i.t. matters
Tuesday, November 14, 2006 | MANILA, PHILIPPINES
News
It’s time for key planners of companies to integrate into their firms’ strategies their plans for acquisition of technology tools, if the latter investments are to be maximized or, at least, not wasted.
A report of the Butler Group (www.butlergroup.com), titled: "Exploiting enterprise applications," said many companies end up paying too much for the applications that they buy when they fail to maximize these capital-intensive investments since they were not carefully planned.
The study of 60 companies by the London-based technology market analysis and consultancy firm showed that, since they did not carefully discern how available technologies would best serve strategic and tactical thrusts, these companies ended up using no more than 50% of the functions of the technology tools they bought.
"Unfortunately, IT management tends not to spend enough time relating the organization’s main value drivers to enterprise applications," a statement quoted Teresa Jones, Butler Group senior research analyst and co-author of the study, as saying.
"Too many follow a ‘me-too’ policy or purely a cost-saving attitude when considering investment in enterprise applications. Without strong links to business aims, it is impossible to formulate a strategy that will meet the organization’s needs or get value from enterprise applications."
One of the most important factors for maximizing value is not to treat enterprise applications as separate islands of technology, but to fully integrate them with objectives, business processes, management, and infrastructure.
Good training is another key element. Making the most of enterprise applications relies to a large degree on the work force actually using the functionality provided in the most effective way. Employees need to understand how the system relates to the tasks and processes in the broader context of the business as a whole.
The IT department must have an in-depth understanding of enterprise application usage and performance. It is often how the enterprise applications fit into the wider IT management perspective that can influence their real value to the organization.
While enterprise application functionality in itself may no longer supply competitive advantage, it is the performance of the enterprise applications and the provision of a good service to users that can be significant differentiators.
An architecture-based methodology can help enable a more flexible approach to the way enterprise applications are used. The visibility and understanding of enterprise application capability can be provided by enterprise architecture, enabling the linking of objectives with processes and then the underlying functionality provided by applications.
One of the more significant recent trends is the emergence of service-oriented architecture, which, coupled with a common services platform, can play a key role in applications integration. Data integration and so-called Master Data Management are also becoming essential as organizations realize that controlling information is an important way to make the most of data found within existing enterprise applications.
Education is another important consideration for getting the most from enterprise applications, with poor training being another reason for enterprise applications to be less than successful.
Good training is not just about the quality of software, but includes understanding as to how the system relates to the tasks and processes in the wider context of the whole organization; also, an appreciation as to why accurate data are important can prove invaluable.
"Key to the adaptive enterprise is the ability to quickly transform business processes and for these changes to be easily reflected in the supporting enterprise applications," Ms. Jones said. "From an enterprise application perspective, the importance of gaining a good understanding of the current processes cannot be underestimated; as on many occasions, the software is unfairly blamed for problems that, are in fact, due to inefficient or poor processes."
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