Executive IT Insights: Navigating Business, Tech, and Security

The cloud is so much more than new-era data storage. It has grown to offer services of all kinds to businesses, healthcare organizations, educational faculties, and more. You may already be familiar with "Software as a Service" or the SaaS meaning. While that is a well-known expansion of cloud as a service, there are many other acronyms you may be unaware of. Each acronym reflects another capable service of the cloud — one or more of which may be of value to you and your organization. Continue reading as we have created a master listing of each service related to today's cloud technology.

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Businesses and organizations constantly need to monitor performance and identify areas of improvement. Maturity models are a tool, often used in IT departments, customer-centric organizations, and software companies, to measure the success of management processes, styles, and IT systems.

In this article, we are focusing on the use of the following maturity models in companies' operations:

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What Does TCO Stand For?

As everyday consumers, we often consider price one of the top indicators to justify a purchase. When we say "price," we mean the sticker price, but rarely do we factor in other costs involved with maintaining a product. The same goes for organizations. They are often home to various software and services with an upfront cost. That upfront cost is likely an attractive number, strategically formulated to obtain a signed service agreement. Licenses and maintenance fees associated with the purchase are usually a small component of the overall total cost of ownership (TCO). Where actual costs can begin to pile up are in the areas of labor to maintain software, infrastructure, and hardware.

Calculating true total ownership cost can be a tedious process, though it is necessary. Before sending your IT team out to solicit new SaaS products, be sure they have a standardized template of data to look for beyond the sticker price.

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Productivity metrics are a great way to measure how well your employees perform at work — but are they reliable every time?

You want to ensure your employees are thriving in their roles, and the best way to make sure that happens is to check on your employees' productivity scores. You might receive different results depending on how your employees work, but measuring productivity is always an excellent idea.

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What's causing the recent influx of service tickets at your organization? Why are customers complaining about long wait times for a reply? Why are your customer service staff resigning regularly? Sometimes, persistent issues can be related to a product or service you offer. If you find yourself asking questions like this or fielding inquiries about faulty products with regularity, it might be time to conduct a root cause analysis. We'll dive deeper into what this process entails below, but it is important to determine problems beyond what they appear to be on the surface. 

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When customer service or success teams are managing hundreds or thousands of customer queries every day, a collaborative inbox can be an advantage.

Instead of an email message going to individual customer service agents and managers, everyone shares the same inbox. Working together collaborating to solve customer problems is a big advantage.

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An organization's business processes demonstrate its existence. Whether a company is a start-up or a worldwide corporation with several operating centers, efficient and painless business processes are essential to success. What methods do you use to understand business processes to help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your operations? 

Enter the Business Process Map (BPM). Process mapping can aid in understanding a process from beginning to end.

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The ITIL Guru sat at his desk, looking over the latest monthly IT performance summary. Since he was the Continuous Improvement Practice advisor, he tried to make sense of it. The phone rang.

"Good morning. How may I help you?"

"Hi, Guru. I am the new CIO, Bill. I met with the executive board today. After investing in an ITSM (IT Service Management) tool and ITIL 4 Foundation training, the board is concerned that our IT performance has not significantly improved. I understand that you came to our company with a lot of ITIL experience. Do you have any insights?"

"I was reviewing the performance summary when you called. You are right, and the reports do not show a significant change. There is only one reason for such an overall result. We have not fully embraced ITIL through roles and responsibilities."

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The ITIL Guru sat at his desk, looking over the latest additions in the Continuous Improvement Register (CIR). As a CIR review board member, he liked what he saw -- more IT staff contributing improvement ideas, making him feel good about the progress. The phone rings.

"ITIL Guru. How may I assist you today?"

"Hi Guru, this is Betty. I want your help. The CIO asked me to come to her office tomorrow. She wants me to take over the role of practice owner for Service Level Management (SLM). Since the previous owner did not communicate very often to IT, I don't know what the practice does or accomplishes. Can you give me your expert opinion about the role of SLM?"

"Betty, I am always happy to help explain ITIL.

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