Hardware, as it turns out, can be a lot like relationships: sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. At least, that’s the conclusion drawn by researcher Gartner Inc., which released a report revealing that many companies don’t understand their hardware asset bases, leading to a loss of time, money and system performance.
According to Gartner, less than 25 per cent of companies worldwide have an IT asset management program in place that can determine potential dangers. Without thorough knowledge of their systems, companies risk gathering incorrect information on hardware and software upgrades, overspending on upgrades, or giving false information to application development groups, Gartner said.
Poor hardware management can increase companies’ total cost of ownership by seven per cent to 10 per cent annually, Gartner warned.