8 Effective Tips to Manage Your Device Inventory

Managing your device inventory can be a labor-intensive task. It might be difficult to know which apps, operating systems, and best practices are appropriate for your company if you’re not a computer specialist. This can be particularly challenging when you have to think about which solutions fit your budget and your employee’s needs. However, doing it right is worth the time and money spent.

To help you through the process of inventorying and managing your mobile devices, here are some effective tips for managing your device inventory:

1. Know Your Resources

It may seem obvious, but without a complete inventory of the devices your business owns and employs, you cannot manage your device inventory. This calls for you to conduct an asset audit and maintain an accurate asset inventory list.

By doing this, you’ll be able to identify any assets that are lying about and might be used for something else. Consider doing a new audit as the first stage in your new device inventory management strategy if your company’s device asset inventory list is outdated.

2. Monitor Your Equipment

Particularly in the current context of remote and hybrid working becoming the norm, business phones, computers, laptops, and other assets are frequently moved around. It is crucial to track and maintain an inventory of these devices when employees use them to work remotely or travel around with business property.

In this situation, being able to remotely locate your devices and see their usage patterns and users is really useful. You should be able to lock and safeguard the device to prevent exposure to data theft, for example, if an employee unintentionally leaves their laptop on public transportation during their journey. Ideally, you’ll be able to locate the gadget and give it back to the worker without incident.

3. Update Your Database

A system for managing device inventories is only useful if it is updated frequently. Not only is outdated information useless in the event that a device is lost or stolen, but it can also delay your response and make things more complicated as you work to confirm the right device characteristics.

The fact that the devices used by your business store enormous amounts of data is another factor. Be careful to adhere to data protection regulations and not violate your employees’ privacy when upgrading your device database. User manuals and warranty expiration dates should be the main topics of your inventory database. By doing this, you’ll have easy access to all the information you need regarding your assets.

4. Buy the Best

Equipment will eventually need to be upgraded or replaced. Look through your inventory and history and ask yourself or your employees which brands are more problematic. Which equipment is the most popular? Which equipment causes the greatest time and financial harm when it malfunctions? Ensure that you get input from relevant sources within your company regarding certain devices so that you get the best out of your team and their devices.

Providing your employees with equipment – especially if they work remotely all over the world – can be a tedious if not downright difficult ordeal. Consider using all-in-one platforms like ZenAdmin where you can easily choose equipment from their online catalog, order your chosen devices, and rest easy while ZenAdmin takes care of the logistics, shipment, and delivery.

5. Take Preventive Measures

It goes without saying that constant use of equipment is more useful to your company than equipment used occasionally. But because it is more likely to malfunction, it requires frequent maintenance. To make the best use of your time, schedule maintenance based on necessity rather than assigning each piece of equipment to a set schedule.

Additionally, you can schedule maintenance to minimize its influence on the rest of your organization because your new and improved inventory management tracks when your equipment is most likely to be idle.

6. Assign Proper Devices to Your Team

It’s crucial to know who is in charge of each device, whether you’re onboarding new hires or just want to keep track of the devices you’ve already given to your team. The types of devices you provide your team with can also depend on their job description. For example, a graphic designer may need a more powerful desktop as compared to a writer who can work just fine with a laptop.

Working with a device inventory management solution provider like ZenAdmin can assist you in allocating devices to users as part of the onboarding process and handle the inventory management of these devices.

In general, knowing who is in charge of which devices is essential for effective device inventory management. It will be simple to identify specific device users and inform them when maintenance and replacements are necessary.

7. Identify the Root Causes

An inconvenience results when a crucial piece of equipment malfunctions just once. But what if it keeps malfunctioning repeatedly? Use the data you have on your equipment to get a better picture.

Instead of just looking at the surface, look for trends to uncover deeper problems. It’s possible that an employee’s breakdowns are the result of improper equipment use or a lack of training on their part. In this situation, upgrading the equipment will not address the issue and will only increase your costs in the long run.

8. Track Hardware Performance

Tracking your devices’ locations and usage is just one aspect of device inventory management. You shouldn’t be in the dark about how well your devices are working. A device inventory management system can help you record the past performance of your gadgets.

For instance, it will be better to utilize a device’s performance history to assess if it makes sense to fix or replace it when reactive maintenance is required. You’ll eventually need to upgrade, replace, or repair your equipment.

Set Up Your Device Inventory Management System with ZenAdmin

Setting up a device inventory management system might provide some challenges for companies used to operating in a different way, despite being easy to use and maintain. ZenAdmin has teamed up with Hexnode, the top Mobile Device Management (MDM) program. This software may be used on both PCs and Apple laptops, phones, and tablets to help automate procedures that guarantee your devices are safe, up to date, and in good condition.

Want to learn more about Mobile Device Management? Check out our ultimate guide to MDMs here.

With ZenAdmin, you can see all of your devices’ information (such as model, serial number, OS version, etc.) as well as information about their health, such as their battery life, app usage, CPU speed, RAM, and other factors. Upgrades, policies, and the distribution of fixes across all devices in your organization may be handled by the team at ZenAdmin. Additionally, they will offer proactive suggestions to lessen potential device and/or compliance problems in the future. Book a demo with ZenAdmin today!