Some of the team have been divulging in some RnR with the third instalment of the Gears series. We keenly look to game theory and innovation in our information management and business intelligence projects and we were very impressed by Foldit's recent achievements which harnessed gamers.
Foldit, launched in 2008 by the University of Washington aims to harness the might of the video gaming community to do good in the world and the results are pretty staggering and compelling. The premise was to see if a critical mass of gamers would be able to find the answers or solve puzzles for science as the tag line reads.
The popularity of Foldit has been increasing and recently, in a matter of 10 days, gamers were able to do what biochemists have been trying to do for 10 years - unlock the structure of protein called retroviral protease. This is an enzyme that is key to understanding the way HIV multiples. It is hoped that this will help scientists understand and then prevent the way this grows. You can see how we are doing here on our profile page.
You can find out more here and their blog is well worth a view. Other initiatives look to harness the power of the human brain to out perform the performance of super computer, Galaxy Zoo is an other example.
At 5point9 we tend to use the techniques that work in game theory to improve business solutions. This can often include rewards, ambient find-ability and maintaining interest levels through levels of details. To find out more get in touch with us at Technical@5point9.com.
Further to our previous post (http://tinyurl.com/5point9Cloud) on Cloud Computing and calculating the Return On Investment (ROI) there is a new study which shows the green impact that cloud can have and further benefits of going to cloud.
The report which has been created by the CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project) estimates that through cloud computing, there is the potential to reduce global carbon emissions by millions of tons. The report is well worth a read and goes on to show the projected savings that are to be made through cloud computing.
The research is compelling and reinforces the benefits of cloud computing in a rarely considered angle of the energy consumption and associated cost savings as well as the holistic benefits. As we have mentioned when considering moving to the cloud it is critical to consider these factors when looking at the NPV and ROI calculations.
For more information you can reach us here: info@5point9.com.
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Supporting our clients to build business cases and return on investment calculations is something which we are regularly engaged in. One common misconception is that this extremely complex and something akin to rocket science. It doesn't need to be.
When we engage to assit clients to define their business cases our first question is: Why are you doing this now? This may sound easy but it is often something which our customers can not always succinctly define. There is often a lot of pontification and perceived benefits or pressures from areas of the business but no measurable criteria or monetary value saving. We also try and come at these challenges from the savings perspective. Why: If it is not going to offer you savings, what benefits are you going to get? Even if the driver is legislation or regulations their is still a monetary benefit as you will be reducing the risk of litigation or a fine.
So how do you begin to work out the savings? We recommend taking a look at the FTE's who will be involved and their average costs - we then work this out at a very broad level to give a day rate or even more granular, such as a hourly rate or even minute rate. With this you are in a position where you can immediately work through some scenarios for the savings you will make and build in some assumptions. This does not take into account the benefit of financial implications of freeing up the resources to do more high value or other key tasks which will impact your business in a positive way or if IT is involved any technology savings.
The next thing that we do is to look at the primary, secondary and tertiary drivers. These are the things that will impact the business case to varying degreed:
- Primary
- These are the elements which will directly drive the benefits of the project.
- If the project is optimisation related, this could be the amount of an asset used and the amount to be saved by this project. This can then be mapped to a cost per GB for CAPEX and OPEX (maintenance, management etc.).
- Secondary
- This can vary largely on a case by case basis. In general terms we consider this to be areas that will be impacted but will not have the same effect as the primary driver. They are effected but not to the same extent as the primary, we use Pareto's law here, 20% should be primary and where we focus.
- To follow the optimisation use case, this could be the benefits of reassigning the asset to something else and the cost savings or value of doing that. This can be complicated and may not be required.
- Tertiary
- These tend to be things that are in proximity but not directly involved.
- We consider these to be things of interest but not having significant impact. They are included to have a holistic view.
We have developed various ROI calculations for various Line Of Business (LOB) activities and we can share further details on these. You can reach us at info@5point9.com.
Thanks,
For further information or details you can reach us here Enterprise@5point9.com
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