Profile: a manufacturing and trading company, 300 computers and roughly 800 further registered devices, a four-person IT team.
Starting point
For years we kept our IT inventory in spreadsheets. Just maintaining it at all was the problem, and on top of that accounting kept its own version based only on asset tag numbers — and reality was different again, so nothing ever matched. With 300 computers and around 800 further devices (monitors, printers, IP phones, scanners, switches, company phones), it simply couldn't be kept up any more. The worst part was the physical stock-take, and any mention of a software audit. Both meant days of searching and, by then, needless extra work.
Rollout
We chose MagikAUDIT years ago for several reasons. It offered automatic data collection, plenty of options for the inventory itself, the ability to build our own reports, and more. Rollout was faster than I expected — within a few days we had a complete picture of the hardware and installed software on every station, with no manual copying. The second step was to register the assets the network can't pick up — peripherals, phones, small equipment (and later to tag them with barcodes too). We set up our own categories and cost centres to match exactly how the company works. The whole thing took a few weeks; since then the inventory fills and updates itself.
Benefits
- An overview of the real state of our IT assets, essentially any time we want it. We can keep the record current and compare changes over time. Since deploying MagikINFO, it's fair to say the inventory actually matches reality.
- Savings on licences. Comparing installed software against what we'd actually purchased uncovered dozens of unused installations. Instead of buying new licences, we reallocated them.
- Peace of mind at audit time. We have hardware and licensing records on hand at any moment — I can prepare them in minutes, not days.
- Order and accountability. For every device I can see its history, warranty and who it's assigned to. When an employee leaves, I know exactly what they need to return — the "mysterious" disappearance of equipment has practically stopped.
- Replacement planning. Thanks to warranty and age records, we buy ahead of time instead of at the last minute.
Result
When we deployed MagikINFO I expected it to bring order above all — and that's exactly what we got. Today, IT inventory is something both I and management can rely on. When someone asks how much of what we have and in what condition, I can answer within moments, confident it's accurate. If I had to sum up MagikAUDIT in one sentence: we finally keep records not because we have to, but because they genuinely help us.
— Rostislav Cichra, IT Manager, MINERVA BOSKOVICE, a.s.
