Service Costing as a Financial Planning & Analysis tool

Most discussions about enhancing existing services or transforming the business revolves around technology. Whether it is an automated process to husk beans, upgrading enterprise systems to make workers more efficient, or improving infrastructure to make digital transactions and processes more efficient and secure,; it is the management of information technology that affects modern companies today.…

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New Video Series: Vendor Selection

We are excited to publish another educational video series on our YouTube Channel. If you are getting ready to automate a manual ITFM process or replace an existing automation solution, you should be certain to check out this video series. You can post questions here or over on the channel. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7BH2wQ4TR27yLfmKmQQZwGT0jbecum4A Thinking about switching software…

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Demand Budgeting in a Service Enterprise

Demand budgeting. Once the discussion with customers has begun around services, this is the essential next step. Imagine working with a restaurant for meal delivery. Service discussions mean that we offer and want customers to order things like “ lasagna and side salad”. But if demand planning continues the “GL Account” way, then the conversation…

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Making the CFO Shine

Presenting on target information In an ever increasing number of organizations, IT management either reports up through the CFO or dual reports to the CFO and CEO. If you have an understanding the pain points your CFO has and can provide them an advantage, not only do you look good, but the CFO shines. CFOs…

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Value Stream Basics

According to isixsigma.com, a value stream is all of the actions (both value-added and non-value added) currently required to deliver a product or a service. It is the work activity and information flow occurring as raw material and/or information becomes a product/service that is delivered to a customer.  In other words, a value stream is…

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Just because you can…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3j9muCo4o0 Jeff Goldblum, as Ian Malcom in Jurassic Park pushes for the right thing Doesn’t mean you should. . This is one of the themes that echoes and resonates through every “lessons learned” talk I hear at a conference. This year’s virtual conferences have been no different. It was mostly focused on choosing the right…

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Expanding Adaption- Are your reports Actionable or Explanatory?

You have invested months of man hours into building a cost model. You might have a model in Excel, in a legacy data cube or in a COTS software tool/module designed for the purpose (Magic Orange, Nicus, Apptio, EZTBM, etc..). Regardless of the backend analytic engine you are using, the main interface point for most…

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When your world changes , how do you cope?

Hand writing inscription Are you ready with marker, concept This year has certainly proven out the axiom that in business, everything changes eventually. If you have modeled your IT Business Service costs, there are lots of changes that have happened that probably require an update or change to your model. Has your company undergone a…

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ITFM Operational Integration Processes

Service Costing Systems/Platforms like Magic Orange, Nicus,  Apptio,  and others in the industry provide powerful automation of data integration and transformation as well as modeling and reporting capabilities beyond what can be achieved with complex Excel solutions you may have built in house. Although the manual inputs and processes of Excel are eliminated, there are still validations…

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