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According to a research from Unisys Corporation, IT organizations that are
most innovative in adopting best practices for IT services delivery-whether
developed from within the organization or with partners-are more effective than
others in achieving desired business results. Those organizations consistently
focus on multiple value-based outcomes affecting service, reputation and growth,
in addition to traditional operational considerations such as efficiency and
cost reduction.
Of the survey respondents, 139 companies-25 percent of those surveyed-emerged
as leaders based on their effectiveness at managing IT resources to achieve key
business objectives. Not surprisingly, the survey sample showed significant
differences between leaders and others in the way they applied IT practices and
used outsourcing relationships for continuous improvement, which can be key in
delivering IT services to advance business goals.
The study shows that leading organizations focus their priorities beyond
cost-cutting, which is conventionally viewed as the primary business driver of
IT best practices. They create service delivery models that employ a balanced
mix of practices involving people, process and automation to execute, adjust and
innovate in achieving multiple important business objectives. Leaders are also
more likely to look outside the organization and draw from outsourcing partners
to improve their best practices.
The 139 respondents who emerged as leaders in IT best practices consistently
placed a significantly higher premium on customer-focused outcomes than the
entire survey population. While all companies ranked cost reduction as an
important outcome, the leaders chose value-based outcomes such as customer
satisfaction/up sell, customer loyalty/retention and increased business agility
as more important.
Those are the outcomes affecting the organization's service, reputation and
growth. Understandably, the IT leaders also saw stimulating innovation and
creativity as a more important business outcome than the rest of the sample: 81
percent of them ranked it as very important, compared to only 52 percent of the
others.
The leaders in the survey-more widely than other organizations in the
study-embraced three key best practices they considered most effective for using
IT to further business objectives:
- Knowledge management techniques and tools;
- Use of modeling methodologies to manage solutions development; and
- Innovative delivery models, such as software as a service
- (SaaS), which automate service delivery to end-users.
In combination, these practices balance people, process and technology,
fostering collaboration between the IT organization and the business it serves.
The IT leaders' tendency to focus more on relationships-apparent in their high
ranking of customer satisfaction and retention as key business outcomes-extends
to how the organization delivers services.
While the leaders were no more likely to use outsourcing as a means of IT
services delivery than non-leaders, they employ a different style when they do
outsource. They said that they build partnerships with outside providers so they
can draw on the partners' expertise to improve service delivery, rather than
just treat them as vendors of a service.
DQC News Bureau Page(s) 1
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