Courtesy: ISO 55000:2014 Asset management
Financial asset management
The most common usage of the term portfolio manager (asset manager) refers to investment management, the sector of the financial services industry that manages investment funds and segregated client accounts. Asset management is part of a financial company that employs experts who manage money and handle the investments of clients. This is done either actively or passively.
- Active asset management: this involves active tasks such as studying the client’s assets to planning and looking after the investments, all things are looked after by the asset managers, and recommendations are provided based on the financial health of each client. Active asset management comes at a higher price to investors because more work is involved.
- Passive asset management: assets are allocated to mirror a market or a sector index. Unlike active asset management, passive asset management is a lot less laborious. It is also less tailored, requires less looking after, and consequently is cheaper for investors.
Infrastructure asset management is the combination of management, financial, economic, engineering, and other practices applied to physical assets to provide the best value level of service for the costs involved. It includes the management of the entire life cycle—including design, construction, commissioning, operating, maintaining, repairing, modifying, replacing, and decommissioning/disposal—of physical and infrastructure assets. Operation and maintenance of assets in a constrained budget environment require a prioritization scheme. As a way of illustration, the recent development of renewable energy has seen the rise of effective asset managers involved in the management of solar systems (solar parks, rooftops, and windmills). These teams often collaborate with financial asset managers in order to offer turnkey solutions to investors. Infrastructure asset management became very important in most of the developed countries in the 21st century, since their infrastructure network was almost completed in the 20th century and they have to manage to operate and maintain them cost-effectively. Software asset management is one kind of infrastructure asset management.
The International Organization for Standardization published its management system standard for asset management in 2014. The ISO 55000 series provides terminology, requirements, and guidance for implementing, maintaining and improving an effective asset management system. The key to forming a structure of this sort is directly connected to local governance.