INTELLIGENT CLOUD
Once you have
identified one or
more compelling
use cases, you
need to assess
and quantify the
true business
value and costs
of current
resources
carefully.
Those features, in turn, depend upon the
specific characteristics of your candidate
consolidation platforms. At a very
minimum, the platform should:
Support both ITSM and business
resource consolidation, for maximum
business value
Already be known, validated and
approved by IT decision makers and
their teams for rapid adoption and
effective support by IT
Be cloud-based, and should include
integrated support for multiple
consolidation-enabling features
Integrate with applications and
information sources, and support
modern, open web standards to ease
and speed resource consolidation efforts
Include extensive, easy-to-use, pre-built
templates for consolidation-related
tasks, to minimise time to success
Enable business users to create
applications quickly and easily, with
full guidance and support of IT but
with no direct IT intervention required
Include specific features that let IT
decision makers sleep well at night
Be offered by a proven, committed
provider of enterprise-class, cloud-
based solutions, and supported by
comprehensive professional services
34
business requirements
Is the offering proven in the
real world at enterprises with
requirements at least as demanding
as those at your organisation
Is the offering known to and supported
by IT decision makers at your
organisation and elsewhere
Does the solution incorporate support
for mobility, social networking and
other features that make applications
more usable and popular
Is the solution supported by a broad
ecosystem of partners, users, and
readily available knowledge, online and
in person
Mark Ackerman is Sales Director Middle East
for ServiceNow.
and a broad ecosystem of helpful
knowledge, partners and users
Host
When choosing the right platform for your
organisation, below are some questions
you should ask every vendor you consider:
Does the vendor offer a written service
level agreement
Is the offering based on modern,
cloud-based technologies for maximum
flexibility and economy
Are upgrades to the vendor’s
technologies straightforward and non-
disruptive to your business operations
Does the solution make it easy to
create and tailor applications and
their interfaces to meet specific
The right combination of justification,
planning, execution, and platform can
reduce or eliminate redundancies,
incompatibilities, and complexities
associated with those resources, as well
as associated hardware, software, and
maintenance costs.
It can also make management
processes and delivery of IT-enabled
services more consistent and efficient,
and enable new, innovative, high-value
business applications. And as these extend
beyond IT, they can also extend the value
of IT consolidation platform investments.
All of these benefits can, in turn,
increase IT’s support of and relevance to
the business, and IT’s overall business
value, while improving IT’s perception
across the enterprise. Achieving these
benefits, however, relies upon the careful
selection of a platform that can support
the features and functions needed to
succeed with consolidation.
Your assessment efforts will
enable you to rank your incumbent
application based on the value
they are delivering to the business
and the costs required to realise
that value.
Issue 13
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS