In many large organisations in South Africa, thousands of laptops and devices are unaccounted for, not because they have been stolen or lost, but due to poor record-keeping. This results in unnecessary bills piling up as companies order replacement equipment or continue to license software for machines that are no longer in use. Valene Nagiah, head of asset tracking and management at V-Track, notes that often the device exists but the records are incorrect.
Nagiah explains that where records have not been regularly reconciled against physical assets, discrepancies of up to 20% of the total IT estate have been observed. For a large enterprise with thousands of devices, this translates to a long list of machines with incorrect locations or statuses. The biggest issue is not a handful of missing laptops but organisations that have lost visibility of large portions of their IT estate over time.
Hybrid work has increased the challenge of tracking devices, as they move between offices, homes, client sites, and shared workspaces. Legacy manual tracking processes struggle to keep up with this movement. As a result, software is often the bigger hidden cost, with licences sitting on retired or reassigned devices, duplicate installations, and subscriptions still being paid for software that is no longer in use.
V-Track has helped organisations such as North-West University (NWU) to keep tabs on their IT estate. NWU reported that V-Track assisted with accurate location reporting and current user log-on of IT assets, identifying 'ghost assets' that possibly did not follow the correct approval channels. This improved accountability across the organisation and enabled more informed management decisions regarding IT assets.
According to Nagiah, failure to recover devices is usually a process issue rather than a one-off event. The consequences include delayed recoveries, ageing assets, higher replacement costs, and security exposure from devices that are still active but unaccounted for. In one instance, V-Track identified a device retained by a former employee, remotely locked it, and wiped sensitive data before it could be accessed.
Companies have invested heavily in cloud security and identity management, but many asset registers still rely on manual systems that depend on individual updates. These records feed procurement and insurance, so errors are propagated beyond the IT department. Nagiah notes that records are usually accurate when equipment is first purchased and deployed but ongoing verification is often inconsistent or absent.
Nagiah concludes that most organisations do not have an asset problem but a visibility problem. The device is usually there somewhere, but nobody can say with confidence who has it, where it is, or whether it is still being used. Visibility is no longer a nice-to-have but a business, financial, and security requirement.
Key points
- Hybrid work has increased the challenge of tracking devices.
- Poor record-keeping is the main reason for unaccounted devices.
- Organisations need to invest in asset tracking and management to improve visibility.
