By: Matthew Crabtree

Chicago, IL — Technology Value Rationalization, or TVR™, is a new way of measuring technology investments for enterprise IT leaders. The discipline was started and is being led by Chicago based technology consulting firm, ACLIVITI.

Company co-founder and CEO, Ryan Young said, “We developed TVR to counteract some of the biggest challenges facing IT leadership, c-suite executives, and line-of-business directors in a rapidly changing marketplace. IT leaders are expected to be strategic and innovative, but spend a majority of their time putting out fires and operating and maintaining core systems. We help them eliminate or at the very least diminish the impact of this paradox while validating the value of IT investments across the enterprise.”

“The backbone of TVR is the belief that all businesses are able to rationalize their IT investments”, Young explained. ACLIVITI’s approach to rationalization is two-fold, first it justifies and logically explains why certain technologies are used and at what cost. Second it makes the organization more efficient by rethinking IT in a way that eliminates unnecessary costs.

As IT spending continues to grow, so too does the number of products, features, and functionality that the business has access to. The gap between what is being paid for, what the business needs, and what they are actually capable of using was dubbed the “Consumption Gap” by authors J.B Wood, Todd Hewling, and Thomas Lah in Consumption Economics, The New Rules of Tech. This is exactly the type of scenario Young says his team sees everyday. Young elaborated on their theories, “TVR helps you be proactive and confident and obliterate that consumption gap while improving business outcomes throughout the organization. Because technologies are better aligned with business strategies.”

According to Wood, Hewling, and Lah, “’good enough IT’ is becoming a reality. The real danger or challenge for clients is apathy, indifference, and and overwhelming reluctance to take action.” Research from IDC has shown that doing nothing is the worst mistake you can make. Embracing the As-a-Service economy delivers benefits in many key areas for the IT business unit.

Yet, according to research from HfS, almost two-thirds of the enterprise market is not ready to adopt the As-a-Service economy within the next two years, leaving the benefits it provides behind.

ACLIVITI addresses the issues of consumption gap and decision paralysis by providing a fact-based, data-driven, and proven framework for executing a Technology Value Rationalization program. “Clients usually retain us because they have a vision of where they want to go, but are struggling to build the timeline, transition plan, and cost/ROI models to support specific business cases. We sit on the client side of the table to help them organize these efforts and we provide program and project management services, as needed, to help accelerate the transition,” Young added.

Young went on to say, “We recognize there are a multitude of executives who embrace the values and motivations behind TVR. Investing millions each year in IT shouldn’t be a black hole of spending. It can be measured and improved to drive business growth and provide a strategic advantage. TVR is not only the means, but a movement towards a better state of IT.”