How do you manage IT assets in a large company?
We have thousands of employees: each has a laptop, many have a corporate SIM card, and every laptop runs several licensed programs. The warehouse, IT, and accounting each keep their own records. How do you track all of this and see which services depend on which assets?
10 November 2026
0
2 min
Expert answer
Business Development Director, SimpleOne, ITG Corporation
Track every IT asset in an IT asset management (ITAM) system, link it to the employee it is issued to, and, where it matters for services, link it to a configuration item in the configuration management database (CMDB). Then for any laptop, SIM card, or software license you can see who uses it, who is responsible for it, and which processes are affected if it fails.
Why spreadsheets stop working
In a company with 1,000 or 5,000 employees, everyone gets a laptop, many get a SIM card, and every laptop has several programs installed. The warehouse, IT, and accounting keep this data separately, and most often there's no link between their records. It gets harder when a company has many offices, warehouses, and branches: equipment moves between them, and without a single database it's hard to tell where it is and who has it.
Asset or configuration item
An asset is hardware or software seen as property: it has a lifecycle from purchase to write-off, a responsible person, a warehouse, a contract, and costs. A configuration item (CI) is any element the company manages as part of its services: a laptop, a SIM card, a software license, a server, a whole service, or an employee. Relationships between CIs form a tree that shows what each element depends on and who uses it: for example, which services stop working if a server fails.
An asset and a CI are separate records, and they are linked where you need to see how an asset affects services. That's how ITGLOBAL.COM set it up: selected asset categories are linked to the CMDB, and the asset form shows the configuration item and the incidents it is involved in.
How it works in SimpleOne
In SimpleOne, assets are managed in SimpleOne ITAM. It covers the lifecycle of IT assets from planning and procurement to operational tracking and cost control. ITAM works with the same CMDB as SimpleOne ITSM and SimpleOne SDLC, so support, the warehouse, and development see the same asset and its links to services.
Where to start
Start with the largest asset category, such as employee laptops. Decide what data to keep in the asset record and which employees and services to link it to, then add SIM cards, software, servers, and network equipment.
Learn how to track assets and their lifecycle in the SimpleOne ITAM documentation, and see which processes the system covers on the SimpleOne ITAM page.
