Best Practices to Help Simplify Your Computing Environment

Best Practices

1. Make Your PCs “PC.” Minimize the number of supported PC and server configurations and components like processors, memory and storage. Set standards for users’ computers and servers in terms of the number of different vendor brands and models you purchase.

2. Minimize the number of applications?office suites, tools and e-mail packages?that you support. Results from the Hackett study found that companies that supported fewer business applications had lower costs and lower complexity. For example, financial organizations that supported fewer than 10 business applications per 1,000 users lowered their per-transaction processing costs.

3. In many cases, CIOs inherit multiple computing platforms and applications from mergers. Roth suggests that CIOs involved in mergers determine the value proposition of merging the two different IT organizations. “CIOs need to identify their competitive advantage and then make a long-term plan that addresses what needs to be standardized and when,” Roth says.