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moreCost/performance ratio in IT: Accounting is not relative
What are the costs of an IT service for your company? As global as this question is, the answer is just as difficult – for there are innumerable differentiating attributes to have in mind. When even the methods for price-calculating are hard to conduct, why should it be different with accounting services? At this point, it is clear that objectively controllable and transparent solutions are needed to present to the customer – internally or externally.
Hypoport AG, a leading provider of B-to-B financing marketplaces with emphasis on real estate financing, approached the problem systematically and – by using the IT controlling platform netinsight from nicetec – solved it.
Constantly growing demands on IT
The Hypoport combine from Berlin consists of two core-elements: the institute sells financial products itself and provides a transaction platform to trade financial products via the Internet; it also provides financial products for private Hypoport customers by the wholly-owned subsidiary Dr. Klein & Co. AG – from the bank giro account via insurance services to real estate financing.
Higher complexity, more employees
Over the years, demands on the IT section increased strongly, together with the business activity of the parent company. It was outsourced via the Hypoport Systems GmbH as a cost center and now is responsible for originator-allocated accounting for IT costs. The staff grew from 10 to 110 employees – which also represents the growing complexity of IT. “Keeping track of things” is the biggest challenge.
“Transparent accounting is a must“
Michael Krüger, executive manager of Hypoport Systems, explains: “To account for the present amount of jobs and equipment in a transparent fashion, especially for internal customers, is a must for an internal provider. With about 450 employees of the Hypoport combine by now, this is a big challenge, particularly when you must not lose track of the costs.”
Excel-based tool couldn´t compete any longer
With the existing tools of accounting and recording for services, the IT manager reached the limit of the growing complexity. Therefore, the Excel-based tool for accounting services for Hypoport needed to be replaced with a new system, in order to put IT performance management on a new basis.
Direct expenses for every cost unit
Next to pricing for single services or the usage of assets and inventory – mostly hardware, software and licenses – the main task was to find a solution to provide the direct expenses accurately for each cost unit.
The conclusion was that a new system was needed, one that also could implement an interface with the already existing asset-management system.
High system compatibility needed
Hypoport Systems found the answer in the specialized provider nicetec. Crucial to the decision, amongst other things, according to Krüger, was “that nicetec has long-term experience with integrating data sources and implemented solutions for other customers that proved successful so that IT Services could account for usage and consumption dependently. Also, the platform netinsight uses Oracle databases just as our own IT landscape, so there was high compatibility from the very start.”
Consumption-dependent cost distribution
The platform netinsight collects all relevant cost factors and allocates them to the cost units as a transparent bill automatically. Therefore, a service catalog was arranged that was completely traceable for the customer. A special challenge was the pricing of services since all costs of an IT provider should be distributed dependently.
Fully automated accounting
Nicetec helped here with product sight and cost-per-piece-calculations. “Finally, up to 300 single cost positions had to be considered in order to set the price for a workplace. Later, we connected netinsight to the asset management services, and realized fully automated accounting.” Krüger says.
Customizing the platform according to needs
A big advantage of the nicetec solution is that the customer can adapt and expand the system to its very special needs. “It is just this high flexibility that is the special advantage of netinsight against other products on the market. The modular construction and the easy handling meet our requests very well. Thereby we can modularize and customize the platform according to our special needs,” Krüger explains.
Detailed, comprehensible and well-grounded
The final result for Hypoport: The invoices generated with nicetec’s netinsight are simple, flexible, and consumption-oriented, yet still detailed and transparent down to all particulars for all of its internal customers. Therefore, it is comprehensible and controllable for the responsible person in charge of the budget. Now, Krüger easily could answer questions about prices for IT productivity with “a push of the button.”
The Hypoport group is an internet-based financial services provider. The internal IT services provider Hypoport Systems has over 450 employees and uses netinsight from nicetec to achieve transparency in their IT services costs, while at the same time significantly reducing the complexity and effort involved in implementing and using the previous Excel-based cost allocation system. You can read in this case study about which requirements were fulfilled and which project goals were achieved.
You can download the Hypoport AG case study as a PDF (314 kb).
