I just spent 2 days at International Association IT Asset Management conference. The first 4 hours I was absorbing what the attendees were like and their roles. Here is the breadth of range of the subjects presented in this PDF.

But, after two days and lots of discussions I felt like this is a tactical approach addressing the short term issue which is important. But, where is the bigger picture that resonates with the CxO and business unit owners.

An analogy could be FedEx tracking individual packages throughout the system as asset management's job. Where are all the packages and where are the records. But this approach doesn't answer the business effectiveness of the system empowered by the assets. To give you an idea watch this FedEx video on plane movement. What is important from the CxO's perspective is did those planes execute as planned, what is the utilization of the plane, was it on time, what were the costs associated to run that plane, etc.

Asset Management is important, but it is only one piece of a bigger problem to run operations at its best.

I have figured out the equivalent to a plane load of assets to track, and so far people like the metaphor to report on data center operations. Next week I am heading to NYC and 2 weeks after that to 7x24Exchange where I'll test the ideas more on how asset management can fit in an overall system.