Enterprise performance requires a broad view
It is our belief that one of the most valuable things that we bring to an organization in our consulting practice is the message that you have to get everyone in your IT organization to look at things from an enterprise perspective. While this is a difficult and challenging task, particularly in areas where people have traditionally been rewarded for a narrow focus on their specific subset of the organization, there's no other endeavor that can have as significant an impact on the performance of an IT organization. Training your people to take a holistic approach to enterprise computing provides rewards far beyond any technical or procedural training in any one specific area.

When the cultural focus is on the performance of the IT enterprise "team" as opposed to individual people, products, or functional areas, IT efficiency and effectiveness increases across the board. In such an environment, the question asked is no longer "Is this the best product (or solution) for my specific needs?" but rather "Will the use of this product (or solution) produce the best result for the enterprise as a whole?" When you ask the right questions, you find the answers that you truly need.

"Best of breed" designations are temporary at best
Have you ever looked through back issues of Consumer Reports or Car & Driver to see the Editor's Choice or Car of the Year over time? What is considered the best of the best in one year can easily be the lowest of the low in just a few years time. Like automobiles, IT products may be universally recognized as the finest products available at any given point in time, but eventually other products either catch up or surpass that particular product. The IT landscape is constantly changing. While you may have all of the statistics and industry reports and analysis to demonstrate that your chosen product or methodology represents the pinnacle of performance, how long will that picture hold true?

Enterprise performance requires a long view
Having an enterprise perspective is more than just looking at the big picture. It also requires the vision to look down the road and see where things are going. It requires a broad view and a long view. If you truly want to be cost-effective, you need to recognize that the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of any given IT product includes not only the cost of its acquisition and deployment, but also the cost of supporting it throughout its anticipated life span.

While Product A may be the best of the best in Environment X today, by tomorrow Product A may be surpassed by Product B or Environment X may be replaced by Environment Y. In selecting people, processes, or products for your IT enterprise, more emphasis should be placed on their capacity to grow and adapt in an ever-changing world than any current capability that they may possess at the moment that they are brought on board.

Introducing anything new into your environment is an expense. The reason that you make such expenses is the anticipation that these costs will be recovered through the benefits achieved through the addition of the new person, process, or product. This is commonly referred to as your ROI, or Return On Investment. Enterprise products typically have a high ROI because the benefits achieved can be obtained across such a vast domain. Point solutions, on the other hand, only provide benefits to a specialized area, and may, in fact, introduce additional problems for other areas.