Simpler Systems Yes ... Less Employees Not Necessarily

We've got a "new service line" being developed called IT Effectiveness where our advisers assist business with determining the metrics that define their IT's ROI, shortfalls, value added, etc.

I would say the simplification is less a matter of the personnel involved and the number of systems involved. It may follow that reducing the complexity of the IT will result in requiring less administrators, etc ... but the two do not necessarily go hand in hand.

As an example, say a business has a problem with identity management. Their issue arises from having multiple sources of authentication and processes of id population that lie outside of automated controls. Over time, this thing "devolves" into a mish-mash of identities that no longer reconcile between systems. The IT has not provided an effective solution to the problem. Their fix involves incorporating a master id vault with automated feeders to populate and confirm an id's existence in the appropriate authentication engines for an application. The process is "simpler" but doesn't necessarily equate to having less IT employees.

Depending on how this is spun, such changes within business can be examples of IT affecting the business model. What if you're an insurance company? It would make sense to treat the claimants in a similar fashion to avoid having identity mix-ups between processing, authorizing and pay-out systems. Unless, of course, your business model was to stall and delay pay-outs as long as possible. :-)

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