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Cut Costs. Improve Service. Start Today. 10 Things You Must Do to Improve IT Now!
Russell Girten
Vice President
Process Transformation & Information Technology
Alaska Communications
October 28, 2010
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Where does the money go?
• Companies who use computers spend the most on machines, facilities & the people who support them.
• That spending drives some of the least tangible benefit to the business.
15%
12%
5% 68%
Applications
Network
Support
Infrastructure
19
22
38
18 3
Hardware
Software
Personnel
Outsourcing
Other
Spending by Type
Spending by Area
IT Metrics: IT Spending & Staffing Report, 2010 - Gartner
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What Can I Do About It?
1. Adopt Standard Practices
2. Grow Process Maturity
3. Turn Off What You Don’t Use
4. Focus on Fill Rate
5. Grow Scale
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What Can I Do About It?
6. Outsource What Makes Sense
7. Introduce Variability into Models
8. Align to Business Strategy
9. Repeat & Share – With Yourself, With Others
10. Buy only the IT you need
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1. Adopt Standard Processes
• Lots of thinking has gone into processes, from very bright minds, and they’ve been tested.
• Plenty of models available: ITIL, Microsoft Process Template, Agile, Infrastructure Management Process Design (MIKE 2.0)
• If you can’t adopt, hire someone who can help.
IT Service Management - Information Technology Infrastructure Library
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2. Grow Process Maturity
• Mature processes cost less to operate.
• Don’t change process because something didn’t work. Improve it.
• Use standard frameworks and peers to assess maturity.
Software Engineering Institute Capability Maturity Model
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3. Turn Off What You Don’t Use
• Unmanaged IT infrastructure(s) can often be reduced 50% through focused management.
• Cost of powering a rack is $3-400/month in Alaska.
• We’ll decommission 40% this year.
• Each year, refresh, replace or remove significant components of infrastructure.
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4. Focus on Fill Rate
• Consolidation is important – space savings, power savings, labor savings.
• Attempt to reach at least 70% fill for each component class in your infrastructure.
• Adopt providers who are incented to maximize fill rates.
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5. Grow Scale
• Scale builds purchasing efficiencies
• Scale builds communities
• Scale causes vendors to behave differently
• Work with others who can help you increase scale.
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6. Outsource What Makes Sense
• For items that are not a part of your businesses’ critical value chains: outsource everything you can.
• For items that are on critical value chains: outsource where you can achieve additional scale.
• Take all the time necessary to strike a clear agreement that defines responsibilities for all involved. If you don’t know them, find a partner who does.
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7. Introduce Variability into Models
• Purchase everything you can in a way that scales with your business.
• Transaction counts (or user counts) often work best.
• Maniacally manage the units of measure in variable models (user counts, transactions, etc.)
• Find a partner to conduct periodic audits of the IT infrastructure.
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8. Align to Business Strategy
• Only work projects that: – Protect from obsolescence or
disaster – Grow or reduce necessary capacity,
or – Are clearly aligned to the strategy of
the business as a whole.
• These are the projects that deliver
value and survive cuts.
• These are the projects that users will use and improves efficiency with capital.
• Conduct a strategy alignment audit on a yearly basis to forecast spend and align outcomes.
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9. Repeat & Share – With Yourself, With Others
• Work you haven’t done before has a 50% higher failure rate.
• If a project plan has an unknown estimate, the plan in its entirety has no certainty.
• Reuse, repeat and share infrastructure whenever possible.
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10. Buy Only the IT You Need
• It is incredibly easy to buy too much IT… and vendors may not stop you.
• Demand-driven models are much more effective to manage capacity, when they are available.
• Purchase in ways and from vendors who make it easy to expand or contract IT as you need it… by the seat, by the user, by the invoice, etc.
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How can TekMate and Alaska Communications Help?
• Scalable Bandwidth – Business Extreme Broadband – Dedicated Private Circuits – MPLS – Enhanced Metro Ethernet
• Constantly On IT • Hardware as a Service
– Desktops – Servers – Storage
• Software as a Service – Microsoft Applications – Vertical Applications
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October 28, 2010