There are still opportunities to do more for less

A lot of talk right now revolves around IT projects in 2012 – which mainly means, deciding which projects to scrap due to lack of funds and how to invest the small budget available wisely, as well as use existing resources more efficiently. The problem is that with a restricted budget, it is difficult to truly understand what is essential and what is not and therefore where to invest the limited resources. But there are still many opportunities to achieve IT efficiencies at a small or no cost.

First of all, an effective way to improve productivity would be to follow the classic suggestion of making the best of what you have, but with particular focus on the human side, the people who run your IT. Invest time and effort in your staff to make them feel appreciated, motivate them to work better with incentives and listen to their issues as well as their suggestions on how to improve the IT department. People are a fundamental part of your business and investing in them will definitely have a tangible return on investment. It is easy for staff to get discouraged in tough times, and that is why improving morale and making people feel appreciated is so vital to improve business – a no-cost investment for a great ROI.

Likewise, there is still space to find other no or low-cost efficiencies by applying simple Service Management best practice principles. From processes to help speed up operations and software to deal with large amount of data effectively, to changing IT staff’s working patterns and hours, small changes can bring great results, all to the business’ advantage. Adopting metrics can also be a great way to improve the service and monitor efficiency. A small budget may be invested in consultancy – an experienced consultant can help by assessing the state of the Service Desk and suggesting ways to improve processes and put to better use the current resources that you have.

Another good move for a small budget can be gaining certifications. With limited resources and the inability to spend on large projects, it might be a good time to obtain an ITIL or ISO 27001 certification: the immediate investment is small but the results can become of great importance in the next few years. In fact, when the market will be strong and growing again, the company will already have that crucial certification that allows them to take part in bids and tenders, for instance, and therefore grow their business; these certifications are in fact becoming more and more crucial for companies issuing a bid or tender, and greatly influence the decision-making process. At the same time, they can guarantee more efficiency and security, which means that even in tough times, resources are exploited and managed in the best way possible, operations are carried out effectively and security incidents – with all their costly consequences – are reduced to the minimum.

The most important thing to keep in mind, in any case, is that any move has to focus on supporting the revenue-generating areas and functions. Money spent supporting non-essential parts of the organisation’s productivity might not have be a wise investment in the current financial situation. Any efforts must be directed at helping the business and its core functions, while the other aspects of the organisation will have to put on hold until the market is strong again.

Jon Reeve, Principal Consultant

Find this piece on ITSM Portal:

http://www.itsmportal.com/columns/there-are-still-opportunities-do-more-less

Are managed IT services set to grow this year?

Business of all sizes and sectors across the country are still worried about the poor conditions of the current economic environment, which is not set to improve this year, as analysts and experts have already announced. With no way of avoiding this situation, organisations can only try to make the best of it, and perhaps use it as an occasion to really assess what expenses are essential to their business and how they can take advantage of the weakened financial setting. It is important to try to make the best of what one has and what is available in order for an organisation to survive or even grow during hard times.

Of course when money is tight the Service Desk is one of the departments more likely to suffer, with all the possible consequences on the rest of the business. With most IT projects scrapped from the beginning, it takes a good justification to invest in anything more expensive than a screen wipe. Yet correct management of the Service Desk, including continuous training of IT staff, an inexpensive absence cover system, continuous service improvement ethos, updating service management processes to the latest and most relevant best practices and meeting the appropriate targets can still be possible without incurring in eye-watering bills. This is the principle behind a Managed IT Service – a Service Desk can work to a good standard at all times, because someone else is taking care of it and all variable costs become fixed.

Various types of IT outsourcing have become popular in the last few year – from offshoring to cheaper countries to having only some Support staff managed by a provider. Different options work for different organisations, but generally speaking the popularity of one over another during a recession or uncertain economic environment depends on a series of factors and in particular: low risk; ROI; ease of adoption/set-up; as well as a financial factor.  In times like these, where one doesn’t want to be involved in large projects or revolutionise their whole IT department and have to re-think the way they deliver and use IT Support, a radical option such as offshoring or full outsourcing might not be ideal. With a Managed IT Service Desk, the ‘status quo’ of the IT department should not be affected as the expectation is the supplier will implement a robust framework which ensures that existing Service Levels are at least maintained, whilst transitioning the Service Desk to a ‘future state’ model over an agreed period of time.

This meets the requirements of ease of adoption and risk, as it is easier to set up, reverse, retake charge of or switch provider, when compared with a fully outsourced or offshore solution. This option can also assure a certain level of information security compared to a fully outsourced service, as the Service Desk will be based at close sight within the organisation’s premises (unless otherwise requested) and the system, and therefore the data stored and processed within it, is owned by the company. The minimised risk makes this a good choice when one cannot afford to take risks.

As for the financial factor, most outsourcing models will eliminate the cost of certain projects such as staff training or service management implementations, and make variable costs become fixed: the provider will agree to meet certain SLAs for a set price, and it is up to them to provide the appropriate staff upskilling, best practice processes and so on within their budget, in order to meet targets. But a managed IT service will not require the extra cost of moving the service desk elsewhere, hiring or buying new equipment, sending managers over to another place, city or country to check on how the service desk is doing and, also, the costs involved in switching back to in-house or to another provider if the initial project failed.

Finally, the return on investment is clear and demonstrable. Having an expert provider taking control of your existing IT Service Desk will increase productivity and efficiency, reduce the volume of incidents and Service failures and ensure a significant part of your IT spend is fixed and controlled, giving the company peace of mind (IT becomes someone else’s problem) and allowing business to function at its best.

With these premises, it is likely that managed IT services will be chosen over and over again as an option to meet the demanding IT standards of a modern-day organisation in a time when any investment must be carefully thought and justified, and the return on investment clearly proven. This much needed headache relief can allow companies to carry out their business without having to worry about the quality and sudden expenses related to their IT, and therefore get a better chance to survive or even increase their work in these hard times.

Pete Canavan, Head of Support Services

This article is on Sourcing Focus: http://www.sourcingfocus.com/site/opinionsitem/4807/

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 7,500 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Focus on 2012: 5 key areas in Enterprise IT

According to the industry analysts, experts and professionals, some of the changes and novelties introduced in the last few years are set to become actual trends in 2012. Influenced by the ever-challenging economic climate, disillusioned yet careful outlook on industry best practices and need to obtain measurable efficiency from any IT project, these are the five key areas that will acquire growing importance next year:

1)      Larger use of non-desktop-based applications

This is due to of a growing need for mobility and flexibility. Users need to be able to work while travelling, from any desk or office (for instance, in the case of large/international companies) and from home, as home-working is growing due to the financial benefits involved. It is also a good choice to guarantee business continuity in the case of unforeseen circumstances such as natural disaster or strikes which leave the workers stranded or unable to reach the office. As well as cloud applications, virtualised desktops are becoming a must-have for many organisations. Companies with older desktops which need updating anyway will find this switch more financially convenient, as well as those which have a large number of mobile users which need to access applications from their smartphone or laptop while out of their main office. It can also give those organisations considering or embracing home-working more control over the desktops, as they will be centralised and managed by the company and not at user level.

2)      Larger use of outsourced management services

The ‘doing more with less’ concept that started to take grip at the beginning of the past recession has translated into practical measures. These include handing part or the whole of the Service Desk to an external service provider which, for a fixed cost, will know how to make the best of what the company has, and provide skilled personnel, up-to-date technology and performance metrics. Managed services, IT outsourcing and cloud services will become even more prominent in 2012 and the following years due to their convenience from a practical and financial point of view. With the right service provider, the outcome is improved efficiency, less losses deriving from IT-related incidents and more manageable IT expenditure.

3)      Management plans for ‘big data’

There is much talk around the current topic of ‘big data’, which describes the concept of the large amount of varied data organisations have to deal with nowadays. There are some practical issues that arise from this – mainly how to store it, share it and use it, all without breaching the Data Protection Act. However, at the moment it is still very difficult to understand how to take the next step: using this data strategically and to create business advantage. This is something companies will have to look at in the years to come; as for the next year, they might just concentrate on dealing with data safely and efficiently, possibly storing it on a private virtual server or using public cloud services.

4)      A more balanced approach to security

This new approach sees the over-adoption of security measures dropped after the realisation that it might affect productivity as it may cause delay in carrying out business operations; it could also diminish opportunities that are found in sharing data within the sector to allow organisations to improve and grow; lastly, it can be counter-productive, with employees bypassing the measures in place in order to make operations quicker. Although being compliant with on-going regulations is becoming vital, there will be more scoping and tailoring than large technology adoption. Organisations will be analysed to understand which areas are in need of security measures and to what extent. This way, heavy security measures will be applied only to high risk areas rather than throughout the whole organisations, with less critical areas able to work more freely. In this approach, risks are balanced against efficiency and opportunity and the end result is a tailored solution rather than a collection of off-the-shelf products.

5)      Less budget control

Due to the challenging economic climate, other departments, in particular the financial department and therefore the DOF, will have more control over IT investments. CIOs and IT Managers will have to be able to evaluate if their IT project is necessary or just a nice-to-have, and how it can bring business advantage.  All proposed IT investment will have to be justified financially; therefore, it is important to analyse each project and find a reasonable ROI before presenting it to the finance decision-makers. This implies that IT professionals have to learn ‘business talk’ and manage to translate difficult technical descriptions in business terms.

All in all, developments within IT will not come to a halt next year – investment and changes will continue but with a more careful outlook and a stronger focus on efficiency, safety and Return on Investment rather than on following trends or adopting the latest technology for the sake of it. Because of this, the difficult economic climate could also be seen as a good thing: organisations make wiser and far-sighted choices that will create a solid base for any future decision that will be made when times are less tough and spending capacity rises, increasing the efficiency potential of IT for business purposes.

Tony Rice, Service Delivery Manager

From in-house to consultancy: moving to the ‘dark side’

There are many exciting directions a career path can take when one works in the IT field. This is not exclusive to skill development or career advancements within the same company or field. Many IT people with in-house experience at some point choose to ‘move to the dark side’ and embrace the world of consulting. It can be a positive change for a Service Desk-bound professional to finally be able to get to the clients directly without all the layers of sales people, and be able to make good use of the inside knowledge they acquired by advising companies in different fields and with different environments on what is best for them.

Moving to consultancy is a choice that more and more IT professionals are making, while other professions are slowly becoming less popular. According to the research paper ‘Technology Insights 2011’ published by e-skills UK, there were as many as 149,000 ‘IT Strategy and Planning’ professionals in the UK in 2010. This category consists of professionals who provide advice on the effective utilisation of information technology in order to solve business problems or to enhance the effectiveness of business functions, and in particular computer and software consultants. This sector has an average growth of 2.22% per annum and is expected to grow by another 29,800 people by 2019, with 178,900 professionals working as IT consultants in the UK. Whereas the IT Strategy and Planning field has enjoyed a growth of 15% since 2001, jobs like computer engineers and database assistants on the other hand have decreased, the latter category by a striking -34%. It is evident that the more technical roles are suffering from the increased use of automation software, remote support and best practice processes that allow less skilled and therefore cheaper staff to take the place of qualified engineers without losing efficiency. So it is no surprise that more strategic roles are winning ground and many techies are making the choice to use their skills in the role of advisers.

While moving to a consultancy role can be a very positive choice for an IT professional from a career point of view, it might however also face the person with new challenges – in particular, the negative prejudice they could encounter when approaching clients. Consultants are often seen as salespeople who want to trick companies into buying their services, perhaps long projects that they don’t really need, and overcharge them when they could do the same work themselves, for less. This gives way to many issues. It is difficult for consultants to get hold of business heads or get them to listen to their proposals, and when they do manage to have a meeting, they need to be very well-prepared and find the right balance between cost and quality, where they do not undersell or oversell their services. Finally, they have greater responsibility with regards to the outcome than they had in their in-house role, so it is important that their plan is feasible and effective and that they check and monitor constantly to be sure that everything is going as expected, making any necessary correction along the way.

It is not all bad, of course. At the top of the ‘positives’ list, there is the fact that consultants get to see many different environments, rather than just a few in their career lifespan. This allows them to build a greater, wider knowledge and experience base and improve their professional skills. But it also helps to avoid the feeling of stagnancy, keeping their level of enthusiasm high as they can enjoy working on a variety of projects.

A former in-house professional may also have some advantages over consultants who do not have that kind of background: having experienced ‘the other side’ helps them understand what clients want and, especially, don’t want from a consultancy, so that they can deliver a better service and even identify new work opportunities. They know and understand how things work inside organisations – the communication issues between business and IT, the difficulty in justifying IT projects to the CFO or the blaming game when a project doesn’t go as predicted.

Balancing all the positive and negative sides of this move, one thing is certain: these kinds of professionals have an edge over those without an in-house background, and can therefore be a valued acquisition for a consultancy firm as well as a resourceful advisor for any company in need of IT improvements. And if taken advantage of appropriately, work success and personal satisfaction are natural consequences.

 

 

Jennifer Norman, Technical Consultant

External pressure for internal information security controls – David Cowan on Computer Fraud & Security

Organisations wishing to win new business through tenders and bids are under pressure to give clear information on how they deal with information governance and security. This has become so important that an organisation issuing a tender might choose one supplier over another based solely on its compliance with applicable regulations or the fact it holds the ISO 27001 certification.

Companies are therefore wondering if they should get certified, what compliance entails and what the implications of these ‘bureaucratic complications’ are. In any case, an information security review or internal audit can be a vital tool to enable a firm to understand its current maturity level and possible improvements as well as to answer lengthy and detailed security questionnaires.

Clickon the link below to read the article (PDF – extract from ‘Computer Fraud & Security’, November 2011)

External pressure for internal information security controls – David Cowan on Computer Fraud & Security

Can I have the Check, please?

The Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle is loved by all because it makes complete sense and couldn’t be simpler. Yet, through no fault of its own, it has two failings.

1. Each of the 4 stages are likely to be well executed at the launch of a project or when executing significant change. Though, after successfully completing its first rotation of the cycle, the focus placed upon the process stages immediately wanes and soon after, PDCA becomes BAU. The reason for this can be understood though not condoned. Attention and effort, and therefore cost, will be centred on business priorities, whereas with completed projects there is an expectation that no further attention is needed for some time. Not so. Business changes and new developments are often introduced into fluid or dynamic business environments, and so by their nature, a cyclic approach to their maintenance is necessary, both for the sakes of business advantage and for the return on investment made in implementing the change.
2. It is the Check stage of the process which lacks attention. The Plan stage is never a problem because it’s an obviously interesting stage for which there will be no shortage of strategist and project manager to pick up the baton. Do and Act are both production stages to which clear activities can be assigned. The Check stage, however, is often the most subjective of the stages and will typically receive the least focus, usually because it adopts a standard reporting model for which the audience is small. If it’s true that information is king, then it follows that the Check stage of the PDCA process is the most important as it fuels the other stages by introducing recommendations which will keep the cycle alive. If nothing of interest arises from the Check stage then the PDCA cycle will stop. If the goals are to maintain business advantage and to maximise investments made in implementing change, then the solution is to maintain the Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle as a valuable business tool, the success of which hinges on the quality of the Check stage.

A maximised Check stage should be considered in three parts:

• Standard reporting – Whilst mentioned above as a poor contributor to the overall PDCA process, standard and periodic reporting of service levels and key performance indicators is an important first step in ensuring a fit for purpose service or system. It enables those working at the sharp end to make continual tweaks to ensure the work they do stays on the tracks.
• Customer satisfaction – A periodic snap shot of what the users think, provides a relevant point of reference for the system or service. It provides management and those involved in delivery with an assurance that their efforts are working towards a common goal, and protect against the risk of the system or service simply working to its own ends. Any deviation from where the system or service is, to where it needs to be, can then be acted upon.
• Assessment – A comprehensive analysis of the system or service, the business it operates in, the value it provides, the weaknesses it presents and the opportunities that may exist within it, should then be commissioned, with sufficient access to the business, and reported upon. Such an exercise needs to ‘look under the bonnet’ and provide an objective output with recommendations which are the consequence of balanced data analysis and inquisitive investigation.

Clearly, the three types of checking will be performed at varying and increasing frequencies. The correct combination of the three, however, will ensure that the cycle is maintained and will prevent systems or services from slipping into self-serving modes of operation, which really is what the Plan, Do, Check, Act process is all about.

Jon Reeve, Principal Consultant

Originally a column for ITSM Portal: http://www.itsmportal.com/columns/can-i-have-check-please

NEWS: Plan-Net wins 5-year IT outsourcing deal with Davenport Lyons

IT Services provider Plan-Net plc have agreed a 5-year IT outsourcing contract with the west end law firm Davenport Lyons.

Plan-Net will provide Davenport Lyons with a new virtual infrastructure and 24/7 support delivered from an onsite team and dedicated legal IT support centre based in central London.

Plan-Net Director Adrian Polley commented:

‘We are extremely pleased to be adding Davenport Lyons to our growing list of legal clients and look forward to delivering the high levels service required in this sector.’

• For more information contact:

Samantha Selvini

Press Officer, Plan-Net plc

Tel: 020 7632 7990

Email: samantha.selvini@plan-net.co.uk

• About Plan-Net

A specialist in transforming IT operations into high-performance, cost-efficient platforms for business success, Plan-Net works with clients of all sizes and needs to help them maintain high levels of service while still meeting demands for a reduction in IT spending.

Plan-Net has helped to enhance performance, flexibility, security, cost-efficiency and, ultimately, user productivity at clients large and small over the two prosperous decades of its existence.

Website: www.plan-net.co.uk

Blog: http://plannetplc.wordpress.com/

Twitter: www.twitter.com/PlanNetplc

Brace for the feared double dip: IT planning can maximise mergers and acquisitions

As the business world lies in fear of a double-dip recession, companies are advised to ‘think smart’ and try to find a way to profit from further economic downturn and not to simply aim to survive it. Or, if they are struggling, to have a ‘rescue plan’ in place that will spare them from drowning in debt or sinking altogether. As a consequence, mergers and acquisitions flourish remarkably in times of financial difficulties, and can be a way to gain during a tough spell – either by buying or joining with another business and expanding or by selling up before collapsing completely.

Mergers and acquisitions, however, are not just the ‘combining of commercial companies into one’ (to quote the mini Oxford dictionary). Business leaders are missing a significant trick if the joining of two businesses is not maximised, i.e. that the market share of the new entity is greater than the sum of the two companies when operating on their own.

It is, however, an ever repeating trend that mergers and acquisitions do not address operational, cultural and technology considerations as part of the consolidation. These often remain ‘off the radar’ long after the legal part of the merger or acquisition is complete.

So, rather than just ‘think smart’, a better message is perhaps for companies to ‘think smarter’ during tight times and to make the most of these mergers and acquisitions right from the start, by ensuring that the fabric of the new bigger company is appropriately adapted so that it functions in a manner that maximises the now greater trading capabilities.

Those within the IT services industry will have experienced customer organisations that bear the signs of a merger or acquisition and, worst still, continue to tolerate them. The tell-tale signs are classic and include: performance issues; geographically separate and siloed support teams; a large list of supported applications; technical complexities; a high support staff headcount; a disproportionate number of managers; and complex organisational structures. None of these ‘features’ of an organisation can positively contribute to its on-going ability to compete and win in its market place. And if the cost of these inefficiencies could be demonstrated, senior management might just fall off their chairs.

The good news is that mergers and acquisitions can be conducted with a better overall outcome at low cost – through the use of some external aid. These are the kind of projects where the use of a consultancy can really make a difference. Employed during and soon after the merger to improve what is at heart of an improved approach to mergers and acquisitions, ‘people, process and technology’, the cost of a consultant will be a drop in the ocean compared with the overall cost of trying to fix all the possible IT-related faults and issues in the years following the merger or acquisition. The value of the work is likely to be recovered quickly by enabling the business to operate better and by making people’s working practices more efficient. Efficiencies will emerge during the analysis stage of consultancy by identifying opportunities for synergy which will have a positive impact on the on-going investment made by the business in people and systems. The outcome: doing more and doing it better, with less.

So far, all this sounds obvious and nothing more than common sense – so why is it that the ‘people, process and technology’ side of mergers and acquisitions isn’t dealt with early on? Speed, assumption and procrastination are usually the causes.

‘Speed’, because a merger or acquisition deal is usually time sensitive, and focus must be on closing the deal by a given date. ‘Assumption’ because aspects like company culture, people, processes and technology are assumed to be similar and therefore likely to gel. ‘Procrastination’ because activities required to streamline the new business are often planned post-deal, but with human nature being what it is, the plans take an age to implement or never happen at all.

So, if like the United States Army you want to ‘be all you can be’, it is important that people, processes and technology are properly considered and addressed as part of a possible merger or acquisition. You should ensure the IT planning and transformation work starts during the merger/acquisition process so that its importance is clear and understood, then follow it through post-deal before your people return to their normal mode of operation and their old working ways. And, if you are using a service provider for any or all of these steps, be sure to choose one that has a record for properly identifying synergies and efficiencies and who have successfully implemented these. As the recession will not be worsened by losses caused by a faulty or inefficient IT service, the outcome of a well-planned IT merge will surely make the difference.

 

Jon Reeve, Principal Consultant

The tricky business of justifying IT expenditure

How to prioritise IT projects and budget spend?

As a result of the recent financial crisis, the constant fear of a double dip recession or, at the very least, an uncertain and unstable economic climate where long-term commitments are not convenient any more has led organisations to become more careful with where they spend their money and what they want for it. This means that it is now even more difficult for the IT department to convince Financial Directors to invest in their projects or assign a bigger budget to them – the finances always seem to be needed elsewhere as a priority. And even when the business does concede a budget to IT projects, it normally covers the bottom line – hardware or software that is urgently in need of replacement – while Service Management is kept at the bottom of the priority list.

But if this can initially make sense from a practical point of view, it may have a negative outcome if not backed by the appropriate Best Practice processes and instead of saving the company money, might result in added unforeseen costs which could have been avoided with a smarter budget allocation. Take a move from Windows XP or Vista to Windows 7 for example, operation which many organisations have been undertaking this year. Although it is still a Windows Operating System, there are many differences in the new version for which some of the applications used by the company, especially in-house software designed for that specific organisation, might not work at all. If the appropriate Change Management process is adopted and the issue is dealt with in a timely manner, which includes adapting or changing the application before all the desktops across the organisation are updated, continuity can be guaranteed. But if this is not the case, users will find themselves unable to work and clients unable to use the company’s services – with financial and reputational loss as a result.

A Financial Director can understand the importance of having processes in place, as they have their own procedures to follow in their work. But to understand the value of processes within IT, and therefore of putting money towards improving the way the IT department carries out its functions, their view has to shift to a new concept of IT as a ‘service to the business’ – where every other department in the company is their client and will benefit from improvements to the service they provide.

In any case, figures published by Gartner suggest investment in IT is increasing more than expected: IT expenditure is predicted to grow by 7.1% this year, which is higher than the 5.6% previously believed. Just two years ago, the growth was -4.8: organisations are either taking risks again, desperately in need of replacing old systems and devices, or investing in new technology believing it will save them money in the future. Computer hardware is at the top of the list for expenditure with a growth of 11.7%, although it has decreased from the previous year where it reached 12.1% growth. Software expenditure has instead increased from a growth of 8.4% in 2010 to 9.5% in 2011. Finally, IT Services has more than doubled its growth rate: if in 2010 it grew by 3.1%, in 2011 this is up to 6.6%

These figures speak for themselves: not only Financial Directors are spending on IT again, they are changing their priorities: software, including Service Management applications, is becoming more important than shiny new hardware; more importantly, the use of services such as consultancy has increased. Buying ‘knowledge’ and ‘expertise’ in just the right doses needed for their projects and seeking guidance to carry them out in the best possible way is the new winning strategy for many organisations.

Businesses have perhaps become smarter in the way they invest their budget, finding new ways of reaching cost-efficiency: mature Best Practice processes, guidance from external experts and treating IT as a service to the organisation being at the top of the list. In this way, they get a good ROI – they can enjoy an improved IT service and, as a result, a better chance to increase their business success.

Jennifer Norman, Technical Consultant

This article appears on Director of Finance Online: http://www.dofonline.co.uk/content/view/5739/115/