With over 20 years of experience, Assetic CEO Ashay Prahbu has been instrumental in establishing the practice of Strategic Asset Management (SAM) in Australia. He has seen asset management evolve from an art to a science, in both its systems and tools, and is passionate about this evolution. As 2014 starts to unfold plenty is happening, so we ask Ashay – where to from here?


Asset intensive organisations will be scrutinised for their long-term financial plans. Linking future funding needs to service levels will become the key measure of sustainability. Audits will be more onerous, as the gap between required funding and available resources widens. Legislation will pass at parliamentary level, with Tasmania first cab off the rank for 2014. Without a doubt, there are huge potential savings available through optimised decision making in long-term financial planning, and SAM has time and again proven this possible.	Accounting compliance such as Fair Value and AASB13 will drive better asset management practice. There will be increased demand for accurate breakdown of assets into material components, and verification of input parameters – and a VERY clear distinction between those who do it well and those who don't. Organisations will start to be ranked by risk profiling, as auditors start to demand better asset accounting practice.

Asset management maturity will improve ten-fold in the next five years. The new ISO 55000 standards will make asset management measurable and objective, whilst also providing clarity on capital expenditure prioritisation. Ad hoc asset management will be history from around 2016 – 2018, and a new era of packaged methods will evolve. The instance of smaller organisations embracing resource sharing and other cost effective practices will increase manyfold as funding gaps widen.	Data capture of asset inventory and condition costs will drop by at least 60% by 2017. Data will be available online and condition assessors will rarely need to leave their offices. Larger organisations will see the emergence of a ‘data room’, and inspections may be undertaken live from this control room by 2020. Capturing and distributing data via cloud-based technology will be a way of life, and data costs will no longer be an impediment – rather a recognised value for a good practice outcome.

Finally, in local government, there will without a doubt be a massive resource gap for smaller councils (less than 10000 rateable properties) in the next five years. As mandates put the pressure on, the resource needs will triple from 0.6 FTE in 2006 to 3.3 FTE in 2017 purely to service long–term financial plans, Fair Value compliance and mandated reporting and data capture. This will then level off as resource sharing and provision of complex services is effectively outsourced. Already this trend is demonstrating value, where either a bigger council services five others’ asset management, or outsources to a SAM Bureau Service provider who has a proven model and whose core business is asset management.	One more thought … about a silent change that's upon us… No longer is the game simply about patching potholes, maintaining buildings or responding to customer requests. The game now has a critical, complex component of accounting standards and long term financial planning – often mandatory and soon legislated. So think about a new era where SAM is about *‘accountaneer-ing’* – accountants and engineers brought together. It’s a new breed… it’s a new wave. SAM is no longer a traditional asset system that records work orders and talks to GIS – it is now truly a tool for accounting and long-term financial planning of assets. There is a world of difference between this and the traditional view of asset management systems, and this will be crystal clear in five years’ time.