by John Parker | Dec 23, 2011 | Business Analysis, ITIL and Service Design, Uncategorized |
With the year coming to a closing, organizations are wrapping up remaining projects and starting to set priorities and objectives for 2012. The year 2012 seems to have the same mandate from 2011, which is doing more with less. Below is a list of priorities that CIOs should focus on to be successful in this coming year. Optimize Cost and Value – Gartner predicts that through 2015, a recession era mentality among CEOs will ensure a policy of paying for future investments from the cost savings obtained from existing IT operations. Cost/value optimization will be key in moving forward through 2012. According to Gartner, cost optimization means more than just reducing costs, it means: Process improvement, reorganization and new methods Implementing cost saving technologies with the business Identifying and executing on opportunities to reduce IT Costs Getting the best pricing and terms for IT purchases Become more Agile – In a recent CIO survey, the number one concern of business technology executives is that they were unable to meet business goals and IT systems were slow to be implemented. When IT systems become the bottlenecks for new product launches, capabilities and expansion, the company’s inability to beat small competitors becomes clear. CIOs must find ways to make their organizations more agile and responsive to the dynamic business environment. Align business with IT – Business and IT should not be mentioned as separate entities. CIO’s must assume responsibilities and be thought leaders on how to improve business processes through automation. CIO’s should focus on areas such as business process management, procurement, supply chain management and being integrally involved in new...
by John Parker | Dec 15, 2011 | Business Analysis, ITIL and Service Design, Uncategorized |
By proactively identifying, and eliminating or remedying poorly performing application assets, Applications Portfolio Rationalization helps companies to: Reduce costs. Target efforts to the areas of highest return. Maximize the business value of their application portfolios. Globalization and changing business requirements impose significant challenges on technology leaders who are under constant pressure to both innovate and reduce costs. These demands to do more with less have been exacerbated by business leaders hearing about prospective savings from use of the Cloud without understanding the impact of transition. IT leaders are forced to accelerate the roll out of new systems and technologies to support business, without compromising the management of existing applications. They must address key issues, such as balancing cost, complexity and capacity and also deliver business value by applying continuous improvement methodologies. Application portfolio rationalization helps organizations turn these challenges into benefits in terms of reduced costs and more value delivered to the business. Application portfolio rationalization is an important and continuous exercise for evaluating and controlling IT costs. Application portfolio rationalization involves focusing on the application portfolio looking for duplicate applications, one-off technologies, applications with few users, and applications with a high cost/user ratio. With a complete understanding of the current environment, the next step is to consider what should be done to move from current to the ideal. Industry analyst Gartner Group confirms that a focused application rationalization effort will typically result in substantial cost savings while improving support for the lines of business. These savings are too large to ignore. Additional benefits include a simplified infrastructure and an availability of resources, allowing organizations to focus on what...
