Before the cold weather was predicted to set in, I had to do some repairs to my truck. It isn’t the newest one out there, but I’ve babied her for 14 years (and 211K miles) and it’s in fine condition for someone that old. I decided that instead of going to the chain auto supply house for the replacement part, I’d go to the local U-Pull-It yard and see if I could get a slightly used part for the truck. Call it doing my part in the recycling chain. And as I wandered the stacks, I could not help but see the car above (yeah, that is one of my photos)…
Every car, when it is new, is loved. It’s washed, waxed, decorated, shown off, and bragged about. It takes you to work, to the mall, to family outings, to concerts, the beach, Saturday night dates. Your car becomes a part of your life – and it may even feel a bit like another family member. Until that first really big repair bill.
What do you do when the bills for upkeep become severe? You might not (should not?) complain about spending $20K for getting a coronary bypass for your father, but is it worth $2500 to replace the engine on a 20 year old minivan? Even if you’ve customized your baby to the max and it currently sports killer pink bow stickers on the rear view mirrors and a large decal on the hood? We all have something like this in the back of our minds – the infernal Return On Investment (ROI) calculation – each time we speak to the mechanic. If I spend that $2500 today, what’s the next part that is going to fail? And when will that be? And how much will that repair cost? At what point am I spending more money on repairs than the vehicle is actually worth? Next thing you know, you’ve traded in that old clunker (What do you mean it is only worth $500 – didn’t you see the pink floor mats??) and you are driving something new. Goodbye to the past, old friend, and on to new adventures in your new fly hoopty.
Software can be a lot like that, especially packages that are central to the IT support of your business. There’s a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth every time you hint that some long lived system is up for refresh. While a change at that level is never painless, it is worth considering this before you let management kill the project. Think of all of the advances made since that existing package was written. And realize that it was written and coded for a while before you bought it. With today’s world, we all have unspoken expectations. Things like shopping carts, easy mobile access, chat-bots, HTML5 and automatic delivery of purchases are all *yesterday’s* improvements. Today’s hot new subjects are automation, integration and unification. You should now turn around and look at that customized-but-old package you’re running and honestly ask how you’re doing an effective job of supporting your corporate business goals if you’re still using a pre-Web 2.0 platform without a hint of those other newer features. How can your CIO ever take you seriously if he can point to another company that can find him anything under the sun and then deliver it to him in about two days just by him asking for it out loud? What’s the best you can offer to that – “start the PC application, enter a ticket and we’ll have somebody get back to you in the order your call was received.”? That’s not going to cut it any longer.
If you’re using an older Ivanti product for IT Service Management, then you’re in luck. Sure, the new products support an Integrated IT model, with the ability to add automation to your daily processes, together with all of those other “must have” items. That’s all slam-dunk. But did you know that, as long as you’ve kept your maintenance up to date, you have access to the new version of your product without additional fee? All you pay for is the manpower to configure the new system, bring over your business process workflows and train your staff to use it efficiently. Call us or schedule an appointment and let Dataseti’s experience help bring a new system into your 24×7 business driven world. Pink bow decals are optional, I promise.
-Jeffrey Bromberger, Consultant – CISA, CRISC
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