Current State Assessment

• Consultants review and compare the strategic business plan with the IT operations plan.
• Consultants conduct interviews with key stakeholders in this process across numerous departments and groups – and then interview key IT staff.
• Consultants conduct a high-level inventory of systems, applications and resources as appropriate.
• Consultants examine technology age, functionality and capability.
• Consultants analyze how operations staff use technology to support and complete business processes.
• Consultants compare the client operating model against industry trends, practices and benchmark operating models to gain insights into how their model compares to other leading companies.

Benefits

• A thorough analysis of root-cause issues that create disconnects between business strategy and IT results.
• A substantial reduction in blind spots where an organization does not have enough visibility or enough data to validate where operating model problems exist.
• A fine tuning of visibility from typically vertical silos and departmental insights into horizontal insights across all areas of the enterprise operating model.
• A discovery of how and where resources are actually being expended.
• A call to action to help an organization understand what needs to be changed for them to reach business objectives.

Our approach

• Discovery
• Synthesis
• Findings
• Recommendations

Discovery phase

• Confirm business requirements to begin with a current state assessment or future state visioning engagement.
• Conduct an initial kick-off meeting with the executive team and ask for a commitment to this process and access to documentation, resources, and people.
• Interview the executive team to gain an understanding of where the business is trying to go. Consultants will examine in detail the business plan, strategic objectives and operating model as the executives understand it.
• Interview key operations staff to understand business processes and the operating model today.
• Interview key Human Resources staff to understand how the culture of the business (mores, compensation structure, values, hierarchy) shapes the behavior of staff. We look for unspoken assumptions as much or more than Vision and Mission statements.
• Interview key finance staff to understand the history of investments in technology and look for trends regarding long-term or short-term investments, a history of proactive or reactive expenditures.
• Interview key IT staff looking at automation and efficiencies, the technology operating model, interpretation of strategic business initiatives, and how IT initiatives map to business initiatives.

Synthesis Phase

Recommendations

Deliverables

• A Microsoft Word document that contains our Discovery, Synthesis, Findings and Recommendations.
• A PowerPoint presentation document that is used to present the key findings and recommendations of this service.