Does your IT Infrastructure pay you back?

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It was interesting to watch “Monster Moves” in National Geographic Channel the other day. I still admire the way engineers unearthed a huge building from one location and moved it to another, without breaking or losing even a single brick, using trucks. This Herculean task makes me still wonder, ‘How did they do it?’ However, when the job was done, the building was habitable and ready to use, in quick time. What else can one ask for? A true engineering miracle.

Before we begin, let us assume the IT Infrastructure as all Systems and associated Processes, which aid in either Fulfilling the Service requested or Handling a Fault reported by your customer, all the way from Customer Contact through to Billing.

Over the last few years, there has been an increased demand for investment in re-usability of varied Systems and Processes within your Organisation. You will have also made a significant investment in varied Transformation Programmes to reduce Operational Costs through Rationalisation of your IT Infrastructure and hence reduced head count. With recession in place this demand for both above has only aggravated.

The question is does this investment provide your business with good ROI? Are you even considering your IT Infrastructure as a means to generate new revenues?

As a successful Organisation you will have your expansion strategy into other geographies as part of your growth plans. You will need to make a significant investment in your IT Infrastructure in the new geography, either by building it from scratch or, in the instance of acquiring an existing company, making changes to the existing IT Infrastructure to suit your needs. Again, due to recession, you are constrained in the monies you can invest, hampering your growth plans.

The investment you have already made in your IT Infrastructure both in Re-usable Components and in Rationalisation should ideally help you roll out quickly in the new geography. Just like buildings being moved from one place to another in Monster Moves, you should be able to mirror your Infrastructure in this new geography in quick time and minimal investment. Your Infrastructure should be robust and scalable (both upward and downward) to accommodate the changes in reflections the new geography has to offer.

Achieving such an Infrastructure is a mammoth task but the benefits surpass the investment both in monies and the accelerated time in achieving your business goals. Looking back a few years ICICI bank in India established a branch and became fully operational in 5 days! Imagine what this could mean to you, should you be able to become fully operational, from an IT perspective, in such a quick time. The benefits speak for themselves, well reaching infinity.

The journey doesn’t end here. An IT Infrastructure, this scalable, can potentially help you offer this as an ‘Off the Shelf’ service to other players across the globe within the same segment of business as yours. There will be a huge demand for such a service as this will solve the right problems, the right way, in quick time. We see traces of this already happening globally, for example Managed Network Services offering by companies like British Telecom. Amazon was smart enough to rent out its hard disk space earlier because only 15% of it was utilised at any given time.

Organisations should not rule out the possibility of an ‘Off the Shelf’ offering for the very reason that this Infrastructure is more or less a one-off investment. Imagine printing photographs of your favourite moments in a kiosk, the more prints you take, the lesser the average cost of each print. Organisations should capitalise on this rule of thumb. The initial investment in building such an IT Infrastructure may be higher, but an Off the Shelf offering not only helps generate increased revenues but at the same time lowers the overall Operational Cost as well. The cost gets shared with other similar players who are in demand of such an offering.

IT Infrastructure truly acts as the backbone in realising the goals of any business. Organisations should stop being inward centric and start visualising their IT Infrastructure to be able to provide them with benefits mentioned above. There is enough technology in the industry to make this happen, if not, is evolving.

What Next?

Organisations should start investigating the possibility of building such an IT Infrastructure for their business. They should value their IT Infrastructure, not just as an enabler to run their business, but as business by itself. There are enough questions today to even consider adopting this strategy within any Organisation. However, as a starter for ten, Organisations should perform a simple analysis as below:

• What is the As-Is state of my IT Infrastructure?
• What has stopped my Organisation till now in building such an IT Infrastructure?
• What does it cost me, both in time and money, to build such an IT Infrastructure?
• What potential benefits does this offer, should this be implemented, bearing my growth plans in mind?

All these above are indeed a food for thought and nevertheless, the answers come with their own challenges. I am sure there will be ways around these challenges as both Organisations and Technology mature to make this happen.

This is a vision today and in my opinion, this will be the future - a journey we will all embark in days to come.

Stakeholder Management as a Business Function

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‘If we were to imagine the mind of man and that of GOD to comprise an exquisitely designed broadcast system, then the frequency of the human mind, if tuned to be in resonance with that of GOD, ought to be up to task and do wonders’, says Mani Bhaumik* in his book ‘Code Name: GOD’. However, as Mani points out, ‘most of us tend to forget that this broadcast system even exists’. Time is well elapsed before we even figure this set up.

Similarly, businesses and organisations around the world have varied Programmes initiated with a ‘Purpose’. You broadcast this purpose, the business driver, to your stakeholders. They are your delivery arm and the decision makers within, to drive these Programmes to success. Your stakeholders may be an Organisational entity, an individual, internal or external.

The questions arise - are all your stakeholders tuned to either accept these Programmes in their entirety or can they accommodate your Programme in the timeframe you require to derive the business benefits? Having said that, are all your stakeholders, tuned in resonance with yours, in other words, do they all understand the rationale for the Programme and the way it should be interpreted?

In an ideal world, both the questions above would give us the answer, ‘Yes’, however this is not usually the case. On any one day, at every level in your businesses, your stakeholders come together to discuss and agree next steps to drive your Programmes to success. However, this time spent is not always used to the greatest effect and in the majority of cases with deadlines to meet this is time that you cannot afford to lose.

You can make more money but you can’t reclaim Time. Time is the most precious commodity that your business has and your success, in the majority of the cases, resides in timely execution and completion of your Programmes. It is hence absolutely essential that you get all your stakeholders tuned to what you want to achieve through your Programme, all the way from inception to finish, arising the need of Stakeholder Management.

What does Stakeholder Management offer?

As mentioned earlier, different stakeholders tend to have different views of the Programme and hence different perspectives and possibly hidden agendas in meetings. Often progress can be stalled, even in simple internal meetings by the language barrier that exists between business and technology orientated stakeholders.

Bridging these gaps, bringing the various parties together and gaining agreement between them in the given time scales is the business function of stakeholder management.

Stakeholder Management should not be taken in its literary terms as this function offers and is responsible for a myriad of services, in no particular order, as below

• Identify, engage and effectively plan interactions with the correct Stakeholders
• Set common expectations and facilitate negotiations across multiple stakeholders
• Document meeting outcomes and provide clear communications to the parties involved

The Stakeholder Management function, strives to ensure that at given point in time during the course of the Programme, all your stakeholders are tuned to be resonant with your business driver.

Stakeholder Management is a structured framework, with quality gates invoked within to ensure the smooth and efficient running of the Programme. It is a proven model and has helped many of my clients achieve their Business Goals.

Conclusion

Stakeholder Management is often thrown in as an afterthought when setting a programme in motion, or determining governance structures, but it is seldom conducted in anything but an adhoc manner.

Mobilising a dedicated, independent, stakeholder management function within the structure of any major programme or forum will improve the working atmosphere and the level of collaboration between the parties involved. This ensures timescales are met.

It is my experience that the savings in time that can be gained through such a dedicated business function far outweighs the associated cost of providing it.

When do you really need Stakeholder Engagement?

Having worked with varied clients it is my recommendation that a dedicated stakeholder management function is considered when embarking on any initiative that will require prolonged interaction of diverse stakeholders. Many on-going interactions in your business could also benefit from such a function, but the real benefit comes when a programme is started with this role in place. This allows the expectations of the stakeholders to be clearly defined and a common way of working to be established from the start.

Examples of interactions, we recommend, would benefit from a dedicated stakeholder management function include;

• Mid to long term programmes or projects that require continued input from, or communication to the stakeholder group
• Programmes or projects where requirements gathering is a key component
• Programmes, Projects, Forums or Governance boards that consist of diverse stakeholder groups
• Any ongoing interactions between business and technology orientated stakeholders

In each of these areas, Stakeholder Management can facilitate the negotiations between parties and ensure consensus is reached in the required timescales.


* Mani Bhaumik is a renowned scientist for his work in laser technology which made LASIK eye surgery possible. Code Name: God, an LA Times Bestseller, is an attempt by Mani to prove the existence of God, the super power, through Science.