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Notino keeps track of 15,000 items of hardware in ALVAO and has saved thousands of printed handover dockets by digitizing

Notino is one of the fastest-growing companies in Europe. Operating in 28 countries around the world, it comprises 14 brick-and-mortar stores, 2 warehouses, and 4 office buildings. Despite all this, until recently its assets were recorded in confusing Excel spreadsheets. The turning point came with the company’s burgeoning growth and mass hiring. Why did a company relying exclusively on its own internal processes and programs choose ALVAO and what has it achieved with our product?

Jumbled spreadsheets held back the company and its IT department

Jumbled spreadsheets held back the company and its IT department

From the beginning, the records in Notino were kept as a shared table – all information about the hardware was recorded in one file, including the name of the owner, inventory number, purchase price, etc. As the technology base grew, the records were divided into several sheets by equipment type – laptops, monitors, network elements, and each type of hardware was assigned a new inventory number. Despite splitting up the tables, keeping accurate records simply wasn’t realistic.

“With growing hardware and staff numbers, Excel is no longer enough. Often an employee would come asking for a new laptop. The technician forgot to edit the owner of the hardware during the handover, and it was no longer clear where and with whom the kit was. In addition, the HR legal function had no documentation of staff kit being handed out or returned,” is how Petr Slezák, IT administrator at Notino, describes the situation.

ALVAO in Notino

All the IT in Notino, a company of over 200 people, is done in-house – using proprietary systems and programs. It was not easy to please such a demanding and particularly self-sufficient client. Despite this, the technical staff chose ALVAO to resolve their asset registration shortcomings. Petr Slezák comments on their choice: “ALVAO is a clear and transparent system and allows us to quickly trace any asset, its properties and current owner.”


Starting out with Asset Management

The biggest challenge for Notino was moving data across from tumultuous tables to Asset Management, defining the hierarchy tree used for recording and maintaining current data. After 6 years of use, the verdict is very clear; the initial effort has been well worth it. Up-to-date and 100% reliable data is now available in a few clicks, saving time not only for IT.


How Notino keeps records in the Asset Management database

Since Notino has offices all over the world, it has divided the database by country, city and branch. The warehouses are then divided by floors. Technicians look to the database for specific data thanks to clear and practical filtering – the user chooses to search, writes their user name, the laptop label, or any other item filled in for the hardware, and immediately gets the necessary information.


Asset Management for other departments

ALVAO originally functioned as a tool for the IT department. Over time, other departments noticed the benefits of Asset Management and wanted to use our software.

The first to opt in was the Facility Department, which keeps records on furniture, invoices, manufacturers, and prices in Asset Management. Thanks to the history of the record they can compare purchase prices with previous data and select the best offer.

In addition, the Finance Department was added, to keep things under control and track the annual inventory of assets, eliminating IT administration.


ALVAO is usable by anyone

Asset Management works through a web interface – users don’t need to install any software. Technical staff are trained by ALVAO and then train the Finance people themselves, who easily got to see the records; showing ALVAO products are easy to use, just like Microsoft apps.


more about asset management

Electronic handover protocols

Electronic handover protocols

The registration of assets is much speeded up by the digitization of handover ‘paperwork’. The Notino employee comes to the warehouse – where the technician finds the hardware by their name, having pre-assigned their specific kit in Asset Management – and signs for the kit on a tablet.

"We quite often get ten, twenty users at once turning up for their new kit. Thanks to ALVAO, the technician in the warehouse no longer has to write out handover protocols or print anything. The employee just gives their name, the technician finds the assigned kit and gets the employee’s signature on a tablet. The whole process takes a minute at most", says Petr Kugler, L2 administrator. He goes on to say: “In September, there were 45 new hires, and were all dealt with by a single person in 60 minutes, which we see as a huge time saving.”

Notino in numbers

In Asset Management, Notino keeps track of 15,000 pieces of hardware and 1850 licenses for laptops and computers. The number of electronic handover protocols was 2562 in 2021 and 2221 in 2022 (as of 20th September.) This is an enormous saving of time and paper, compared to the prior printing of two copies per transaction.


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