IT service provider, Datacom, has garnered top marks in a benchmark green readiness assessment.
The Green IT Readiness Index is the brain child of Connection Research and Melbourne’s RMIT University and is aimed at gauging a company’s green technology maturity.
It relies on benchmarking respondents to an online survey on environmentally-friendly policies, techniques and technology and has accumulated a database of more than 400 organisations for comparison.
“We were reviewing our green IT plan in terms of building a roadmap for the next four to five years and what it will require, so we wanted to know how we compared to other Australian organisations,” Datacom general manager, Kassandra Singh, said. “Benchmarking is important when you do that comparison and I was looking for a research firm that could provide us with a benchmark that was local and relevant and with a sample size big enough to be meaningful.”
Datacom scored an overall rating of 72.9 out of 100 with top honours in the Lifecycle (Procurement and Disposal) and Enablement categories. Scores were 80 and 76 respectively. End User Efficiencies, Enterprise IT Efficiencies and Measurement were also tested.
According to a press statement by Connection Research, the service provider achieved the highest performance results of any organisation surveyed so far.
While delighted by the outcome, Singh acknowledged there was room for improvement.
“The areas we were weak at were in – not surprisingly – our monitoring and measurement side and those were more restrained by the fact we are an outsourcing service organisation,” she said. “At times, we are limited to what our customers are ready for and the cost appetite for it.
“Definitely the measurement and monitoring was a big hit for me, which why I want to focus on it especially around our datacentres.”
The company already has a stellar track record in being environmentally conscious, and nabbed the ARN Green Project of the Year award three years running.
“I was delighted that the small things we have been doing were things that can be measured and have made a difference in the last few years,” Singh said. “Like most organisations, we don’t have a separate green IT budget and it everything we do just have to make business sense while keeping in mind what the environmental impact of our decisions will be.”
