At networking giant Cisco, Rebecca Jacoby has held the position of CIO for the last four years. In terms of how Jacoby reviews IT operations within Cisco, that’s a process that has also been evolving over the last four years. She noted that the traditional operations components of how the systems are performing is quantifiable anytime she wants to see the data.
“That data is most effectively delivered in a dashboard form and, to be honest, you don’t want to worry about it unless something goes wrong,” Jacoby said. “That’s a necessary part, but not necessarily a strategic part of what we do everyday.”
Looking beyond the IT as plumbing model, Jacoby’s CIO review process with her team members looks at total cost of ownership, service levels, investments as well as risk profile. Most importantly, Jacoby also has IT staff focus on understanding and reporting on cost per use.
“Who is using the service, how often is it being used and how much does it cost to deliver per use? And then we compare that to the value the service delivers,” Jacoby said. “Is the cost per use appropriate considering the value it delivers?”