING asset management?
2. What is the additional value of managing assets in best practice fashion
over managing them only according to minimum standards?
Enough for now - I will be glad to continue as this discussion moves along.
Reliably measured or assessed the benefit of "asset management", I think this is an impossible task. Why? Simply because:
1. It is impossible to eliminate the effects of other internal and external, predictable and unpredictable factors of success, to distinguish and quantify the benefits of management (as a whole) of the entity;
2. It is impossible to distinguish only benefit from the management of assets, because there is no way to isolate the effects of the management of liabilities, which is also its operational and strategic task;
3. Do not clear for how long should a survey / measurement / assessment of the benefits of the management of the assets to make that sufficiently representative. Hardly it will be between two balance sheet dates.
And if one thinks deeper: it seems that the "assets management” will be yet another expression of the contradiction between the interdisciplinary nature of business knowledge and disciplinary approach in its presentation (see eponymous publication by the author of this comment).
Hi Peter,
Let's limit ourselves to non-financial assets. The point is indeed not about having an obligation or not. The idea is to manage one's assets well. The question then arises if I stick to all the WHAT and HOW requirements in the ISO55000 series, does that bring me demonstrable benefits or not?
So our main goal is very much in line with your second question. And leads to the question: how have organisations identified, quantified, and tracked the additional value of asset management activities over time.
Dear Rob,
from my experience,traditional ROI / business case mathod get you nowhere.
I find the "Platform" approach interesting: If you view best-practice asset management as a platform, as an enabler in your organization, what can you DO that you cannot do today?
Dear Rob,
In our organisation we put a departmentwise alphaneumeric code on every personal computer which are also terminals of the mainframe and keep digital records of the history and progression of each machine in a coded way which are periodically audited under systems auditing procodures by internal auditors as well as statutory government auditors. Replacements require written requests and are authorised by the Director and the Systems Head and is purely done on an exchange basis on requisition or once every two years. Operating Systems are licensed by the institute to the concerned user. Machines are not movable usually unless permitted for specific purposes and duration with a gatepass. Antivirus programs and certain library databases are provided by the institute free of charge on request by faculty. The WiFi system can be used by students on their personal laptops or they are allowed unlimited use of the three computer laboratories with about 150 pcs and terminals and the same data and antivirus libraries. It is a periodic audit based decentralised asset management system on unlimited workplace use basis. However, the website can be accessed round the clock 365 days-a-year on a remote professionally licensed host by authorised student and faculty account holders. There is a well built system of spam exclusions. Over about ten years use has reached a marginal growth steady state in hours of routed internet use. SKM PhD QC FEPS(D)
If you are still interested in this question, chekc my publication about that. Let me know if you need other things related to asset managment.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Geoscience
- Asia
- India