Systems to reduce corporate IT costs by 30%

So-called Enterprise Service Automation (ESA), which automates IT project and resource management, enabling managers to reduce costs and improve service levels, has been extended by PeopleSoft for IT directors. New functionality includes portfolio management, resource management, enterprise scorecard and around 50 analytics and triggers, such as projects over budget, projects predicted late and forecast utilisation. The company is also partnering with Cap Gemini Ernst & Young to offer CIO OneSource, a packaged, joint solution combining CGE&Y’s IT benchmarking, models with PeopleSoft’s ESA for IT suite. “By providing CIOs with a roadmap to transform their IT organisations, solutions like [this] can help reduce organisational and project complexity and drive down IT costs,” says Mark Richardson, vice president at CGE&Y. “To succeed in today’s environment, enterprises must have a clear understanding of how well their IT investments align with corporate strategies, and whether their IT departments are operationally efficient,” says Ted Kempf, principal consultant at analyst Gartner. “More than 50% of Fortune 1000 corporate IT departments will deploy project portfolio management solutions to increase internal business process efficiencies, particularly for measuring ROI of the internal IT department’s work.” Meanwhile, PeopleSoft believes it’s also upping the ante specifically in manufacturing. At its recent ‘Leadership Summit’ the firm announced ‘Performance-Driven Manufacturing’, combining analytics, supply chain planning and business and manufacturing planning in one synchronised real-time suite. Analysts have been optimistic about the launch. “PeopleSoft has put the framework in place for the next generation of enterprise systems,” says John Bermudez for AMR Research. “This framework supports high-level analytical applications that sit above the transaction systems to help managers monitor key metrics, support cross-functional business processes and make better decisions.” “Enterprises that include supply chain performance monitoring in their operations planning process will generate more accurate plans, enabling them to better leverage resources,” says Karen Peterson of analyst Gartner. “Supply chain solutions that combine performance measurement with planning capabilities can deliver plans that are more predictable, accurate and executable than ever before.”