Business Consulting

Information technology is very complex, and yet it is essential to practically every single organization of today's connected world. Understanding how to approach IT can be a daunting task and a full-time job. Yet many of today's organizations address this problem in an ad-hoc manner: when an IT issue occurs, they attack its symptoms and not the problem itself.

As the first step in our business IT consulting engagement, we will ask you to step back a little and stop thinking in terms of servers, workstations, off-the-shelf or custom software. Instead, we will attempt to focus on your actual business needs and projections, and how exactly information technology can help you achieve your goals.

Busines results orientation is of key importance in achieving a good return on investment on your IT spending. Most major vendors have no real incentive to understand your needs and maximize the efficiency of your equipment and software. Due to increased competition, even the largest IT firms now find it difficult to sell their goods and off-the-shelf services with large margins. Instead, they will make every effort to cross-sell and up-sell you with as much hardware and software as possible.

The most important step of developing or procuring hardware or software for your organization is the establishment of your business objectives, your existing processes, the needs of actual users. This activity will bridge the gap between what you perceive as your IT needs vs. what will actually bring the best return on your investments, both short-term and long-term.

If you are planning to buy, integrate or custom-develop a software system to satisfy your data processing needs, we can help you out during the requirements gathering process (read more). In this stage, our senior consultants will ask the "right" questions to all involved parties - management, system users, and possibly even your customers. We will then put down brief descriptions of your business processes and a list of the key needs the software needs to fill. At the end, you will be asked to rank these needs - called requirements.

At this point, you may determine that a system on the market satisfies most of your needs - possibly with some system integration or customization. Alternatively, you can opt for custom-developed software. In the latter case, before you contact possible vendors you want to have a solution specification (read more).

A solution specification is very much like an architectural blueprint; you really need it before you can ask a construction company for a quote, and you need it even more during the actual construction - to make sure workers are delivering what you want, not what they feel you want. Using our highly interactive process, we will address your requirements and create a plan of the kind of system you will need.

Once the specification has been established, you can proceed to buying and/or building the system. Many smaller firms and organizations prefer to handle this step themselves; however, for larger organizations, the government, or where independent donors are involved (such as NGO funding), our consultants can assist you in managing the procurement process.

When a vendor has been selected, you will need to make sure that you address any questions any issues they might have. Software is very dynamic, and even a professionally prepared solution specification won't go into very deep details. Developing or customizing a system for your needs is a process that needs your constant attention:

• making sure that the chosen vendor is meeting their deadlines, quality and functionality objectives;
• verifying that intermediate results are what is really required;
• managing inevitable changes in the specification and in the scope of work that occur after the original contract has been signed and work has commenced;
• assuring that the vendor's product not only has the contracted features and capabilities, but is also bug-free and conforms to good programming industry practices.

These are all tasks that require great industry experience, and should normally be delegated only to senior specialists in your IT department. If your organization does not have one, or the people in question are very busy with other duties, our independent supervision will assure that the vendor actually delivers what has been promised.

Next step: Requirements Gathering