As important as people, raw materials and equipment are to business results, information technology is a vital enabler for all organizations. IT, properly aligned and implemented, creates a positive and tangible impact on your business. Consider the following questions:
- Would speeding up core sales, order or fulfillment processes increase sales, profits or customer satisfaction?
- Would client self-service improve repeat business, retention or loyalty?
- Do administrative complexities or paperwork hamper productivity?
- Would improved system flexibility enable you to adapt to changing business, demographic and regulatory factors?
- Is information that provides insight into operational bottlenecks or regulatory compliance readily available?
- Is your firm poised to grow without corresponding increases in payroll or overhead?
An affirmative answer to any but the last two illustrates the vast potential for substantial business improvement assisted by information technology. Technology-enabled business results, however, require proactive planning and follow-through in order to be truly successful.
Success starts with a business-driven IT plan placing customer, employee and shareholders needs ahead of technology-focused agendas. Your goals may entail faster revenue growth, improving profitability or cost reduction. Aligning IT with business strategy, defining your steps and taking action are essential to the successful business/IT plan.
onDemand offers extensive experience in delivering successful business solutions to medium and large organizations. Our practitioners leverage business, industry and IT knowledge to provide innovative, yet pragmatic solutions to productivity and profit depleting bottlenecks.
Several of the strategic services offered by onDemand follow.
Assessment
Business/Information Requirements
Solution Search & Selection
Procurement Services
Solution Development
Implementation Management
The following business/IT strategy services can be utilized in individually or in conjunction.
Assessment
The goal of an assessment is to create a proactive roadmap that your business can follow to achieve maximum business/IT benefit. With your key management and operational personnel, we validate short and long-term business goals and objectives and identify restrictive processes and IT barriers.
Reviewing the current IT baseline, including cost, capacity, availability and flexibility, key gaps between current and potential state are identified. A findings report entailing a business-focused plan from the customer, process, financial and organizational perspectives is presented and clearly addresses potential solution scenarios and their pros, cons, costs and benefits.
Business/Information Requirements
With a strategic roadmap firmly in hand, you are ready to assemble detailed requirements and specifications that serve as the critical basis for a subsequent build/buy solution decision. Working with your team, we utilize interviews, facilitated sessions and surveys to derive and validate detailed business and functional requirements. The resulting requirements are aligned with business goals and objectives, and prioritized based on potential impact to the business.
Solution Search & Selection
Leveraging the complete set of business and functional requirements (see above), we facilitate the search and selection of solutions that meet or exceed requirements (including cost & performance). Both build and buy options are considered. To guide the selection process, tools including RFI preparation, vendor demonstrations, vendor scoring, and selection rationale are utilized.
Procurement Services
Many small to mid-sized firms lack dedicated “vendor management” or procurement departments and thus are at a distinct disadvantage with respect to procuring technology solutions. Our team offers value-added procurement services that save thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars and substantially mitigate your business risk.
onDemand leads or serves as an advisor to the complete technology acquisition process including negotiation of software and service contracts, functional and business terms, licensing & service fees, legal terms and conditions, and performance and payment structure.
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Solution Development
In the event off-the-shelf solutions are not viable for your critical business/IT requirements, we assist you with determining the feasibility of a custom solution. Whether custom development or via a development partner, we produce business solutions that achieve business goals and remain within your time and cost parameters.
Implementation Management
Regardless of you business/IT solution direction, implementation of often-complex systems can be overwhelming to even the largest organizations. Our team’s experience in delivering solutions provides you with oversight and assistance that mitigates business, systems and financial risk associated with significant IT projects.
