I have applied ITIL Service Management methodology extensively in my previous and current work capacity. Both organizations face the same pressing problem – staff are continuously firefighting and customer satisfaction is close to ZERO. Customers are so used to IT incompetencies that they either find their own solutions outside or they just live with it. In both organizations, the root cause of continuous firefighting (instead of continual improvement) is rampant unmanaged changes made to the IT infrastructure. Read on to find out the 3 basic rules of ITIL framework implementation and my real life experience in building up the framework from scratch.
August 20th, 2009 Posted at Operations Management
Change Management, Change Manager, ITIL, ITIL Implementation, ITIL Service Management, ITIL Service Manager, ITIL Success Story
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August 18th, 2009 Posted at Technology
deduplication, Enterprise storage, Fibre channel, flexvol, iSCSI, NetApp vs EMC, SAN, storage, storage area network | No Comments
| No CommentsI have created a separate article in Squidoo to describe the difference between NetApp and EMC storage system. This article will be regular updated as I continue to investigate into the details of each set of solution. Note that even though my preference is NetApp, by no means is EMC’s product inferior. I believe the first thing you need to identify is the requirement for your organization. Enterprise storage system is a major decision in all organizations. You will most likely be locked in my the vendor of your choice. So, never just consider the price when making a purchase decision. What about the organization’s growth rate, expected ROI, what is the TCO of the purchase solution, etc. Talking about TCO, have you considered the administrative overheads as a result of complexity in operating it?
There are so much we can talk about. Join me at http://www.squidoo.com/netapp-vs-emc and feel free to share your experience in this blog or at the article site.
July 25th, 2009 Posted at Operations Management
To err is human. People make mistakes right from the day they were born. The numerous attempts to latch on for breastfeeding, getting burnt playing with fire, falling hard from bicycles or getting caught stealing. It is only through mistakes that we learn how to adapt and survive in our environment. To grow and do well in your career and business, you must be willing to challenge yourself, getting out of your comfort zone and start making mistakes.
Click to continue reading “Make Mistakes To Grow”
May 21st, 2009 Posted at Operations Management
cost, management, Operations Management, outsourcing, process, Stakeholders, value creation | 4 Comments
| 4 CommentsFirst, know what your business is all about? Next, only outsource what you know. Finally, get rid of the idea that outsourcing translate to immediate cost savings.
Do your due diligence before making outsourcing your preferred mode of operation. I would recommend that organization first operate the “proposed outsourcing work” internally to get a feel of what needs to be outsourced. A wholesale outsource without proper planning will hurt bottom-line and impacts business performance. Plan as though you will be recruiting full time staff to carry out the tasks. Then where applicable, perform the activities in house and measure the performance.
Click to continue reading “Sensible Outsourcing”
May 10th, 2009 Posted at business, management
CSR, economy, freelance, hiring, HRM, lean, outsourcing, recruitment, resources, retrenchment, talents, training | No Comments
| No Comments“Hire and Fire” is not going to work in this new economy. If businesses do not get their act together soon, they will soon have to pay a dear price in the war for talents.
Retrenchment is in the news everywhere and we are looking at 5 figures loss of jobs every month. This is a cyclical problem where companies purge excess in bad times. When economy picks up, companies will be rushing to fill up vacancies to meet the renew demand of the market. To avoid retrenching employees, during good times, companies should exercise discretion in their hiring process. Perhaps this is one area to focus on when we discuss on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
Click to continue reading “If you want to hire, don’t fire!”
April 29th, 2009 Posted at Operations Management, business
Business owners must treat outsourcing as a strategic move and not as an opportunity to offload “no-one-wants-to-do” activities in the organization. Carefully plan your outsourcing needs to avoid future repercussion on your business performance.
Outsourcing is not equivalent to transferring of responsibilities to another party. You, as the business and process owner, owns the entire value chain. Always manage all your outsourcing entities and business as though they are internal resources. This article discusses on the total cost of outsourcing and what it takes to manage a outsourcing relationship effectively.
Click to continue reading “Don’t be doomed by outsourcing”
April 26th, 2009 Posted at management, project management
business, Change Management, communication, culture, document control, leadership, management, metrics, project management, Stakeholders, strategy, team | 4 Comments
| 4 CommentsKeep the Change! discusses the basics on how to achieve permanent result after change implementation. Managing change effectively and efficiently is key to success for any business. Companies must be flexible and agile to face changes. M&A (like the recent Oracle-Sun deal), market volatility, disruptions in traditional ways of doing business (crowd sourcing, web 2.0…) and technological advancement are some reasons why business will fail if there are not enough emphasis being put on Change Management.
Click to continue reading “Keep the Change!”
April 22nd, 2009 Posted at Operations Management
Change Management, communication, incident management, incident report, ITIL, ITSM, Operations Management, Report Writing, Stakeholders | 2 Comments
| 2 CommentsIncident report is an important communication tool to keep all stakeholders aware of disruptions in a production environment. Timely report gives people the confidence that their business is in good hand.
After a disruption of service that impacts business operations and performance, a customer would be keen to know if the IT team has taken steps to avoid recurrence. An incident report will provide information that give the customer assurance that their interests are being taken care of.
Click to continue reading “Increase customer satisfaction with good incident report”
April 17th, 2009 Posted at Organization Behaviour, management
Getting Things Done, leadership, management, process, project management, redundant, Stakeholders, value creation | 24 Comments
| 24 CommentsA successful consultant and project/department manager makes him/herself redundant by selflessly building the foundation that others will use to solve problems, operate a business and deliver results.
To be a successful, you must find ways to consistently add value to the organization (your employer, your own business or your client) you work for. For that to happen, you need to constantly challenge yourself and be innovative.
Click to continue reading “If you want to be successful, start making yourself redundant now”
April 15th, 2009 Posted at business
acquisition, blue ocean, business, ebay, facebook, google, red sea, strategy, stumbleupon, twitter, web2.0 | 3 Comments
| 3 CommentsConsumers are getting so used to free services and subscriptions that anything more expensive than free is not acceptable. This business model works if there is a long-term strategy to drive revenue and growth.
Click to continue reading “Is giving away free products/services a sustainable business model?”
