Here are some facts: According to Gartner, organizational investment in solutions such as those offered by Infoblox continues to accelerate at a pace well beyond overall IT. Infoblox leads the DDI market by providing critical capabilities that organizations rely on, including faster and more accurate provisioning of DNS/DHCP services, securing DNS, and the move to hybrid clouds. These high-value use cases enable organizations to reduce costs, increase service, secure the network, and migrate services to the cloud.
Yet while organizations can easily quantify the value of Infoblox solutions, many companies underinvest in product training around DDI/DNS security projects compared to their training investment in IT projects that provide less value and yield a lower return on investment (ROI). In fact, database and network management disciplines have developed a culture of technical training and certification that is practically required for employment.
Given the extreme importance of DDI/DNS security, and the value that Infoblox provides an organization, a strong case for training can and should be made to extend this value. The purpose of this paper is to help professionals responsible for DDI, DNS security, and Infoblox implementations provide a credible and defensible business justification for funding training using both quantitative and qualitative examples.
Many IT leaders use ROI as a financial figure of merit to justify project cost. ROI is a widely understood concept and is popular in the IT community largely due to the ease of calculation. For example, if an investment of $100 provides a profit of $150 then the ROI calculates as $150/$100 x 100 = 150%. Nice and simple.
While the decision to fund the overall data management project that led to an investment in Infoblox was likely justified with net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), and other sophisticated measures, ROI is extremely useful to quickly and easily demonstrate the return on smaller investments with short payback periods, such as training and education.
Training can be justified by using one or more of three quantitative categories that provide a return on investment: revenue generation, productivity and performance improvement, and cost reduction. This post uses cost reduction exclusively as a valid means of justifying training, as it is comparatively easy to model and understand. Cost reduction also provides a compelling measure for programs that affect a small number of users.
Training will reduce real costs and have a positive impact on an organization in numerous ways. Too often however, IT professionals are not equipped to justify training.
Cost avoidance is an excellent way to justify training, as the education provided by Infoblox Education Services can be immediately put to use on initial implementations as well as on managing subsequent changes due to evolving business requirements. Without training, organizations are left to rely on outside implementation services, which, while providing immense value on large projects, will considerably add to project expense. An investment in training from Infoblox Education Services will reduce these expenses and provide a compelling ROI that will meet the scrutiny of financial decision makers.
Other extremely valuable business requirements can also be used to justify training. Requirements such as insuring compliance and system availability are likewise facilitated by trained personnel maintaining the system on an ongoing basis, and are a small price to pay for avoiding massive penalties and expenses.
Want more help justifying your training costs? Check out these resources.
Infoblox Education Services Web Site https://www.infoblox.com/support/training/infoblox-education-services/
Why Choose Infoblox Education Services Brochure https://www.infoblox.com/resources/brochures/why-choose-infoblox-education-services
Infoblox Course Catalog https://www.infoblox.com/resources/datasheet/infoblox-education-services-course-catalog
Infoblox Professional Accreditations https://www.infoblox.com/support/training/infoblox-accreditations/