The Challenge: A Common View of Results versus Expectations
In today's business environment, highlighting IT's role in business operations is often a big challenge. This was especially true for a large real estate developer who faced two main issues:
Firstly, they needed to show that their IT department was cost-effective. Given that costs are a major concern for most businesses, delivering high-performing and affordable IT services was crucial. This included a variety of tasks such as managing the IT system, ensuring smooth operations, using resources wisely and handling any issues quickly, all while working within a strict budget.
Secondly, it was vital to emphasize the strategic role of IT in making smart business decisions, especially when adjustments were needed that required a lot of IT involvement. Given that IT can make sense of complex data, forecast trends, and provide valuable insights, it became a key figure in the business's decision-making process.
Usually, an IT department's value is measured by performance factors like uptime, ticket resolution and system optimization. However, for this developer, the measurement wasn't just about operational or performance metrics. They looked at how IT was boosting the financial efficiencies of each business unit.
Ultimately, the real importance of the IT department was in their direct effect on each unit's performance, productivity, and profits. As such, showcasing their value, was not only as a vital operational metric, but also measured against the overall success of the organization.
The Solution: ServiceNow's 'Service Provider' Platform
Understanding the challenges faced, Align stepped in with a game-changing strategy using native ServiceNow functionality. Our goal? To illuminate, for non-IT leaders just how much their decision-making could shape the dynamics of IT function, focus, and strategy.
We developed a comprehensive, forward-thinking plan. In essence, our mission was to recalibrate IT operations to better meet, and even anticipate, the diverse needs of each business unit.
At the heart of this strategy was our determination to bolster the IT department and give them 'an equal seat at the table'. We aimed to proactively estimate the budget requirements needed to deliver services for each business unit. This allowed IT to step into as a key facilitator of strategic goals -- moving away from being seen only as a support function.
But, there's more to the plan. A core element of their transformation journey was to set up a transparent, sensible cost-allocation processes. This entailed creating defensible cost metrics for each IT service, which would then be assigned to the business units using that service. We then encouraged these units to take a closer look at these attributed costs. This sparked an essential dialogue around resource allocation, utilization, and ultimately, IT budgeting. What we introduced was a pioneering method that assured every business unit was fully in the loop, endorsing these costs digitally before the rollout, and promoting a culture of collective understanding and responsibility across the entire organization.
The Result: IT is Able to Meet Deadlines and Budget Goals.
The transformation resonated throughout the organization. Suddenly, IT was a strategic partner to each business unit. This also meant each business unit had a proactive role within the process - they planned their own business strategies, sourced the necessary funds and set success parameters for their IT needs. They became crucial decision-makers, understanding the implications of their choices, evaluating the costs, and witnessing first-hand what 'emergency fixes' would do to their IT budget.
This change significantly reduced the need for temporary solutions or cost-cutting to keep everyone happy.
IT didn't just prove their value - they propelled a more efficient deployment of IT and significantly amped up the business performance.
Talk about a game changer!