Developing a Demand Management Structure and Process

Demand management roles, models and whether best practices exist.

More and more companies today are viewing demand management as one of the biggest opportunities they have to control or reduce costs without compromising their overall business goals and requirements.

IT has traditionally been more focused on how to meet ever-growing demand than on implementing processes to curb that demand and ensure that the highest value work gets done. As a result, demand management techniques are less mature than other cost control methods.

What is needed is an ongoing conversation between business heads and IT over what level of IT services the business can afford and where the business priorities lie, at both a country and global level.

Demand management is a process that manages the complex and strategic IT demand requests issued by the business. As part of this process, organisations attempt to prioritise, consolidate and schedule the requests, enabling business users and IT to collaborate efficiently, cutting costs, accelerating resolution and optimising the deployment of IT resources over time.

This WebEx workshop discussed demand management roles, models and whether best practices exist and was attended by 19 delegates representing 13 organisations from a wide cross-section of industries including insurance, construction, financial services, local government, manufacturing, retail, transport, airlines, brewing and leisure, pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals and recruitment.

The session considered the following topics:

• The title and role of the demandmanager
• How prioritisation decisions are made
• Whether there any best practice models for demand management
• Getting the balance right between local and global plans
• The necessary skills for effective demand management