- 13 October, 2008 04:57 PM EST
- The Economy - Don't Forget the Obvious
As concerns continue to swirl in the global economic turbulence, it's important not to lose sight of a few common-sense considerations. These include making the most of what you have, focusing on what deserves focus, fixing what's broken and keeping a cool head.
In that vein, here are some time-tested approaches for managing IT during economic corrections:
Identify where automation can reduce overall costs. If there are opportunities to do so, they must be exposed. This is often an uncomfortable topic, but it must be broached.
Identify and optimize suboptimal business processes. Productivity and quality suffer when suboptimal business processes remain automated. Look for opportunities to optimize these processes.
Identify underutilized assets. By some estimates, servers operate at 20% of their available capacity. This underutilized capacity can be applied it to areas in need. Such underutilized assets aren't limited to hardware — many organizations have unused software licenses as well.
Look for opportunities to share assets. Not only can this help reduce costs, but it often leads to better interoperability as well.
Scrutinize projects to see which can be eliminated. Focus on finding projects that are redundant or superfluous — and especially those for which market or risk changes have obviated the original business case used to justify project funding.
Look for ways to embrace the downturn as an opportunity. This "judo strategy," which works best in more aggressive organizations, involves leveraging the momentum of the downturn to strengthen your position when things stabilize. If your organization can leverage such opportunities, consider identifying how much you will invest in growth and transformation and manage those investments carefully.
The overall key is to channel heightened concerns over the economy into increased IT organizational focus and cohesiveness. This includes focusing on what must be done, eliminating that which isn't essential and better leveraging assets.
