Gli IT Architect sono figure intermedie che indirizzano le scelte tecniche dei team IT anche e soprattutto in virtù di una loro valenza economica… e quindi devono tener conto dell’economic meltdown in atto ed agire di conseguenza.
E come adesso dicono gli anglosassoni con una battuta… questi son tempi in cui i Chief Financial Officer divengono i veri CIO!!!
Gartner ha di recente emesso una sorta di vademecum operativo (25 suggerimenti) su come operare un efficace controllo dei costi attraverso i quattro versanti trasversali dell’IT:
- IT management
- enterprise software
- enterprise infrastructure and operations (networks and telecom)
- enterprise infrastructure (hardware & IT operations)
Eccoli di seguito:
Cut costs through more effective IT management methods
-Focus initially on cutting "people costs": Freeze headcount, reduce/eliminate special bonuses, reduce regional support.
-Flatten organization structure: Move to collaborative, team-based models.
-Accelerate the progress of centralized and shared services: Leverage enterprise-wide competencies, reduce staff embedded in business units.
-Bring a qualified finance person into your IT leadership team, perhaps on loan or on temporary contract.
-Maintain or strengthen relationship management roles: Business analysts, business process and industry experts, account executives, relationship managers.
-Take control of "unmanaged" costs you can measure and cut easily, such as data center power consumption or printing.
Cut costs in enterprise software (Caution ahead!)
-Use invoice verification.
-Eliminate unused software/modules. Understand who's using what and why. Lots of closet cleaning here.
-Apply more sophisticated negotiations."You can't put someone who bought pencils into a negotiation" with a big software vendor, Gartner's Bill Snyder said. "They'll get eaten alive."
-Use alternative products included in previous deals.
-Introduce competition for existing products. You must foster vendor competition if you hope to lower costs. If you decide to switch, make sure you calculate the cost of taking out the incumbent beforehand.
-Use "best-for-need" rather than "best-of-breed" products. You could be paying as much as a 50% premium for best of breed, Snyder said.
Cut costs in enterprise infrastructure and operations: Networks and telecom
-Use telecom expense management services (save 10% to 35%). Nobody can keep track of this stuff. Hire a professional to source, benchmark, negotiate the contracts, etc., and audit the bills.
-Move to corporate liability for wireless services (save 15% to 30%). Who's responsible for the bills of individuals, what devices they use? The enterprise should take control and set standards, Gartner analyst Phil Redman said.
-Reduce the reliability target for a location by "one 9" (save 30%).
-Collapse rich media conferencing into a premises-based multi-control point unit (save 60%). As hardware costs come down, building your own videoconferencing center can save big money over the long run, assuming you do a lot of it.
-Deploy IP telephony and Voice over Internet Protocol (save 50% to 80% of maintenance).
-Use the Internet as corporate transport (save 10% to 80%).
Cut costs in enterprise infrastructure, hardware and IT operations
-Defer 2008 Windows XP PC replacements to 2009. Three-year-old PCs and 2-year-old laptops might be able to go another year, but you should be mindful of the maintenance costs, Gartner analyst Michael Silver said.
-Exploit commoditization: the best-for-need instead of best-of-breed argument, redux.
-Make better use of existing tools by improving process and policy.
-Defer client architecture pilot/evaluation projects.
-Implement thin provisioning and data de-duplication for storage reduction.
-Consolidate and virtualize servers.
Emerging trends in IT cost pressure
Target two or three areas for "zero-based budgeting" in 2009.
Start the process soon Gartner said: "Current-year cost-saving opportunities will be revealed."
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