Melbourne's Monash University has revealed plans to overhaul and beef up its information technology support division, with the creation of an over-arching chief information officer position and the launch of a new shared services strategy.
The changes stem from a wide-ranging review conducted last year by consultancy firm KPMG into the way the university uses technology to support its operations. KPMG's review culminated in a series of recommendations that were approved by the institution to become a strategic plan in June 2008.
The first and most obvious effect of the recommendations has been the recent promotion to the chief information officer role of the uni's executive director of its information technology services division, Alan McMeekin, as outlined on the university's web site.
However the university also started hiring this week for two senior executives to support McMeekin and join him in Monash's new office of the chief information officer; a program director to lead the shared services initiative and a director of ICT coordination. Analyst firm Gartner has also been involved in reviewing certain aspects of the revamp.
The overall goals of the revamp, according to the university, are to:
Reduce cost through the better utilisation of resources; reduce risk through ensuring use of best practice techniques, including appropriate policies for security and continuity; improve the quality of service provided by ensuring a focus on business outcomes; ensure ICT support groups have appropriate resources; and provide good overall governance.
Overall KPMG recommended a series of nine projects to meet those goals at Monash.
The consultancy said the university needed a single help desk; a new service management strategy including a new catalogue of all ICT services delivered across the institution; a new vendor and contract management strategy and a set of standardised software, hardware and processes for desktop PCs.
In addition, KPMG recommended the university standardise its IT finance management and implement an organisation-wide change management process, as well as a new and comprehensive IT asset management system; and build an improved approach to project management and datacentre and server consolidation project.
With the planning out of the way, the university is scheduled to move into the implementation phase of the plan this month.
