Define and refine your business need

You will already have thought extensively about where your business needs to go and you’ll have strategies to achieve your objectives. We work with you to identify the key features of your solution, those that will maximise your competitive advantage and we’ll agree a budget for them. Typically, our service will include the following processes:

• Understand the company’s strategic vision
• Review your current business processes, technology and organisation
• Identify business frustrations, pains, bottlenecks and areas of process alignment/improvement
• Identify quick wins
• Identify and quantify business benefits available
• Propose high level solution
• Assess project risks
• Agree project scope
• Sign off budget and time plan.

At this stage you’ll have a detailed business case that is suitable for review and approval at Board level.

Design the solution

Then, we’ll move on to design the solution:

• Design “big picture” data model
• Design improved processes
• Translate requirements into a detailed technical statement of requirements
• Produce RFI and ITT.

This will provide documentation of the new processes and a detailed technical specification for obtaining fixed cost bids from IT suppliers.

Find a suitable supplier

We don’t sell technology. We work on your behalf to find the best solution for you. We are independent of all software vendors, though we know them all. We’ll develop the specifications for tender, guide you in your choice, and negotiate on your behalf to get the deal that fits, at the best possible price.

Here are the steps typically involved:

• Initiate the supplier selection process by sending out a Request for Information to several potential suppliers. Review responses and recommend a short list of at least 2
• Circulate an Invitation to Tender to the short listed suppliers. We’ll meet the short listed suppliers and ensure that they fully understand the requirements
• Agree the selection criteria
• Facilitate presentations from the suppliers, providing a technical view and, as far as possible, expose any exaggerations or half-truths
• Evaluate the suppliers’ proposals in terms of cost, functionality, scalability, technology use and how they meet the technical requirements
• Select a supplier and assist in the commercial negotiations to ensure value for money and to minimise risk in implementation.

Manage the change, measure the outcome

We create and manage full implementation plans, preparing your company for change and successfully seeing it through. We provide measures of success, so that the new system is shown to fulfil your objectives of an appropriate return on investment and your planned impact on efficiency and competitiveness.

This will involve:

• Acting as a Requirements Authority to ensure the supplier is building the solution we specified in the technical specifications on time and within budget
• Planning the implementation (how to train users, and move them and the necessary data from one system to the other with a minimum of interruption)
• Managing the change and ensuring buy-in
• Carrying out a post implementation review to ensure that the solution has delivered the intended benefits, and initiate remedial action if not.