Many modern enterprises ARE their Information Technology systems and processes. For example, many online retailers never actually touch the product they nominally "ship". Their entire business is essentially their website, their customer service support systems, and their accounting systems. Still, they don't think of themselves as IT service providers, but rather, as retailers. At Kiios, we take a different perspective - we look at the function chain of your business processes, and we do our best to attribute the proper "value add" ratios to the various activities. Now when we look at the total value chain we have a clearer understanding of where the money goes, and where the money should go. From that start, we can understand the impact of service interruptions, the value of service improvements, and the cost of risk, as it pertains to the functionality. This is consistent with our basic approach to all business problems - first know what's true.
When you start with an understanding of your value proposition, it is possible to make informed choices about service levels. When you contract for support you should never pay in excess of the value that support brings you. You can also make choices about the structure of the support contracts - should you pay a capitation rate to provide continuous coverage, or should you pay a transaction fee each time a disruption event occurs? So far we have referred to IT as a problem resolution function, but you might argue that most of your IT spend is on development or system integration, right? This is another area where we take a different look at the issues. We look at your business processes from the perspective of optimal value creation potential, tehn again from the perspective of "as is" analysis, and we cost out the gaps. In other words, we treat the lack of a given system as a problem - a problem with value creation, not functionality, and we address it or not based on capital availability, priority versus all other value-creating investment opportunities, and most importantly, impact on aggregate enterprise value.
We provide the strategic IT resources to do your analysis, to cost your spend, and to manage your IT asset pool. We do not provide technicians and help desks, but we partner with several excellent firms that do. We treat your business processing as a series of separate transaction activities, and we help you to define these units of work into a service catalog that defines the capabilities you need, and that you currently utilize. We then define measurements and metrics that illustrate the efficiency, effectiveness, and capacity of your systems. We help you to deploy monitoring and management systems that let you serve your IT demand as if you were your own best-practice vendor. From there, if you choose, it is a small step to outsourcing. Conversely, if you do it right, it is often appropriate to keep processing internal. The question is one of value and alignment with your core strategy.
IT Strategy - we bring a value-based approach to IT strategy so you can understand and manage your IT asset investment effectively.
Service Catalog Development - IT can and should be managed on an activity basis, and the service catalog is the first step in bringing this capability to life.
Metrics and Measurements - that which is measured improves. Exposing value leads to creation of value.
Systems Analysis - we can document your existing environment, and help you identify its weaknesses.
Systems Design - we can help you to solve problems related to functions not yet implemented.
System Selection - our approach to system selection is fast and effective. Whether you are building or buying we can help you to purchase the correct level of products and services at the correct proce.
Business Process Design - our approach is not IT centric - often the best solution to a process problem is to simplify or restructure the process to eliminate the need for complex tracking programs.
Contracting - If you elect to outsource some or all of your IT activities, we can guide you through the process, or conduct it for you in its entirety.
Contract Management - the greatest value potential of outsource contracts is not the price you pay, but the effectiveness by which you manage the contract post-award. This can be the difference between a home-run and a disaster. We are one of the leading proponents of active contract management, and hard-line threshold management. If you are paying for a given level of support you should demand that you receive it. Your contract and your contract management group should be structured to enforce your contracted service levels, or to enforce penalties to assure that your contracted value is met, regardless of the method.