Cost Containment - Pushing Information Technology Through the Eye of the Needle

Abstract

This presentation will describe the Administrative Services Cost Containment project that was initiated at Hunter College in March 1991 and is on-going today. This project's primary purpose is to control the costs of the administrative infrastructure of the college. A serendipitous outcome of the project was that the exhaustive and exhausting discipline of cost containment proved to be an ideal tool for allocating Information Technology resources to the needs of the college. The project should be of interest to anyone that is trying to do strategic planning with shrinking resources. Executives in the Information Technology and Administrative Services areas should find this an interesting presentation.McKinsey & Company, the internationally renowned management consulting firm, provided us with a methodology and PC software to facilitate the earlier phases of the project which culminated in a plan for substantial savings in the cost of the administrative infrastructure. The implementation of the plan started in June 1992. This paper will describe what was done right, what was done wrong, why this is an excellent way of doing strategic planning for Information Technology and how the entire Administrative Area of the college was pushed through the eye of a needle.