charge assist

In recent years while overall technology unit costs have typically declined, the aggregate costs of IT infrastructure continues to rise.

Many traditional management approaches involve “centralised” management of all IT infrastructure costs by IT to avail of scale benefits. A further advantage is that it can also accelerate system deployment and help to contain ongoing maintenance and support costs. Chargeback/allocation systems accordingly have evolved to disaggregate these consolidated costs back to business units and even cost centres to enable the business unit P&L’s to be used as a primary measure of management’s success.

Unfortunately these chargeback systems instead of helping to manage down costs can easily evolve into simply apportionment mechanisms that incent the wrong behaviours.

We are also aware of organisations that have extended their recharge models to continue “up the stack” to include application support and maintenance. This category typically accounts for a further 20% to 30% of annual IT opex. As application usage does not usually have the same across the board applicability this requires more developed mechanisms and mature organisations.

At the other extreme, we know that effective “user pays” systems in businesses that have the appetite and management commitment to making these systems work, are incredibly powerful and effective.

The best practice examples have not occurred overnight. reveal group believes companies have an opportunity to fundamentally transform the business and technology relationship. charge assist helps to improve efficiency and reduce costs through:

Asset optimisation: Provides a mechanism to better manage both hard and soft assets
Procurement optimisation: Provides Procurement with the information it needs to better manage the supply of assets
Service optimisation: Optimises the service offering both in terms of value and provision
Cost reductions: Visibility of assets allows better usage and changes behaviour in terms of needs
Assessment against benchmarks: Allows comparisons to be made between business units and within the broader market
Internal processes: Introduces rigour to authorisation and planning processes
Software licenses: Can assist in optimising use of existing licence agreements

These benefits cannot be achieved or sustained without an appropriate toolset. charge assist is the only toolset we have found that incorporates the required functionality.

If you are interested in learning more about reveal tools, please CONTACT US.