compliances

IT Consolidation and Shared Services

May 14, 2013

Two concepts used almost interchangeably, some refer to information technology in its entirety as being a shared service achieved only through massive reorganization and consolidation. Although they seem to be two flavors of similar endeavors, they nevertheless are different. Moving towards consolidation or shared services is more of a progression or a continuum, and along that progression there are many variables, depending on the political situation in each state, depending on the type of services, depending on the types of organizations that have already been established. However, at their most basic, consolidation and shared services can be defined as follows:

  • Shared Services, focuses on the delivery of a particular service or services in the most efficient and effective way, as a way of gaining economies of scale and other benefits. The centralization of specific IT activities that function as everyone’s vendor of choice:
  • Usually implies voluntary participation involving service level agreements (SLA’s).
  • Usually implies voluntary participation involving operational level agreements (OLA’s).

Current Trends in Common IT Consolidation and Shared Services

Sample IT Consolidation and Shared Services Initiatives:

Initiatives Reported as Completed or In Progress
Initiative Consolidation Shared Service
ePayment Engine 71.4 percent 78.6 percent
Communications Services/ Telephony 91.4 percent 85.2 percent
Data Center 77.1 percent 84.7 percent
Disaster Recovery 68.6 percent 86.2 percent
E-mail Services 71.5 percent 61.5 percent
ERP/ Financial/ HR 73.5 percent 71.5 percent
Global Information Security 58.8 percent 79.3 percent
Network 85.7 percent 70.3 percent
Portals 77.2 percent 93.1 percent
Procurement 80 percent 82.1 percent
Security Services 65.7 percent 79.3 percent
Servers 65.7 percent 77.8 percent
End User Services

The move towards consolidation and shared services is a business solution usually under the purview of Corporate CIOs to examine opportunities or optional business approaches; however, there appears to be a trend.

The trend is Corporate CIO’s have no idea what they are doing and IT organizations are just trying to keep the lights on.

They can barely focus on a 6 month plan much less a 3 year strategic plan.

Get rid of the CIO’s they take up space, when was the last time you CIO showed any leadership and captained IT forward.

Use the salary to find SME’s to analyze, design and implement IT fixes.

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