SAP

Why introduce IMPACT – now?

We have discussed the proper time to start publicly talking about the IMPACT ™ Business Transformation framework and concluded that SAP’s Sapphire 2009 conference and its focus on the “New Reality” for business transformations and strategies was a perfect fit.  During the last post, I mentioned that IMPACT ™ was a collectively exhaustive framework for business transformations but never really mentioned the details.  Our transformation framework covers three large areas: business capabilities, the company (our client) & their customers, as well as the project management of the transformation.

The capabilities of the organization are defined as a combination of strategy, people, process, technology, information and assets that enable a company to create business value for its customers and business partners.  Any transformation (or engagement for that matter) aims to directly change some of the capabilities of an organization to help them become more competitive.

From our experience and the feedback from companies who are aware of IMPACT™, while the focus on capabilities is a pre-requisite for ensuring a thorough and successful transformation, it’s Infosys’ single solitary focus on creating a positive impact on shareholder value and free cash flow.  We don’t mean just during the pitch and proposal part of the engagement – our Value for Customer and Company Threads of IMPACT™ estimate, design, develop and track the value we’ve promised.

Continue reading "IMPACT: A framework for the customer, company (value) and business capabilities" »

Posted by Guest at 06:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Globalisation and investment across the globe has resulted in a need for comparable financial statements. Today different countries are following different GAAP as suggested by their local accounting bodies, there by making the financial statements comparison across the geography, a much complex process. IASB has tried to bring down the effort of financial statement normalisation through IFRS. The spend on IFRS convergence is expected to be as high as 0.5% of the revenue of a company.

Continue reading "IFRS the next big wave" »

Posted by Keerthana Mainkar at 06:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Business priorities have changed enormously with the advent of downturn. Now there is an increased focus on improving efficiency and getting more from every dollar spent without compromising on quality. Business now demands better predictability of expenditure, better forecast and better control on dollars spent.  New Engagement Models (NEM) help achieve these areas and some more by aligning clients’ and vendor’s stakes and interests. More specifically it creates an environment where both client and vendor staffs have direct encouragement to work together towards the common goal of improving efficiency and bringing in predictability.

Continue reading "Increasing Relevance of New Engagement Models" »

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IT Shared Support Services is nothing but the consolidation of IT support services for multiple customers by a common pool of consultants across various service lines to increase efficiencies while lowering the cost of service delivery for the customer.

In general value is better defined in terms of tangible benefits to customers.. and if this tangibility comes in terms of numbers then that is even better.. whenever you look at value in quantifiable terms, there are two parts to it.. value derived over value expended.. derived value being in terms of business results and expended value in terms of costs.. lower the costs, higher the net value..

So how do you define 'Value' in this context.. by adopting a way or model that helps them drive down the costs while increasing the efficiency of business operations, high value is generated.

But in terms of this innovative model there are additional values that can be enjoyed by the customer.. by having
 access to high skilled pool who can be made available on need basis without paying for their full time,
 access to a wealth of knowledge accumulated by working with multiple other customers across industries on similar technologies,
 access to extended support coverage so that your users can enjoy high service availability,
 access to an innovative pricing model involving 'pay-per-use' concepts giving you the maximum flexibility on your budgets,
 access to a model that can be scaled up and down in line with your business dynamics
 ......

Thats what I call maximization of values. Now, wouldn't you be interested in betting your money on this model?

Walk in to Infosys booth at SAP SAPPHIRE 09 during May11 - 14 2009 at Orlando, for more details.

Author: Ramgopal Natarajan, Head, Maintenance Center of Excellence, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies [ramgopal_natarajan@infosys.com]

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How does a company introduce a brand new approach to planning, designing, developing and running a large business transformation?  While we’ve been talking about our new business transformation framework in client meetings and within our firm, there have been few public conversations about it.

Until now.

Continue reading "A brand new approach ... IMPACT Framework from Infosys" »

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Historically, businesses have implemented process-enabling applications such as SAP with a view to achieve benefits that are clearly stated but not necessarily based upon measurable factors or traceable attributes. The expected benefits, although documented in business cases may, or may not, have been realized but the progress of realizing the expected value has not been followed throughout the program with a view to keeping the expectations attainable. Also, in typical circumstances, the original business case would have been ‘filed’ for posterity and left to gather dust on a shelf, not reviewed until after the point of no return, and after it has become clear that the intended benefits had evaporated while the program leadership’s back was turned.

Even the most attentive of program leaderships may have looked at the return on their investments at some point after the implementations have been completed, accepting the ensuing process performance dip that the much-flaunted bell curve had forecast during the discovery phases conducted many months earlier. Even if documented benefits could have been achieved, several causes of ‘value leakage’ could have arisen but were not prevented.

By setting metrics by which value realization can be tracked throughout the program, with the stated business case benefits as ever-present targets and by ensuring the causes of value leakage are nullified, the anticipated ROI can be attained.

The team at the Infosys booth can discuss value leakage and how to realize value in a program.

Author: Mike Smythe

Posted by Guest at 03:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Quantifying business benefits has not been the norm when it comes to establishing both small-scale and large-scale programs.  Many companies rush off to planning, designing, and executing the programs without first ensuring that there are business benefits that can even be attributed to these programs.  Or, token or "after-hours" effort is put into sizing the benefits and shared with executive management in order to secure funding, and then forgotten in the course of the program when new information that could materially impact the estimated benefits are discovered.  Or, many benefits are not sized because of lack of data or sheer laziness, and simply classified as "non-quantifiable" or "qualitative" benefits when in fact, these benefits could be quantified with a little creativity and legwork.

Finding, designing, and capturing business benefits are critical to ensuring that a business transformation program is "worth it".  In the end, a program is truly justifiable if it is able to positively contribute to shareholder value through its completion.  Without an explicit link to value delivery, programs may not secure sustained executive commitment and funding, new business capabilities will be developed but may not be what the company really needs, and stakeholders across the board may lose interest once the initial thrill of the program start-up has faded away.

If you have embarked on a small-scale or large-scale program, ask yourself if you know what business benefits you will be getting out of it once you reach the go-live date.  Ask yourself if you have determined how shareholder value is influenced by the program.  Ask yourself if the improvements you are introducing are all directly related to what adds value to the organization, and are not innovations that just appeared to be the cool and trendy thing to do.  Hopefully, the answers to these questions are all "yes".  If not, then this is a great opportunity to explore what it takes to "realize value for the company".

Author:  Jon Brizzi

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In today’s tough time, there is hardly any Organization which has remained unaffected from the jitters of market slow down. The companies are resorting to

·         drastic reduction in budget

·         aggressive business targets to achieve

·         system overhauling for maximizing operational efficiency

Talking about Maintenance of existing IT operations, the companies are eagerly inclined to off-load and blunt in asking for

·         a rock bottom price

·         better quality of service

·          visible value addition by the service provider

·         flexible service offerings tailor made for their requirements

AND this is where Infosys’s SHARED SERVICES offering pitches-in as a classic rejoinder to all the above !!

Continue reading "SHARED SERVICES: Capability in adversity" »

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Shared Services - nothing new.. It's a well recognized term widely used across companies.. mostly done as a means of consolidation of the non-core business functions to improve efficiencies. You may also have heard of this model being followed for HR, Purchasing, Finance etc.. across companies. IT, being one of the cost centers, is also being done on shared model in medium to large organizations that are spread across geographies having multiple business units.

Focussing on the IT operations, you will typically have two major types of activities going on.. discretionary work and non-discretionary work. The former would be strategical in nature following the business vision as a means of increasing competitiveness and market presence.. using IT as an enabler to achieve the goals. The latter is typically a 'Keep-the-Lights-On' work to support the business as-usual and to carry out maintenance activities on the IT systems and applications. Though the key focus will be on the discretionary work, companies cannot afford to ignore the importance of the sustenance activities as it will be the life-line of the ongoing business operations.

However, the current need, due to global economic slump, would be to drive down the costs of maintenance and support of the IT systems and applications to effectively reuse the funds on managing the growth of the business. Many organizations have successfully outsourced their IT operations to many low-cost centers across the world and have realized huge benefits.. Especially, under current situations, CxOs are compelled to find newer ways to further reduce their costs while maintaining the service levels agreed upon with the business users..

Continue reading "IT Shared Services - Is it the right option for you?" »

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If we take a look at the BI space today , BI  has undergone an active market consolidation and the top BI vendors offer integrated suites which make the earlier ‘best of breed strategy’ more or less unconceivable. With so much of focus on integration, it is imperative that clients realize that the benefits of an integrated suite include a greatly simplified technical landscape, resulting in higher agility, faster speed to market and lower Total Cost of Ownership.

Continue reading "The BO world has arrived" »

Posted by Meena Iyer at 07:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In today’s economic environment every organization realizes the need for planning various business functions and processes to achieve optimum results. The uncertainty of the future has made it mandatory to plan and simulate each of the scenarios business will be facing in time of credit crisis and falling demand levels.

Continue reading "Planning and Forecasting with EPM" »

Posted by Meena Iyer at 07:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A blog that highlights how a ‘Performance Measurement KPI Framework’ allows business executives to take a holistic view of strategic goals and link them appropriately to tactical and operational performance indicators.

Continue reading "Get a 360 degree view of your corporate strategy" »

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Continue reading "Compliance to Competency - Is compliance a bane or a boon" »

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