IT Strategies
ISO 27001
NIST
ITIL
ITIL is the most widely recognized IT strategy and approach to IT service management. ITIL provides a comprehensive and integrated suite of best practice guidance garnered from the public and private sectors.
IT Service Management (ITSM) delivers benefits leveraging a best practices approach. Because ITSM is driven both by technology and the range of organizational performance metrics, it is in a state of continuous process and constant evolution. Best practices and comparative benchmarks are based on expert advice and input from ITIL in both current and future form thereby combining recent thinking with sound, common sense guidance.
TIL provides a methodicalapproach to the management of IT service delivery. Adopting ITIL guidance offers IT professionals a range of benefits that include the following:
- reduced investement and operational costs;
- improved IT services delivery through the use of proven best practice processes;
- improved customer satisfaction through a more professional and consistent approach to service delivery;
- proven standards and expert guidance;
- improved efficiency and productivity;
- improved use of skills and experience; and
- improved delivery of third party services through the specification of ITIL or ISO 20000 as the standard for service delivery in services procurements.
Our IT portfolio for which I will provide web site coverage includes the following vendor solutions:
- Cisco | Routers, Switches and Firewalls
- Citrix | Application Accelerators, Load Balancers and Firewalls
- F5 | Application Accelerators, Load Balancers and Firewalls
- HP | Servers and PCs
- IBM | Servers and PCs
- Microsoft | Database, Operating Systems and Dynamics CRM system
- Aplicor | Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) business systems
- Oracle | Database and Oracle Financials ERP system
- Avaya | VOIP Telephone System
- Sourcefire | Snort Intrusion Detection System (IDS)
- Barracuda | Content Filter, Spam Filter and Firewall
- APC | UPS, KVM and PDU
Vendor relationships play a crucial role in the success or failure of IT professionals. Therefore, vendor reviews and commentary will be provided in a candid and straight forward manner. Let me clearly state in advance that this is not a vendor gripe repository, however, real world vendor experiences must be included as they are a meaningful part of my career, and presumably the careers of this web site's readers.
CRM strategies often consist of nearly equal parts people empowerment, business process optimization and software technology utilization. A well thought through strategy may envision a closed loop process in which CRM adoption would begin with sound and well understood customer processes which were then automated with CRM software. Interim analysis and periodic review would then systematically acquire deep insight into customer needs and preferences and management would efficiently translate these insights into profitable customer interactions. The Information technology CRM application should be viewed as a critical component and strategic tool for increasing revenues while improving productivity and offsetting the cost of rising wages. Technology in and of itself is not a CRM solution, however, the technology is a medium for achieving business results.
Organizational collaboration should be incorporated into CRM strategy. Many organizations falsely believe that implementing CRM software makes them customer-centric. These organizations forget, ignore or avoid the necessary changes to the organization itself. Becoming customer-centric means that all staff must become more focused on the needs and desires of the customer. Achieving organizational collaboration involves changing corporate culture, organizational structures, compensation and incentives, skills and workplace behaviors. A change management plan can ease and benefit changes to organizational structure.
Clear goals and objectives should follow and compliment the organizations vision and strategy.
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