Business Executive Series #2

 

Solution Delivery Responsiveness, Cost Reduction (IT Services)

Representative goal statement -  “I need IT to significantly increase IT performance (time-to-results) and reduce cost bases by at least 15%.”

The second most popular theme submitted for discussion in the Business Executive Series was the responsiveness of IT in delivering business solutions. As discussed in the FAQ section, the main dimension of value to the business for the IT Function that I refer to as Business Solution Delivery is usually speed of delivery.

There are three key conditions that must exist for IT to accelerate time-to-results in a sustainable fashion:

1. IT can see ahead of the business curve.
2. IT can effectively implement multiple solution delivery options.
3. IT can efficiently integrate new services.

To some extent, all the functions of IT play a role in new solutions delivery. Let’s focus on the ones that are generally responsible for causing these three conditions to exist.

 

Seeing Ahead of the Curve – The Business Value Discovery Function

The Business Value Discovery Function of IT is the first function that is crucial in improving speed of delivery. Because this function is closest to the business, it has the greatest opportunity to influence the responsiveness of IT by understanding and communicating business strategy.

Without listing the myriad of services that this group may be responsible for, it is the Relationship Management performed by this function that links the business strategy with IT, providing the greatest time-to-results enhancement opportunity.

If IT is a trusted partner of the business, the linkage here between IT and the business strategy gives IT the opportunity to be ahead of the curve in understanding where the business is headed and thinking about the capabilities that they will need to be successful. It is the difference between IT having a reactive posture versus an ability to anticipate needs and make offers to the business.

It is necessary but not sufficient for IT to have this strategy-level linkage for the “seeing ahead” capability to exist in IT as a whole. There must be an effective process for the team performing this function to engage with rest of IT. This process must enable Solutions Architects and Service Delivery Managers to engage in the forward-looking discussions so that they can bring options and tradeoffs to the table in a more anticipatory fashion, thereby accelerating delivery of the solution.

 

Multiple Options – The Business Solution Delivery Function

The Business Solution Delivery function has a large role to play in the acceleration of IT time-to-results. In many ways this is a process discussion, but not in the traditional software-centric context. The process for Solutions Delivery must have the capability to deliver across the continuum of sourcing options, whether BPO, COTS, SAAS, internally developed, externally-developed, hosted or combination of options that maximize the value proposition of the solution to the business*.

Most groups responsible for Solutions Delivery still refer to themselves as the “Application Development” organization or at least include the “Application” word in their functional title. Because this is the function that they are used to performing, they identify most closely with solutions as delivery of software, versus an end-to-end business solution. The Solutions Delivery process is an Application Development Lifecycle. In today’s world where solutions may take many forms and each has to be judged by its value proposition to the business, this is an unaffordable anachronism.

To accelerate IT time-to-results, the Solution Delivery process must be fully capable of delivering solutions effectively across multiple sources of supply.  To the process, this means linkages that transcend internal IT and have inter-process interactions with Strategic Sourcing, Legal, Finance, and other enabling services.

 

New Service Integration – The Service Delivery and Support Function

The last of the three functions that play a key role in expediting solution time-to-delivery is Service Delivery and Support (a.k.a. Service Management, Technology Operations, etc.). The bottom line is that no matter how quickly a solution is built, if the process for integration is deficient, all that great effort is for naught when the solution will not be able to be put into “production”.

Fortunately, the requirements for integration of a new service are articulated as part of the ITIL Service Delivery processes (SLA Management, Availability Management, Capacity Management, Financial Management, Service Continuity Management) and can be linked with the Solutions Delivery process (ITIL v3 – Service Transition has elaborated this topic).

Finally, I would be remiss (not to mention at serious risk of having a few of my friends and colleagues miffed with me) in not mentioning a couple of other important functions that play important roles in the acceleration of IT responsiveness.

Enterprise Architecture

The EA approach to Solutions Architecture, specifically in the business process/business domain and future technologies integration (and vendors!) is an important contributor to the efficient development of multiple options for business solutions.

 

Support Functions External to IT

Other internal support organizations are necessary to implement multi-sourced options and satisfy regulatory, legal and financial requirements are important contributors to the acceleration of IT delivery as well. These necessary functions should be identified for each type of option and should be built into the Solutions Delivery process.

 

Oh, and as for the second part of the representative goal statement (reduce cost bases by at least 15%), I’ll refer back to the first post of the Business Executive Series for the general solution and go out on a limb by stating that if you can significantly improve IT’s speed-to-results, you won’t be hearing too much about the reduction in cost bases!

 

* Please note that all example lists are  illustrative, not comprehensive.