Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
information technology and expertise. By standardizing architecture and
reducing administrative and procurement costs, architects can show a
quick return on investment while freeing up resources for future pro-
jects. Consolidation will require not only a restructuring of technology
resources, but also a realignment of planning, budgeting, and procure-
ment compared to planning and acquisition at the individual departmen-
tal level. Cost savings are generally identifiable within the first year of
operation following consolidation projects.
Opposition Will Arise
As we discussed earlier, opposition to standardization and centralization
can be varied and impassioned. Fears abound at the loss of authority and
direct access by local implementers, while issues of strategic budgeting and
personnel costs must be moved up the organizational hierarchy. A key fac-
tor to successful consolidation and shared service projects is to ensure that
funding is managed as a budgeted expense, rather than impressed upon
individual departments as a per-system or per-person cost. It is too easy to
build antagonism toward a consolidation project by identifying individual
business units whose per-system or per-person costs appear to be lower
in direct comparison with other units, obscuring the overall reduction
in cost or expansion in capability for the organization as a whole. Opt-
in cost-recovery programs tend to multiply this problem, because busi-
ness units with adequate resources may work to avoid sharing, while the
“have nots” find themselves pooled together without sufficient funding
or resources to fulfill basic requirements. Critical services should be con-
sidered cost-of-business or commoditized operational costs and budgeted
accordingly, rather than operated under outdated cost-recovery models
that often create competition and conflict between organizational units
within the same overall enterprise.
Benefi ts Will Be Near- and Long-Term
Consolidation within the data center can aid in organizational deci-
sion making through integration of cross-departmental information
and increased information availability to key decision makers. Resource
