5 Top Tips To Succeed in Shared Infrastructure Environments

4. Align recharging costs with vendor fees 

Often the costs charged to business units become unaligned with those paid to vendors for support and maintenance.  The IT department’s relationship with vendors needs to be managed tightly.  

Fluctuations in capacity costs and fees to vendors for procurement, support and maintenance need to be accurately reflected in the service catalogue.  If, over time, this is neglected, IT divisions will incur residual costs they are forced to account for due to undercharging.  

5. Ensure visibility between departmental operational budgets 

It’s not uncommon to see budgetary activities isolated between business units and the IT division within an organisation. This results in a significant amount of estimation or projection that can lead to waste or degraded service provisioning. 

By introducing processes that ensure budgets, and the requirements behind them, are shared with the IT division, forecasting can be more accurately controlled.  

Additionally, the IT division can prepare for costs that are now known by focusing on specific areas of the infrastructure as well entering into negotiations with third party vendors to save costs on support and maintenance.

In a world where cost management and cost savings are paramount, the shared service model can offer a route to success.

It need not become a Pandora’s Box if the IT department is diligent and considers all the key ingredients: service standardisation, an intimate understanding of the infrastructure, identifying operational costs and inter-departmental financial visibility.