Getting good value from IT - Philip Anthony

1. Getting good value from IT
“What would Bill, Steve, or Sergey & Larry do?”
Philip Anthony/Co-Operative Systems

2. The Context “The Perfect Storm”
“The need to do more with less, meets unprecedented technological change”
Drivers
Economic Climate - More for your money, Flexibility, Agility ,
Technically savvy staff/ ‘social networking’ generation, Changing work place – part-time,
Contractors , home work the norm. Technological Advances: Hardware & Software more powerful,
Capable, Improved Server Technology Virtualisation, Cloud Computing, Work Anywhere
Social Media, External infrastructure, A highly competitive industry:
HP/Dell/IBM, MS/Google/Cisco /Apple/Blackberry/Microsoft/Facebook
Consequences
More new products and “ways of doing things” than at any other time
Great opportunities, great scope for getting it wrong

3. My journey
£2000/year
£1000 one off
No paper
£50-£100 saving a day

4. Content
Content
A look at things you can do to get better value out of IT
No magic bullet
Get the mix right for your organisation

5. People, Buildings and IT
• A typical organisation’s costs are
• 80% people
• 10% buildings
• 3% IT
Getting value is mainly a people based
activity
Use IT to facilitate improvement

6. Better, Faster, Cheaper?
A simple but very powerful way to assess any change
Better+ Faster – (cost) >= Effort
Some Samples:
Mobile phones
Texting
Google Apps
Internet TV
I-mac vs PC?

7. ‘All time’ guaranteed winners
• Be professional
• Plan ahead – strategically and practically
• Use discount purchasing programmes
• Standardise
• Bulk purchase
• Aim for 5 year lifecycles

8. Cloud
• Salvation at hand?
Cloud = SAAS, IAAS, private or shared
SAAS = Google Apps, Office365, Huddle , Facebook
IAAS = Servers in a DC, Ms Azure
B,F,C ?
In reality seeing “Hybrid” models
Start looking now

9. Outsourcing IT functions
Nothing will save you more!
– “How many plumbers are on your payroll?”
Cost per hour is higher, but productivity and
accountability is much higher
Outsource: none core ICT activities-
IT Infrastructure support & standard apps
Phone system management
Application development
Retain: strategic control and overall responsibility-
Overall management
Control over data

10. Look at the money - properly
What is the T.O.T.A.L cost over 5 years
What is the cost per user per day?
What is your lock in?
What are the alternatives ?
–eg Cloud Technologies - IAAS, SAAS
Should we move from ‘Capex to Opex’

11. Work on the move/Homework
Introducing unlimited home and on the move working
can double IT spend
But massive potential gains:
Happy Staff
Flexible working
More working
Greater productivity
Less office space needed

12. Sharing Resources
With or without cloud - Some organisations are sharing classic IT networks
Often ties in with shared office space/locations eg LVSC,Cambridge House
Share applications, Share websites
Interested? – Network around, create your own ‘groupon’

13. Try it Out
Try 1 new thing a month
Build development into the business plan
Sometimes unexpected benefits are the prize

14. Don’t have Disasters
Who has a plan? & …Who hasn’t got a plan?
Complexity = Lots of ways things can go wrong
“Don’t be a fire-fighter, Remove the possibilities of fires”
Remember ‘It could be you”

15. What causes most disruption?
No Backup
• No media, never backed up, no second backup, no test restores (40% restores fail)
Internet Downtime
• Your internet will be down two days per year , no plan B for email /web
Out of Space
• Usually avoidable – out of storage space or email capacity
Human Error
• “Inappropriate intervention”
Viral Malware Infection
• AV subscription lapsed. No antispam protection
Windows Services Stopped
• Updates or corruption
Remember Downtime “costs”- typically £250 per user per day

16. Get rid of “Baggage”
• Now more of a weight than ever
• Ask why, do we do this? - paper invoices /cheques
• Look hard at legacy systems
• Dump ‘vanity’ projects
• Think like a ‘start up’
• Make tough decisions on value and costs
• 3 year window before the tide goes out
• Thinking “Green” saves money
• Wear it out and ditch it - make a list

17. Beware Consumer Products
Be realistic on risks :
Durability
Level of support available
Fit for purpose
Legal
Data-Loss

18. CRM (“costs real money”)
£100,000 +spends are not uncommon
Sometimes the data is not gathered
Sometimes the data is not used
Who will do the day to day work?

19. Invest in ‘clever’ stuff
• “Psykick” - CS’ ‘bots’ now in action
• £15k per annum invested

20. Beware hidden costs
• ‘2 jobs’
• Face twits
• Errorful ernie
• ‘Con’-tracts
• ‘Con’-sumables
• ‘Upgrades’

21. Beware the small print in SLAs (IService Level Agreements )
• Most SLA contracts will include some get outs:
– “Liability is excluded for events beyond our control”
– “Best endeavours”
– “Maximum liability is unspent part of the contract”
• Sometimes there is no “SLA”
• – eg ADSL & Software
• Look out for long lock ins or tricky notice periods
• Once an SLA war starts its game over
– The spirit of arrangements is at least as importants as the SLA

22. Benchmark ICT
• Look at aggregate spend and budget
• # issues per user per month
• Call satisfaction rates
• Talk to other people – how do they fare
• Mix and Match providers
• Mix and Match internal and external staff

23. Compare Like for Like
Criteria CS Synergy Invictus
Experience 10 8 6
Technologies 10 8 7
SLA 10 9 4
Accreditations 10 10 9
‘Fit’ with your organisation 10 8 5
‘Approach’ to contract 10 8 6
References 10 9 8
Location 10 8 9
Fees (total) 10 7 6
Ongoing Development 10 8 7

24. Train People
• IT Skills and Processes
– Boring but effective
– Typically 1% of salary on staff development
– What would 3% give you?

25. Phil’s top 5 way to get good ICT value
1. Outsource - yes I would say that ;)
2. Get set up for full home and on the move working
3. Professional approach – an oldie but always true
4. Review your expensive baggage – eg CRM/Processes
5. Do clever stuff – what will give your organisation an edge?

26. Third Sector typical IT spend
• Species of IT spenders include:
Make-do-n-mend – use Windows XP
Minimalists – only use Google mail
The ‘Focus’ group – use Win7, Office365
To infinity and beyond – 20 staff, 5 servers, 3 IT staff

27. Third Sector typical IT spend
• IT Spend per user per annum - £600-1200 typically
• IT running costs per user per working day - £1-2 typically
• The more ‘aggressive’ the organisation the more it spends
• Spend is similar to private sector up to 20 staff
• Spend is less than similar sized private companies
with 20+ staff

28. Who remembers the 1970’s ?
All is not lost

29. Q&A !

30. Thank You !
&
Good Luck!
Philip Anthony/Co-Operative Systems
phil@coopsys.net
020 7793 0395