Global Technology Infrastructure Cost Base Analysis
Client Business Issues:
A global financials services firm requested assistance to better understand and align technology infrastructure costs with business consumption. Specifically, the client requested Arc Partners to:
- Determine the product inventory and infrastructure technology costs by product, consuming business unit, and geographic region
- Segment costs by what is needed to run the infrastructure versus supporting costs required to support client (business unit) driven projects
- Determine FTEs and labor cost required per product; and determine split by activity type (e.g. support, maintenance, project, staff management)
The global technology infrastructure team provides support to over 30,000 employees and ten major business lines.
Our Approach:
Arc Partners developed a multi-dimensional Technology Cost Model populated with information from five independent data sources including the general ledger, employee profiles, and other data sources. The model linked the independent data sources; and provided robust analytics that dimensioned technology costs.
We surveyed the technology staff (1000+ FTEs) to determine activity profile (i.e. percent of time spent on support, maintenance, project…). This process required leveraging and pro-active interaction with over forty department managers to distribute and complete survey responses. We achieved 100% response compliance within 48 hours of survey release across the global staff base.
The survey results were incorporated into the Technology Cost Model to analyze costs across multiple dimensions: activity type, product, business line, and region (e.g. the cost to maintain servers for fixed income in the Americas region.)
Using the Technology Cost Model we reported product inventory and cost by business line and region; and segmented the costs required to run the technology infrastructure versus supporting client projects. Furthermore the model supported detailed labor analysis by product and activity type.
Value Received By Client:
The analysis of technology cost by product, business line, and region provided executive management new insights and ongoing reporting capabilities to manage cost. The client is positioned to better align technology cost allocation with business consumption on a product usage and project basis; which will foster an improved partnership between business and technology.