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Information Technology management. This site contains the Information Technology and management infrastructure tools that the CIO, CSO, and CFO can use for Sarbanes Oxley, Disaster Recovery, Security, Job Descriptions, IT Service Management,  Change Control, Help Desk, Service Requests, SLAs - Service Level Agreements, and Metrics.  Site includes Browser and Operating System Market Share White Paper and IT Salary Survey Data.

Disaster Recovery Templates are Sarbanes Oxley compliant and the Disaster Recovery Template is included in the Sarbanes Oxley Compliance Kit

IT-Toolkits.com supports a wide range of industries and enterprises of all sizes.  Our clients include over 2,500 premier corporations from around the world, including over 250 of the Fortune 500.

  
   

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Managing Productivity and Costs in a Turbulent Economy

There have been unprecedented events in the global markets that will have a profound impact on enterprises of all types. Enterprises need to take proactive measures to mitigate the risk of coming under severe financial pressure themselves.

Is traditional "cost cutting"really the answer? Cost reduction is a promising solution to sustain profitability for nearly all organizations. However, the key to success is finding creative ways to prevent costs.

Metrics are the way we see it.  Metrics based solutions allow enterprises to improve their understanding of the key drivers of profitability and enable them to develop a cost redistribution program that will ensure long-term financial viability. It is critical to identify the areas where cost can be eliminated or reduced and to create and implement a formal cost review process.

Enterprises of all types are feeling the pressure as customers' disposable income decreases while trying to keep up with higher costs of living. Over the last several years, cost management strategies have become the focus of executive management due to global economic challenges.

These external drivers of cost management include:

• Marketplace Competition - competitors providing similar products at lower prices
• Recession Fears - less cash flow in the marketplace
• Rising Production Costs - increasing cost of energy and material
• Inflation - declining value of currency and/or rising prices of goods and services
  Increased
• Investors and Boards of Directors Pressures - missed revenue targets, mergers and acquisitions

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ITSM Metrics

IT Service Management Metrics are defined in the ITSM Template.

IT Service Management is possible only with client and IT agreement that service is being delivered.  The ITSM SOA Template is the perfect solution.

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Setting Priorities With Tight Budgets

Meet with each user groups executives and ask them if they could get only one project done, what it would be. The rule for the discussion: They describe their projects in terms of business change, not in terms of software requirements ("We need to improve productivity in the warehouse by picking items more efficiently," not "We need an inventory picking system enhancement.")

Next, call a meeting with your business analysts. Walk them through the full list, then parcel out the requests based on each analyst's expertise and ability to get along with the various execs. In this discussion, let them know you're looking for quick solutions that are good enough, not elegant solutions that will withstand the test of time. Their job is to figure out how to get each exec most of the improvement they're looking for and quickly, not all of the improvements they'd like done the "right way."

This means that if a twice-a-day batch extract into Excel file works, there is no need to create a real-time SOA-driven interface. It means that a once-a-night dump-and-load into Excel might be a better answer than enhancing the data warehouse and its business intelligence interface.

It might mean nothing more than teaching their staff how to assign tasks to each other using plain-vanilla existing software, instead of deploying a full-blown, enterprise-scale integrated project management solution.

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CIO Need to Hire and Develop IT Staff

Successful CIOs are utilizing sophisticated, aggressive hiring tactics to acquire the most desirable personnel wherever they may be, while at the same time putting extensive emphasis on retaining and developing internal talent.

This is not easy given the current economic situation.  Developing an adequate in-house talent pool demands more than a simple training program for employees' development. Establishing a strong, predictable internal talent pipeline requires:

• Clarity of role and expected performance
• Management of employees at every level
• Guided training, education, and career planning
• Assignment of eligible staff to the most exciting projects to motivate them and ensure a satisfying work experience

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IT Metrics Key to Success in Troubled Times

You cannot manage what you do not measure. In addition, once you measure you modify behavior. Yet many organizations do a very poor job (or no job at all) of measuring the business value of their IT investments; but maximizing the business value of IT investments is the primary objective of good IT governance. A number of formal measurement methodologies exist for measuring the business value of IT. Simple ROI or other financial metrics are not good enough. By employing a consistent, repeatable, credible methodology, that both the business users and IT are held accountable for and that measures projected business value as well as the actual value delivered, organizations can significantly improve their IT investment returns.

Many IT organizations are under increasing pressure from the board of directors, executive management, and business unit managers to demonstrate and improve the business value of their IT investments. However, IT organizations still struggle to measure business value. Many of the attempts to do so have been focused on ROI measures at the front end as part of developing a business case for the IT portfolioÂ’s proposed investments - but these are only estimates of expected business value. Actual delivered business value can only be measured by taking a life-cycle approach, working with the business to measure actual benefits after the project is complete.

Firms that strive for best practice in IT portfolio management need to apply a credible standard methodology across the enterprise to measure the business value of investments, both when proposed and when delivered. The good news is that a number of IT value methodologies have emerged that can be employed in the portfolio management process. The key is to adopt one and begin using it.

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