Getting it right

The Unique Alternative to the Big Four®
Getting IT Right:
How to Plan, Manage, and Deliver on IT’s Promise
Audit | Tax | Advisory | Risk | Performance

Despite the integral role that information
technology plays in today’s businesses, many
companies approach major IT initiatives in a
way that is far from businesslike. Frequently,
six- or seven-figure investments are made
without tying these decisions to clearly
defined business results.

3www.crowehorwath.com
Getting IT Right: How to Plan, Manage,
and Deliver on IT’s Promise
Table of Contents
Current Concerns Over
IT Effectiveness............................... 5
Rising Expenditures,
Diminished Expectations................ 5
Why Businesses Struggle
With IT Issues.................................. 6
Warning Signs of
IT Management Problems .............. 6
The Critical Need for
Improved IT Management............... 7
Common Executive
Concerns Over IT Spend ............... 7
Critical Business Triggers Bring
Urgency and Importance.............. 10
Core Concepts of the
Crowe®
IT Advisory Solution......... 12
The Major Stages of
IT Investment................................. 12
Crowe’s Suite of IT
Advisory Solutions........................ 14
Conclusion: An Objective and
Results-driven Approach.............. 19
About Crowe Horwath LLP........... 20
Contact Information...................... 20
Moreover, businesses often fail to tie IT spending
directly to the business’s daily operational performance
or, even more critically, to its long-term strategic goals.
Small wonder, then, that surveys of C-suite executives
consistently reflect significant levels of discomfort with
the way IT investments are selected and managed.
What is needed is an objective, performance-based
methodology for developing an appropriate IT strategy,
making sound IT investment decisions, and then
executing and managing the chosen initiatives in a
way that relates these steps directly to organizational
performance measures including both financial and
nonfinancial metrics.
Fortunately, resources are now available to help
businesses of all types and sizes to quickly develop
a business-focused approach to critical IT issues.

Current Concerns
Over IT Effectiveness
The way IT investments are prioritized,
implemented, and managed can
have a tremendous impact – both
positive or negative – on organizational
performance and, ultimately, the
overall value of an enterprise.
Despite IT’s critical impact on the
business, however, the prioritization
and management of IT initiatives are
often misaligned and inconsistent.
A survey by the Financial Executives
Research Foundation revealed
significant dissatisfaction with
the way their organizations use
information technology to improve
business performance.
■■ Only 7 percent of the survey
respondents said they had made
substantial progress with their top
information need in the past year.1
■■ About 70 percent of the financial
officers surveyed said they believe
their current level of information
integrity is negatively affecting their
organization’s ability to achieve its
business objectives.2
■■ About 40 percent of the responding
financial officers reported unknown,
low, or even negative returns on
their IT investments.3
Rising Expenditures,
Diminished
Expectations
Despite the overwhelming misgivings
uncovered by an FERF survey (see
sidebar), most businesses expect to
continue making significant IT investments
in the near future. When hundreds of
manufacturing industry executives
were surveyed by IndustryWeek
magazine and Crowe Horwath LLP
in late 2009, 70 percent said they
expected to increase their IT investments
over the coming three years.4
Why is this so? Why are financial
executives resigned to spending more
on IT while achieving less?
In many cases, management recognizes
the problems, but may simply not
recognize the potential impact IT
investment will have on solving
those problems. For example, they
may not link a business intelligence
investment to potentially increased
sales. Or, they may develop inflated
expectations for sales increases that
are not realistic given a limited or
misaligned implementation scope.
The challenge can be especially acute
in companies where the executives
who make IT decisions are managing
multiple initiatives at once, and do not
have adequate time or resources to
analyze IT initiatives thoroughly. As a
result they may fail to fully understand
how deeply rooted IT is to overall
business performance.
In many cases, however, the underlying
problems are more complex – and the
solutions must be more comprehensive.
A primary objective of major IT software investments must be
to “do more with the same” – that is, to leverage automation
and technology in both production and back-office functions
in order to increase capacities, improve efficiency, enhance
workflows, and support greater access to the information that
is needed for effective decision-making.
– Josh P. Cole, Partner, Crowe Horwath LLP

6
Crowe Horwath LLP
Why Businesses
Struggle With
IT Issues
It is important to recognize that when
this situation exists – when the existing
IT foundation and proposed set of IT
initiatives are not linking to financial and
operational goals – it is not fundamentally
an IT problem. Rather, it is a management
problem, and management commitment
and involvement will be needed to
address it.
This situation can result from a number
of ongoing challenges, including:
■■ Poor communication between
nontechnical business leaders and
those in charge of the IT effort;
■■ A lack of common references,
priorities, and expectations;
■■ Internal biases or inaccurate
perceptions of technology providers,
based on outdated history or word-
of-mouth impressions;
■■ Increasingly complex IT solutions,
and highly complex business
system maps;
■■ Limits on funding for IT priorities,
mismatching expectations in terms
of real results from IT investments –
in short, IT is expected to “do more
with less”; and
■■ Opportunities that may be
misunderstood or underexploited
when considering new models of
information management such as
software as a service (SaaS).
A recent article in InformationWeek
Analytics described the current
environment in stark terms:
“Not mincing words, CEOs and CFOs
want to know why the firm is spending
so much on IT and what can be done
to bring those costs down.”5
Leaders will not be satisfied without
an understanding of the value driven
by the investment.
Warning Signs of IT Management Problems
Is your organization struggling with IT strategy, prioritization, implementation, or
management? How do you know if you have a problem?
Here are some common indicators of decision-making and management problems:
Many of the items in this list highlight the often unseen cost of poor IT planning
and management. Beyond the significant price of the technology itself is the often
greater cost that comes from failing to achieve the expected results. These costs
include internal inefficiencies, poor information to support management
decisions, and a frustrating customer experience.
1. There is a lack of proper evaluating
and planning for IT investments.
2. Poor implementations
destabilize your ability to
transact with customers.
3. Complex IT decisions are
sometimes made more on the
salesperson’s strength rather
than the technology fit.
4. IT spending is considerable, but
the business sees little or no
measurable improvement.
5. Upgrades to your IT platform
do not produce new benefits or
capabilities, but merely do what
your old systems did.
6. An integration is not delivering
anticipated synergy.
7. Compliance still depends on
manual detective-type financial
controls rather than automated
preventive systems.
8. Spending on noncore and costly
items such as internal data centers
does not consider innovative
alternatives such as outsourcing
or virtualization.
9. Financials must be restated for
any reason.
10. Competitors deliver a richer IT
customer experience and your
competitive edge is eroding due in
part to inadequate IT capabilities.
11. The organization is not reacting
to IT trends such as social
networking.

The Critical Need
for Improved IT
Management
The InformationWeek Analytics article
mentioned earlier presented a clear
indication of the critical need for improved
methods of strategizing, prioritizing,
implementing, and managing IT initiatives.
“Unfortunately,” the article noted, “IT
leadership is often handicapped by not
having the right data and tools to support
analysis of what’s actually driving costs.”6
This convergence of challenges is
producing new models for chief
information officers to consider as
they investigate their options and take
advantage of evolving technologies.
■■ The ability to accurately define the full
return on investment for technology
spending requires analytical tools
that directly relate IT to the business’s
financial and operational goals.
■■ The ability to efficiently execute
and manage IT initiatives in a way
that maintains a clear connection
to business results requires
implementation methodologies that
are specifically designed to achieve
this purpose.
Uncertainties such as these are often warning signs of a flawed IT strategy,
an inadequate decision-making process, or ineffective implementation and
management. The right approach to the complex issue of managing IT and
IT investments can remove these concerns from the executive’s desk,
or greatly minimize their impact.
Common Executive Concerns Over IT Spend
Many executives with a decision-making role regarding IT initiatives
have concerns and questions – questions they may be reluctant to voice aloud.
Are questions such as these keeping you up at night?
■■ “Are scarce resources being used to
serve genuine business needs – or
are we merely pursuing the newest
technology for its own sake?”
■■ “Will the IT projects I have in motion
deliver as expected? Will they work?
Will I get the results I promised?”
■■ “I’m not sure what’s happening
with an IT investment, or the status
of a current project. How can I get
updated information that’s reliable
and understandable?”
■■ “How can I be sure our IT
investments are truly aligned with
our business objectives? What
standard can I use to judge?”
■■ “Am I holding the right people
accountable for getting results?”
■■ “A significant project was recently
stopped or reprioritized. Why? Was
it due to a change or were there
problems with execution?”
■■ “Will my current IT projects come
in on budget and on time? If not,
will I be able to face my board and
executives, my colleagues, and
my employees to justify the choices
I made?”

8
Can’taccessreal-tim
e
system
inform
ation
Questionabledataquality
andinform
ationintegrityNew
models of
information management
Poor links between IT spend
and business performance
Lack of common priorities and
expectations among leaders
Inaccurate perceptions
of providersReliance on manual process
Falling behind the competition
Improper evaluation of IT investment
Increased compliance spending
Expected results not achieved
Restated financial statements
Unrecognized IT impact
Misaligned IT spending
Poor communication
Complex IT decisions
Failed integration
Recessionary forces
Unknown
IT
ROI
Econom
ic
pressure
C
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puting
Do
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ore
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Because of ever-shifting variables, managing IT
is often experienced as a never-ending stream
of competing, interlacing, and overlapping
challenges, each of which affects – and
exacerbates – the others. Crowe’s IT
Advisory framework addresses this
confusion, as well as the business
drivers that organizations face when
making these significant investment
decisions. Crowe’s IT Advisory
solutions are geared toward solving
big problems in the right way,
regardless of the investment stage
in which the organization finds itself.
Are we doing the
right things?
Are we getting
them done well?
Are we doing them
the right way?
Are we getting
the benefits?
Four questions that frame
everything in IT – every
challenge, every project,
and every solution – and
bring order to chaos.
CONFUSION
Bad
dataNotime
SaaSInternalbias

9
ORDER
Crowe’s Suite of IT Advisory Solutions
Free IT Diagnostic
IT Assessment
IT Due Diligence
Business System
Assessment
Change Management
Ongoing IT Effectiveness
Review
System Selection Program and Project
Management
System Implementation
Custom Application
Development
IT Portfolio Value
Assessment
Lean IT
Strategic IT Road Map
Critical Business Triggers
Outgrown IT Foundation
Recent Merger or Acquisition
Changing Business Model
Excessive Internal Audit or Compliance Costs
Globalization
Any Business Failure in Which IT Played a Role
Any Major IT Project Failure
Cost Reduction Challenge
Critical Risk Management Issue
The Start of a Return to Growth
SustainEvaluate ImplementAssess
Stages of
IT Investment

10
Crowe Horwath LLP
Critical Business
Triggers Bring
Urgency and
Importance
Certain critical business events often add
urgency and importance to IT decisions.
Examples of these events include:
■■ Outgrowing the current IT
foundation. Years of organizational
growth, accompanied by under-
investment in IT capabilities or by
piecemeal solutions, can produce
a patchwork of systems requiring
a comprehensive upgrade. It is
worth noting the last major cycle of
enterprise IT investment occurred
during the Y2K era. The time span
that has passed since then is close to
the average life span of an enterprise
system, at which a major upgrade or
replacement is generally needed.
■■ A recent merger or acquisition.
Disparate systems and competing
technologies are among the most
commonly encountered challenges
in an M&A event. Beyond the capital
investment that may be required,
there is almost always significant
personnel change, as well as manage-
ment and business disruption risk.
When contemplating an acquisition
or divestiture, IT decision-making
requires special consideration due
to the rapid and critical nature of
solution deployment.
■■ Excessive internal audit and
compliance costs. Reducing the
costs of internal audit while also
delivering business process improve-
ment offers the opportunity for both
immediate financial savings as well as
a long-term reduction in future costs.
Building automated controls into the
system itself can reduce the need for
external or manual interventions.
Organizations often must make significant IT investment
decisions in an uncertain environment. Critical business
events highlight the uncertainty and inject additional
urgency into the situation. Crowe’s IT Advisory framework
addresses these complex, interlaced challenges.

■■ A changing business model. As
a result of strategic restructuring
initiatives, some organizations have
made wholesale changes to their
business models. For example, many
consumer product companies now
consider themselves marketing,
customer, and sales-focused
organizations – outsourcing much of
their manufacturing and distribution
operations. Such a change greatly
affects the focus of internal enterprise
systems as the traditional product
functions associated with an ERP
solution no longer support the
new strategy. New needs such as
product development management,
sophisticated forecasting, and
improved customer relationship
management (CRM) are often needed.
■■ Globalization. In addition to changes
directly related to outsourcing, the
increasingly global nature of today’s
businesses also sparks indirect
changes in IT requirements. These
are necessary to meet the more
sophisticated collaboration require-
ments that occur when working with
trading partners across vast spaces,
multiple time zones, and multiple
currencies. For example, long lead
times demand greater clarity into
shipment status as well as ability to
allocate shipments directly to
customer orders.
■■ Any business failure in which IT
played a role. Examples include
financial control failures that cause
restating of financial results, regardless
of whether the restatement is
required by Sarbanes-Oxley or other
regulations. Beyond the immediate
compliance costs are the indirect costs
of reduced business valuation and the
credit limitations that can result.
■■ Any major IT project failure.
Negative memories of past failures
can create organizational barriers
to investing appropriately in future
initiatives. Examples that illustrate this
include missed cutover dates, budget
overruns, poorly managed change
driven by IT, or unrealized benefits.
■■ Cost reduction initiatives.
These initiatives affect all areas
of a business, including IT. In many
cases, however, technology may
actually help reduce organizational
costs or help improve flagging
revenues. When cutting is applied to
the IT investment category, a refined
prioritization mechanism is important
when choosing between alternatives.
■■ Supporting a return to growth.
In the “Future of Manufacturing
2009” survey cosponsored by
Crowe and IndustryWeek magazine,
more than one third of respondents
are forecasting greater than 10
percent annual growth by the end
of the coming three-year period,
while the projected growth rates
in the work force are considerably
less.7
In this environment a
primary IT objective is to increase
efficiency and improve workflows
in order to “do more with less.”
■■ Business continuity issues. With
heightened business reliance on IT,
businesses must address resiliency
and recovery issues. For example, in
many industries today, the impact of a
company’s website going down is an
immediate interruption to the revenue
stream – a business continuity risk
today that was immaterial – if it existed
at all – 10 or 15 years ago. Mitigating
such risk must be a top IT priority.

12
Crowe Horwath LLP
Core Concepts
of the Crowe IT
Advisory Solution
In his precedent-setting book, “The
Information Paradox,” author John Thorp
suggested four critical questions to guide
IT decision-makers:
1. Are we doing the right things?
2. Are we doing them the right way?
3. Are we getting them done well?
4. Are we getting the benefits?8
In developing and defining its IT Advisory
services framework, Crowe Horwath LLP
has followed a comparable approach,
developing solutions to help businesses
make IT decisions that achieve critical
strategic and operational goals:
1. Doing what’s right. Crowe’s
approach helps businesses
objectively manage IT as an overall
portfolio, rather than as a series
of one-off projects. The approach
also helps companies ensure that IT
spend is evaluated based on clear
business cases, with a focus on
validating the assumptions that
were made to justify projects.
2. Aligning with standards. Crowe’s
approach applies leading research
and best practice experience to help
executives understand the risks and
benefits of alternative decisions, and
to recognize the various categories
of investments and business
applications that must be managed.
3. Executing with rigor. Crowe’s
methodologies and tools help ensure
new projects are implemented
correctly, enable quick recovery
or termination of unsuccessful
initiatives, and establish clear
accountability for results.
4. Realizing the benefits. Crowe’s
approach focuses on helping
organizations minimize total cost of
ownership and maximize total value
over the full life cycle of IT initiatives,
not just the acquisition and
implementation phases.
The Major Stages
of IT Investment
For an executive who is seeking to
bring order to shifting and interlacing
challenges of IT investment, there is one
more question that must be considered:
Where does the business stand in terms
of the specific IT issue being addressed?
In general terms, the answer to this
question can be expressed as one of
four broad stages of IT investment
shown in the center of the illustration
on pages 8 and 9:
1. Assess: Enable understanding
and alignment
2. Evaluate: Support informed
decision-making
3. Implement: Plan and
execute effectively
4. Sustain: Manage and improve
for long-term results
Depending on the particular IT issue being
addressed, a business typically finds
itself in several stages of this continuum
at once. One specific technology issue
may require support in selecting the
appropriate system, while another will
require only steady management and
ongoing review of an existing platform.
Moreover, the solution to IT issues
does not always progress in a linear
fashion. For example, an execution and
implementation challenge can cause
the business to rethink its initial system
selection – or even reassess its original
strategic goals for the initiative.

14
Crowe Horwath LLP
Assess: Enable Understanding and Alignment
A rapid diagnostic of the existing
environment. Identifies the key risks
and opportunities in leveraging IT
within the business along with a
high-level path to realizing benefits,
and suggests a series of next steps
to capitalize on areas of opportunity.
■■ Formal written deliverable,
consumable by IT and business
leaders
■■ Series of prioritized, specific
recommendations
■■ Actionable direction focused
on highest business value
■■ Objective opinion by third-party
experts
■■ Identification of key risks
■■ Documentation of opportunities
■■ No cost
1 Day
A structured exploration and
analysis of business systems,
security, spending, integrations,
hardware, communications,
personnel, policies and procedures,
and intellectual property. Designed
to uncover hidden risk and
opportunity and communicate
complex issues in a format that is
accessible and actionable by the
business owner or leader.
2 – 3 Weeks
Free IT Diagnostic
Benefits Benefits
IT Assessment/IT Due Diligence
Crowe’s Suite of IT Advisory Solutions
The Crowe suite of IT Advisory solutions offers effective tools for addressing critical
issues at all stages of the IT development and execution continuum:

■■ Visual representation of all user
tools actually used to run the
business
■■ Clarity to functional gaps,
software integrations,
unmanaged tools, risks,
opportunities, unmet needs,
and support
A deep dive into understanding
and documenting the entire suite of
sponsored and user-created busi-
ness system software tools used to
run the organization. An important
foundational element for evaluating
major initiatives such as possible
ERP replacement or M&A activity,
and to identify strategic and func-
tional gaps, potential areas of risk,
and opportunities for improvement.
3 – 5 Weeks
Benefits
Business System Assessment
E
An effective bridge across all stages
of IT strategy, decision-making, and
execution planning. Draws from
time spent with the IT and business
leaders to clarify organizational
strategy and performance goals,
identify and evaluate a series of
alternative IT investment decisions
and projects, and then weigh their
impact on each of the objectives.
■■ Clear, 18 – 24 month plan for all
recommended IT investment
■■ Investment options delivered
for various budget levels
■■ Resource plans that indicate
exactly what is needed to
execute
■■ ROI analysis for each
investment alternative
6 – 8 Weeks
Strategic IT Road Map
Benefits

16
Crowe Horwath LLP
Evaluate: Support Informed
Decision-making
Implement: Plan and
Execute Effectively
■■ Objective and structured
leadership for significant
system decisions
■■ Insight from hundreds of system
selection decisions and leading
industry research
■■ Enhanced speed and quality of
decision-making
■■ Negotiation support to drive
cost savings
A proven and pragmatic approach,
combined with Crowe experience
with a variety of software systems,
that quickly and effectively guides
the organization to the best
decisions for critical business
systems. Work covers areas such
as strategy, selection criteria,
requirements definition, and vendor
evaluation, selection, negotiation,
and implementation planning.
4 – 8 Weeks
Benefits
System Selection
Helping to ensure that all defined
projects are progressing in a
coordinated and managed fashion,
with speed and efficiency. Includes
determining and assigning work
to be done, tracking progress,
managing exceptions, balancing
conflicting priorities, and
communicating to all parties
involved to help ensure all stay
focused on the end-goal.
■■ Project support activities
are planned, managed, and
communicated regularly.
■■ Scope of the work, and
associated risks, schedules,
costs, and needed resources
are accurately defined.
■■ Quality work is delivered and
issues are addressed as they are
encountered.
Determined by project
Program and Project Management
Benefits

I
■■ Reduced risk of scope creep
and budget overruns
■■ Quicker path to value through
structured methodology
■■ Business-first advice designed
to drive value from the
technology being implemented
■■ The ability to leverage onshore/
offshore models that are truly
cost efficient
■■ An established organization to
support solution implementation
■■ An established development
toolkit to provide velocity, reduce
costs, and minimize coding
The use of proven methodologies
and vision to anticipate looming
issues, and the application of skills
to manage internal and external
resources. Key to realizing the
benefits of the planning phases,
independent implementation
oversight reduces the risk of going
over budget, missing deadlines, or
failing to deliver on promises.
Custom-built solutions for niche
circumstances or online/Web needs
where business requirements can-
not be met though out-of-the box
applications. Leverages more than
20 years of Crowe experience with
known platforms such as Java™
,
Microsoft®
.NET, and open source
tools and applications.
Benefits Benefits
Custom Application DevelopmentSystem Implementation

18
Crowe Horwath LLP
Sustain: Manage and Improve for Long-term Results
A structured approach to
transitioning individuals, teams,
and organizations to a desired
future state. Aligns expectations,
communicates, integrates teams,
and manages people training, using
a pragmatic approach that includes
skill upgrading to maximize the
implementation effort.
■■ Short-phased visits that
maintain momentum on projects
in process
■■ Objective evaluation of possible
changes to current plans
■■ Highlighting and definition of
risk redemption requirements
■■ Central oversight of budget
■■ Risk management
■■ Strategic alignment of IT
investments and demand
■■ Standardization of investment
procedures, rules, and plans
■■ Reduced resistance to change
■■ Faster adoption of the strategic
initiatives
■■ Early identification of issues
before they drain projects of
anticipated benefits
Provides an ongoing evaluation
and tuneup on completed
implementations and new projects
in motion. Key components of the
Crowe toolkit are used to advise on
risks and opportunities, and provide
a scorecard on the organization’s
use of IT.
Leveraging the portfolio of IT invest-
ment to derive maximum business
value from IT assets. Involves the
application of systematic manage-
ment to large classes of IT items
including planned initiatives, proj-
ects, and ongoing IT services, to
help organizations determine which
portfolio of IT spend truly delivers
value for the investment.
Change Management
Benefits Benefits Benefits
IT Portfolio Value AssessmentOngoing IT Effectiveness Review

Conclusion: An
Objective and
Results-driven
Approach
Regardless of the specific solutions
the client employs within the Crowe
suite of solutions, Crowe pursues a
rapid, results-driven approach, with
a specific set of deliverables in each
phase of the assignment. The overall
goal is to successfully meld business
process needs and company strategy
into executable IT plans as quickly as
possible, in order to deliver time-phased,
budget-conscious solutions.
Crowe’s methodologies support
clients seeking to assess their current
systems and infrastructure as well as
those organizations making strategic
investments that are looking for expert
guidance related to the transaction.
The Crowe suite of IT Advisory solutions
provides businesses with a proven,
systematic process for developing
appropriate IT strategies, making
objective IT system decisions, and
executing and managing their ongoing
IT initiatives. Crowe’s business-driven
and vendor-neutral approach is in many
respects the polar opposite of traditional
vendor-driven IT spend decisions.
The Crowe IT Advisory teams pursue
an investment-minded approach, and
provide client executive teams with the
tools and techniques to do the same.
Project staffing is composed of more
than technologists – adding a variety
of specialists in personnel, process,
strategy, and performance management
to the effort. Project leaders average
20 years of experience in IT-related
Advisory services working for many
industries across a variety of specialty
business application environments.
This approach, proven in organizations
of all sizes, is also adaptable on a global
scale thanks to the international reach of
the Crowe Horwath International network.
At all levels and throughout all phases
of the engagement, our emphasis is
to provide pragmatic solutions that
go beyond theory, and to work side-
by-side with client teams in a flexible,
collaborative effort that takes into account
each business’s unique staffing models,
time and resource constraints, and
available IT investment funding.
1
“Technology Issues for Financial Executives,”
Computer Sciences Corporation and Financial
Executives Research Foundation, 2008, p.2.
2
ibid.
3
“Technology Issues for Financial Executives,”
Computer Sciences Corporation and Financial
Executives Research Foundation, 2008, p.3.
4
“The Future of Manufacturing 2009,” IndustryWeek,
Penton Media Inc., 2009, p. 8.
5
“Know Your Costs: The Key to IT Business,”
InformationWeek Analytics, April 2010, p. 5, http://
analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/81/2813/
Business-Intelligence-and-Information-
Management/informed-cio-it-cost-transparency.
html.
6
ibid.
7
“The Future of Manufacturing 2009,” p. 3.
8
John Thorp, “The Information Paradox: Realizing
the Business Benefits of Information Technology,”
McGraw-Hill Education, 1999.
S
■■ Improved investment in Agile
software development
■■ Reduced software defects
■■ Elimination of unnecessary or
overbuilt solutions
■■ Reduction of unnecessary
equipment
■■ Improved productivity due to
reduced “firefighting”
The extension of lean manufactur-
ing and lean services principles to
the development and management
of IT products and services. The
central concern is the elimination of
waste, in particular work that adds
no value. Particularly effective for
companies that develop software as
a product or have a high volume of
custom tools.
Benefits
Lean IT

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Contact Information
Doug Schrock
317.706.2643
doug.schrock@crowehorwath.com
Jeff Shaffer
312.899.4493
jeff.shaffer@crowehorwath.com
Josh Cole
616.752.4274
josh.cole@crowehorwath.com
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About Crowe Horwath LLP
Crowe Horwath LLP is one of the largest public accounting and consulting firms in the
United States. Under its core purpose of “Building Value with Values,®
” Crowe assists
public and private company clients in reaching their goals through audit, tax, advisory,
risk, and performance services. With 26 offices and 2,400 personnel, Crowe is
recognized by many organizations as one of the country’s best places to work. Crowe
serves clients worldwide as an independent member of Crowe Horwath International,
one of the largest networks in the world, consisting of more than 140 independent
accounting and management consulting firms with offices in more than 400 cities
around the world.

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