Archive for the ‘Financial Management’ category

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Test Now, Save Later

May 27th, 2011

This story from the Washington Post was almost too good to pass up. Apparently the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) is in all kinds of trouble these days, from the Bernie Madoff scandal to employees looking at porn at work. IT doesn’t seem to be their forte either. The SEC violated procurement law in 2008 when, without proper testing, it spent about $1 million buying computer equipment from Apple. You can probably guess what happens next. The equipment they purchased immediately failed to work as intended. Now they are saying they are taking steps to improve their policies towards purchasing IT solutions. That’s all well and good but you would think a Federal Agency would’ve done a little more due diligence before spending $1 million to upgrade their IT systems. It’s not like they were not given the opportunity to work with the equipment and test it out ahead of time. According to the article, they passed up the chance to try the equipment for free.

I’m not sure what is more disturbing, the complete ineptitude on the SEC’s part or the inadequacy of their information technology. No wonder crime and fraud has become the norm on Wall St. The agency in charge of regulating those issues is running outdated IT systems and spending big money on the wrong equipment. It is certainly a cautionary tale in some respects. If you’re given an opportunity to test something, do it. If you’re not given that opportunity, ask for it. The worst they can do is say no. It can save you headaches in the long haul.

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IMF Connects Report Available

April 6th, 2011

Connects are information sharing sessions facilitated by IMF that allow you to leverage the knowledge and experience of your peers.

As a part of the Information Management Forum’s vast network, you will be connected to industry professionals who have a range of perspectives on issues currently affecting the trade. Not only will you be able to learn from their experiences, but they in turn can do the same with the insights that you contribute. With IMF member companies varying in size and scope, you are sure to find information that you will be able to apply to your own organization. As a result, you can potentially increase your organization’s cost savings and efficiency.  

In the first quarter, member initiated connects revolved around testing applications, software licensing standards, and website capitalization:

- In order to improve its existing processes, one IMF member wanted to see what best practices other companies were using relative to software licensing. They came across one standard andwere trying to see if anybody else was using that particular standard and how they are implementing it.

- Another IMF company was interested understandinghow other companies go about capitalizing portions of their website.They want to move to a more frequent capitalization and creation of a fixed asset for this work they are doing with their website. Also they would like to find out how other teams go about putting together the different portions ofwebsite development into phases.

- As an organizational improvement, another IMF Connect involved a member company’s desiring to discuss viewpoints otherIT organizationshave for Industry best practices for testing applications. They wanted to know what do best in class testing areas measure (KPIs), and what percent of the SDLC dollars are spent on testing, among other issues.

To read about these Connects and learn how different companies deal with these issues, download the IMF Connects Quarter 1 Report. 

 

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Posted in Financial Management, IT Innovation, IT Workforce, Strategy

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New from IMF: The IT Cost and Performance Annual Report

May 20th, 2010

Historically, IMF and Global Information Partners have focused on detailed, engagement-based benchmarking studies. This has allowed us to build what we believe is the strongest and most up-to-date IT cost, productivity, and quality database in the benchmarking industry. These benchmarks continue to be a key performance improvement tool for many companies, creating a steady influx of information to the database.

More recently, we’ve been focusing on compilation and trend analysis within our own benchmarking database. At both a high and a detailed level, we’re performing a number of analytics to gain insight into where IT organizations are gaining ground, what the key investment areas are, and what the current pain points are. In addition to applying detailed outputs from these analytics to our detailed benchmarking studies, we’re at a point now where we want to share the high level cost and performance trends with the IT industry.

To that end, IMF will be releasing the first IT Cost and Performance Annual Report in June of 2010. Mainly focused on the Operations side of IT, this report will contain service growth trends, unit cost performance trends, productivity and staffing trends, and trends in service levels. IMF members will receive the report as a part of their membership subscription, and non-member organizations will be able to purchase the report for a small fee.

Now is the time to give us feedback on the key areas you would like included in the report. If you have any specific analyses or metrics of interest, you can send them to IMF Member Services or leave a comment.

Come See IMF’s Outsourcing Trends Discussion

If you’re trying to understand how the various options for managed services and outsourcing are impacting IT service costs and IT delivery models, come join us in July at the Project Management and Outsourcing Forum. With further commoditization of IT infrastructure services and the entry of new cloud and Infrastructure as a Service (IAAS) providers, companies have a number of options available to deliver IT. This discussion will focus on the relative impact of various delivery models that IMF has observed in benchmarking studies in recent months.

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Posted in Financial Management, IMF Updates, IT Executive Management, News

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