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14 pg 268

"No one department could fund building...." hahaha; you've never worked in a big bank. You cheat a little with the word "pervasive", because that implies cross-business buy-in and so your statement has pre-decided this is a centralized task.

14.1.2 pg271/272

"Centralization does not innately improve efficiency". True, but standardization does. The two typically go hand in hand. I'm not talking about product standardization, but process standards. One SA can manage a lot more machines if the proccesses for each are the same. This then comes to a sticking point of centralization; the merging of SA teams. This will lead to redundant roles and job losses. Politics!!!

Just FWIW, "Customer liaisons" are common in outsourcing agreements

14.1.3 Customization pg 274

A lot of the customization requirements, especially the one you described, could be solved by a segregated lab environment where machines in the labs have no access to the production network (firewalled off) and the engineers or SAs who need the latest/greatest for testing can put these machines in the lab and remotely access them (citrix/ssh/whatever). Thus the corporate network is protected and follows standards, and the bleeding edge teams get a safe place to play.

14.2.1 pg 276

Important win from central purchasing: ASSET MANAGEMENT Central purchasing can record all serial numbers of purchased equipment and put them in a database, and when the equipment is sent to the end user the "ownership" of that asset can be changed.

14.2.2 Outsourcing pg 279

Some outsourcing contracts are priced below cost in order for the vendor to be considered a preferred bidder on project work; it's on this project work that outsourcing deals make money for the supplier. -- StephenHarris - 17 Aug 2006