Challenging the IT Doesn't Matter sentiment

I met Calum and Tommy from Sumerian Networks just before Christmas for a coffee and chat at Tiger Lily in Edinburgh. These guys have what I think it a really innovative solution that challenges the IT Doesn't Matter sentiment.

In very basic terms, they channel info from their customers network and application infrastructure, and perform model based analysis to determine the ROI of IT investments. Sounds like a jargon filled world eh? I agree but when you read the details you see that these guys have some great intellectual property here and they have packaged it up very nicely. The service is offered through a subscription/service provider model and companies like HBOS are delighted with it. Interesting to note as HBOS are not the kind of guys who just say nice things about IT solutions for the sake of it.

Though it's been used mainly in large, blue chip, organizations to date it is equally applicable to smaller organizations not least as it's a hosted service that you can turn on and off as needed. A true SaaS implementation.

They also do some clever "IT Footprint" analysis that allows a company to see the IT usage of each individual by say role, grade, location or more. There are some very smart things you can do with all of this data and some clear potential to connect it to products like Performance Point Server (which the guys are doing) for smart dashboarding of IT impact. You can start to do analysis of network outages/bottlenecks, mobile phone tariff analysis etc.

Their IT Analytics white paper is well worth a read and though it doesn't prove IT Does Matter, their solution certainly helps organizations understand the value and return of their investments in IT.

 

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