| Economic slowdown continues to haunt organizations, | | | | IT business needs. |
| especially emerging ones. Businesses therefore, have | | | | For businesses, maintaining highly-skilled personnel is |
| no choice but to use the existing IT assets | | | | an expensive affair. Employee retention, training |
| effectively. In spite of the shrinking budgets, IT | | | | costs, perks, and other benefits cost a lot to |
| wings of organizations are expected to deliver | | | | organizations. By reducing manual dependence, (i.e., |
| accelerated business value, which is indispensable for | | | | shifting base to automation) organizations can |
| growth. CIO's all over the world are reeling for | | | | rationalize skilled staff in an efficient manner without |
| process support and innovation, without disrupting | | | | compromising their business capabilities. |
| application stability and business continuity. Strategic | | | | In the already complex business landscape, working |
| Investment, also, need not be undermined. The IT | | | | with multiple vendors is a headache. Increased license |
| landscape poses the dual challenge of cost and | | | | costs, increased efforts in integration, and reduced |
| efficiency. The question is- how to reduce IT-related | | | | negotiating capabilities are some of the consequences |
| costs while increasing productivity? A cohesive | | | | of maintaining multiple vendors. However, these costs |
| modernization strategy can bring down IT costs, and | | | | can be eliminated to a great extent by consolidating |
| thus aid IT companies to survive, and flourish in | | | | automation tools. |
| today's difficult economic climate. | | | | Outages cost businesses millions of dollars every |
| Operational Expenditures (operations and | | | | hour. Downtimes, application outages, and other |
| maintenance) account for over 80% of the IT | | | | similar issues lead to wastage of resources. Again, |
| budget. Staffing, for example, is the largest single | | | | automation (like load balancing and automated error |
| operating cost in managing IT systems. Interestingly, | | | | detection) can arrest the frequency of outages. |
| much of the IT costs are hidden- unseen to the | | | | IT, without doubt, must help reduce costs while |
| normal business eye. Innovation asks for a large | | | | improving productivity. However, the main aim of IT |
| budget. With mammoth IT costs, there is no penny | | | | should be to enhance business value. Businesses must |
| left for innovation. Remember, innovation is the key | | | | realize that IT is not just an organizational arm, but a |
| to adding business value. | | | | strategic business asset. IT automation is also |
| A number of organizational and economic factors | | | | important for improving SLA achievement. |
| determine IT management needs. Automated | | | | Organizations, by focusing on value-add initiatives, |
| management software tools, in addition to advanced | | | | reducing unplanned downtime, shifting focus to |
| next-generation technologies, can help increase | | | | automation, and consolidating vendors can strengthen |
| productivity through maximum server utilization. | | | | their IT arm, and reduce IT costs by up to 60%. |
| Reducing application support efforts is the most | | | | This paper shows technical decision makers and IT |
| important method of saving those big bucks. A vast | | | | managers how organizations can reduce costs and |
| pool of IT staff is deployed to manage complex | | | | improve their IT effciency by optimizing their core |
| applications like Oracle and SAP. Automation of such | | | | infrastructure and adopting server-related best |
| applications can however minimize revenue losses, | | | | practices. This paper identifes which best practices |
| reduce IT staffing costs, and enhance IT | | | | are most effective in driving IT effciency to reduce |
| productivity. | | | | operating costs and free up human and fnancial IT |
| Manual Integration is sheer wastage of money and | | | | resources to add more value to the business. |
| resources. For example, it is a time consuming task | | | | Microsoft solutions can help data center |
| to copy data between applications. | | | | administrators improve the effciency of their |
| Machine-to-machine interactions can be automated to | | | | organization's core infrastructure, so more human and |
| reduce errors and provide faster reaction times for | | | | fnancial resources will be available for IT innovation. |