Help for IT Organizations in these turbulent economic times
These turbulent economic times are increasing the pressure on each unit within organizations to accomplish more with less resource. This is especially true for internal IT organizations, where all the CEO and CFO sometime sees are the large ongoing expenses and huge requests for new capital expenditures. Many IT organizations have been un-able to make the leap from the traditional support organization position to being at the big table as a key enabler of business. These IT groups may find themselves under siege from all sides. Operating the IT infrastructure in large and medium sized businesses today is complex enough without the incremental burdens of implementing new technologies and applications, meeting enhanced compliance and regulatory hurdles and improving security all while cutting costs and improving service. In fact, today’s IT function is seen as so complex that many non IT executives view it as a black hole and do there best to keep there own success un-coupled and disconnected from the IT organization. In reality, IT and the innovative use of technology is paramount to the success of business, today and more than ever in the future. Although many organizations have been able to grown rapidly over the past 10 – 15 years as a result of improved productivity and innovation, this spurt is now over and as such is exposing operational weaknesses, high costs, lack of agility and poor service delivery.
Remaining competitive and meeting business objectives in the future will demand a whole new level of Innovation, Operational Excellence and the ability to move quickly to develop and capture new markets. IT’s role during the next few years as we make it through this downturn and prepare to enter the next market upturn will need to be much more aligned to the needs of the business. This will include:
• Providing efficient and effective IT Services
• Delivering high service levels to all customers • Enables business agility and growth
• Incorporation of advanced technologies
• Supports increased business collaboration
Many senior non-IT leaders are looking at alternatives to owning and operating an internal IT organization. The reason is that they have not and do not see how the existing organization will enable the accomplishment of these goals. In some organizations this may make sense, but for most; IT is the core structural organization that will enable achievement of these goals. One way for IT organizations to advance towards these goals is to implement one of the IT frameworks that incorporate a continuous improvement approach, such as ITIL v3. Unfortunately ITIL and other similar frameworks typically have a long and costly implementation attached to them and although a necesarry long-term approach, a short targeted service may be most helpful to identify opportunities and providing a quick point in the direction.
An alternative approach that our company has developed and successfully implemented for a number of organizations is either the TCO Benchmarking Solution or our TCO Assessment. These quick and cost effective services provides a proven methodology and process to determine what your true cost of computing is today, how your key performance indicators compare to a benchmark index and where your specific opportunities for improvement are. The TCO Benchmarking Solution also includes the development of a business case clearly identifying return on investment opportunities through a comprehensive (ROI) analysis. The TCO Assessment also includes the added benefit of an ITIL Readiness Assessment. The key benefits of these services are: Key Benefits of the TCO Benchmarking Solution Service are: Money – Gain valuable insight into pinpointing areas for cost reduction or doing more with existing budgets. Time – Determine where your human resources can increase their productivity. Risk – Understand your IT risks and exposures, enabling you to develop plans to mitigate them. Planning – Explore various scenarios in order to forecast and quantify the economic impact of new IT planning initiatives. Key Benefits of the TCO Assessment Service are: • Cost effective service avoids cost and disruption by reducing the data collection effort using myKPI data collection portal, eTraining, telephone & email support and templates. • Improves management communications through convenient anywhere & anytime information access using the myKPI web portal. • Identifies areas to reduces/avoids cost by maximizing effectiveness using the opportunity assessment. • Avoids wasting valuable time on symptoms of other problems by using the cost driver trouble-spot indicator scorecard. • Improves effectiveness and success rate with a basis for verifying benefit attainment using a baseline for future comparison. • Increases understanding of the root causal drivers of trouble spots and helps make decisions faster improving effectiveness. • Increases efficiency and effectiveness with better understanding of where costs can be minimized and productivity maximized using the TCO dashboards and scorecards. • Increases the value of IT with better understanding of where IT can be aligned to drive business benefits and mitigate risks using the ITIL readiness assessment. • Improves budgeting effectiveness through better planning and forecasting capability using the TCO 5 year budget forecast.
Should you be interested in additioanl infomation on these services or any of our other IT Optimization services, please contact me directly at glen.macdonald@micromationinc.com or call me at 678-983-3100 or visit us at: www.micromationinc.com
