Agility the key to optimising technology

Luke Guerrero

The current economic downturn can be just as debilitating, with downsized IT budgets and new demands for information. Is it reasonable to even expect first-rate IT services under such conditions? 

Strategic initiatives are common approaches to such expectations. Many companies start with cost-efficiency reviews, examining application usage to identify non-critical components. Other areas commonly reviewed are project portfolios, third-party relationships and existing service contracts. However the subject is approached, the goal is to find ways to apply innovative use of technology to reduce costs. Such initiatives are often investment-oriented exercises, such as virtual consolidation and rationalisation of data-centre capacity or performance.

All these approaches seek to optimise the use of technology. This is a process of balancing conflicting constraints and demands by maximising or minimising certain aspects of technology assets. In the IT business, this is multi-objective, which implies a balanced solution optimising one objective without weakening others. In the context of the economic downturn, technology optimisation means defining structured approaches to rapidly address demands for new products, while minimising capital expenses.

When optimising, compromises should focus on doing the right work. The current downturn will probably demand increased availability of data - reporting on order status, liquidity and other things, depending on the industry. Market conditions force rapid organisational changes to meet market demands. And, as economic conditions improve, demands will again refocus IT agendas.

IT agility is the key to tuning your optimisation strategy. It is defined as having the flexibility to respond quickly to new demands. In a rapidly changing world, management needs an optimisation model balancing demands for both efficient operations and strategic flexibility. We believe IT agility is achieved by assessing gaps between operations and strategy, which are usually separately managed business functions. In our experience, operational process changes are time-consuming and costly, yet strategic projects demand the capacity for frequent change. Bridging the communication, coordination and information gaps between the two is the first practical step in achieving agility.

Agility can be improved by creating a mediation group between operational requirements and strategic planning. This new function should focus outward, looking towards the business, and not just at internal IT demands. This will define a three-layer environment: operational - focusing on efficiencies and enforcing standards in process and structured data; business and strategic management - focusing on analysis, modelling, collaboration, strategy and policy; and information mediation - reconciling differences in order to create enduring and responsive connections between the former two.

Overall, technology optimisation requires an in-depth understanding and analysis of a company's current performance status and business goals in order to answer the question: what are the best options for us? Operationally, this means understanding and measuring the people, processes and systems for performance and effectiveness. Strategically, it means displaying on-demand agility. The creation of an information mediation tier, bridging operations and strategy, facilitates the achievement of these goals.

Luke Guerrero is a senior consultant in the IT services practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers Thailand. He can be contacted at luke.guerrero@th.pwc.com