Know your new infrastructure, and who’s responsible

Good new business process management is one of the keys to avoiding technology failures and to reducing implementation costs. So says Stéphane Jansem, vice president for business development at IT infrastructure and service management software provider PS’Soft in the UK. The single factor that makes the greatest contribution to failures, he insists, is the lack of business processes designed to manage not only an implementation, but importantly its aftermath. He lists particularly communicating who is responsible for parts of the new system and training users to adapt the way they work and to get the greatest benefits. Installation, modification and change represent 70% of the total cost of ownership for IT, he says, so optimising these is a must. And he insists that those not accounting for the cost of inefficiency and inconvenience are ignoring a critical issue for their organisations. It’s not rocket science. Defined and properly managed new business processes clearly can enable organisations and their people to get good understanding of methods, practices and responsibilities, enabling them to manage initial complexity and thus reduce operating costs and delays, while simultaneously increasing productivity and profitability. PS’Soft’s offering in this vein is its Qualiparc IRP (infrastructure resource planning) Portal, a web-based tool which allows companies to provide self service access to IT asset management, help desk, e-procurement, business process management and service level agreement management tools and applications all from a single website. It also lets them access infrastructure management information, applications and processes; integrate with existing applications and software.