Year: 2014

Top 10 for 2015 and BEYOND

Posted on by Greg Spencer

I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas on behalf of the entire Beyond Technology team. Thank you for your continued support and I hope that the challenges ahead in 2015 bring you success and exciting opportunities. In thinking of the year ahead, I thought that I would share with you what the BTC Team has identified as the key trends and challenges that we feel our clients will be facing next year. As independent IT management consultants, we not only see a variety of different industries suffering the same issues, but it’s our job to help you identify and form the solutions. Please feel free to contact me at any time to discuss how Beyond Technology can help your organisation.

  1. Next Gen Security Concerns– Information security experts are now advising organisations to prepare for cyber security breaches rather than just their depth of defence. In 2014 we saw zero-day malware attacks increasing to 70% of reported attacks. This requires an entirely new approach to network security and a change of cultural acceptance of user impacts. While awareness and education campaigns remain the most effective tool, new technology approaches will be a big focus on 2015.
  2. New focus on IT governance – boards have continued to ask questions of organisations executive team on IT strategy, risk and benefits realisation which has spurred on the deployment of more formal IT governance frameworks. During these deployments questions are asked about the organisations skills, experience and independence. Independent external advisors to boards and steering committees are becoming common place and IT governance frameworks based on the ISO/IEC 38500:2008(E) the norm.
  3. The new wireless carrier wars – 2015 brings the introduction of the 700Mhz mobile spectrum into the Optus and Telstra network which will at last bring in-building capital city coverage onto a level playing field. Telstra has leveraged the technical superiority of their 850Mhz 3G spectrum without mercy leaving its competitors floundering. With both the iPhone6 and Samsung S5 both already supporting the APT700 band the typical wait for devices will be avoided and all carriers are spending big on expanding their 4G coverage and capabilities. Adding to this the opportunity for WiFi calling and VoLTE that is also supported in new devices, we can expect to see significant improvements in effective coverage and competition across the board.
  4. The beginning of the end for the desk phone – Although many organisations have been questioning the need for a desk phone for some time, they have proved difficult to remove on mass. Our prediction is that the combination of improvements in mobile and softphone technologies will provide a level of reliability and functionality to match the humble desk phone, and with the ongoing uptake of collaboration and video technologies, we will see 2015 be the point of decline for desk phone deployments.
  5. Data considered a corporate asset – Big Data and self service BI tools has driven the technical capability, however the cultural change within the business is only just beginning. As the organisation starts to recognise their data as a corporate asset the expectations on IT to protect and help facilitate the organisations exploitation becomes a key focal point.
  6. More external advisory – The only thing increasing faster than the opportunity for IT to improve business productivity and competitive advantage is the number of things that can go wrong. The rate of change in the IT industry spurred by the growing diversity of “cloud” offerings and sourcing options seems to be increasing exponentially. Organisations are seeking access to experience and insights  from independent advisors to cut through the complexity and protect from potential catastrophes.
  7. Changing desktop – The new year promises several areas on innovation for how knowledge worker interact with their PC. From wireless docking stations (including wireless power), 4K monitors and improved Hybrid PC form factors, we will start to see changing expectations of users within the workplace where mobility and desk based productivity is no longer seen as a trade-off.
  8. New Privacy Act considerations – The new Australian Privacy Principles (APP) came into force March 2014. Some organisations have taken steps to address their obligations, however many have deferred technical privacy audits until the new year with critical steps such as developing a personally identifiable information data inventory not being completed.
  9. Ongoing digital disruption – All organisations cannot hide from competitive innovation lead by technology. Simple examples include company’s leveraging social media to engage with their customer base (in product development, promotion and general customer engagement), or professional services organisations leveraging collaboration tools to make teams more productive and agile. The form will change depending on the industry however the increased reliance on technology driven innovation will be constant and ongoing.
  10. Technology based business productivity improvement opportunity to support growth – As was seen in 2014, IT is being asked to do more with less. We are continuing to see boards focusing on understanding how they can deliver organisational capacity for more sustainable growth through productivity improvements.  Mobility, collaboration, CRM and real-time business intelligence capabilities will continue to be an ongoing technology focus to deliver these improvements.

Organisations that are not embracing recent advances in their IT Strategy planning will be left behind with IT that slows the business down rather than facilitates improved business velocity. They will be left with a legacy cost base leaving them uncompetitive and be in the dark compared to others that will be leveraging better data analysis and social media tools to inform them of market opportunities

I look forward to working with you in the new year and hope that you get to enjoy some time off before then.

Regards,

greg-spencer-signature

Greg Spencer BE(Hons) MBA
Principal Consulting Partner
Beyond Technology Consulting
Mobile: 0448 866 801
Office: 1300  469 909

Are you getting value from your IT spend?

Posted on by Greg Spencer

No matter if your view of IT is as a cost centre or a potential strategic advantage, ensuring that you are receiving good value in your IT spend is critical. Reducing cost and improving service delivery through effective IT management and improved business alignment are key outcomes from undertaking an Independent IT review and health check.

  • We will assess your internal IT service delivery or external IT service provider to consider if improved services or technology architectures could provide efficiency or capability improvements.
  • We will review your technology roadmap, consider technology failure scenarios and insure that appropriate steps have been taken to mitigate those risks that are a real danger to the organisations wellbeing.
  • We will assess your business requirements, consider best practice, new technology architectures and service delivery models and provide actionable advice on how to improve your IT service levels and reduce cost.

Unfortunately information technology is not a one size fits all proposition, and over time, many organisations IT service delivery falls out of alignment with their business requirements. Although many organisations may strategically decide to not make their IT capabilities a source of competitive advantage, we are seeing more and more organisations where IT has become the ball and chain holding back business agility and the source of a competitive disadvantage. Although independent reviews are common across many areas of business, some technology managers are reluctant to invite external parties in to review their organisation and infrastructure. This reluctance can often be traced to a lack of management maturity within Technology, however we have reviewed the top 5 of the remaining reasons:

  1. “Reviews always lead to new infrastructure” – It is critical when you seek an external party to undertake an independent review that they are actually independent. Bringing in an equipment vendor to provide a “consult” is almost always provided by pre-sales resources that unsurprisingly are paid to sell their product, similarly a “consulting” organisation that provides implementation services or sells infrastructure are equally incapable of providing you true vendor agnostic advice.
  2. “Consultants don’t understand our business” – We believe that it is critical to develop a keen understanding of an organisations business requirements to be capable of offering technology advice. It is therefore vital that any consult seeks to include a business requirements discovery as part of the initial part of the project. This not only ensures that your business requirements are understood, but also means that a fresh set of eyes are used to review the issues without the blind spots that we all develop in our day to day business as usual activity.
  3. “We are already highly efficient and resource constrained” – By taking an external perspective and the experience across hundreds of organisations we have often seen ways of doing things differently that are part of the broader picture can provide efficiency gains through the deployment of new tools or techniques. However it is often identifying what not to do, through more appropriate alignment to actual required levels of service that provide the biggest cost and efficiency gains.
  4. “Consultants provide reports that never get read” – We believe that all advice should be actionable. Any recommendation that is not achievable within the constraints of the organisation is inappropriate and should be left to the text books rather than an assessment report.
  5. “Our outsourced IT service provider doesn’t think its required” – We believe there are three important technology areas that need to be reviewed periodically. Technology Strategy, Technology Operations and Technology service delivery. Each of these can (and do) fall out of alignment with business requirements, and each are inter-related. Many medium sized organisations have taken the approach to outsource their technology operations and/or service delivery, but have found that they no longer have the skills internally to provide appropriate levels of strategic direction. Unfortunately the easy answer of retaining your operations provider for assistance with your strategy roadmap is poor governance practice and leads to inevitable conflicts of interest. Many organisations that have outsourced IT capability undertake Independent reviews only prior to contract renewal, however best practice would suggest that the independent development or update of your IT strategic roadmap should be undertaken on a more regular basis.

The Beyond Technology Consulting vision is to provide our clients with “Actionable Advice” on how to create optimal technical solutions for your business. Each of our partner level consultant combines engineering and technical qualifications with a globally recognised MBA from a leading business school. Our consultants are practical people focussed on delivering tangible outcomes rather than grandiose “shelfware” reports that appear impressive but could never be implemented. Our methodologies, tools, and models are tried and tested to rapidly and reliably assist to develop our recommendations.