The industry reflects, looks ahead

By Staff, ZDNet Asia
Friday, March 14, 2008 06:39 PM

Michael Shea, group general manager for IT, International SOS

Michael Shea,
International SOS
In 2008, we managers need to figure out better ways to engage our people, create a personally rewarding work environment and better utilize our team's strengths. This is challenging since our businesses are often global, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and our systems have become more integrated and complex.

Q. Gartner issued a report warning IT heads to prepare a recession budget. What is your view?
Shea: I disagree that there is a need to go through this exercise for a recession. I think that IT heads should structure their organizations to have a flexible cost structure so that their IT organizations can quickly adjust to changes in the business environment.

These changes may be a business downturn caused by a recession, or they could be the winning of a new client or contract that requires your business to ramp up significantly. Both of these scenarios require an organizational structure with the right cost levers in place. International SOS has experienced significant year-over-year growth which has resulted in a ramp up of our IT investment.

I believe in the following:
•  Hire great people and keep them! Without a good team, you can't make it through the growth spurts or the recessions.
•  Reduce core infrastructure costs through server consolidation. We are doing this through better governance, virtualization and network/WAN optimization.
•  Use of outsourced or offshore staffing model coupled with a core of very highly talented IT project managers, architects, and development leads who can own the systems maintenance during a downtown and utilize outsourced resources when there is a high demand for IT services.
•  Strong management and monitoring infrastructure, especially for geographically dispersed organizations. With the right management and monitoring infrastructure in place, you can have fewer people taking care of a larger number of systems.
•  Have strong budget control. It is difficult to use the cost levers without understanding the short- and long-term impact. You must have a good understanding of the costs associated with keeping the lights on, strategic investments and their impact on competitiveness, and investments related to customer quality of service. Without good control on these costs, it will be difficult to present an effective cost cutting strategy to your executive management team. In summary, skip the recession planning and start planning for a more agile IT organization that can better anticipate and react to the fast pace of change within our business.

Name one prediction that the analysts got wrong or right.
Proliferation of universal systems access on mobile devices is something that the analysts have gotten wrong (so far).

At International SOS, our CRM system, extranet sites, and a few other systems are available on a mobile platform. But just because it is available does not mean that it is used on a wide-scale basis. There are two reasons for this.

The first is connectivity to the Internet has become mainstream in most countries, even developing ones, so connecting to our systems with a laptop is easy. The second is that a majority of users use their mobile devices to read e-mail which also works in most countries. So why would I use my mobile device with its 2.5 inch screen to look at customer information or our logistics systems when I can use my laptop in most places? We have people staffed in 72 countries providing time-sensitive support to our clients, so connectivity to systems is critical.

We use a variety of wireless and satellite technologies for access anywhere, but this is critical for our business and not critical for most other companies. For most businesses, the right mix of access, screen size and mobile behavior is just not there yet.

2007 was...
... When many companies' IT groups and systems matured. I know this is a big generalization, however CMM, ISO, ITIL and other process standards were established or strengthened at many companies. Almost every CIO I have spoken to recently, mentioned process standardization and continual improvement strategies as the core of their operations management practices. As our systems have become more complex, I think IT organizations have adjusted by implementing standards that allow predictable systems management rather than reactive management.

The biggest challenge facing IT departments in 2008 will be...
... Keeping and finding great talent. I am currently involved in IT recruitment efforts in Singapore, China, Europe, and the United States, and competition for good people in this global marketplace is a challenge and costs are rising. In 2008, we managers need to figure out better ways to engage our people, create a personally rewarding work environment and better utilize our team's strengths. This is challenging since our businesses are often global, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and our systems have become more integrated and complex.


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