1. What are the companies mentioned in the case trying to control, or manage, through these projects? What is the problem? And how did they get there?
2. What are the business benefits of implementing strong IT asset management programs? In what ways have the companies discussed in the case benefited? Provide several examples.
3. One of the companies in the case, UnitedHealth Group, tackled the issue by imposing standardization and "charging" those stepping outside standard models. How should they balance the need to standardize with being able to provide business units with the technologies best suited to their specific needs? Justify your answer.

Global pharmaceuticals giant AstraZeneca needed some strong medicine of its own to fix a burgeoning IT asset management problem. It was brought about by multiple acquisitions and their nonstandard gear, a high-tech workforce spread across 255 facilities in 147 countries, and a total of more than 67,000 employees using more than 90,000 hardware and software assets ranging from notebooks to SAP and Oracle enterprise applications and databases.