Improve the integration of people, process and technology

You can't make the world move slower. Or change where markets are headed. Or hold back new technologies while focusing on day-to-day IT operational issues. But there is something you can do, right now. To react faster. To be more efficient. To provide innovation for your business and your customers. A new vision. A better approach.

The new enterprise data center—starts now.

The fact is, not all of today's IT infrastructures were built to support the explosive growth in compute capacity and information. Many data centers have become highly distributed and somewhat fragmented. As a result—they are limited in their ability to change quickly and support the integration of new types of technologies or to easily scale to power the business as needed.

So how do you find the time and resources to drive the innovation required to keep your company competitive in a rapidly changing marketplace? How can you react to business needs faster?

Since today's distributed approach to the enterprise data center is challenged to keep up in a fast-paced business environment, a new centralized IT approach is needed. We must rethink IT service delivery to help move beyond today's operational challenges to a new data center model that is more efficient, service oriented and responsive to business needs. With new economics. Rapid service delivery. And one that can provide tighter alignment with business goals.

IBM has developed and refined its approach to IT optimization through numerous client engagements and our own internal experience.

Abstract: Over the last ten years enterprises worldwide have transformed the way they do business by investing trillions of dollars in IT. They’ve expanded their marketplace reach while working more closely with customers and suppliers. The most innovative of these companies have created a substantial competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Paradoxically, while IT investment has been repaid many times over in accelerated times to market, improved customer relationships and faster supply chains, it has precipitated an exponential growth in IT assets that threatens future gains. The proliferation of assets has increased the complexity of the IT environment, raising operational and administrative costs and reducing infrastructure productivity.

These three trends are seriously constraining the ability of CIOs to deliver new applications, support business expansion and align IT with overall business strategy. There is increasing concern that IT investment is approaching the point of diminishing marginal returns.

This concern is justified. Rising operational expenses threaten to completely overtake IT budgets. In just eight short years, operational labor expense has risen from less than 40 percent of IT labor budgets to nearly 70 percent.1 With application development labor being squeezed out, CIOs are under increasing pressure to justify their budgets.

The question confronted by those companies that have leveraged IT to secure a competitive advantage is how to make their competitive advantage sustainable. This white paper highlights the costs of IT asset proliferation and the advantages of the IBM view of IT optimization as a strategic, ongoing process. It describes the holistic and practical IBM approach and shows how it is helping organizations realize greater initial savings and higher returns going forward.