Efficiency

In order to get a view on the efficiency of IT services we need to understand two things, the value of the output the service provides and the cost of its inputs.

Are you able to identify what it costs to deliver your IT services to the end user?

Don't know? You’re not alone. Technology organisations are structured along functional lines – with good reason – and of course budgets follow. Many of those functions deliver multiple and shared services, making the cost of each service opaque. The best example is the data centre, used by applications and end-user services alike.

Understanding the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for each service right through the technology stack has many benefits, including:

• identifying cost saving opportunities by sector-specific and industry-wide benchmarking
• reducing costs by switching off or 'turning down’ unused or unneeded consumption
• revealing 'hidden’ operating costs, for example within discretionary expenditure
• enabling the introduction of IT Service Pricing
• improving Return on Investment (ROI) decision-making by having a better understanding of operating costs

Expand on the functional areas below to see how we are helping to improve IT efficiency.

• TCO Assessment

  • Our TCO assessment service delivers an end-user perspective through your cost base. Our structured approach comprises:

    • defining the set of end-user and application services specific to the client
    • identifying the user groups and available consumption metrics
    • constructing a pricing model for shared infrastructure components e.g. the datacentre
    • analysing the costs
    • delivering the results and recommendations for efficiency savings
• Cost Benchmarking

  • The data from the TCO assessment can also be used to benchmark your end-user and infrastructure services against your competitors or across industry. By looking at the size of your organisation and the relative importance of end-user services versus servers or storage, we will rate your organisation with an Efficiency Index to enable objective comparisons with other companies. The benefits of benchmarking are clear : to highlight areas where your IT services can be made more efficient.

• IT Service Pricing

  • Service Pricing is about turning Total Cost of Ownership from a snapshot of service costs into an ongoing charge to the consumer, just as if it were a commercial relationship between third parties. Done right, the improved transparency over IT spending throws the onus back on user groups to keep costs down and consider provisioning decisions and the adequacy of service levels carefully.

    Implementing Service Pricing is about striking the right balance between creating an equitable recharge model for services and keeping its administration under control. That's where 4sl can help. Contact us to find out more Download our IT Service Pricing whitepaper