Jul 03, 2008This article was originally published by RFID Update.
July 3, 2008—Aberdeen Group has released the latest installment in a series of reports on RFID adoption. Entitled RFID and IT Infrastructures: Maximizing Business Value, the report is available as a free download until August 29th. Following is the executive summary, contributed by report author Michael Dortch.
RFID and IT Infrastructures: Maximizing Business Value
This report offers specific recommendations to help companies maximize the business value of their RFID and other IT investments by achieving Best-in-Class levels of application and infrastructure monitoring and management.
Best-in-Class Performance
Aberdeen used three key performance criteria to distinguish Best-in-Class companies. The Best-in-Class enjoyed an average of:
- 75.4% year-over-year increase in the number of applications meeting or exceeding external SLAs
- 16.7% year-over-year increase in IT infrastructure operational efficiency and business responsiveness
- 1.92% year-over-year reduction of unplanned downtime
Competitive Maturity Assessment
The performance levels in the three key performance indicators (KPIs) used for this report determine the maturity of an organization. In addition, typical Best-in-Class organizations:
- Are 50% more likely than Industry Average and more than twice as likely as Laggard respondents to test, measure and manage RFID and IT infrastructure performance proactively and regularly
- Are more than twice as likely to manage the performance of deployed RFID solutions proactively
- Are more than twice as likely to have Quality of Service (QoS) metrics in place for key business applications
"Infrastructure is to information as bottle is to wine -- the technology is the packaging that allows the information to be delivered to end consumers"
~ Carol Shapiro and Hal Varian, authors of "Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy" (1999)
Required Actions
In addition to the specific recommendations in Chapter Three of this report, to achieve Best-in-Class performance, companies must:
- Consistently and proactively monitor and manage RFID and IT infrastructure health and performance
- Establish and enforce effective KPIs, QoS criteria, and SLAs for all key RFID and infrastructure elements and supported business applications, functions and services
- Use integrated RFID-generated data to improve business analytics and intelligence
- Establish resources to aid efforts to educate and engage key stakeholders, especially senior executives, concerning RFID and IT infrastructure management and their importance to overall business performance
The full report, available free on Aberdeen's website until August 29th, discusses each of these points and many others in detail.
