Business need

Solution

Customer information

Customer testimonial

Results

Related reports & papers

The purpose of the "strategic review" was to ensure the continued alignment of services with the Organisation’s strategic aims and goals. Ensuring that current Principles (amended to support current environment), Trends, and Drivers are supported by the strategy to enable delivering on the organisation's unique market position.

Understanding specific key stakeholder needs going forward and how the probable future would unfold would inform the strategy and enable creating strategic goals incorporating Trends, Drivers, and Enablers that were perceived from the fringe indicators. These are what pan out the future scenarios and provide perspective on the likely outcomes. There are always inevitable surprises however knowing what the surprise is allows for preparation whenever it should occur.

In order to complete the ISSP (Information System Strategic Plan) the the following areas of Trends, Drivers, Enablers; Goals, Objectives, and Initiatives were taken into account within the 'Context' of IT for the business.

The normal process required input from Key Stakeholders to determine the Desired Future State and any overarching Principles or Drivers that would influence the IT Strategy. Once all the input was gathered, some in-depth analysis was undertaken to determine the full requirements against the current state. Only then were the Goals, Objectives and Initiatives fully determined and developed as part of the final IT Strategic Plan development.

1.Range of Plausible futures:

Understand current Business Plan and inputs.

2. Vision and Directions:

Determine the Desired Future state. This is achieved through consultation with key Stakeholders.

3. Analysis of Needs:

This includes the Goals, key Drivers, and Principles.

4. Inevitable surprises:

Take into account possible events (inevitable that they occur) going forward.

5. Current State:

Analysis of the current state. Then determine a Transition state.

6. Wild-card scenarios:

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Simulation and Scenario building

Roadmapping to determine what is required to achieving the overall strategic outcomes. (Strategic Roadmap)

Industry Training Organisation - New Zealand

This organisation is one of the Industry Training Organisations (ITO) in the NZ market and has embarked on a futures programme to inform the Primary Services of NZ and is part of a wider collective undertaking the 'futures' and strategy.

Industry Training Organisations (ITOs) are recognised by the Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education) under the Industry Training Act 1992. They are established by particular industries and are responsible for:

• setting national skill standards for their industry
• providing information and advice to trainees and their employers
• arranging for the delivery of on and off-job training (including developing training packages for employers)
• arranging for the assessment of trainees and
• arranging the monitoring of quality training.

Link to a list of recognised Industry Training Organisations.

"The IT Stragtegic Plan review by CBA Consulting provided our organisation with a holistic view of how our IT strategic assets were deployed, and how their function should be integrated to our operational model. We were able to take the recommendations and develop a 'strategic' view for the medium term future. We were also able to fully inform our board on the TMS replacement decision." - CEO

CBA Consulting's recommendations provided a strategic roadmap for for the immediate and medium-term future (looking out 5 years) taking account of internal and external Drivers (changing demands for training with the ITO's specific industry), and the needs for external support to provide a managed cost and flexibility to the training environment for the organisation.

Once the strategy had been reviewed and recommendations made the organisation's internal capability were able to expand on the key areas of IT Goals, Objectives, and Initiatives to develop an Action Table and refined roadmap for IT over the next 5 years.

Having reviewed internal systems needs as part of the IT Strategic Plan, the Business Case could be developed for the replacement of the core TMS/CRM application system, taking into account Trends, Drivers, and Principles along with a comprehensive understanding of the real 'Business Requirements'. This understanding led to gaining a full appreciation of the ROI and TCO and the appropriate investment for the ITO in a replacement Data System. This Business Case was provided to the Board to inform their decision on this major integral system.

Assessment of Solutions - CBA Consulting developed a comprehensive assessment matrix of functional and non-funtional requirements that fully met the business requirements. This was weighted in favour of Mandatory, Nice to Have, Adds Value, or Not Needed along with assessing less tangible criteria such as Vendor reputation and software lifecycle and roadmap. Recommendations were then provided to the ITO in terms of factors needing to be considered if selecting any of the final options of each Vendor's solution. This was to aid and inform the Boards decision.

ICIO Roadmap - Strategic Plan Step by Step

Seven Leadership Strategies for IT - whitepaper

link to CBA Consulting's 'Downloads' page for more articles, case studies, and whitepapers

link to CBA Consulting's 'Benefits of Strategic IT' page

Forrester 'best practice' - Improve IT Service Delivery - webcast at Techrepublic

Enterprise Service Oriented Architecture - link to overview of book