IT Asset Management:

“We are struggling with our IT expenses in terms of cost-effective solutions – like everyone else. We haven’t effectively defined our asset acquisition or decommissioning policies. I have no idea what we are paying maintenance on, but I know how large the bill is. How can we reduce total lifecycle costs and ensure we are not paying for assets we do not need – or don't even have?”

IT Asset Management (ITAM) is about ensuring your organization is getting the most from what it pays for – and not paying for more than it gets. The benefits of ITAM include the following:

• Continuing to reuse equipment with useful life remaining instead of ordering new equipment (cost control and reduction)
• Ensuring that maintenance is paid only on current equipment – not on equipment that’s been disposed of (cost control)
• Maintaining compliance with licensing agreements – and reusing available licenses (risk management and cost control)
• Ensuring costs are tracked and charged accurately (financial management)
• Ensuring final disposition of retired assets
• Eliminating the risk of exposing sensitive data (information security.)

Service areas involved:

Process Management
Risk Management
Financial Management

See Key Issue:

IT Asset Management

An accurate and current asset inventory, supported by procedures to deliberately track the “comings-and-goings” of assets, is the cornerstone of any ITAM effort, and is absolutely crucial in leasing scenarios. To gain the full benefits of ITAM, organizations must consider the entire asset lifecycle – from contracting and procurement to eventual write-off, retirement, and disposition.

Ingenuity partners have handled several such scenarios in the past.

Telecom Expense Management:

 “All we do is add more and more bandwidth for the network - and I don't even know who orders the phone lines. I don't recall the last time anyone reconciled the bills. How can I get control of these expenses?”

Service areas involved:

Process Management
Financial Management
IT Management

See Key Issue:

Telecom Expense Management

Telecom Expense Management is similar to traditional asset management. The challenges are that circuits are charged every month, the bills are prone to errors and change frequently, and responsibility for ordering the circuits and paying the bills is usually distributed across many departments. Centralization and discipline in the process or reconciling bills against inventory and contract terms can lead to substantial monthly ongoing savings – 10% or more in many cases. Since telecom expenses are usually one of the top three IT expenses, this can result in significant savings.

Ingenuity has deep experience in this area of financial management.

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance:

 “My auditors are telling me we need to be SOX-compliant. I understand section 302, but I am unclear on section 404. What is it going to take for us to be section 404 compliant?”

Service areas involved:

Process Management
Risk Management
Architecture

See Key Issue:

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance

Section 404 requires each annual report of a public company to include a report by management on the company's internal control over financial reporting. By establishing an effective internal control program you can ensure that the appropriate IT controls and testing of those controls are addressed. At Ingenuity, we can manage a proven, customized SOX-compliance program. Our typical activities include:

• Assessing your organization
• Developing a remediation strategy
• Implementing the appropriate controls
• Performing the necessary testing to ensure compliance.

Ingenuity has worked on SOX compliance-related projects for several years in industries such as healthcare, retail, and business process outsourcing. Please see our Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance success story for information on how we helped a customer.

Business Process Outsourcing:

“One of our business units is taking on an outsourcing initiative to cut costs by 30% over the next 18 months. What does that mean from an IT standpoint and what does that mean to the ROI?”

Business process outsourcing enables companies to focus on their core competencies by transferring responsibility for non-core activities – such as HR or IT. Some common terms used in outsourcing include “off-shoring” (outsourcing to another country – generally Asia and especially India and China) and “near-shoring” (outsourcing to another country in this hemisphere – usually Canada or Latin America). While outsourcing was initially sold as a significant hard cost reduction opportunity, wide experience has shown that often this is at the risk of soft costs such as reduced quality and customer experience. At the same time, costs for services in some countries has risen dramatically due to increased demand. Outsourcing is no longer a “no-brainer”, but it can work under the right circumstances.

Service areas involved:

Process Management
Risk Management
Architecture
IT Management

See Key Issue:

Business Process Management

The continued maturity of IT services and infrastructure has enabled this trend and remains at the root of it – any outsourcing arrangement must be supported by the IT organization. The underlying infrastructure (especially telecommunications and security) are deeply involved in interconnecting the business with its new partner, and there are often implications to business applications as well. Support procedures may need to change, and the two IT organizations must learn to interface well. These changes may entail significant up-front costs to enable the outsourcing arrangement.

Ingenuity can help you work through the IT implications of a business process outsourcing scenario. Please see our business process reengineering success story.