About DANTIEN Consulting Group Ltd.

IT Purchasing and Asset Management as a Strategic Business Activity

The DANTIEN Consulting Group service offering is predicated on the belief that IT Procurement and the follow-on Asset Management processes are strategic business activities.  Through a structured methodology of analyzing ‘as is’ processes across all business units including IT, DANTIEN can help and support your organization in developing a standardized and more strategic business model that would ultimately lead to a higher level of contract integrity, service delivery, compliance, governance, cost effectiveness, overall cost reduction, and risk management. This then sets the stage for significantly improved efficiencies and effectiveness in the pre/post award contract and asset management lifecycle.  Once an organization has adopted the new methodology, the IT asset acquisition and management function transitions to the suggested strategic business activity and the invested human and financial resources will generate a measurably improved ROI.
Many organizations now recognize that IT procurement and the follow-on management of the acquired IT assets should be treated as a strategic business activity.  In order to remain competitive in a local, regional or global economy, it is imperative that organizations view their IT acquisition and asset management processes as an investment in their future success. 

IT Business Strategy

In DANTIEN’s view it is imperative that the organization develop the overall strategy that will best meet the needs of all stakeholders throughout the organization, while at the same time maintaining corporate governance, compliance, and business objectives.  As an example, one strategic move might be to centralize the IT purchasing function into a single specialized business unit in order to reduce what is often referred to as “rogue buying”.  Positive effects will be immediately apparent in the software licensing and support services acquisition processes.

Business Analysis

While Business Analysis is a complex process, in the grand scheme of things it is all about understanding the business and its IT requirements and the underlying IT infrastructure required to support the solution.

Business and IT Alignment

IT and the various business units need to understand each others’ respective requirements, capabilities and limitations.  It is imperative, therefore, to bridge the communication gap between IT and the business unit so that both sides align not only with the requirements of a distinct technology initiative but also with the overall strategic goals of the organization.

Process Optimization

Balancing the IT technical group requirements of managing a distributed computing environment with the operational requirements of the business is a daunting task, but Process Optimization is a goal worth pursuing.  Process Optimization in this sense is that blend of technology and operational efficiencies that supports the most efficacious level of technology for the business while maintaining the integrity and manageability of the underlying technology infrastructure. 

Standardization
In its simplest form, this is the art of having the least amount of technology that will support the highest level of productivity. 
   
ROI

TCO is the key.  IT purchasing should never be only about the lowest price.  It is often far better to invest more at the front in order to ultimately realize a lower TCO and therefore a higher ROI.

IT Asset Management

In the new world order of compliance and governance, IT Asset Management is as important as any other component of the business of IT.  If you don’t know what you have, then you can’t know what you need.  Without an appropriate IT Asset Management strategy you run the risk of overkill and/or underkill in the utilization of your IT asset base.   Of equal if not greater importance is the need to know that your business is not using more technology than your agreements permit.