Taking Control of IT Costs

"How often have you heard of an IT project that went over budget or over time...There are lots of books about why this is so. This is the first book to show managers on the ground what to do about these problems."

Have you been wasting money on IT? Did your company spend too much on Y2K? Is your business about to be 'Amazoned' because you are spending too much on IT? (typically just adding layers of bureaucracy and barriers to doing business) Are there any areas of IT under-investment in your business?

While managers worry that they are being hoodwinked into spending too much on IT, they may also be penalizing key areas of IT investment. Are you certain that your organization hasn't spent too much on Y2K and not enough for competing on the Internet? What is your organization doing right now about Internet-enabled smart procurement?

A practical guide to understanding and managing IT costs and increasing IT efficiency - getting better value from your IT budget. This book demonstrates how to achieve this and thus reduce IT costs while improving business performance.

Any manager will be able to use this book to get at least 20% better value from their IT spend

A quarter of all money/investment on IT is wasted

(Pearson)

Bli först med att recensera och betygsätt boken Taking Control of IT Costs - du kan vinna 200 kr varje månad i tävlingen "Månadens recension".

"In most businesses in which I have been involved throughout my auditing career there has been a certain mysticism attached to IT. Even in this modern age there are many managers who continue to regard a computer as a magic black box. Where they have learnt how to switch a pc on, there are not many who hand on heart understand the technology. Nor should they be expected to. And yet not many of these same managers would dream of entering into a major capital project without a full cashflow analysis or establishing a project management programme. The IT department in any business is a key part of the undertaking. But it can easily become a bottomless pit. Instead of adding value to the business it can fast become a runaway cost. Taking Control of IT Costs is an excellent model for the layman to get to grips with the pitfalls. "

Colin Harris CA (SA), Director of Internal Audit & Business Continuity, St. John Ambulance, London

(Pearson)

Sebastian Nokes is a management consultant with 15 years experience first independently and then with IBMs Management Consultancy Group. He is actively involved in IT cost management. He is currently VP Strategic Development with Credit Suisse First Boston, working with senior management to make significant reductions in the global IT costs of the firm

(Pearson)

Introduction

1 A problem for business management?

• Introduction
• Projects go over budget and over time
• New systems fail to meet user functionality expectations
• Reliability
• New systems work OK but destroy existing structures
• Summary

2 An IT expense healthcheck: three tests to check quickly how well your IT department is managing its costs

• Aim
• Introduction
• Healthcheck 1: key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Healthcheck 2: standardization/variety test
• Healthcheck 3: inspect the physical IT assets
• Summary

3 Cost allocations: what they are and why they matter

• Introduction
• What are cost allocations and why do they matter?
• How do cost allocations work?
• The major categories of IT cost and how they are allocated
• The four most common IT cost allocation principles
• How to reduce your IT cost allocations
• Summary

4 Starting to increase IT cost efficiency

• Introduction
• Focus
• Tactical/short-term IT cost-efficiency initiatives

5 Key performance indicators and benchmarking

• Key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Benchmarking
• Practical steps to implementing KPIs and benchmarking
• Implementing benchmarking
• A word of caution: Baldrige syndrome
• Conclusion: key points of KPIs and benchmarking

6 IT strategy

• Aim
• Introduction
• The four main elements of contemporary IT strategy

Appendix A: Review of accounting: rationaIe, terms and tools

Appendix B: A structure of typical principle IT costs

(Pearson)