Cracks in IT seen, money falling through

Was talking with a service automation consultant colleague of mine this week about an engagement he was working on.  The problem being solved was pretty typical in most IT organizations today.    What was eye opening was the cost savings or cost avoidance to be had.

The IT environment has exploded in complexity.  I define IT complexity as the diversity, volume, and rate of change.  There is so much to do, and not nearly enough hands, even if you're leveraging low-cost labor strategy. 

The net result is lots and lots of tasks that should be done and need to be done, aren't getting done!

So my colleague I was talking with was working with a broadband internet provider  whose business was challenged with eliminating false positive support calls going to the Telco when a T1 line was in fact actually OK and not impaired.  BTW,  I am purposefully staying away from the technical details.

I asked my colleague if he wouldn't mind working on a mini-cost savings/cost avoidance analysis with me.  Using a very simple publicly available model (see below),  it was determined that by automating that one seemingly minor task, would yield close to $36,000/per month or $432,000/per year savings in productivity!   And this does not even account for the wasted time errant tickets that otherwise would have to be chased down and followed up on.

Interestingly, this example is an estimate because the customer was actually unable to provide the number of times this was actually performed during a day - the estimate is based off the number of events seen in the event management system.  It is worth noting that while these actions should have been taken every time, it is highly likely that they were not, due to the volume.

Because of the complexity of the IT environment and constrained staff count and labor costs, many customers are not operating their environments effectively.  Many situations like this one are just slipping through the cracks – resulting in inefficient operations and negative business impacts.

As you can see, there are savings just waiting to be had.  Service Automation platforms are now more economically viable than ever and will become the preferred method for addressing productivity in IT organizations and IT service providers.

There is a definitive floor in terms of labor costs and they will rise over time - automation can be a sustainable solution if taken seriously.  I'll address this in my next entry.

Simplistic Model: