Case Study - equigroup Managed IT Leasing

A large, Sydney-headquartered, property and financial services institution sought our assistance in developing a solution to manage its fleet of IT assets. Assets were spread in locations throughout Australian cities and ranged from large office buildings to very small site offices. The client had recently acquired another building services company of comparable size to itself as a merged organisation.

Generally, the client’s IT asset information was poorly managed and not housed in a logical manner. As a result, it was very difficult for the client to properly address technical issues across the network and so it was inefficient in its spending on IT.

Client objectives

• Create an IT leasing solution across all company locations
• Understand, track and reduce IT asset costs where possible
• Account for the technology, detail and location of all assets
• Release scarce capital resources in existing owned equipment

 

Client situation

• In growing its business, the client had recently acquired an equally large building services company. This new company had minimal control over its fleet of equipment and it was imperative to quickly understand and control its assets to assist in integration
• More than 70 office locations throughout Australia
• More than 2,200 staff/seats
• ICT assets covered a broad spectrum of asset classes including PCs, laptops, thin clients, servers, printers and network equipment

 

  Solution

We undertook the following actions to improve the client’s situation:

 

1. ICT asset audit

•  Equigroup’s starting point in assessing the client’s situation was a comprehensive site-by-site audit of all technology equipment irrespective of ownership, rental or other status
• The audit delivered a comprehensive catalogue of 3,278 assets across all locations, including data such as asset, model, specification, location, user detail and asset tagging
• The audit data was matched to other known sources of information such as lease documentation, asset registers and finance registers

 

2. Asset consulting service

• The audit detail (after being data matched) was used to build a profile and timeline for action to properly manage IT assets
• Given the client had two leasing providers with more than 25 separate leasing arrangements, equigroup acted as an agent for the client and assessed all assets under lease and assisted in the end-of-lease process for these assets
• In conjunction with the client’s technical area an assessment was undertaken of the technical and age profile of all assets to identify them for disposal
• equigroup undertook asset disposal services for the client

 

3. Sale and leaseback of owned assets

• After the consulting process was completed,  approximately 900 IT assets owned by the client  were identified as being suitable to move onto a lease program
• A sale and leaseback was conducted with a cash return to the client of approximately $1,000,000

 

4. New IT lease activity

• Since the client setup was conducted, the client has now established a routine for the regular leasing of IT equipment
• Monthly lease settlement activity is undertaken and regular formal quarterly reviews are undertaken in our Account Management area

 

Client outcomes

• The client now has all of its IT assets housed in equigroup’s proprietary asset management tool ClientXpress as a single reliable repository of IT asset information
• The client now has 1,700 assets under finance with equigroup

 

Conclusion

For our property client, their journey meant a comprehensive assessment of their situation and then a carefully planned timeline of activity encompassing a range of disposal, refinance and acquisition effort. Once the client situation was brought under control, then the path was clear for a seamless move across onto equigroup’s systems and processes, delivering the benefits of a  comprehensive, managed IT leasing strategy.

 

 

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