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IT Strategy and Governance PDF Print E-mail
Written by Administrator   
Tuesday, 16 December 2008 15:49

Good strategy and governance are vital for your IT team to be able to support your main business strategy. A good strategy can make the difference between IT being just a cost centre to being an enabler for profit or to helping you stand out in a crowded market. Too many businesses consider their IT strategy as a separate entity to their main businesses strategy, this can lead to a multitude of problems.

Business and IT has experience of aligning business and IT strategies together so they both drive the business in the same direction. We provide consultancy in several specific areas:

  • IT Governance
  • Strategy Analysis & Design
    • Business Strategy
    • Operational Strategy
    • IT Strategy
    • Sourcing Strategy

 

IT Governance

Governance is a subject and can mean many things to many people, in its simplest form governance controls 'how and why' you do something, it goes hand in hand with your strategy which is again in its simplest form the 'what and when'.

Producing a beautifully aligned strategy without the corresponding governance is an exercise in futility; even the most basic strategy document should have an associated governance document. A governance document can include a multitude of subjects including:

  • Policies & Procedures
  • Standards
  • Decision Reasoning
  • Compliance (both internal and external)
  • Accountability and Ownership
  • Roles and Responsibilities

Whenever we are required to produce a strategy document for a client, we always strongly suggest that a governance document is greated at the same time. Business and IT has produced many governance and strategy documents over the years, from those we have produced several models that can be tailored to our individual clients needs.

 

Strategy Analysis & Design
Business Strategy

Every successful organisation has at its heart a robust business strategy. Starting with assessment of market opportunity, and leading to identification of actions required to achieve objectives, Business and IT can help you determine the direction you want to take your organisation, then create solutions to give you a competitive advantage in the drive towards your achievement of your strategic objectives. Our strategic services include:

Business case development – taking into account time, cost and resources, a strong business case will help you assess the financial viability and operational feasibility of any project or product.
Organisational planning – working closely with our clients’ teams to develop understanding of required changes and an effective implementation route to ensure organisational readiness for any major change project or programme.
Strategic direction – working with clients at a senior level to understand their current and future business needs, we support development of strategic thought prior to construction of implementation programmes.

 

Operational Strategy

Your operational strategy should help you define and implement the tactics, systems and processes required to support delivery of your organisations’ overall business strategy. At Business and IT, our knowledge and experience allows us to work with clients to identify an operational strategy fit for purpose and flexible enough to support the overall corporate strategy and gain competitive advantage. As part of this process, we will also:

  • Design effective operational models
  • Create strategies for dealing with regulatory change
  • Develop operational strategies to accommodate effective management of investment

 

IT Strategy

Many companies find definition and development of a technology strategy a significant challenge. But whether your needs encompass data, applications, infrastructure or even standardisation of your technology infrastructure, Business and IT can help:

  • Define your technology strategy, including data, applications and infrastructure
  • Standardise your technology infrastructure to enable more efficient operations
  • Assess emerging technologies and provide strategic recommendations
  • Ensure your IT strategy is aligned to your business strategy
  • Put your strategy in words that non-IT executives can understand
  • Virtualisation Strategies

 

Sourcing Strategy

Sourcing strategies can be critical to business success; strategic decisions about non-core activities can free management and operational resource to focus on the core activities that create value and competitive advantage. Business and IT can help you identify which areas of your IT can be outsourced effectively, and develop the most appropriate strategy for your business by assessing the impact of sourcing options including:

  • Outsourcing
  • Rightsourcing
  • Offshoring
  • In-sourcing

 
 
IT Management PDF Print E-mail
Written by Simon Fice   
Tuesday, 16 December 2008 15:35

Business and IT provides professional management consulting to all business sectors, helping clients identify and address business opportunities whilst supporting the delivery of required change to improve business performance and reduce risk. We can provide support and advice on any areas of:

  • Programme and Project Management
  • IT Team Transformation
  • Interim Management
  • Remediation of Business Issues
  • Budget Analysis and Forecasting

Our unrivalled reputation for providing independent, high quality services and support within a flexible and collaborative framework attracts clients serious about developing revenues and profits. We are proud to be able to deliver significant added value to our clients, and as a result have built up strong relationships across a broad range of businesses, suppliers and industry bodies.

 

Programme and Project Management

It's vital that every IT implementation is run as a controlled project. Good project management doesn't have to be time consuming or exhaustive, it just simply needs to be used pragmatically depending on the size of the project and the risks associated with it. Business and IT has years of experience rolling out projects all the way from small projects requiring just a couple of hours of planning to very large international projects taking months to plan. We use Prince 2 methodologies and as anyone who knows Prince 2 will confirm, it's a very practical, adaptable and common sense approach to project management that ensures the risks are identified and the resources allocated and managed efficiently no matter how large or small the project is.

 

Team Transformation

There can be many reasons as to why an IT Team is underperforming: -

  • poor management
  • poor direction or strategy
  • personal or personality issues
  • square peg, round hole syndrome (staff in the wrong roles)
  • work load
  • low morale
  • poorly performing systems
  • isolation from business

to name but a few. We find in the majority of cases that most teams can be turned around by simply spending time getting to the root cause of the problem, this can be very difficult to do for the incumbrnt management as they're usually entrenched within the issue whether they're the cause or not. Business and IT can provide an independent view, outside of your businesses politics or day-to-day issues. This allows us to quickly get to the bottom of the problem and provide a remedial solution.

Whether you just need analysis or the entire team transformed, Business and IT can help. We have over 20 years of management expereince at International FTSE-100 director level.

 

Interim Management

Businesses from time to time have temporary staffing issues, whether it’s because of a leaver, maternity, long term sick or you've simply not found the right candidate yet. Either way we have the skills and experience to very quickly step into a temporary management role and keep your IT Team motivated and performing as it should therefore leaving you to forget about IT and get on with your own role safe in the knowledge that its being looked after by professionals.

 

Remediation of Business Issues

However well your company is run, problems can arise which threaten the efficiency of its operation, its reputation and its revenue and profitability streams. Business and IT work with clients in this position to help them:

  • Analyse and diagnose the source of the problem and the scale of its impact
  • Re-establish processes
  • Restore operational and financial viability
  • Rebuild client and market confidence through restored operational competence and strong communication
  • Where in-house and existing teams need to be supplemented to achieve remediation, Business and IT can provide and manage the additional resources required

 

Budget Analysis and Forecasting

This service covers many aspects of cost budgetting, from year end budgetting though to project budgetting, a good set of budgets can either mean the green light for a profitable project or the prevention of a costly mistake.

Business and IT has experience of running multi-million, multi-currency projects and budgets and can help you either confirm a budget or we can write it from scratch.

 
Last Updated on Tuesday, 16 December 2008 16:18
 
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