Unbiased Independent Strategy Advice

Engagement

• Independent IT Strategy Review & Cost Benchmark

Findings

• The evolving IT strategy was inconsistent, unprioritized and failed to address increasing technical debt.
• IT operational costs were above industry benchmarks.
• Vendor advice had resulted in the deployment of technical solutions that we inappropriate for the needs and scale of the business.
• Lifecycle management had failed to address looming end of life issues for key infrastructure and core systems.
• The IT function was stuck in a reactive cycle of firefighting – scrambling to respond to outages, fix broken processes, or support systems that were never built to scale.
• Incident management processes focused on quick resolution and didn't seek to determine root causes so issues continued to reoccur.
• Cyber risk was unmanaged and response planning non-existent.
• The IT team has not prioritised its workload to align with business requirements and were thus unable to deliver appropriate levels of service.
• This manifested itself as an acute resource shortage that had crippled project work and lead to an unachievable backlog Outcomes.

Outcomes

• We developed new IT operations Strategy and prioritised remediation projects to focus activity on a roadmap to IT sustainability and an infrastructure and project dependency map to deliver the IT capability to meet the organisations business strategy
• We provided an interim vCIO that changed the focus and culture of the IT team towards proactive planning and business objectives.
• Formal technology governance and policy framework was developed and implemented.

Client Quotes

• "I didn't how damaging generic and vendor biased advice had been to our technology capabilities and agility, our costs were out of control and the business was not able to respond to competitors or market opportunities"
• "after receiving unbiased advice that considered our size and circumstances we were able to plot a way out of the ditch that we were stuck in, it takes time to unwind previous legacy decisions but the leadership team has stopped calling IT the unhelpful desk and now invites them into planning meetings"