1 Aug 2008

Is your current computer systems past its "best by" or "use by" date?

By Mark White – Chief Information Officer

As C.I.O of Bowens I am continually amazed at what I hear and see around the traps, industry or user group meetings, talking I.T. with anyone that I may pass in my travels or in general catch up with mates regarding management and maintenance of I.T equipment.

Should we accept the fact that a business server may be older than 4 years, still alive (sometimes wounded) and therefore no need to maintain, review, upgrade or change?

Funny how its expected that you replace a company vehicles within 3 or 4 year whilst you drive your computer server, systems or even worse your complete I.T infrastructure into the ground without thinking about current or future requirements.

Regular servicing and repairs of motor vehicles are a given whereas I.T equipment maintenance or replacement of faulty items are often an owner or board members decision.

A delay in decision making has a direct impact on the service level of the systems and staff.

It is often that staff in turn blames I.T systems or the I.T department for poor processing time, personal motivation and behaviour, and rightly so.

Are management really aware of the impact to the end user when a $25 keyboard with sticky keys or letters worn off the buttons is reducing staff efficiency and performance?

A computer monitor or screen that is not in focus sometimes results in the staff member going to the optometrist for a check-up and getting replacement glasses before advising management of a fuzzy screen.

Have you ever seen the eyes, face, light up and renewed motivation of the staff member when given something new or replacing a faulty item, I have and in turn the reaction motivates my whole department.

So a question for you all is, does your business allow its I.T department to have a budget to maintain and replace worn out equipment and infrastructure? If so what percentage to sales would it equate to?

It is often said that if you are not spending one percent (of sales) you're not maintaining systems let alone improving your systems.

I can advise that at Bowens we do have a budget and based on the overall size of our business, we are able to reduce maintenance costs to 0.5% of sales which is very manageable. Another 0.5% is usually made available based on review and improvement recommendations submitted to management.

Another area that should be considered is the business plan.

Do you have a business plan for the next 5 years, what about the next 10 years? Does the business have an I.T plan aligned to the business plan? Very few do.

Currently the strategy team at Bowens is in the process of finalizing both the business plan and I.T plan for the next 5 years with a vision of the following 5 years.

Included in the business plans are effective use of I.T equipment, services and applications to replace manual processes and thus to lower cost per transaction per function performed.

One should always aim to improve on current status and not go backwards by overlooking I.T resource, services or equipment.