Consulting services for information and communications technology (ICT) tend to focus on technical issues. They should be about driving business improvement and achieving value for money. Howard Armstrong, director, of enterprise consulting with Mason Communications, says, “There are four areas that should be focused on if ICT consultancy is to provide maximum business benefits, which, after all, is what an IT department should see as its ultimate role.”
These four focus areas are:
- commercial arrangements
- technical performance
- processes and procedures
- infrastructure, assets and the associated bills.
Commercial arrangements
Mr Armstrong explains, “Through our extensive work with organisations of all types, and across all industry sectors, we know what the ‘going rate’ is for the different categories of ICT services, and what ‘best-in-class’ performance should look like. Companies that are getting smarter at supply chain management are keen to understand what sort of service level they should be experiencing, at what price. They want to know what they are paying compared to peer companies.” The Mason consulting service that provides this comparative information is called benchmarking.
Mr Armstrong adds, “For example, after retaining Mason to do benchmarking, a Tier 1 high street bank might well find that the prices it is paying for ICT are too high, and the service level being received is not up to scratch, compared to similar companies. This can, in turn, have a negative impact on its competitive position. In our experience, suppliers invariably review their charges and service delivery when presented with reputable, independent benchmark results from a consultancy such as Mason, leading to substantial cost and service improvement for our clients.”
Technical performance
Mason has unique tools that enable its technical analysts to assess ICT environments at network and application layers, so that clients can understand where the underperforming areas are, and deal with them. This contrasts with the more typical approach of assessing the infrastructure’s performance, but not the applications that run over it, although application-related issues can have a profound effect.
Figure 1: Mason Service Management – Based on Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Framework
Mason has unique tools that enable its technical analysts to assess ICT environments at network and application layers, so that clients can understand where the underperforming areas are, and deal with them. This contrasts with the more typical approach of assessing the infrastructure’s performance, but not the applications that run over it, although application-related issues can have a profound effect.
He adds, “It is always preferable to work with the supplier, solving problems on the basis of collective responsibility, but sometimes an intermediary approach is required.” Technical performance tools and services include network and infrastructure analysis, application analysis, application modelling, application topology and capacity modelling.
Procedures and processes
Mason has found that inadequate procedures are a major failing within many organisations. Large application deployments are a good example. All too often, clients buy an application to fulfil a business need and launch it on to their networked IT environment. Only then do they find it’s not working as expected, and even degrading the performance of other systems that were working well previously.
The problem might arise because there’s not enough capacity somewhere within the infrastructure, or because it has not been tuned to the environment by appropriate network engineering. This results in a clash with software already in use, causing disruption – perhaps to an important business process.
Figure 2: Mason Contract / Service Management Methodology
Mr Armstrong says, "Mason has developed what it calls the Application Passport process to avoid such problems. The introduction of any application into an environment is carefully planned, prepared and tested. Mason’s analysis and modelling tools and techniques assess the application and the impact it will have. Next, the necessary engineering to minimise adverse influence is undertaken, and the application is tested in lab and user scenarios. At the end of this process, we say that the application is given a ‘passport to travel’ on the client’s network, assured that such travel will be smooth, uneventful and in line with expectations."
On the service management side, Mason believes it begins and ends with configuration management. Documentation of the ever evolving ICT environment must be kept up to date, including all aspects of hardware upgrades, software releases, configurations, physical locations and so on. Unfortunately many large IT departments are not even able to keep track of the devices attached to their networks, much less how they are configured. Companies need to recognise the importance of configuration management, and be prepared to invest time in it.
Mason uses the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), an internationally recognised set of procedures for supporting and managing the IT function, to help ensure the delivery of high quality IT service. Through judicious use of ITIL, Mason can help its customers to efficiently and effectively manage their IT service management regime.
Assets and bills
Most large companies have the potential to save hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of pounds through optimising their infrastructure assets and associated bills. This is closely linked with effective configuration management. Big enterprises typically have thousands of phone lines, to give a simple example, and would be hard pressed to know how accurate their phone bill is. Mason was able to help a leading publicly listed utility to identify 1,200 redundant assets, or other incidents of incorrect billing, leading to substantial cost savings in Phase One of its assignment.
Mason is now in Phase Two of the assets and bills optimisation with this client, and anticipates some 5,000 further redundant assets or billing inaccuracies.
Mr Armstrong concludes, “Most companies simply don’t have the time and resource to undertake comprehensive optimisation work in these four categories themselves – it would be a huge undertaking for them. We have the tools, skills and experience to undertake these processes, using probably one tenth of the effort that it would take for a client to do it. This also means at lower cost than a company acquiring and committing all the necessary staff, tools, training and time.
“Through our focus on these four areas of ICT consulting, Mason improves the value of its clients’ technology investments, and helps them improve their business performance.”