Achieving Optimal Infrastructure
A Perspective from Pomeroy
By John McKenna
If you were asked if your Information Technology (IT) infrastructure – the services, software and
hardware needed to facilitate the business systems that in turn run the business – is optimized, how
would you reply? Would you even know?
By viewing IT infrastructure management in its entirety, as a process that delivers positive business
outcomes, clients following the path to Optimal Infrastructure have a higher probability of success. In
doing so, one can achieve an accelerated return on any technology investment. Achieving Optimal
Infrastructure requires more than just technology. Rather, it is a continuous journey where each step has
a defined start and end-point that allows an organization to gain process maturity, cultural change and
expertise while deriving more business value along the way. In an industry where process maturity is
normally at 2.x on a scale of one to five, the need to improve is urgent if you want to jump start or
improve your IT process maturity.
The typical reward for those organizations who have figured out how to get there faster is a return on
the investment in half the time of the industry average, and a large majority of IT budgets have driven
down costs by 20-30%.
This paper explores ways that you can achieve the Optimal Infrastructure for your organization while
realizing similar financial results.
Introduction
Infrastructure has several key characteristics that make it optimal: “always on” in terms of availability,
high quality delivery of service, and a measured, balanced portfolio of capabilities.
Some elements should be set in stone, while others are able to freely adapt and offer options in terms
of quality and cost with static versus dynamic features. This includes hardware, software, and services,
regardless of delivery method or how they are contracted (physically, virtually, or via the cloud, etc.),
which are also referred to as towers, silos, and stacks.
Our viewpoint is that the elements should be viewed differently, more as a holistic process rather than
discrete individual components. Furthermore, we believe successful organizations that have optimized
their infrastructure almost always exhibit the following five tenets within their approach:
1. Relationship Based - Focused on people, is transparent and mutually advantageous
2. Process Led - Integrated processes, optimizing the whole infrastructure
3. Quality Delivered - Focused and formal - ITIL, Six Sigma, ISO, Client satisfaction
4. Technology Enabled - Process first, then technology, leveraging the hub/spoke approach
5. Metric Driven - Structured information and analytics, baseline and goal line
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We will explore each of the five tenets in more detail later. First, let’s discuss examples and ideas of
areas where we can improve the level of infrastructure optimization. In our opinion, Optimal
Infrastructure exhibits more enhanced characteristics than less mature environments, as depicted in the
table below.
Characteristics of an Optimal Infrastructure
Characteristics
Optimal Infrastructure
Always On

Aligned with Business

Dependable & Reliable

Flexible & Adaptable

Process-centric, Enabled

Responsive

High Quality

High cost Variability

Cost Effective

Benchmarked & Measured

Continuously Improved

In today’s challenging business climate, every IT organization is being asked to do more with less.
Generally, there are two fundamental strategies: 1) squeeze more out of the existing infrastructure; or
2) invest in innovative, higher value and, typically, newer business technologies. While we do not debate
that these strategies work, we believe a more strategic approach can make an even more significant
contribution.
Specifically, as infrastructure consumes around 70% of a typical IT budget, re-engineering can drive
more value from the existing investment. For example, we have seen companies that adopt our
optimized infrastructure reduce some of their infrastructure management costs by 20-30%, while at the
same time improving client satisfaction. Our approach offers the opportunity to personalize your
infrastructure management as we optimize its performance.
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The landscape is littered with examples of IT initiatives that have failed due to the lack of process. The
evolution of the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) marketplace over the last twenty plus years
provides a rich history lesson from which we believe infrastructure management can learn. Common
examples include clients’ contact centers, help desks or service desks that have been migrated offshore
and then transitioned back some time later due to poor quality and dissatisfied clients. In our view,
taking the time to define the process would have avoided the quality and client satisfaction challenges.
Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Therefore, if we are to expect a different, positive outcome, we need to do something differently than
we have done in the past. For example, a poor IT process that is offshored is still a poor process (albeit a
cheaper one) that can never achieve quality or cost improvement objectives. Similarly, a poor process
that is automated is simply a faster poor process. The “something different” that must be achieved is to
vastly improve the process before automating, outsourcing, virtualizing, clouding or implementing any
other delivery model. For example, the process “quote to cash” did not exist before Business Process Reengineering (BPR) re-calibrated and re-oriented the business process perspective, creating new value
chains for businesses. Once achieved, Optimal Infrastructure will drive similar business value from
infrastructure. If you agree that IT initiatives seem to “escape” as opposed to being systematically
implemented in your environment, then the five tenets that we will explore on the next few pages will
help with IT alignment and ensure a higher return on investment.
The probability of success can be dramatically improved if you apply one of the top three lessonslearned from the BPR revolution, which was…”don’t forget the people”. This pass/fail factor for BPR
success should keep infrastructure maturity initiatives keenly focused on the human element and this
remains as true today for infrastructure initiatives as it did for BPR. Change management, or changing
the way that your company does business, is required to achieve the desired outcome. Driving change
requires intense focus on people, and must include education and training to equip individuals to work
through a task or set of processes in a different way than they have before. Optimal Infrastructure
provides this much-needed ‘people’ focus to a process-centric infrastructure management approach.
A more detailed example of how to achieve this approach is to consider how BPR changed
organizational structures by improving client satisfaction and increasing business performance. The so
called “yellow sticky” component of process re-engineering was introduced in the 1980s by Michael
Hammer. That principle may be used today to derive similar results when applied to infrastructure
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processes and management. The concept involves following current and new process flows from start to
finish. For example, use one process across all departments, service providers, and data elements by
producing a re-engineered infrastructure management process. This approach eliminates handoffs and
lost data across teams, departments, supply chains, and IT platforms while improving the flow of
valuable and timely information. The net result is improved client satisfaction, higher delivery quality,
and reduced costs, a value proposition that is valid in any economic cycle.
Another example is the ability to organize infrastructure management from a whole into logical,
process-centric components, not just cost centers or organizational entities based on business unit or
geography. The cost of managing several internal departments or a combination of internal and thirdparty service providers across an integrated process has the potential to increase costs and decrease
client satisfaction, as well as reduce quality, reliability, and flow of information. In this case, the low
hanging fruit, in terms of returning value to an organization, is to simplify the process by consolidating
vendors. Industry norms suggest anywhere between six and fifteen percent of a service contract is spent
managing the partnership and relationship, therefore, simple consolidation can produce short-term
results.
So, how do you know where you are starting from and how will you know when you are successful and
complete? The infrastructure management maturity starting position must be based on the structured
output of an evaluation or maturity assessment. A good way to start is to determine the structured data
that will be measured and benchmarked at the outset to enable progress to be shown on an iterative
and factual basis. Furthermore, metrics allow a baseline to be recorded and a plan of attack to evolve
over time. Success may be achieved by maturing the infrastructure in general, or the specific business
drivers of any infrastructure component, e.g., security, remote management, virtualization, etc. We
regularly see volumes of unstructured data and then we are asked to draw conclusions, commit to value
creation and return on investment. Only when structured data and information has been gathered and
evaluated beforehand, can we actually ascertain what the commitments should be. This information,
coupled with an assessment of the organization’s risk tolerance and ability to embrace change, will set
the tone for the speed and rate at which change can be implemented for the plan to have the highest
probability of success.
The initial assessment will illuminate the relative maturity of the current state and assist in deriving
practical expectations for a future state. Each stage of maturity delivers different advantages and
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embodies distinct characteristics. For example, early in the maturity scale, cost and integrity may
increase as standardization, normalizing and process simplification take hold. Rationalizing
infrastructure requires limited, if any, technology investment but can also drive additional value. Further
down the maturity path, agility and variability become more prevalent characteristics.
The infrastructure management industry, as a whole, suffers from a lack of standards in almost every
area; deficiencies exist in standardized nomenclature, processes, tools and technologies. This fact
inhibits process definition, improvement, and benchmarking. As industry standard initiatives like
Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and Information Technology Service Management
(ITSM) enable more consistent communication and service delivery platforms, the cost of service
delivery will continue to decrease as quality increases. These initiatives also provide the ability to
measure, trend, and benchmark capabilities against others. Therefore, the creation of a business case
for change becomes easier to implement while delivering more predictable results.
Furthermore, the overall context of why an initiative exists, can assist in retaining focus and prioritizing
the various and frequently competing infrastructure initiatives. As an illustration, we have seen
organizations implement a service catalog or a configuration management database simply because it is
the latest and greatest technology in infrastructure management, without also applying an ITIL
framework or ITSM methodology. Without this context, the effort will likely result in yet another IT
project that costs too much and fails to meet client expectations.
Standardization further enables alternative delivery methods, such
as remote monitoring and management solutions and technology
delivered via the cloud which offer more viable and reliable
methods for accelerating the return on IT investment. The ability
to “plug and play” various service providers, tools, processes, etc.
is significantly easier when a greater degree of commonality exists.
This, in turn, allows the client to hold the keys to success and not
be held captive by an ever-expanding mega outsourcing contract
The greater the level of
consistency, the more likely it is
that service providers and
clients will adopt these value
creation alternatives, new
delivery methods, contract
vehicles, service levels, and
pricing strategies.
or service provider. The greater the level of consistency, the more
likely it is that service providers and clients will adopt these value creation alternatives, new delivery
methods, contract vehicles, service levels and pricing strategies.
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A potential quick hit is IT asset management, an apt example of a point solution that can be comfortably
delivered via the cloud today. It is inherently well understood, has a somewhat limited scope with few
dependencies, and is not an overly complex process. While an audit or cross-check should be
continuous, a combined virtual and physical inventory still provides the best level of compliance. The
basic elements of asset management -- accuracy of information and currency of information -- make IT
asset management a great candidate as a service delivered from the cloud. Its combination of low
business risk, straight-forward security and level of accuracy (70 – 80% on average) affords a great
opportunity for improvement and accelerated return on investment.
For the purposes of this paper the final lesson learned from the BPR revolution is the topic of
revolutionary versus evolutionary change. History has shown that many approaches to change can work.
However, the approach is predominately dependent upon a company’s culture, financial position, and
appetite for change. By personalizing Optimal Infrastructure, we will find the right approach with you. As
it applies to infrastructure, revolutionary change could be defined as throwing out the way IT does
business today to adopt a fully-blown, integrated ITIL/ITSM-enabled solution. The marketplace has
infrastructure process models available for acquisition and those models are beginning to be
“configured” into ITSM tools that can implement new processes very quickly. This big bang approach can
certainly work given the right risk tolerance, process capability, change management and maturity
across an IT organization. However, for a fast return, make certain that all risk factors are taken into
account before applying such an aggressive approach. Frequently the evolutionary approach requires a
longer timeline to complete, and therefore, produces a different return on investment. An example of
evolutionary change is to add a configuration management process and/or a database to capture all the
change triggering events that define the infrastructure and the changes within it. Although considered
an evolutionary approach, there are still considerable change and process implications. It is important to
note that this less risky approach does work well for many firms.
The questions companies should consider when evaluating how best to transform their IT infrastructure
include the following:
How formal is the company?
Does my infrastructure management process reflect my personality or philosophy?
How standard is the culture and IT environment?
How complex should IT be?
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Will the infrastructure work with the 80/20 rule?
Is there a willingness to invest the significant resources to re-invent the company’s people,
process and technology?
Is there a faster way?
Is it cheaper in the long-run?
Where has it worked before…can/does ITIL and ITSM work out of the box?
Is there a desire to drive unique processes and infrastructure solutions in the environment?
Can the company afford to be unique in this economic climate?
All or some of these ideas may have sparked a thought in your mind as to how your infrastructure may
drive more business value. If so, fantastic! We believe that the next sections of this paper will help to
provide the foundational framework and begin to address roadblocks that you have or will encounter
along the way. When you are ready to achieve the Optimal Infrastructure, this framework can help you
accelerate the process.
Five Tenets of Optimized Infrastructure
We see five fundamental areas that are consistently portrayed in mature, optimized infrastructure
environments. We would like to discuss them in more detail from the viewpoint of providing you with a
perspective by which you can create further value in your organization.
Relationships
The expression, “people buy from people,” has stood the test of time. The reason is that people develop
and build trust in individuals, and that trust gives them confidence in their purchases. Additionally,
people ascertain and define the quality of a relationship over time. For instance, for a company that
strives to be easy to do business with, listening is a key quality that can help create solutions that work
and facilitates trust that can be built upon into the future.
Characteristics of productive, worthwhile relationships are the same in our personal lives as they are in
an Optimal Infrastructure management world. They include the ability to be open, honest, and
transparent. They also include an environment where balance or a mutual benefit exists, an ability to
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speak one’s mind when changing or resolving conflict, respecting opinions and personal input and
observations. No professional enjoys working in a one sided or unprofitable engagement or relationship.
Any healthy relationship requires investment and hard work. Tenured, meaningful business relationships
that derive business value for all parties involved possess these same characteristics. This is what we
strive for in Optimal Infrastructure. The goal is to avoid becoming complacent or resort to “vendor” and
“customer” relationships. People who work in the service industry will tell you that they work most
effectively and efficiently in a nurturing and supportive environment. These traits exemplify a
relationship between internal and external teams that thrive and produce. Also worth noting is that in
our view few, if any, organizations have been able to optimize the performance and return of their
infrastructure when such a relationship does not exist.
So what kind of traits should you look for when selecting partners to assist in optimizing your
infrastructure? A high quality relationship is enabled when an organization deploys a closed loop
process with a compensation program that includes a formal client feedback process. This process
should gather a client’s perceptions of a company’s performance as well as quantitative data [e.g.,
contracts, quality metrics, availability, Service Level Agreements/Objectives (SLA/SLOs) etc.]. This
process includes a leader that is willing and able to listen and act on feedback. Our view is
acknowledging, understanding, being aware of and discussing that a problem exists will lead to a prompt
resolution, while hiding or denying the existence of an issue will only result in the issue growing in size
and scale.
It is also important for clients to have direct access to a company’s leadership, including the CEO, so that
they can discuss any issue they perceive to impact the quality of service. A company that truly cares
about client satisfaction creates a detailed description of any issues, identifies a client owner and
company owner, and communicates the dates and plans for resolution with the client. Therefore, over
time, service quality is the only thing that differentiates a partner and makes it stand above the crowd.
This requires a daily focus on delivery with a constant formal measurement of the results. These results
must drive continuous improvement of the delivery in order to earn and retain a client’s trust. Most
importantly, this trust must be earned before the company has the right to ask for more of the client’s
business.
Governance councils are as important to relationship building as client satisfaction programs. A service
provider may employ various forms of governance councils such as International Organization for
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Standardization (ISO) 38500, which defines the ultimate in governance and compliance management. A
company must decide if it has the resources to comply with such an all encompassing, stringent
environment, as well as consider whether a simpler approach may be taken. A personalized solution
that leverages the best of governance and relationship methods can work if the time is taken to define
the outcomes and a method for resolution of conflict. The process should fit the culture of both the
client and the service provider organizations. In our view, the degree to which your philosophies, values
and cultures align directly correlates to the probability of success.
While on the Optimal Infrastructure journey, a formal governance process should be leveraged as part
of an organization’s service delivery methodology. Also, an organizational structure that is balanced by
client participation enables communication on various levels. This ranges from executive steering
committees where business goals and objectives are established, reviewed, and monitored, to the IT
professional who is following the steps to delight an end-user who has an immediate problem. Finding
the right mix that helps you to achieve Optimal Infrastructure is the key.
Process
In our Optimal Infrastructure approach, process-centricity is possibly the most important component. So
what exactly does that mean and what does it feel like? Processes align business and infrastructure
outcomes. Every infrastructure process should exist to facilitate a business process. Processes define
how an outcome is realized, the technology to enable them is the
Is the infrastructure
management process driving
business value?
secondary concern. Processes are only processes if they are used
and work. In our definition a process is defined when process
flows, Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed (RACIs),
and use metrics are in place. Or said differently, is the
infrastructure management process driving business value? These processes have certain
characteristics. For example, they are contextual and they exist to enable a business goal or objective.
They are regularly reviewed and improved and they are designed with simplicity in mind. They are also
built to last and expand or contract as needed. They reflect the company’s cultural aspects (e.g., formal,
unique, custom or standard) so you know when the 80/20 rule is applicable and when you should drive
custom solutions. We believe that when Optimal Infrastructure processes are integrated, they are part
of a bigger picture, blend in, and drive value accordingly.
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We think that the only systemic way to sustain long-term change is to redefine the way something is
done. Once a process is re-engineered, then you can implement a technology that enables change. One
of the best ways to make change permanent and accelerate the return on the investment can be
observed in an example of the service desk environment. It could be multiple divisions or geographies
using physically different desks or the same physical desk and discreet processes. We have seen clients
reduce costs and increase productivity by tens of percentage points by redesigning a common process
for the majority of incidents and refining a simpler process for the exceptions. Furthermore, when an
organization evaluates the structured data and analyzes the incident management process to recalibrate
and re-orientate the incidents and problems resolved, it informs the support hierarchy—first through a
self-assist portal, then a high caliber service desk, and finally through on-premise resolution. The cost
difference to resolve an incident by yourself as opposed to sending an IT professional to your office is
considerable. One word of caution here is to remember the change management process and adoption
rates of change will make or break such initiatives.
The service desk in the Optimal Infrastructure is no longer the 95% voice, 2% fax, and 3% internet
content play. Increasing presence – or paths to communicate to and from the service desk – describes
the Optimal Infrastructure service desk. Given the re-engineered process, technologies such as
autonomics video conferencing, voice mail, text to speech and speech to text, text messages, email,
device sharing/control, instant messaging, on-line chat, etc., enable an easier to use service desk. These
ever-present technologies broaden availability and reach by appealing to an ever-increasing audience,
which crosses gender, generational and geographical boundaries, thereby creating the possibility of
driving more value from an organization’s infrastructure. By making a desk ubiquitous and easier to use
with a focused change management campaign, you can realize fundamental sustainable improvement.
Simply put, if a process and the accompanying enabling technology are easy to use then more people
will use it.
In our view, the right process is the silver lining in today’s cloud computing environment. There is no
single technology that will solve any problem by itself. We recognize the importance of technology
enablement and the value of not forgetting the people. Considering each of the people, process, and
technology elements individually and holistically is recommended. We have discussed the challenges of
poor process definition and technology first strategies. We should not forget to evaluate the people cost
component. Clearly, the off-shoring labor arbitrage model adds value as long as high cost labor is the
only issue. However, as many companies are learning, there is a lot more involved in driving sustainable
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value from a good process rather than just the labor component. Throwing people at a problem is only,
at best, a short-term solution.
Successful change drives systemic improvement and permanently
Successful change drives
systemic improvement and
permanently reduces costs,
such as driving the fixed costs
of a typical IT budget from 70%
toward 50% or even lower.
reduces costs, such as driving the fixed costs of a typical IT budget
from 70% toward 50% or even lower. A service provider who can
implement a variety of IT asset-based and on-demand service
solutions greatly enhances the speed and value of the business
case while decreasing the fixed cost base of infrastructure
management. The Optimal Infrastructure allows the flexibility of
moving with the economic climate in either direction, whenever
necessary.
Quality
Quality is a way of life and an organization’s passion for quality should fuel its desire to exceed clients’
expectations and employ a dedicated, satisfied and dependable workforce. Our Optimal Infrastructure
has more to do with an organization’s culture than processes or tools alone. However, a measurement
system is needed to formally establish a starting point and milestones of achievement. We see a
passion and commitment for quality as the basis for service delivery and client satisfaction and as the
only long-term marketplace differentiator. There are numerous flavors of quality metrics. For example,
having a service provider’s IT team members all professionally certified in their field, from CompTIA A+
to CCIE, through ITIL and Six Sigma.
So how can a company measure the quality of its infrastructure management processes? One good
example we have seen is that of separate teams of professionals trained in Six Sigma, ITIL, and other
process-centric methods or practices, who are not encumbered by delivering the service every day, can
provide an objective, almost third-party point of view during the delivery of service.
When measured formally and tied to compensation to drive behavior, quality can become an essential
component of a company’s culture. Staying ruthlessly oriented towards raising the proverbial quality bar
can drive out complacency and mediocrity or “good enough” mentality and thereby provide an excellent
platform for innovation. A word of caution, as seen recently in the automotive and energy sectors;
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taking the focus away from quality, even for a moment, can result in an instant loss of reputation in the
market. In addition to a tarnished image, there are potentially significant financial consequences to
consider. Every service provider lives or dies by its reputation. In our Optimal Infrastructure view, each
should aspire to improve quality and satisfaction one client at a time.
However, quality should not be assessed without regard to cost. It is clearly understood in the quality
community, for example, that providing high quality to 80% of your populace is much less expensive
than providing it to 100%. The cost of the last 20% will grow exponentially. Therefore, to determine an
IT organization’s or service provider’s quality maturity level, consider the following questions:
How high is the quality of service provided today?
How formal is the measurement process?
At what cost?
How is this determined?
How is it compared – and against what?
What metrics are used?
Are the IT professionals proficient and certified in process methodologies for creating and
implementing new strategies?
Is the overall process ISO 2000 certified?
What about green initiatives – how do they impact cost and quality?
Are the infrastructure and IT teams’ performance assessed through a formal audit or a peer
review on an annual basis?
What expectations are set for improvement year over year?
Does the industry or a peer group recognize the company as a high quality player?
Does the company’s compensation system drive and incent the desired behavior?
Is infrastructure management a core competency of the organization? If not, does it merit the
investment, resources, and time allocation to make it best in class?
Does the infrastructure quality metric reflect the company’s quality philosophy and standard?
A world-class, quality-focused organization has learned from experience and invested in the people,
processes, and various technologies to meet client expectations. That, coupled with formal metrics,
demonstrates where the organization started, how it is progressing and what objectives have been met.
When added to regular, formal business reviews, quality is continuously improved through
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communicating change, where appropriate – frequent minor course correction, and enhancing
performance throughout the engagement.
A plethora of methods can be used to define, measure, and refine a quality process. The general
principles of Six Sigma – statistics, defect, and variability minimization – channeled through green and
black belts to assist with process management and implementations, as well as ongoing process
improvement, have been proven to work well. This, coupled with industry standardization through ISO,
ITIL and ITSM like approaches, enables service providers to achieve very high marks in the area of
service delivery excellence and client satisfaction, while also maintaining a keen eye on cost efficacy.
Technology
Many incredible technologies can dramatically accelerate the return on IT investment. Software
companies born in the Software as a Service (SaaS) generation that deliver ERP-type functionality are
now designed in the web 2.0 world. This can enable fully integrated Optimal Infrastructure processes in
one tool that is architected to be delivered via the cloud as well as easily and cost effectively
implemented and maintained. These tools represent one of the single largest opportunities to create
business value from infrastructure and represent a significant component of the Optimal Infrastructure.
But just as Oracle and SAP grew and learned from their respective approaches to the BPR market, so
must these tools learn and grow from current and future market expectations. Though the “best of
breed” versus “integrated” argument will play itself out in the infrastructure marketplace, the Optimal
Infrastructure derives its advantage from the integrated process approach.
Such tools are but one example of a “hub” that can account for approximately 80% of the Optimal
Infrastructure. However, what is needed to obtain the other 20%?
The answer lies in the various world-class “spoke” technologies
Such tools are but one example
of a “hub” that can account for
approximately 80% of the
Optimal Infrastructure.
that are designed to solve one specific infrastructure management
problem. The combination of the hub and spoke architecture
provides a dependable technology platform that is more adaptable
than the older or less integrated suites of software. This type of
solution can solve greater than 90% of infrastructure management
environment challenges while minimizing the cost of acquisition, implementation and most importantly,
maintenance. Once a process-centric model has been developed and validated, and coupled with
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proven alternative delivery models, (e.g., cloud, virtual or on-demand/”as-a-service”), viable
infrastructure options can create and sustain significant business value.
In our view, a company should consider how unique its infrastructure applications should be or need to
be. A significant lesson learned from the BPR days was to look closely when balancing quality and cost
when considering just how far “industry standard” or “out of the box” business processes could work in
your environment. We feel that the same litmus test should be employed for infrastructure
management. More standards lead to simpler, more cost-effective infrastructure solutions, the 80/20
rule can be effectively used to assist in this analysis.
There is an inherent inflexibility of an older tool that is implemented “the way it always has been” (i.e.,
heavily modified to meet client-specific processes). Quite often the industry norm would probably
suffice. The cost of migrating from an older platform by removing some enhancements and remodeling
the data is usually more work than a completely new implementation of an integrated suite with
mature, built-in ITIL/ITSM best practice processes. The result is a much broader scope of service that can
be delivered more quickly with the ability to adapt to change already built-in.
First servers, then storage, and now, desktops and switches; these are the elementary examples of the
on-demand infrastructure environment that drives off-premise infrastructure. Virtual IT platforms,
organizations, data, and capacity lead to greater focus on process compliance and data security (e.g.,
compare the value of a lost back-up tape 10 years ago versus today). Once an infrastructure can
effectively and securely work in the virtualized world, then the cloud – whether it is private, public, or
hybrid – is only one step away. An Optimal Infrastructure architected to allow logical extensions of
capacity, scale, and variability helps to achieve the business requirements to drive down costs and lower
capital expenditure. The adoption of these proven and valuable technology alternatives reinforces the
need for a process-centric approach to infrastructure management.
Metrics
What is your definition of success? Do you have formal benchmarking for measuring and trending in
place? Our suggestion is to make sure you have at least one measurement process. We have seen
engagements fail because no one documented the starting point and what success looked like. Some
engagements lose sight of where this journey began and where the end-point is–or how success was
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even defined. These journeys can take years and maintaining results, focus, passion and enthusiasm
over a long period of time can be facilitated by frequently re-prioritizing against the business objective
to make sure everything is still on track. If the objective is to achieve another point in the infrastructure
maturity scale, our recommendation is to establish a formal process and set of metrics so that
incremental progress and direction can be demonstrated month over month and quarter over quarter.
Validation checkpoints along the way – as a part of any strong process – will demonstrate and document
progress.
Starting with a baseline is integral to setting goals and measuring whether or not you have achieved
them. Industry-standard maturity models, processes and tools help to define the starting point.
Companies can also measure and review against an industry or peer baseline. However, if a peer
baseline cannot be found or is inappropriate, then benchmark yourself against your previous year, a
personal best, if you will. In this way, the company will know that they are making progress. Applying
the principles of the Optimal Infrastructure will get any company there even faster.
One thing any company can count on is, as soon as activity, scope, users, releases, etc., have been
measured and recorded, the very next day something will have changed. We have developed an
approach to documenting the key value and cost drivers at the first meeting. This approach enables us
to track and trend changes in the most significant drivers at the outset. That way we can move forward
together with our clients, and position them ahead of industry or peer groups, or in some cases, to just
improve their personal best. We understand all of the moving parts that make communication about
infrastructure complex and sometimes frustrating. Our beliefs are developed through firsthand
experience in having managed infrastructure environments over many years. Pomeroy aspires to be a
company that is easy to do business with and that you can trust every day. That is why we use Six Sigmalike rigor to analyze data and provide information about your infrastructure in a transparent way so that,
together, we can improve the performance and accelerate the return on your investment. Processes
driven by formal analytics based on structured data will all greatly mitigate risk and increase probability
and speed to accomplish your version of the Optimized Infrastructure.
Achieving Optimal Infrastructure – A Pomeroy Perspective
Copyright 2011 by Pomeroy. All rights reserved.
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Summary
Just as a leading automotive manufacturer who is known for high quality vehicles uses the slogan
“relentless pursuit of perfection,” so Pomeroy believes in our desire to relentlessly pursue our clients’
Optimized Infrastructure. The automotive company started with one car as a baseline, then every year it
produced a new model year with improved brakes, economy, luxury, technology, entertainment, safety
features, etc.
Pomeroy’s Optimized Infrastructure begins with an assessment of IT maturity and follows a proven path
for continuous improvement by educating users and leveraging new processes and technologies.
Consistent, regular metrics enable us to design and roll-out each infrastructure “model year” or
improvement plan in the relentless pursuit of the Optimal Infrastructure.
The Optimal Infrastructure approach represents the best of what the Pomeroy team has seen in the
marketplace when the goal is to create value from IT infrastructure and accelerate the return on an IT
investment.
By developing trusted, tenured relationships with all of the leading hardware and software
manufacturers, Pomeroy has provided Optimal Infrastructure-focused solutions to our clients for nearly
thirty years. Our straight-forward and open approach identifies where we can add business value to
infrastructure management initiatives, and our clearly defined milestones and metrics will ensure that
success is achieved.
If this philosophy sounds like the type of relationship and model that appeals to you, then please
contact us at [email protected]. We’d love to work with you to accelerate the
return on your IT infrastructure investment.
Would you like to receive more information about this white paper? Click here.
Achieving Optimal Infrastructure – A Pomeroy Perspective
Copyright 2011 by Pomeroy. All rights reserved.
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About the Author
John McKenna
Senior Vice President of Corporate Development
John joined the Pomeroy team in January 2010 as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development. John
is responsible for growing the services business, corporate strategy for M & A, and marketing.
Prior to joining Pomeroy, McKenna served as Chief Strategy and Services Officer for CompuCom with a
focus on outsourcing, sales and consulting, and M & A activities.
As a founder of International Consulting Solutions, John created a global IT consulting organization from
the ground up and subsequently sold it to Deloitte and Touche. He became a partner for Deloitte
Consulting where he facilitated the growth of ERP practice.
McKenna has more than twenty-five years experience in the IT Services Industry. He is a graduate of
Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland with a Bachelor of Science.
Achieving Optimal Infrastructure – A Pomeroy Perspective
Copyright 2011 by Pomeroy. All rights reserved.
18 | P a g e