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Cut Costs. Improve Service. Start Today.
10 Things You Must Do to Improve IT Now!
Russell Girten
Vice President
Process Transformation & Information Technology
Alaska Communications
October 28, 2010

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Where does the money go?
• Companies who use
computers spend the
most on machines,
facilities & the people
who support them.
• That spending drives
some of the least tangible
benefit to the business.
15%
12%
5%
68%
Applications
Network
Support
Infrastructure
19
22
38
18
3
Hardware
Software
Personnel
Outsourcing
Other
Spending by Type
Spending by Area
IT Metrics: IT Spending & Staffing Report, 2010 - Gartner

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What Can I Do About It?
1. Adopt Standard Practices
2. Grow Process Maturity
3. Turn Off What You Don’t Use
4. Focus on Fill Rate
5. Grow Scale

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What Can I Do About It?
6. Outsource What Makes Sense
7. Introduce Variability into Models
8. Align to Business Strategy
9. Repeat & Share – With Yourself, With Others
10. Buy only the IT you need

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1. Adopt Standard Processes
• Lots of thinking has gone
into processes, from very
bright minds, and they’ve
been tested.
• Plenty of models
available: ITIL, Microsoft
Process Template, Agile,
Infrastructure
Management Process
Design (MIKE 2.0)
• If you can’t adopt, hire
someone who can help.
IT Service Management - Information Technology Infrastructure Library

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2. Grow Process Maturity
• Mature processes cost
less to operate.
• Don’t change process
because something
didn’t work. Improve it.
• Use standard
frameworks and peers
to assess maturity.
Software Engineering Institute Capability Maturity Model

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3. Turn Off What You Don’t Use
• Unmanaged IT
infrastructure(s) can often
be reduced 50% through
focused management.
• Cost of powering a rack is
$3-400/month in Alaska.
• We’ll decommission 40%
this year.
• Each year, refresh, replace
or remove significant
components of
infrastructure.

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4. Focus on Fill Rate
• Consolidation is
important – space
savings, power savings,
labor savings.
• Attempt to reach at least
70% fill for each
component class in your
infrastructure.
• Adopt providers who are
incented to maximize fill
rates.

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5. Grow Scale
• Scale builds purchasing
efficiencies
• Scale builds
communities
• Scale causes vendors
to behave differently
• Work with others who
can help you increase
scale.

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6. Outsource What Makes Sense
• For items that are not a part of
your businesses’ critical value
chains: outsource everything
you can.
• For items that are on critical
value chains: outsource where
you can achieve additional
scale.
• Take all the time necessary to
strike a clear agreement that
defines responsibilities for all
involved. If you don’t know
them, find a partner who does.

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7. Introduce Variability into Models
• Purchase everything you can in
a way that scales with your
business.
• Transaction counts (or user
counts) often work best.
• Maniacally manage the units of
measure in variable models
(user counts, transactions,
etc.)
• Find a partner to conduct
periodic audits of the IT
infrastructure.

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8. Align to Business Strategy
• Only work projects that:
– Protect from obsolescence or
disaster
– Grow or reduce necessary capacity,
or
– Are clearly aligned to the strategy of
the business as a whole.
• These are the projects that deliver
value and survive cuts.
• These are the projects that users
will use and improves efficiency
with capital.
• Conduct a strategy alignment
audit on a yearly basis to forecast
spend and align outcomes.

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9. Repeat & Share – With Yourself, With Others
• Work you haven’t done
before has a 50%
higher failure rate.
• If a project plan has an
unknown estimate, the
plan in its entirety has
no certainty.
• Reuse, repeat and
share infrastructure
whenever possible.

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10. Buy Only the IT You Need
• It is incredibly easy to buy
too much IT… and vendors
may not stop you.
• Demand-driven models are
much more effective to
manage capacity, when they
are available.
• Purchase in ways and from
vendors who make it easy to
expand or contract IT as you
need it… by the seat, by the
user, by the invoice, etc.

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How can TekMate and Alaska Communications Help?
• Scalable Bandwidth
– Business Extreme Broadband
– Dedicated Private Circuits
– MPLS
– Enhanced Metro Ethernet
• Constantly On IT
• Hardware as a Service
– Desktops
– Servers
– Storage
• Software as a Service
– Microsoft Applications
– Vertical Applications

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October 28, 2010