Strategic Management

We take a pragmatic, outcomes-oriented approach to IT strategic planning and management, by undertaking a big-picture IT situation assessment, that feeds into the IT strategic plan.

This tailored service brings together business and product strategy, strategic initiatives and imperatives, linked projects, supporting and front-end processes, people and technological resources, as relevant to your organisation.  We utilise various techniques, including SWOT analysis, future IT state development, action plans and the technology roadmap to produce deliverables that inform and guide, not simply gather dust.

Performance Management

“You can’t manage what you don’t measure” is an old saying that holds true for IT performance.  Our view of IT recognises two top-level areas: the business performance of IT, and particularly alignment of IT activities with business strategy, (including cost and timeliness), and technical performance measures, such as availability, reliability and response times.

Financial Management

IT leadership cannot effectively support the IT functions it is responsible for unless the leadership team employs financial management techniques, such as having solid processes and procedures for procurement, asset management and appropriately detailed budgets.

Vendor Management

We offer a simple, effective methodology to take control of vendor relationships, by identifying key vendors, documenting and understanding the relationship, and assessing them against relevant criteria.

Our methodology supports a transparent approach to vendor management, including self-assessment by the vendors using the same criteria that you apply to them.  This creates an opportunity to refocus on meaningful SLA and performance discussions, and helps provide common understanding.

External IT vendor costs are substantial for most organisations and demand close management attention.  We can implement a vendor management program that sets criteria and parameters so that you can score each vendor across a multitude of variables.  As well, the program establishes a senior management snapshot of each key vendor relationship that highlights the success points and the pain points of the relationship.

This approach reduces duplicated services, increases efficiency and promotes a strategic view of key vendor service relationships.  In common with all our services, this program is tailored to your specific requirements and situation.

Risk Management

The absence of a risk management plan is a trigger for the "IT accident waiting to happen".  IT risks can run in the hundreds, and include security, availability, performance and compliance risks.  For example, if you do not have a procedure to regularly validate your backups, how do you know they are reliable?

We can assess your current IT risk register to ensure all reasonable risks are acknowledged and appropriate action is occurring.

Our consultants have specific skills and experience in the application of the ISO 31000 Risk Management standard, particularly in the context of business continuity, project, program and IT operational risk management.

Benefits Realisation

A combination of a Benefits Scoring model and accountability for the realisation of project benefits can cast a whole new perspective on how business benefits are stated and quantified in IT project business cases.  If it’s this easy, why is it lacking in so many companies?  How many times are project business cases written, outlining phenomenal business benefits, that seem too good to be true?

The sponsor is excited about the project, extols its virtues and is a high-profile advocate to get it approved and funded. Yet you almost need a search party to find them after the project is implemented and its business benefits are nowhere near those projected in the business case.

Surely there must be something wrong with the approval process? Are the benefits overstated in order to get priority over other company projects? More than likely the answer is yes, often to both questions.

Sadly, most IT projects fail to deliver on expected benefits.  Our methodology brings a sharply analytical process that levels the playing field, so that projects with real and tangible benefits get the go-ahead, and others are deferred or cancelled.  Unless an objective assessment or scoring process exists, with accountability for realised benefits at the tail-end of the project, the status quo will persist.