Smart companies look for ways to streamline routine operations. Not only does this cut costs and reduce the wear and tear of repetitive work on intelligent employees, but it also frees up time and budget for more important work. Labour – the cost of IT staff – is the biggest cost by far. Ensuring that this cost is put to the most productive use is the main goal of IT leadership. This puts manageability at the top of the agenda.
Hosted services (also known as cloud computing, Software-as-a-Service or SaaS) are a good example and the subject of this paper.
