David McCoy

Just so you know, my entire life does not revolve around humorous blog postings.  As I have said before, I keep my deep research for the paying gentry.  It only seems fair.  To shed some light on that side of my life, here’s a heads-up on some work we just concluded.  I just led a team of researchers in the production of a spotlight on Cost Optimization.  It was clear that many enterprises are proceeding without methodological guidance, and I felt that was a bit horrendous.  So, with the team of Barb Gomolski, Richard Hunter, Michael Smith, Mike Gerrard, Kurt Potter, John Kost, Jim Duggan and Majid Iqbal, we researched and produced a pretty good starting-point methodological framework for you. 

This framework with its related set of research notes is not a step-by-step cookbook.  What we offer is a set of best practices on governance, selecting and prioritizing cost optimization opportunities, hot spots to examine for cost savings, how IT should “clean its own house first,” and numerous other points that help you frame your intervention. 

The lead piece in a spotlight is known as the Article Top View (ATV).  That’s what Barb and I wrote to tie all the other research together into a cohesive unit.  The ATV is called Method to the Madness:  Applying a Methodological Approach to Cost Optimization and can be found here.  Note, you will not automatically see the document unless you are logged-in as a Gartner client.  Our research on this topic does require a fee or subscription.  It’s my humor that comes without cost… unless you count the psychic toll that results from reading too much.

If you have costs to cut, don’t.  Optimize them instead.  There is a huge difference between cost cutting and cost optimization.  You need to know the difference and then apply a methodological framework to your activities.  To that end, I suggest you start out with our research.

cheers!