Identifying Opportunities to Reduce TCO with Cost Savings Analysis and Optimization Self-Assessment Tools 

Current economic downturn confronts us with a tremendous impact and unfavorable trend on worldwide IT budget and spending as shown on the chart and discussed in Simple Savvy Savings - 9 ideas to make anyone a Cost Cutting Hero by Tom Pisello, CEO, Alinean, Inc. More than ever companies are now looking for every opportunity to further cut costs and maintain competitiveness during these times of global economic instability. Nevertheless, the adversity also presents a very opportunity for us to accelerate and transform IT into a more mature, better managed, and highly optimized settings. Optimization is more than just delivering more with less. It is about managing complexities. It's about capabilities, responsiveness, and enablement. Defined optimization models and recommendations, and findings of average annual IT labor costs per PC, per year substantiate the claim of transforming IT from a cost-center burden into a strategic asset. (Reference: pages 8, 11, and 17 of this report, Taking the Lead: Gaining a Competitive Advantage Through Infrastructure and Platform Optimization) And in addition to the methodology and case studies, there are tools are to help us get started the transformation.

This cost savings analysis tool examines IT infrastructure and platform to identify cost savings opportunities focusing on:

  
• Virtualization
  
• Database Consolidation
  
• Systems Management
  
• Desktop Management /Standardization
  
• Unified Communications
  
• Collaboration

The tool generates a report with specific project recommendations that can be implemented to generate high-impact costs savings with minimal investment.The results can be refined to match specific details of the IT environment and local currency. The calculation is based on research by IDC, Forrester, WiPro and Alinean and the results include recommendations to projects which can be implemented to generate high-impact cost savings with minimal investment.

The Optimization Self-Assessment Tool on the other hand derives optimization score, peer comparison, and value assessment for your organization on core infrastructure, business productivity infrastructure, and application platform. The tool generates a comprehensive report that can serve as an actionable roadmap and incentive for optimizing your IT infrastructure and platform.

The passage is clear. Identify your goal, find out where you stand, make an informed decision, and thrive on the challenges. Above all, the time to start the process is now.