How to optimise your IT infrastructure

From time to time, we commission a whitepaper to tease out the implications of research conducted with members of the Reg Tech Panel. Here is an example: How to optimise your IT infrastructure.

So what’s it about?

Reading through case studies or IT supplements in IT magazines, one can get the impression that a super-class of IT organizations has implemented the latest and greatest technology with resounding success.

But research by authors Jon Collins and Martin Atherton, of Freeform Dynamics, our analyst partner, highlights a universal truth: that most IT departments are very good at some things and not so good at others.

Despite the complexities, there are always examples of at least some organisations having mastered part of the giant technical jigsaw. Because of this we can, to some degree, accept that it’s ‘not just the IT’, and we can learn what the qualities are that identify those organisations that ‘get’ what needs to be done, versus those who are continually fire fighting.

This paper considers the value that IT brings to the business as a whole. In the current business climate many organisations will be tempted to make IT investment decisions without fully understanding what users need, or what IT can provide.

Collins and Atherton also seek to help organisations think about what might constitute the fundamentals of any approach for driving understanding and insight into their IT infrastructure. They propose a non-partisan, jargon-free ‘see the wood for the trees’ methodology. If you take that step back, you need a plan, and the simpler the better.

You can download the paper here. ®