alfabet Intros Control IT and $ave Service Packages for IT finance

16 June 2009

Control IT and $ave service packages for IT finance which help enterprises identify essential cost savings within two months has been introduced by alfabet.

Required to cut costs immediately, yet responsible for business returns, many in IT finance management are not comfortable with the calls they're being asked to make. The Control IT and $ave services give IT finance managers cost transparency as well as objective data at hand to make rational decisions regarding the prioritization of funding requests for existing and planned projects.

Control IT and $ave is comprised of two service packages: OPEX Reduction - which identifies and cuts excessive operating costs immediately -- and CAPEX Prioritization - which prioritizes projects and identifies non-essential projects immediately. These two new services work by assessing business domains according to strategic importance, mapping current and planned IT projects and their underlying IT requirements to business domains and then creating a defendable prioritized list of projects. This entire process is accomplished within just two months, providing enterprises with the cost transparency they need in a timely manner to champion business goals.

alfabet is so confident in the success rate of its new service packages that it promises results within two months for a fixed price. What makes the packages so compelling is that unlike other service providers in this field, which tend to focus on cost reductions in isolated areas such as license management or application consolidation, alfabet can generate significantly greater savings for clients It accomplishes this by using its own software planningIT to generate a holistic view of a client's cost drivers throughout the IT landscape and providing drill-down analysis to the hot spots that would otherwise remain hidden. This highly efficient and effective method pioneered by alfabet is based on over 10 years of experience helping organizations unlock greater business value from their IT.

OPEX Reduction By using Control IT and $ave's OPEX Reduction, companies can relate IT systems to business processes and capabilities and identify: Total costs associated with an application.

Service levels that are higher than what's required by a business process or capability so they may be reduced or eliminated.

The true cost drivers of business processes and capabilities.

Discrepancies between business service requirements and SLA costs that IT incur.

IT costs reflect an organization's information infrastructure. The specifics can vary according to the size, purpose and flexibility of the company. It is generally very difficult for a company to capture a true picture of cause and effect. ERP systems, as good as they are in improving transparency and cost control, do not translate IT costs well. Many organizations track total IT spending as general overhead, but they are typically unable to segment costs by business domain or IT service. By using OPEX Reduction, companies can map costs to IT elements and then aggregate them into various combinations that are relevant to the business. Through this process, IT organizations can better sustain business operations and understand how to improve cost/performance ratios.

CAPEX (Project) Prioritization By using Control IT & Save's CAPEX Project Prioritization, IT finance managers can rest assured they are making the best possible decisions for the organization. Using this systematic means to prioritize projects against different criteria, finance managers have the backing they need to balance objective information and internal political pressure. This service package relates current and planned IT projects to business strategy and IT systems to identify: Where IT investments are justified.

Which IT projects deserve priority.

Which IT projects can be discarded.

As IT plays an increasingly stronger role in business process execution, it is necessary for companies to be able to accurately measure IT's participation in the process. Capturing IT costs merely as general overhead keeps the enterprise from truly understanding IT's contribution to the business. This hinders the ability to identify savings potential that could free up financial resources for innovation. By mapping projects to business capabilities via applications in its software planningIT, alfabet bypasses the otherwise lengthy and arduous process of generating differentiated methods for viewing, measuring and planning. Through this process, IT can achieve a clear understanding of costs for more meaningful benchmarking, more precise project proposals, reliable budgeting and well-founded investment decisions.

"alfabet has been helping organizations achieve the IT transparency needed to make those tough decisions on prioritizing and rationalizing IT spending -- without compromising IT support or alignment with strategy," said Erik Masing, CEO and founder of alfabet. "With sufficient insight into business priorities, IT cost drivers, project portfolios and IT landscapes, IT finance can use CAPEX Prioritization and OPEX Reduction to not only reduce costs but also bring sustainable value to the business." The Control IT & Save services are available immediately beginning at US $60,000.