Cloud won’t manage itself, a strategic opportunity for ITAM: Kylie Fowler, ITAM Intelligence (ITAM Review Annual Conference Australia 2018)

1. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
Cloud won’t manage itself –
A strategic opportunity for ITAM?
Kylie Fowler, Principal Consultant

2. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
Introductions
Kylie Fowler – Independent ITAM Consultant
Helping clients understand how to manage their IT Assets.
Specialising in:
- ‘Future Ready’ SAM and ITAM Strategy Assessments
- Develop and implement IT Asset Management strategies and frameworks
- Audit Defence and Vendor Negotiations
- M&A advice and support
- Coach & mentor ITAM practitioners

3. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
“I get a sinking feeling…
….it’s Nick the Beard.
Nick is some sort of technical officer from CESG… he drops round
the Laundry every so often to make sure all our software is
licensed and we’re only running validated COTS software
purchased via approved suppliers. Which is why, whenever we
get word that he’s about to visit, I have to run around rebooting
servers like crazy and loading the padded cell environments we
keep around purely to placate CESG so they don’t blacklist our IT
processes and get our budget lopped off at the knees.
Despite that, Nick is basically OK, which is why I get the sinking
feeling; I don’t enjoy treating nice guys like they’re agents of satan
or Microsoft salesmen.”
The Atrocity Archives, Charles Stross, ©2004

4. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
ITAM will follow technology…
New World
(Mostly Opex)
(We share ‘stuff’ and it’s all connected)
Networks
Physical Servers
Virtual Machines
Databases & Applications
Client Interface
Physical End Points
Employees
(Mostly
Opex)
(Capex)
(Opex)
(Mostly
Theirs)
(Ours)
It all still needs to be managed

5. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
What does this shift mean?
• Huge complexity
• Complex interactions between legacy and cloud
environments
• Reduced flexibility to sweat assets and reduce TCO
• Vendor lock in – moving is expensive and risky
Too many buzzwords…
…robots, IoT, APIs,
Digital Transformation

6. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
The nature of IT spend is changing…
– Traditionally the focus of IT technology spend has been controlling
Capital (CapEx) spend
• Projects are tightly controlled
– Business driven
– Strong financial business case
– Yr 2+ operational (Opex) costs became part of the ‘IT budget’
• ‘IT budgets’ are a black box for ‘the business’
– No direct link between the ‘IT budget’ and individual business units or the benefits they
receive
– IT organisations are under constant pressure to do more with less
• The shift to cloud services is making the ‘black box’ bigger!
2018
25:75
Capex:Opex ratio trend: 2014
30:70
2022
? : ?
Source: Gartner IT Key Metrics Data 2017: Key Industry Meashres: Cross Industry Analysis: Mulityear (G00316585)

7. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
How do we tame the cloud?

8. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
Have a clear cloud strategy
• How does the shift to cloud align to business requirements?
– What does your business care about?
• Profitability, speed to market, product quality etc
– How does the shift to cloud support this?
• What will you shift to cloud?
– What principles will you apply when making the decision?
• How will you manage cloud?
– How will you relate cloud spend back to business need?
• Chargeback / show back, business pays directly etc
– How will you maintain a coherent Enterprise Technology Framework that balances agility and control
in complex hybrid-on-premise-multi-cloud environments
– How will you control cloud deployments?
– What about ‘Shadow IT’
– How do you assure the risks associated with cloud? Eg security, licensing etc
• What about your exit strategy?!

9. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
Introducing the As-a-Service Lifecycle
Decommission
& Retire
• Switch stuff off!
Operate and
Manage
• Manage down costs
Design & Build
• Cost efficient solutions
Contract
Negotiation
• Negotiate the best price
Cost Optimisation must be built into
every part of the As-a-Service Lifecycle

10. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
Contract Negotiation
Decommission
& Retire
Operate &
Manage
Design & Build
Contract
Negotiation
Negotiate the best price

11. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
Who needs to be involved?
The Business
• Who will access?
• How many people / transactions etc
• How will users access the service?
• What up-time does the business require?
• What type of data will be put in the cloud?
• Regulatory requirements
• Exit plan
Technology
• SLAs
• Bandwidth requirements
• Browser / device requirements
• Firewall, identity management and
AD issues
• Deployment plan
• Technical & financial business case
• Software licensing
• Exit plan
Information Security,
Legal & Procurement
• Data residency
• Public vs private vs on-prem
• GDPR concerns
• Data retention requirements
• Escrow agreements
• How often can you ‘true-down’ to
reduce costs
• Liability and indemnification
• Exit plan

12. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
What else?
Understand your growth plans
• Negotiate price holds / price holidays to avoid escalating costs for
longer deployments
- What is the impact on the business case?!
• Negotiate tiered discounts for higher consumption levels
What happens when business is bad?
• Ensure you can decrease costs promptly if usage decreases

13. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
Negotiate with the end in mind
• Think about what do you need in the contract to ensure you can:
§ Cancel the contract
§ Termination periods
§ Renegotiate effectively
§ Negotiate your renewal NOW to avoid big price hikes
§ Limit for price increases each year (eg RPI plus 2%)
§ Migrate to another provider
§ Termination periods
§ T&Cs relating to data retention and export
§ Manage supplier insolvency
§ Software code escrow
• Drive down the price as far as possible in your first contract
– It will set a benchmark for follow-on deals

14. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
Exert a light touch over shadow IT
• What is Shadow IT?
– The business had an idea and decided to test it
out
• Shadow IT is everything formal IT should be –
agile, flexible and responsive to business needs
– Put in place a light touch procurement
framework that is also agile, flexible and
responsive to business needs

15. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
Design and Build
Decommission
& Retire
Operate &
Manage
Design & Build
Contract
Negotiation
It’s about cost efficient solutions

16. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
Align cloud spend and the business
• The link between cloud spend and the benefits received by ‘the business’
must be transparent
• Ensure the relationship with the business, how the service will be funded
etc is ‘hard coded’ into the services at the build stage
– Effective configuration management is critical for tracking each configuration
item and linking it back to the business services provided

17. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
We need to design and build cost effectively
• Cost effective design is all about
Governance
§ Projects
- Business cases should be for 3 or more years
- Yr 2+ funding is a pre-requisite for approval
§ Solutions Design
- Do a financial options analysis (!) to ensure the most effective design is chosen
- Don’t forget the licensing!
§ Changes
- Are costs reviewed and approved at CAB?!

18. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
The interaction of legacy with cloud has dangers
• Designs must be risk
assessed by a licensing
subject matter expert at all
stages of the design and
build process

19. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
SAP vs Diageo
• It’s a sad, sad story….

20. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
Operate and Manage
Decommission
& Retire
Operate &
Manage
Design & Build
Contract
Negotiation
Manage down costs

21. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
In-life cost optimisation is limited
• IaaS and PaaS in-life cost optimisation relies on good design
§ Standardised design and provisioning approaches to ensure control
§ Taking advantage of cloud management features will allow consumption will flex up and down with business needs
…as long as you got the contract right!
• SaaS relies on good process
§ Joiners movers leavers
§ Well-managed AD
§ Effective request fulfilment and procurement processes

22. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
Don’t get in a tizz over Shadow IT
• Shadow IT is volatile by its nature
– If the idea is a success, the service will grow and the business will want it
integrated with other IT services
– If the idea didn’t work, the Shadow IT will wither away
• Build a well-worn path to allow Shadow IT to be integrated into
broader service management as it becomes clear the idea was a
success
The business had an idea and decided to test it out
Remember
!

23. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
Decommission and retire
Decommission
& Retire
Operation &
Management
Design & Build
Contract
Negotiation
Switch stuff off!

24. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
The only way to get a grip….
Switch stuff off!

25. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
We need to understand ROI
The business needs to make
decisions about what to keep
IT needs to provide it with the
enabling information
Business
Value
Costs

26. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
Who will tame the cloud?

27. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
ITAM will be that enabler
Cloud is an IT Asset – let’s bring it into our existing
ITAM Management System
We already:
– Translate technology, usage and complex contractual
arrangements into $ $ $
– Implement governance processes to manage and minimise
commercial and contractual risk
We have a strategic imperative to
extend ITAM into the cloud

28. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
What do we need to do?
Decommission
& Retire
• Business relationship
managers
• Need data and analysis to link
IT services to the business –
are we still getting value?
Operate and
Manage
• IT Operations
• People, Tools, Processes and
partners working together
Design & Build
• Architects
• Designs need to be assured –
are they cost-effective? Can
they be managed?
Contract
Negotiation
• Procurement
• Need data and analysis to
support negotiations and
renewals
IT Asset Managers
Provide governance ensure cloud assets are managed effectively throughout their lifecycle

29. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
What do we need to do?
1. Stop looking backwards
§ License compliance is important, but there are new risks to manage
2. ITAM by design
§ Build the ability to optimise our assets into everything we do
3. Develop mature relationships with IT Finance
§ Make sure we understand where our costs are going over the next 3 – 6
years
4. Develop mature relationships with the Business
§ The Business needs to be accountable for decisions about cost vs
value – not IT
§ IT needs to enable meaningful conversations by providing accurate cost
data linked to real technology services

30. The ITAM Review Australia Conference 2018
Thank You