Cloud based ERP. Fact or fiction?

“Don’t do what you know. Do what you don’t know about what you know.”

Mile Davis (1926 -1991) American Trumpet Player, Bandleader and Composer

Following my post on 19^th May, Cloud based ERP is fast establishing itself as an increasingly dominant force within the ERP arena. Ubiquitous Internet connectivity combined with access to more bandwidth at affordable prices, both by businesses and consumers have propelled cloud based solutions as being commercially viable. Cloud based ERP solutions are also challenging existing licensing models. The larger providers such as SAP and Oracle are struggling to compete with this new model and are looking at ways to combat this new threat to their established revenue stream. Newer established entrants within the mid tier market continue to embrace cloud computing and are increasingly vying for competitive advantage.

In my view, Google Apps will increasingly challenge established players providing enterprise systems, such as Microsoft. The likes of Google Apps will also challenge established ERP players as more offerings become available. For example, Netsuite will soon be available on Google Apps and My ERP seems like a credible solution for smaller businesses and is FREE for the first two users! One of my readers, Houston Neal, recently had a roundtable discussion on the state of the manufacturing ERP software industry, including solutions popular among small and medium enterprises that provides an interesting insight into many facets of ERP software.

Cloud based ERP providers available at the moment are: Acumatica, Agresso, CDC Software, Consona, Compiere, DataXstream and virtualised SAP, DSP managed services – advisors for Cloud based Oracle E -Business suite,  Dynacom, Epicor, Global Shop Solutions, IFS, Intaact, IQMS, Lawson, Microsoft, MyERP, Netsuite, Oracle Cloud Computing Centre, Openbravo, Plex systems, Sage, SAP Business by Design, Salesforce and Glovia Cloud Solution, Syspro

ComputerWeekly, recently ran an interesting and complete 4 part Buyer’s Guide to ERP software that discussed quite intensely both the traditional and new, cloud based ERP models. Following are excerpts that I have used from part 1, glued together to form the following and then I will list articles that provide further in depth analysis and reading, courtesy of ComputerWeekly and others:

In Part I, Cliff Saran wrote, ‘The idea behind enterprise resource planning (ERP) is to provide the business with a single product that provides software to support the main business functions in a company. The major products such as SAP and Oracle claim to encompass the best ways to run business processes. But since they cater for large complex businesses, such systems are often too sophisticated for smaller organisations that may not have the same requirements in terms of scale and complexity of business operations.

SAP and Oracle may be great for providing enterprises with industry-standard business processes, but standardisation erodes the unique selling point in smaller businesses. George Lawrie, principal analyst at Forrester Research says, “SMEs are worried by the high maintenance fees and complex implementations associated with major ERP software.”This is why a market has grown for ERP aimed at SMEs. “Mid-market ERP tends to offer vertical specialisation,” says Lawrie.

Suppliers such as Salesforce.com have made it possible to put customer relationship management (CRM) systems in the cloud, but core enterprise resource planning (ERP) has so far remained untouched. If IT departments can make considerable savings switching from in-house systems to cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS), why stop at CRM? Businesses should consider using the cloud for ERP.

Andrew Vize, who as propositions director runs Computacenter’s CIO panels, says, “The efficiency of services from Google and Amazon is superb. They offer the lowest power costs and are five to 10 times cheaper than traditional small datacentres.”

It makes sense for an IT director, but the major ERP suppliers have been reluctant to move to cloud computing. SAP has been touting its Business ByDesign SaaS suite for smaller companies.

Meanwhile, Oracle offers its middleware and database products on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), but does not recommend putting E-Business Suite ERP software in the cloud.

Oracle states in a blog post, “Since Amazon EC2 uses a virtualisation engine that is not supported by Oracle and has not been certified with E-Business Suite, this environment is not supported for production usage of E-Business Suite. Using Amazon EC2 for hosting E-Business Suite may be suitable for non-production instances, such as demonstrations, test environments and development environments.”

In fact, it is far from clear how the major ERP suppliers will charge for cloud-based ERP. The significant ongoing revenue they receive from annual software maintenance from on-premise applications makes it harder for established ERP companies to offer considerably cheaper software licensed on a monthly subscription basis.

However, smaller software companies are making cloud ERP float.

Cloud computing company NetSuite has unveiled workflow management software, SuiteFlow, which enables users of cloud computing business suites to automate and streamline complex business processes. NetSuite says SuiteFlow allows businesses to customise workflows to support the way they need to work.

Companies can use SuiteFlow to develop and deploy new business processes. NetSuite says it can be used to support processes such as contract renewal workflows with tasks, reminders and customer notifications, sales processes that include mandatory data entry, follow-up tasks and rep notifications, and customer support processes, including inactivity reminders, escalations and service level agreement (SLA) enforcement.

Lawson Software, which has mainly focused on traditional ERP, has moved into the cloud by offering its core Enterprise Management Systems and Talent Management suite on Amazon EC2 infrastructure. The products will be included in the Lawson External Cloud Services offering, which is part of the company’s Cloud Services portfolio.

Lawson’s cloud ERP service is targeted at mid-sized companies and organisations looking for a more affordable, flexible and agile deployment option for full-function enterprise software.

“We are making it easier for our customers to license, use, keep current and even pay for Lawson full-function enterprise software. This should be great news for CFOs and CIOs who worry about lengthy and complex on-premise installations, the cost and inefficiency of their datacentres, the best way to allocate IT staff, and the complexity and difficulty of maintaining software versions and upgrades,” says Jeff Comport, senior vice-president of product management at Lawson Software.

Similarly, open source ERP provider Compiere, which is used by companies such as Specsavers, has developed a version of its product that works on Amazon Web Services in the cloud.

Some experts believe it is unlikely ERP will move wholesale into the cloud. The major ERP systems tend to be architected as large homogenous IT systems, which may not be such a good fit for delivery via the internet cloud. Licensing major ERP systems to deploy via the cloud is still immature. Instead, niche software companies are likely to build cloud-based services that do many of the functions of ERP.

“We will have much more specialist systems that do a slice of ERP,” predicts David Bradshaw, IDC research manager for software and services in Europe.’

Cloud-based ERP could be the way forward for small- and mid-sized companies. Both Oracle and SAP offer products aimed at smaller businesses such as JD Edwards from Oracle and SAP Business ByDesign. These may have a better fit with certain organisations, But implementing on-premise traditional mid-market ERP systems will be the most likely approach businesses take until cloud computing has matured.

Gartner sees an increasing availability of software-as-a-service (SaaS) ERP systems, and, unlike in large enterprises, where SaaS ERP use is limited, SaaS ERP is playing an increasingly important role in both back- and front-office applications for mid-market companies. Cost reductions in implementation and operation are one of the important drivers for SaaS ERP, and SaaS offerings avoid the need for upfront capital expenditures because they can be funded as an operational expense. However, when analysing the total cost of ownership of SaaS ERP over five years, Gartner finds that SaaS is not necessarily less expensive than on-premises ERP.

NetSuite is the largest example for a SaaS-based ERP suite. It offers a broad range of application modules, including financials and accounting, purchasing, payroll, order management, inventory control, and employee management, as well as built-in integration with its CRM and e-commerce capabilities on the same platform. Gartner has spoken to customers that expressed a high level of satisfaction with NetSuite’s offerings.

Other notable SaaS ERP players are Plex Online (previously Plexus Online) and Glovia. SAP has also announced an on-demand ERP solution called SAP Business ByDesign.

Open source has been used extensively in infrastructure components, but it has a limited impact on ERP at this point. In the past two years, however, some new open-source software ERP suppliers have emerged with a focus on leveraging open source software to reduce the total cost of ownership of business applications, and to enable customisations that would be difficult to achieve without access to source code. Although we have doubts as to whether open source software business models actually confer these advantages on open source software ERP, these early stage offerings are nonetheless promising and should be evaluated. Examples for open source software ERP suites include Compiere and Openbravo.

Although increasing in importance, none of the SaaS or open source ERP solutions met the inclusion criteria for this Magic Quadrant, because of their number of sales or product focus. Gartner’s ERP Magic Quadrant, (2010 Quadrant) criteria do not explicitly exclude SaaS or open source packages. The analyst firm is actively tracking their progress and expects their inclusion in future versions of its Magic Quadrant.’

For more:

Detailed research lists from the largest USA ERP installations

Search Manufacturing ERP

Part I Buyers Guide to ERP: Alternatives to SAP and Oracle ERP suites

Part II – Buyers Guide to ERP: the mid-tier market

Part III – Buyers Guide to ERP: Agile ERP

Part IV – A guide to ERP for small and large businesses

Putting ERP in the Cloud

How to achieve ERP success: part 1 – the A-Team

How to achieve ERP success: part 2 – the software

ERP software suppliers – Essential guide

Buyers Guide to ERP: Midlands Co-op case study

Make your ERP rollout succeed

Lawson’s New Amazon Cloud-Based ERP Supports Customization

Epicor Takes the Wraps off Cloud-based ERP Solution

Amazon.com Offers Compiere Enterprise ERP via the Cloud

ERP and Cloud Computing trends

Lawson Software Introduced Cloud-Based Services

Weather bulletin – Google Cloud and icy Microsoft downpour

Updates 13.12.11

Why not read, something different – Influential Slaves, Bigots and Size Zeros

‘It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one that is most responsive to change.’

Charles Darwin

I looked at the quote above from my post a few weeks ago and was quite surprised as it quite aptly grasped my thoughts for this post (so I’ll leave it there for this week as well). Last year, I wrote a post, What is Cloud Computing? Its Pros/Cons and making it work. Before, I start, I want to clarify that the Microsoft platform (includes all its business software) is, in my eyes, legendary. The world would be completely different, if it wasn’t for Microsoft’s computing vision. I trained on Microsoft, (MS-DOS days) as Novell started to falter and Microsoft continued with its visionary flare. Keep reading and all will be revealed!

Nine months is a long time within the IT world and for the past few weeks I have been researching Cloud Computing again. Hang on, now, let me finish. This time around, I have asked myself three questions:

1. Can I create an IT strategy, infrastructure and business systems for a small business on Google Apps?
2. Is Microsoft future proofed with Web Apps?
3. Cloud based ERP. Fact or fiction? (I will post this separately soon)

This week, I will attempt to answer the first two questions and follow up with an answer to the third question soon. Now, don’t forget, there is no right or wrong answer to this question, just opinions (Pre-requisite: Visioning hat required). To make this a great debate, I welcome opinions from both camps (This is a test in social media monitoring as well; let’s see if Microsoft and Google are monitoring the web). It goes without saying that I value readers’ opinions, so feel free to have a say. So…

1. Can I create an IT strategy, infrastructure and business systems for a small business on Google Apps (Announced 9/3/10)?

‘Seek and ye shall find.’ So, I did. The answer (in my opinion) is a resounding YES. Why, well, because, the cloud allows a business to do the following:

• Fast ubiquitous accessibility 24/7, 365 days a year (Increasingly easily available Wifi and Internet connectivity).
• Enables quicker, cost effective IT start-up for new businesses.
• Faster product/application development.
• Not machine dependant (Requires only a browser).
• Accessible on entry level machines.
• Cost savings through lower machine, maintenance and software costs.
• Scalability can be provided very quickly.
• Opex vs Capex costs.
• Less environmental impact through virtualisation of hardware/software and other areas.

AND, Google Apps allows:

• Entire Google Apps infrastructure built towards a vision of cloud computing.
• Access to the Premier edition that contains a comprehensive suite of apps.
• Access to a growing number of applications including ERP, Social media etc from the Apps store, many are free for 1-3 users .
• A flat fee licensing system (£33 per user per annum) vs Microsoft licensing that even Microsoft don’t understand!
• Collaborative features are enabled from the start allowing, for example, multiple users to edit documents simultaneously.

In effect, Google have created the perfect platform for a small business. It provides the infrastructure and a starter IT system. Once Google Apps are combined with the available ERP and social media solution, the IT system is raring to go.

Obviously, the larger an organisation and the larger the investment in Microsoft and/or other IT systems, the harder it will find to move into the cloud. As I said, in last year’s post, there are other considerations that need to be considered as well. Google, meanwhile continues to blow its trumpet for acquiring 2 million users and counts the USA city of Los Angeles move to Google as a major feather in its cap!

2. Is Microsoft future proofed with Web Apps?

The answer (in my opinion) is NO. Why, for a number of reasons.

According to CIO.com, ‘On the Microsoft Office side, price for the full suite range from $150 to $680 depending which of its many versions you are looking for. With Office 2010, Microsoft will be offering Office Web Apps, free but not fully-featured online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.

There will be three versions of Web Apps: One for consumers supported by ads; a hosted version for businesses that pay for hosted accounts on Microsoft Online Services, which is powered by SharePoint; and a corporate in-house version for enterprises with volume licenses for Microsoft Office and a SharePoint server.

Office 2010 will launch for businesses on May 12, but Office Web Apps are not scheduled to launch until mid-June.

Microsoft also has BPOS (business productivity online suite) – now superceded by Office365, in its arsenal, a part of Microsoft Online services that includes online versions of SharePoint, Exchange, Office Communications Server and Live Meeting for $10 per user per month for all four apps.

A version for OEMs will allow Office 2010 starter edition (Word and Excel 2010 only) to be shipped with the computer.’

REASON 1

Microsoft is a giant in the software world and one of the penalties it is paying for its enormous success is that:

1. Its products are now so diverse that only IT experts can make any sense of them. Need convincing. Ask any non IT personnel to visit any Microsoft site and ask them to explain a particular Microsoft site’s products and what they can actually do for them.
2. Sheer confusion. As a business owner, for my Microsoft IT system, where do I start? Do I need Office 2010? (What does it have that will improve my productivity?) What version do I use? (Client installation? Which one of the three Office Web Apps, do I need? What the hell is the BPOS (business productivity online suite) - now superceded by Office365?)
3. Microsoft Licensing and its payment model – Again, this is an open challenge to Microsoft. How many Microsoft employees can explain Microsoft licensing without referring to a price model manual? The correct answer should be at least half its workforce. Why? You cannot sell what you don’t understand (Microsoft have actually done remarkably well then!). Ah, would an employee be able to explain it all in a pub, though?
4. Microsoft’s entire business model is built on desktop/laptop client installation and as long as it has enough businesses that utilise that legacy because they have no other option, for the short term, it faces no financial problem. In the long term though, I believe businesses will start to abandon ship. Afterall, Google and others will start to offer simple (in licensing terms, products’, versions, etc), cost effective, non business owned infrastructure. Look at what happened to WordPerfect, Novell and many others.

Let’s continue with CIO.com, ‘Google itself concedes that any overnight success in the enterprise is unrealistic, yet remains fully committed to the enterprise, citing rapid growth in Google Apps’ short three-year life span.

“Google Apps have only been in the market since 2007 and we’ve gone from zero to two million business customers,” says Rajen Sheth, Google’s senior product manager for Google Apps. “There’s so much potential here and we’re in it for the long haul.”

Where Microsoft is trying to migrate its products into a cloud environment, Google is fundamentally a cloud company, says Sheth, and has gone to great pains to build extremely large data centers designed specifically for nimble Web-based applications.

“It will be tough to build up the cloud expertise that’s been built into Google’s DNA since day one,” Sheth says.’

REASON 2

That, as they say, is the fundamental problem. Google is fundamentally a cloud company as Sheth said.  Microsoft never was and never will be. It’s just not in its ‘DNA.’

FINAL THOUGHTS

So, Microsoft should be very worried. Microsoft should not get carried away with analyst reports that paint a rosy future but start to listen to customers, such as the city of LA. The paradigm is shifting and it’s shifting fast towards the cloud. After all, the other promise of the likes of Google is not just the simplicity of the entire model but the entire spectrum of cost savings!

It’s the dawn of a new era, where even financial wizardry by Gordon Brown could not save him. Globally, change is happening. The question to ask though within IT is, ‘Who will win this war, Google or Microsoft?’ Or, is there room for a coalition?

WANT TO READ MORE?

Search wars – Past, Present and future – Bing, Google or new entrant?

Will Office 2010 Shred Google Docs?

Microsoft Office vs. Google Apps: The Business Brawl

Google Apps vs. Office Web Apps: Can Microsoft compete in the cloud?

Microsoft Web Apps Will Force Google’s Hand

Free Microsoft Office – with Ads

Microsoft Office 2010: 3 Reasons to Switch

Microsoft vs. Google: Tech Giants’ Turf War Heats Up

Google and Salesforce: composite applications for better enterprise lift

Microsoft counterattacks Google for Apps sales pitch

Office 2010 goes into the cloud

Top 10 Google App Add-Ons for Business Users

Design Your Business Model With Google Docs!

Benchmarking IT

‘It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one that is most responsive to change.’ Charles Darwin

Benchmarking is the process of comparing one’s business processes and performance metrics to industry bests and/or best practices from other industries. Benchmarking involves management identifying the best firms in their industry, or any other industry where similar processes exist, and comparing the results and processes of those studied (the “targets”) to one’s own results and processes to learn how well the targets perform and, more importantly, how they do it.

I have been reading, The Real business of IT – How CIOs create and communicate value and as I was reading chapter 3, Show value for money, I thought to myself that I had the title for my next post. The chapter discusses, well, value for money and the importance of benchmarks, especially for CIOs who have just joined or are thinking of joining/moving to pastures anew.

Benchmarking an organisation’s IT is important whether conducted internally or externally. As the cost is quite high for conducting benchmarking via the established players, such as Gartner, many smaller organisations may initially decide to do it internally. Benchmarking has evolved now to the extent that even universities have started to run benchmarking courses, such as Stanford university’s IT benchmarking certificate, aimed at, yep, CIOs!

As quoted by CIO.com; ‘in today’s business environment, says Bechtel CIO Geir Ramleth, IT needs to benchmark itself against a new set of peers: successful technology companies that built their IT systems in the Internet era. Doing so is a painful exercise for the ego. “Corporate IT is trying to break the sound barrier, and the Googles and Amazons are NOT supersonic. They’re hypersonic,” says Howard Rubin.’

My research has shown that Gartner has created a niche in IT benchmarking, as Gartner currently holds one of the largest global IT Trends and Benchmark Database. Dr Howard Rubin, created this global database and is a world authority on IT benchmarking and he offers the following thoughts and advice (Courtesy of Computer Aid Inc – CAI):

‘CAI: How do organizations interested in benchmarking best determine what they should be measuring and how they should be measuring?

Howard Rubin: I think the key thing for organizations is bi-directionality. That means your approach to benchmarking must come from both the top and from the bottom. From the top, you really have to understand your technology costs- the costs of your technology goods and services- almost as if you were a manufacturing company. You have to understand the cost structure of technology, what its impact is on your margin and what the impact of your technology investment is on growth, shrinkage and market share. And you have to integrate your understanding of the cost structure and performance structure of technology directly into the company’s financials.

You also have to figure out who you want to be looking at, in terms of comparisons. Is it direct peers or is it organizations that have a business performance structure that you aspire to meet? Another point I should make about the choice of measurements from the top is that there is this thing called the balance scorecard, in which people look at their finance measures, customer related measures, profit measures and organizational measures; but these are just static measures. That means that if a company’s strategic objective is to be the number one player within a given market, or to have the most comprehensive view of the customer, the balance scorecard isn’t going to cut it.

It is directional measures, as opposed to static measures, which will tell you where you are moving versus where you would like to be and what your corresponding rate of change is. And there are basically three kinds of directional measures: positional measures, directional measures, and velocity measures. In short, you need to be benchmarking where you are, where your targets are, how fast your organization is moving and how fast the world is changing. And all of this must be done within the context of strategy.

Approaching things from the bottom, you really have to understand a lot about technologies and about the technology organization itself. That means much more than just knowing how long it takes to develop an application, or the quality of your software, or the customer service component of your technology.

It means you need to look at technology as a commodity, at the unit costs. You need to be able to understand, almost like having a technology catalogue in front of you, what all of the technology components of your business consist of. What are your volumes? What are your unit costs? What are the costs to your competitors? What other alternatives are available out on the street in the open market?

And there are some other aspects, too. If you are a CFO, for instance, you really ought to understand where technology hits your P&L, where it impacts your salaries, your expense, and your depreciation. It is very important to understand how fixed or how variable your technology costs are.

Finally, there is a kind of ethereal dimension that sits on top of all of this, one which involves how well you are using technology to innovate and change your business, as compared to your competitors.

In the end, what companies really need is a full navigational system. Something that will give them the instrumentation to get them where they want to go, as well as the external calibration to see if someone is going to get there first, second, better, cheaper, or faster.

CAI: What are some of the major challenges that most organizations encounter when they first get started with measurements and benchmarking? What are some of the most common mistakes made? Do you have any caveats for organizations that are undertaking this for the first time?

Howard Rubin: When you first get started with benchmarking, and you haven’t done it before, you are basically going to be comparing data that you have internally with external data. Consequently, people will get their internal numbers and then they will get their external numbers and try to compare the two things right away. They will be looking for insights and conclusions and hypotheses. However, after the first round of benchmarking, you should really be making an effort not to look for insights and conclusions. You should be focused on rationalization. First time starters need to understand that rationalization is part of the benchmarking process. It is not a precursor to the process.

The other issue with first timers is the availability of data. It is very important to overcome the fact that you may not have a complete set of data available internally. This is always going to be an issue. Consequently, my recommendation is to look at your benchmark program as if it were a step function program: take a small core, build out, step up, sort of ratchet, take the key questions needed to answer the first, and have the benchmarking provider map your structure. You don’t need to do everything at once. You can build things up throughout the process.

A final caveat involves management by numbers. For example, you will find many large organizations that have gone through multiple mergers and that haven’t shed any of their redundant systems or redundant technologies. Certainly they can do better. But the path upwards is not going to be visible just by looking at the numbers. There may be a whole lot of other things that have to happen first. This is especially true if you are using benchmarking for internal target setting.

My brother is a really fine physician and he always advises his students not to look at the numbers but rather, to look at the patient. That’s an important caveat in benchmarking, too. The numbers will give you calibration. They will help you understand what side of the benchmark you may be on. But the goal is not to be better or worse than the benchmark. On either side of the benchmark, you can be learning how to improve your position.

CAI: You are known, among other things, for having collected and organized data into one of the world’s largest information technology databases. Could you give us more information about this repository? For example, what kinds of metrics get tracked? How broad is the technological and geographical representation?

Howard Rubin: The Worldwide IT Trend and Benchmark Database was really formalized in 1994. It was a project, as I mentioned before, which started out within the Canadian government. They were trying at the time to develop a global view of technology utilization in business.

In its current form, the Worldwide Benchmark Database maintains data on more than 10,000 large companies, each typically over 500 million dollars in revenue. It covers companies that are based across 100 countries, so it has a really massive geographic spread. There is also a large diversity of data, everything from basic business and IT spending data, to detailed data on technology platforms, programming languages, application development productivity, application quality, size and number of personnel, compensation, practices and processes, and process maturity. You will even find customer service related data.

The database is also updated continuously. We use internet based surveys for this as well as data collection mechanisms that originate from within our own consulting engagements. Consequently, we are able to keep the data fresh, on a daily basis, and we are able to update major trend levels on a quarterly basis. What that means is that if we see a major business or political change, we can sample thousands of companies within a 24 hour period to see if there is any movement. I don’t think anyone else in the world right now has the capability to determine, within 24 hours, the effect on business decision-making and technology that a world event may have.

You originally asked me about how benchmarking has changed over time. Traditionally, benchmarking has been used to compare current data to historical data. What we are seeing now with the worldwide benchmarking database, however, is the comparing of current data with current data. That’s an important development in my opinion because data is kind of like produce: it gets rotten after a very short period of time’.

An article in CIO.co.uk, said: ‘Two decades of research by Howard Rubin, president at Rubin Systems, reveals two key concepts that can enable CIOs to see whether their IT investments are really adding up. He found that measuring IT spend against two factors – operating expense and net revenue – is a more accurate gauge of IT effectiveness than the metric of measuring solely against net revenue.

In addition, Rubin discovered that enterprises spending slightly more than their peers tend to have better business results. But after a certain point, that extra spending does no good. Rubin calls the sweet spot of extra but not exorbitant spending “optimal IT intensity.” He calculates IT intensity by comparing the IT spend to both the operating expense and net revenue, and has developed IT intensity curves that help CIOs see if they are under-investing, investing an optimal amount or over-investing.’ Another good article, I recently read was Using Benchmarking Metrics to Uncover Best Practices and is worth reading if you want to embark on benchmarking your IT.

I would like to conclude with a quote from The Real business of IT – How CIOs create and communicate value – Randy Spratt, CIO, McKesson: ‘We opened up our finances and made them transparent. In mid 2006, we delivered a one line allocation to the business. Now we deliver a complete invoice. Between transparency, benchmarking, and competitive bid efforts, we have strengthened the view that our finances are under control, we’re driving to continual improvement on a per unit cost basis, and we hold ourselves accountable for delivering to service levels. “We don’t hear, ‘Why does IT cost so much?’ now. Do we still have expense level conversations? Yes, but they’re more about how we can jointly reduce costs.”

Further resources:

Benchmarking IT services

IT Benchmark Blog

CIO Infrastructure Benchmark Assessment Tool

FREE IT Infrastructure Benchmark

Metricsboard.com Blog

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