Best Practices for Managing IT to deliver business value

Forrester Research has come up with a comprehensive list of best practices you can use today to get better results from IT that add value to the business. In an effort to help CIOs struggling to justify IT's business value to their bosses while, simultaneously, reducing waste and cost, Forrester Research analysts Phil Murphy and Andrew Bartels decided to put together a list of the best practices they, and their peer analysts at Forrester, think would offer the most help.

Here are some that I think are relevant from a benefits/value standpoint - reducing costs and/or increasing revenue:. Note - I have left the original ranking number so you can see where it rated in the Top 20 List. Below the list is a reference to the full article. You can use some of the ideas here to build your next business case.

1. Adopt ITIL and other frameworks like COBIT and ISO 17799 to bring discipline and efficiency to IT operations. Having efficient and transparent operations will significantly reduce costs (and add value) to the organization.

2. Use IT systems performance management audits and software to increase application throughput and manage costs.

4. Implement data center automation to reduce operating costs.

5. Install server virtualization to lower hardware costs and reduce administrative burden.

6. Embark on application rationalization to help IT shed duplicate applications and infrastructure.

8. Use application portfolio management (APM) tools to develop metrics to drive maintenance effort and cost reductions.

10. Undertake IT asset management initiatives to optimize usage of software and hardware.

12. Employ enterprise architecture groups to drive standardization of the software portfolio.

13. Use your vendor and contract management teams to squeeze more value from vendors.

14. Utilize contract life-cycle management tools to help optimize the savings from supplier contracts.

15. Use formalized and aggressive IT sourcing practices to cut ongoing depreciation and maintenance fees.

16. Employ eSourcing and services procurement tools help secure more competitive vendor bids.

17. Keep selective outsourcing options on the table that may lower costs and improve IT.

18. Implement IT operations scorecards to track and drives improvements and reduces cost.

19. Give IT leaders dual roles as business relationship managers and IT activity managers.

The full article can be found at : http://www.cioupdate.com/insights/article.php/3710291