S technology Credit: AT
S technology Credit: AT Kearney Analysis Supply. There are three affinities within IT infrastructure services on the supply side. The first centres on processing and storage for hosting services, the second on the end-user and the third on the BEST PRACTICE Keep IoT devices up to date with the latest software and security patches. Change default passwords on IoT devices. Use strong passwords for all devices connected on the IoT network. Check the privacy settings of IoT devices to ensure there are no weak spots. Activate multi-factor authentication on devices. network. 3 While hosting services are self-contained, end-user and network services can be bought in multiple variants. For example, some elements in the end-user service tower can be purchased separately for some users, including desktop offerings (with no custom enterprise applications, including all licence costs), email (such as Google’s enterprise offering) and office productivity products (like Office 365). Unified communications such as Voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) telephony and desktop integration are specialised services that can be bought separately from suppliers with a communications pedigree. 3 Processing may include server management, middleware management as well as security and data centre management. Storage may include various management forms (a storage area network, network-attached storage or direct-attached storage) as well as backup and recovery. End-user may include desktop management and collaboration (email, video conferencing and messaging). Network may include local area network, wide area network or a metropolitan area network management. 16 | Service magazine
technology S Similarly, network services have a strong affinity for data carriage and voice services typically bought from telecommunication providers. Some elements of wide area network services are bought as part of the data carriage, which may include a managed router, network monitoring and cross-site network service management. As mentioned, the typical objective of sourcing IT infrastructure services is effective service delivery at a reduced cost of ownership. Encouraging supplier competition is one of the best ways to meet this goal. In IT infrastructure procurement, there are two ways to achieve this: by buying standardised services (such as cloud) that have competition built in or by buying customised services from multiple suppliers. Buying standardised services in the cloud (data as a service, IaaS, PaaS and to an extent, SaaS) opens numerous options. When demand is strong, suppliers tend to innovate rapidly to compete on pricing or enhanced services, both of which benefit customers. There is low entrenchment, so switching suppliers is easier. Comparability leads to better benchmarking and automatic price adjustment in the market. However, custom requirements will not be met in many cases, which could push costs into more expensive areas of the stack to achieve application remediation. For non-standard services, where much of the legacy platform would be, competitiveness is best encouraged through multiple suppliers in each service tower. Benchmarking can also be used to manage supplier performance, but effectiveness is limited by comparability issues in the custom service offering. Obtaining services from multiple suppliers should be done carefully because it could lead to lingering problems such as poor service delivery due to lack of coordination, higher integration, governance and operational costs. Demand. On the demand side, the prices for IT infrastructure services that a central agency publishes may differ from those available in the market. This could be because department-facing services are acquired as part of a bundle or because of a transformation where the agency owns the financial risk. Departments may also be less interested in supply-side unit costs and more interested in per-user IT costs and matching IT costs to business outcomes. Service magazine | 17
