IT organizations and services are often evaluated by tactical metrics rather than the performance gains they deliver to the programs they support in an educational institution. But as IT budgets stretch and performance pressures increase to produce cost-effective, efficient IT environments, the effective provisioning and management of technology can determine the success of an IT organization.

To communicate the value of IT in reaching the institution’s overall goals, IT departments in educational settings must:

• Operate as a business with efficient processes, quantification and financial transparency of expenditures in support of the institution’s objectives.
• Satisfy demands from customers for high-quality services and balanced costs.
• Institute measurement systems that pinpoint the root causes of problems and support corrective actions (IT right-sizing, network load balancing, server consolidation, performance and capacity planning).

In order to articulate IT functions as strategic assets, IT organizations must first establish a “big picture” view of needs, current services, performance and costs, and then they must use advanced analytic procedures to help forecast future IT needs.

SAS IT Value Management

With SAS IT Value Management, your IT organization can address key questions, such as:

• Are we using technologies already in place?
• What are the costs for IT-delivered services and products, and where are those products and services being used?
• Are IT products and services distributed appropriately based on organizational goals and priorities?
• Why is client/server costing so much when individual expenses seem small?
• Which telecommunications service provider offers us the best rates based on our current usage patterns?
• Are my service levels satisfactory?

Using SAS IT Value Management, IT executives can manage and communicate performance; assign costs using factors such as consumption metrics, service usage and capital expenditures; and do trend analysis to help communicate IT’s performance and strategic role.