Disparate IT Infrastructure

By Jerry Edinger

How did we get into the mess we are in today?
In the mid 1990's, OEMs began to expand and acquire organizations, including third party service providers and some of the smaller OEMs in order to expand their products and services portfolios. These acquisitions drove top-line revenue growth and grew market share, but they also caused significant growing pains. The OEMs had to integrate the acquired company into their organization, not only from a service and support perspective, but from a manufacturing, procurement, HR, legal, fulfillment, billing, and cultural perspective. As we all know, integration is harder in some areas of a business than in others, and service and support is usually not the first place integration is initiated. It usually begins with HR by moving the necessary people to keep building products. Then procurement and fulfillment processes are integrated to deliver products. Finally, the rest of the business is evaluated.

During the integration phase of the service and support IT infrastructure, it is usually determined that it is easier and less cost-prohibitive to move legacy contracts into the OEM's IT infrastructure. If you were one of the OEMs that did multiple acquisitions in a short period of time before the integration of the last acquisition was completed, you have probably found that your IT infrastructure has not only expanded exponentially, but has also increased costs, which could negatively impact customer service. Following the four steps outlined here can help you get your costs and customers back in line.