Even in large organizations, the pressing needs of different business organizations over time tends to create a plethora of systems and software that is trickier for IT to manage than it often seems.
When coupled with the notion that it has only been in the past decade that universities have started to ramp up formal IT management programs significantly, we end up with many environments where positive change means looking to standardization or compliance to start achieving necessary efficiencies.
One of the biggest trends over the past several years in this regard, has been the adoption of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library by many organizations (computer compliance software). Adhering to all or part of the information contained in the Library has helped IT departments worldwide to rationalize costs through standardization.
Because compliance is an important part of ITIL implicitly, many organizations have chosen to flow both their internal and external compliance tracking through the ITIL model.
Of course, one of the downsides of the ITIL model is that it really isn’t one that can grant an organization a certification; meaning that companies that strive to improve their processes on behalf of their clients remain without a means of concretely displaying their compliance.
For business managers, the most exciting part of compliance that is non-regulatory is the financial aspect. Driving process excellence in theory should drive costs down in the same fashion a GPS-aided vehicle should navigate the streets of an unknown city more efficiently.
We have already seen the results from compliance-driven initiatives in large IT departments start to drive radical change. A year ago, the city of Los Angeles determined through a sophisticated process that it would be more cost-effective to switch all its users to Google apps for Office and E-mail applications. At the time of the switch, they were using Microsoft products and the servers and server administrators were located in Los Angeles and maintained by the city. The changeover moved those services to Google’s datacenters and not only saved in software licensing fees, but in hardware maintenance fees. Later that year, Microsoft released its own online application suite with a modified set of licensing fees.