Case Study

Ad hoc management of the application lifecycle leads to inefficient management of the application, reducing its overall value.

Solution Set

Applications pass through four lifecycle stages: Birth, Growth, Maturity, and Death. To effectively manage each application, the IT leader and Applications Manager (AM) must know to which state it belongs.

When IT cost reductions are required, many organizations avoid cutting staff. Read this Info-Tech case study to learn about the effort it takes to not touch headcount when cutting IT costs in the supply chain management industry.

Leaders in unionized IT shops have limited options when it comes to making mandated staff reductions. Read this Info-Tech case study to understand the challenges and opportunities in this type of environment.

In staff downsizing, as with most things in life, being prepared is a key to success. Read this case study for a description of how one IT leader created an agile workforce in preparation for a layoff scenario.

Deciding who stays and who goes during downsizing is painful, but at least you get to decide who to keep. Or do you? Read this Info-Tech case study to find out how to prevent key staff from defecting after layoffs.

Many IT leaders experienced in staff downsizing say it's best to make cuts both early and deep to avoid prolonging employees' agony. This Info-Tech case study shows how one IT Director started to make mandated staffing cuts his first day on the job.

Both financial and non-financial analyses must be completed to ensure the business has a holistic understanding of the potential benefits before launching an IP Telephony (IPT) upgrade. Review this case study and leverage the experiences of one...

Just because project benefits are not quantifiable does not mean that the project is not worth pursuing. Create a business case that concentrates on resolving a pressing business need and attach real costs and consequences to not moving forward.

A reactive organizational culture can often be an impediment to service management improvement. Lessons learned by an IT manager at a large health care organization can be applied to organizations with similar challenges. This example...

While having satisfied end users may mean that incident management practices are responsive, it does not mean that the organization's service management discipline is successful. An over-emphasis on one process, such as incident management, can...

When embarking on a service management improvement roadmap, first take stock of the current state. Learn how one organization took a process based approach to improvement, focusing on continuing to improve rather than dealing with isolated issues.

Service management improvement can take years to implement successfully as it requires a fundamental change to the way IT operates. To ensure the process is built into the overall business strategy, build transparency into IT's plans and costs...

Organizations of any size can succeed at application maintenance outsourcing (AMO) by instituting strong governance. Follow the strategies of a CIO, in a small organization in the insurance industry, who used AMO to offload non-core tasks and...

IT professionals are constantly under pressure to reduce costs. However, sometimes a vendor just won't budge when asked to reduce the price during a contract negotiation. Learn from a case study showing how an IT consultant helped Company X...

Contract renegotiations can often sneak up on IT managers, leaving them without much time to prepare. This note discusses the lessons learned by an IT manager at a mid-sized organization in the natural gas industry who wanted to achieve price...

Case Study

When a vendor is offering the lowest available price for its products or services, IT managers often assume they have no leverage to achieve price reductions during contract negotiations. Don't leave money on the table. Learn how a consultant...

With the Internet becoming increasingly relevant in political and non-profit fund-raising, IT leaders must learn how to leverage Web 2.0 tools for maximum effectiveness. The case-study of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign provides...

IT often has a preferred vendor when going into a contract negotiation. If the vendor is aware that its products or services are preferred, this can prevent it from reducing its price. Learn from the case studies in this research note to...

A recent Info-Tech survey found that it is possible to reduce IT costs by outsourcing application development, provided that the outsourcing relationship is carefully managed. Application outsourcing can also be used as a strategy to minimize...

Large companies enjoy a distinct advantage when it comes to telecom vendor negotiations; however, there are a number of important tactics that small enterprises can use to get the best results. Negotiating vendor pricing based upon a positive...

Case Study

Despite the prevalence of security threats from the use of public instant messaging (IM) software such as Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, and Yahoo! Messenger, many small enterprises have yet to put their feet down and ban the use of these...

Recently a client conducted usability testing on a new Web application. The tight deadline, limited resources, and high expectations for a new Web application proved to be a good situation to evaluate the benefits of semi-formal usability...