Databus Issue: 2003 3 07/15/2003
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): A New Tool for Effective Technology Communication
Beverly Blaylock, Director Technology and Communications Services
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As director of technology and communication services for the Santee School District, I became aware two years ago that hard financial times were coming. Last year, I began a conscious campaign to redefine “technology” within our District. Trying to eliminate negative images such as “deep and endless money pit,” or “magnificent empire construction,” to something positive like “technology is an essential asset” or “use technology to plan now for future savings” is no easy feat!
I began by asking our district technology committee, a representative group who provides technology recommendations to our board of education, to help us identify all the ways we could save the district money by using technology. Over the course of several months, we developed a Cost Reduction Action Plan that included the components described below. This plan was then shared with as many stakeholders as possible. The primary message delivered was, “Your District Technology Committee is planning to use technology to save our district money.” Our Cost Reduction Action Plan consists of the following:
• Strictly enforce existing software curriculum standards that support those titles that are Web or server-based and contain little or no client component.
• Provide a student information system that improves the ability for teachers, parents and administrators to track student achievement
• Continue to provide extensive 40 hour- to 120 hour-technology training programs for teachers
• By mandated policy, utilize voice mail, email, electronic forms and Web publishing to reduce current publications costs across the district.
• Implement Citrix, thin-client computing for some or all grade levels.
• Discontinue district-level support for all computers that are over six years old and establish firm guidelines on equipment replacement.
• Utilize centralized web (Outlook Exchange folders), portal or server-based storage to store all data that is currently stored on individual PCs.
• Employ centralized Help Desk and server tools to re-ghost computers back to their original installation configuration.
• Establish a low-cost lease/purchase plan so parents can buy or contribute to the purchase of student appliances.
• Implement wireless WAN to reduce telecommunications costs.
• Use a foundation to bring individual classrooms up to the technology levels specified in our technology plan.
We then decided to compute our TCO as a baseline for future comparisons. Be prepared that computing your TCO is not an easy process and will take some time. Some of the preparation we needed included:
• Gathering budget information from numerous other departments. For example, our professional development is funded from several sources outside the technology department.
• Trying to decide whether to include or exclude the telephone system that is under my management.
• Making sure that our hardware and software inventory was accurate. We try to keep our internal technology data collection aligned with the timing of the California Ed Tech Survey.
• The decision to include or exclude administrative computers.
• Estimating how much time each teacher spends in fixing her own computer problems
We found a simple spreadsheet-based TCO calculator from Utopia Place at www.utopiaplace.com/research/whitepapers/total_cost.html and met with numerous staff to identify our current cost of ownership. The research and interviews alone helped in raising the level of awareness within the leadership of our district. We were fortunate to have ed tech training programs in place for site administrators and teachers and we made sure a TCO segment was included in each training module. Our first draft TCO calculations are included in our new technology plan in appendix 4.1 at http://www.santee.k12.ca.us/tech/techplan041003/
Since then, the Gartner Group, along with the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) and others have prepared a series of comprehensive TCO publications targeted to K-12 school districts. The Web-based project, “Taking TCO to the Classroom” was released in mid May 2003. The project Web site at http://www.classroomtco.org/ and its related Gartner link at https://k12tco.gartner.com/home/ has a series of links that will assist a district prepare to complete the calculations. The comprehensive Gartner approach makes my initial TCO efforts look very insignificant, but it’s exciting to at least have a primitive start. The one limitation of the “Taking TCO to the Classroom” project, appears to be the extensive amount of time needed to complete the analysis.
It would be beneficial if school districts could standardize on a common TCO tool, as a way of raising our collective expertise in this area. Whether we like it or not, CEOs will know about these tools and begin asking for the data! There’s always the risk that someone will say, “Why is our TCO so high when compared to our like-districts?” TCOs can’t really be compared between sites. A very low TCO in one district may not reveal the unreported lack of customer support and satisfaction, whereas a very high TCO at another district may be caused from the burst of activity created by board-approved technology initiatives.
So, how has the emphasis on TCO helped support technology for our district? Primarily, it has served as a communication tool with our stakeholders. One challenge that we all face is being able to describe the technical nature of what we do with our customers and supervisors. Using a business model, like TCO, allows us to communicate on a level that is comfortable for most school administrators. Another way that TCO helps is the activity of researching all the direct and indirect costs with all departments. This will reveal how interwoven technology really is within your district. Finally, for all those who see our budgets filled with as much jargon as our vocabularies, TCO helps open the books for better understanding. Improved understanding often equated to improved support.
In addition to the two references listed above, here’s two of my favorite TCO Web references for your additional research:
Brooks-Young. An Internet Hotlist on Infrastructure/TCO, Retrieved May 7, 2003 from http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/pages/listinfrastrsu.html
Moskowitz, S. (2001 Mar 1). Technology Management: Twelve Steps to Trimming Your TCO. ESchoolNews. Retrieved October 23, 2002 from www.eschoolnews.com/resources/reports/management
The Santee School District is a K-8 district with 10 schools and 7,200 students. Middle-class commuters who reside in high-cost single-family homes primarily populate the community of Santee. No-growth initiatives have discouraged housing developments and, as the population has aged, the school district has seen a steady decline in enrollment. Over the past four years, over 1,000 students have moved out of the elementary system, and, without relief, the decline will continue for at least another six to eight years. Santee, with an E-Rate percentage of 46 percent, slips between the cracks of most grants, but doesn’t escape the burdens of the California educational budget crisis.
Beverly Blaylock can be reached by email at bblayloc@santee.k12.ca.us or by phone at (619) 258-2240.
