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Spotlight
Managing IT projects with ease
Business houses need assistance in managing complex IT projects
and that’s where Compuware comes into the picture with its solutions for
application delivery management and IT services management. By Mohd Shariff
PA
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 "Investments
in IT are scrutinized like never before, and rightly so, as IT investments
can represent up to 50% of an organization’s capital investment"
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G. Hariharan
Managing Director, Compuware India
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Since 1973, Compuware Corporation has helped transform information
technology investments into business assets. The company’s solutions play
a significant role in the company’s growth as it services 7,000 customer
worldwide and 125 in Indian including the likes of Wipro, Satyam Technologies
and TCS. To this end, the company’s enterprise software solutions offer
minimum risk and maximum RoI to customers.
Indian foray
The company entered the Indian market in January 2007, with the vision of providing
innovative solutions across verticals. However, it had already established a
remote presence across the world. G. Hariharan, Managing Director, Compuware
India, said, “We help maximize the value of technology investments by offering
a set of integrated solutions for enterprise IT including portfolio management,
application development, quality assurance and IT service management.
“We are focusing on enhancing our market space for growth in India.”
It is a known fact that most companies are following best
practices to bolster their presence in the IT market. Hariharan believes that
the IT spend of Indian businesses has been increasing rapidly over the past
few years. Organizations do not focus as much on cost cutting as they do upon
eliminating the inefficient use of software solutions.
IT and business
IT has to provide technology solutions to business functions
that fulfill customer requirements and depending upon how good or bad these
solutions are, a business stands or falls in today’s digital world. This
is the philosophy of Compuware. Solutions such as application delivery management,
IT service management, IT portfolio management and professional services all
find a place in its portfolio.
Application delivery management helps IT become an effective partner to business
by continuously managing application delivery projects with expected business
outcomes. Visibility into project status and quality are provided across the
organization, ensuring that IT delivers projects on time, within the budget,
as the business intended. Hariharan said, “Our solution for application
delivery management gives IT executives the ability to manage the delivery process,
equipping them with metrics that matter, both to the IT organization and to
the business at large. Visibility into the status and quality of ongoing projects
through cross-project executive summary dashboards enables IT to highlight key
metrics and identify problem areas early in the delivery process.”
| 1973 |
Peter Karmanos, Jr Thomas Thewes and
Allen B. Cutting establish Compuware Corporation. |
| 1977 |
Compuware introduces Abend-AID, its first
software product, which is designed to detect bugs and suggest corrective
action in corporate mainframe systems. |
| 1978 |
Compuware opens its first remote office
to service the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore area. |
| 1983 |
Compuware launches its File-AID product
line. Using a request-driven interface, developers are able to use File-AID
products to quickly and easily find, create, extract, transfer, fix, convert,
load, edit, age and compare data. |
| 1992 |
Compuware launches its File-AID product
line. Using a request-driven interface, developers are able to use File-AID
products to quickly and easily find, create, extract, transfer, fix, convert,
load, edit, age and compare data. |
| 1993 |
Compuware acquires EcoSystems Software,
a producer of management software for the client/server environment. |
| 1994 |
Compuware acquires UNIFACE, a development
environment for building, renewing and integrating strategic applications. |
| 1995 |
Compuware acquires Coronet, a software
product for managing the performance of networked applications. |
| 1997 |
Compuware acquires NuMega Technologies.
NuMega products are the worldwide market share leaders in accelerating the
development of reliable software for professional Windows and Java developers. |
| 1998 |
Compuware surpasses the $1 billion revenue
mark. |
| 2000 |
Compuware acquires e-business services
firms BlairLake, Inc. (Kansas City, Missouri) and Nomex, Inc. (Montreal,
Canada). These firms become Compuware Digital Development Centers, providing
skilled artists, content specialists, technical experts and strategists
to plan, create and deliver e-business services. |
| 2004 |
Compuware acquires
the products and technology of Covisint, LLC, a company whose solutions
connect the global automotive industry. |
| 2005 |
Compuware enters into software, services
and technology partnership with IBM and settles all outstanding litigation
between the two companies. |
| 2006 |
Compuware acquires SteelTrace of Dublin,
Ireland. Renamed OptimalTrace, the product aligns application delivery to
business needs through a structured, visual approach to the management of
enterprise application requirements. |
Delivering on time, on budget
Ineffective requirements definition and management is one of the most common
reasons why IT organizations struggle to deliver projects on time and on budget.
By one estimate, when development projects fail, most of the time it’s
because of inaccurate or ambiguous project requirements. Compuware’s solution
for business requirement management provides a standard structure for all projects
and associated documents and reports and helps simplify the management of multiple
projects across large organizations. Requirements are tracked throughout the
application lifecycle, from the inception of an IT project right through development
and testing.
The IT service management solution, assists business-driven service delivery
by combining focused reporting, end-user experience monitoring and application
analytics with infrastructure and service desk metrics, whether provided by
Compuware solutions or third-party tools. This combination allows the IT department
to line up its services around critical objectives with a real-time overview
of service delivery. Other segments of this solution such as business service
management, end-user experience monitoring and application analytics also add
value. This provides real-time views of IT service delivery so that CIOs, IT
managers and business counterparts can understand the impact that IT services
have upon business operations.
IT Portfolio Management provides a tool to manage and align the entire portfolio
and achieve the effective IT governance of an organization. Moreover, it can
align IT portfolios with business objectives and it can do portfolio and investment
planning for businesses.
One of key priorities for CIOs is to deliver projects that enable business growth
and align IT strategies to business goals. IT organizations must deliver on
these priorities while addressing requirements from governing boards related
to corporate accountability and regulatory compliance mandates. “In this
environment, investments in IT are scrutinized like never before, and rightly
so, as IT investments can represent up to 50% of an organization’s capital
investment,” said Hariharan
The right processes and systems have to be in place, otherwise it is tough to
assess the value, cost, risk and performance of IT services. Organizations that
are looking to govern IT and maximize business value need to take a comprehensive
view that takes into consideration the entire scope of IT processes, as well
as all IT investments and resources.
- Manage IT using business-relevant metrics
that clearly communicate IT’s value to business heads.
- Understand the impact of performance problems
on business processes, SLAs, applications, locations and affected end
users so you can effectively prioritize troubleshooting efforts.
- Proactively monitor all users all the
time so you can detect and fix performance problems before end users
even know about them.
- Create customized reports for service
level management (SLM) initiatives such as ITIL and Six Sigma.
- Establish and maintain consistent service
level agreements (SLAs) and know when SLAs are not going to be met.
- Isolate performance problems to the client,
network, server or application tier.
- Make informed decisions regarding infrastructure
utilization and investments.
- Validate new applications will meet performance
expectations once they are rolled into production.
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The need for effective business management
In the present context of businesses needing to take quick and appropriate action,
effective business management is a must. Compuware’s solution for business
requirements management provides a standard structure for all projects and its
associated documents and reports, simplifying the management of multiple projects
across large organizations. Requirements are tracked throughout the application
lifecycle, from the inception of an IT project through development and testing.
Through effective business requirements management, the entire IT organization
knows the intentions of the business and the outcome that is expected to be
achieved.
Compuware expects to grow in the Indian market. As India has become a crucial
market for the IT industry, the company has established a strong presence domestically
as well. Hariharan said, “Today we are witnessing tremendous interest from
the business community in India with a view to harnessing the exceptional growth
potential offered by enterprise application software.”
neeraj.gandhi@expressindia.com
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