Magnus Walker ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Financial Services Recruitment  

Green IT, for Superheroes?

So, you’re in IT, but really you want to be a superhero.

• You can increase availability, performance and reliability of your IT estate.

• You can replicate the savings (£1.9Bn over 5 years) recently achieved at a major UK employer (over 100,000 employees).

• You can deliver massive “green benefits”, (the above financial real example also reduced an audited saving of 29,897 tonnes of CO2 per annum.)

...now that’s heroic!

Whatever your policy is: as a bank, fund manager or software vendor, your capacity to impact the transformation and sustainability of IT estate has never been more important, or so easily measured. Now here’s the good bit - as a bank, fund manager or software vendor, your capacity to impact the transformation and sustainability of IT estate has never been more ecologically or financially rewarding. Meet with us and our delivery partner who have, uniquely - no other consultancy that we know of can deliver the end to end services that we can - a great team with a model and method for its implementation that is detailed, complete, and proven to deliver real benefits to the organisations that we work with. CCoonnssiiddeerr tthhee ffoo ll lloowwiinngg,, wwhhii cchh ii ss hhaappppeenniinngg aass yyoouu aarree rreeaaddiinngg tthhiiss .. • The UK Government is “to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050”

• The most successful global investment bank (arguably) of modern times has this as policy; “…Reduce indirect greenhouse gas emissions by 7% using a 2005 baseline. Use energy efficient equipment… develop environmentally sound procurement practices and incorporate environmental criteria into our supplier selection”.

• Of the 11 highlighted criteria the longest standing UK socially responsible investment fund positively looks for, to decide where to invest their client’s money, three are;

ü Actively addressing climate change e.g. renewable energy, energy efficiency ü Good environmental management ü Improving quality of life through the responsible use of new technologies

Counting against potential investments is;

ü Poor environmental practices

Magnus Walker ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Financial Services Recruitment  

If you think that as a bank, fund manager or software vendor, this is not having a commercial impact on your business, think again.

Facts:

In a recent major IT transformation of a large UK employer (over 100,000 employees), the IT outsource contracts, retained organisation, technology estates and related processes were realigned to make best use of Industry Standard, leveraged capabilities. Not only did this deliver significant financial benefits (£1.9bn over 5 years) and service improvements (increased availability, performance and reliability), but the technology changes delivered massive “green” benefits. Examples:

1. Data Centre Power Correction: 3504 mWh pa 2. Free Cooling: 862 mWh pa 3. Server consolidations: 5917 mWh pa 4. Desktop transformations: 40, 364 mWh pa 5. Printer rationalisation: 17,083 mWh pa These power reductions have been audited as saving: 29,897 tonnes of CO2 each year. Furthermore, the new contracts are based on Utility pricing models, where the organisation pays for what they consume. This ensures that suppliers strive to continue to build and manage optimal IT estates with significant leveraging and reuse of assets. Strong well-defined management information and a recharge model also enable businesses to make decisions based on fact. This results in the overall volume of the IT estate being managed to the business need (rather than organically growing as new business functions are built). In many areas, the IT estate has, since transformation, reduced in size, bucking the usual IT trend of continual growth. The principles behind this transformation:

1. Most organisations have a very common set of requirements for the creation and subsequent operation of their IT estate. Apart from the business specific functionality of the applications, there is at least 90% commonality of need. 2. Tier 1 outsource IT service providers have made considerable investment in the development of shared IT environments to meet those common needs. 3. Most businesses with outsourced IT have, to date, constrained their suppliers to such an extent that those common environments cannot be used. 4. Constraining a supplier usually significantly increases the cost of delivery and can result in a poor quality of delivery. 5. By releasing these constraints, significant savings can be realised. The cost of a full-scale transformation of an IT estate can normally be recovered within 18 to 24 months.

Magnus Walker ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Financial Services Recruitment  

6. By considering the actual cost of any unique requirements, (ones that cannot be compared to the market) separately, you will allow businesses to decide if they want to pay the premium for that requirement. In most cases, when the real cost is understood, the majority of these requirements fall away.

How do I know if my IT delivery is already optimal?

By using a standard framework of services, you are able to compare the scope, cost and quality of your current capabilities against the market. You will be able to rapidly determine where risks and opportunities exist in your current estate and create plans to realise significant benefits. What type of change is normal in this type of transformation? Transformation will be different for every organisation as it is wholly dependent on your current position. However, the general themes of all transformation activities include: 1. Change to industry best practice contract models. Use of Utility procurement principles and multi-supplier tensions. 2. Move to shared infrastructure. Examples: virtualisation in the server infrastructures, consolidation of your data centres estates, standardisation of your desktop environment and the use of converged IP network technologies. 3. Process improvements. Standardisation to a single set of ITIL based processes and use of maturity assessment models (e.g. CMMi) that ensure strong and rapid delivery of services. 4. Organisational change. Clear boundaries of responsibility with removal of all duplication of effort. Streamlining of organisation structures and capabilities for the retained, in-house, IT team. How do I make the Transformation affordable?

All of the large IT service providers need organisations to make use of the standard environments that they have invested heavily in. Gaining agreement of their existing client base to move to their standard offerings often forms a foundation of their corporate plans and strategies. The more they can use the leveraged capabilities, the lower their cost of operation and the more likely they will be successful in winning new business. If you are mid-term in an existing contract with an outsource provider, you are likely to have some form of price control (e.g. Benchmarking) that enables you to force a move towards the optimal position. You may also have the ability to reduce the amount of business through the contract without penalty. If you currently do not have an outsourced IT estate, or your current contracts are due for renewal, you can use the competition to gain agreement to the transformation. In both of these cases, you are likely to be able to make agreement with your chosen service providers by asking them to move towards delivering “industry standard services at a market competitive price”. Although this might take 18-24 months to complete, (depending on the size and complexity of your estate), the savings made within that period normally more than

Magnus Walker ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Financial Services Recruitment  

outweigh the cost of the transformation. After that period, the savings, in our experience, have been between 30% and 50% of your current IT cost base. Does this increase my risks profile?

All transformation activity has an inherent risk. However, this transitional risk needs to be compared to the risks that you are already running. The transformation could be structured in such a way as to mitigate your most pressing challenges. For example, do you have systems where performance is poor and do not meet the business needs. Does the IT service meet your business continuity requirements? Moving to the standard services can mitigate these areas. Through strong programme management and prioritisation against business need, it is therefore possible to reduce the overall risk profile reasonably quickly. So what do I do next?

CMC Resourcing, in conjunction with our delivery partner have, uniquely - no other consultancy that we know of can deliver the end to end services that we can - a great team with a model and method for its implementation that is detailed, complete, and proven to deliver real benefits to the organisations that we work with. If you perceive that you are not receiving good value for money from your current IT services, we can not only help to provide evidence and real comparisons, but we are also able to determine what needs to be done to ensure that you create sustainable models that tension both your retained functions and outsource providers to deliver optimally. To determine the scale of opportunity that can be derived by moving to the Standard, Utility, Service model, CMC Resourcing and our partners are able to perform a short, sharp, value for money assessment to delivery: • An overall, high level, assessment of your current IT delivery capabilities. • A financial comparison of your IT costs to those expected using industry best practice methods of delivery. • A calculation of gross and net benefit for transforming to a best practice method of delivery. • A breakdown, by Industry Standard Tower of Service, of where costs are higher or lower than you should expect when compared to industry best practice. • Where possible, a comparison of your IT costs, expressed as a percentage of your total

operating costs and as a per employee value, against organisations in a similar market sector. • A comparison of your contracted service levels against market best practice. • A high level plan of how any identified opportunities could be realised and risks mitigated. • A high level assessment of your current contracts for outsourced services.

Magnus Walker ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Financial Services Recruitment  

For further information and a confidential discussion of your needs, please contact our Partner Johnny Walker Direct Line: 020 7489 6400 Email: johnny@magnuswalker.com Web: www.magnuswalker.com