Sugar Land IT services

WHY IT CONSULTING IS NECESSARY

Sugar Land IT consulting services is rarely dependent on the level of development of information technology in the company, which is very often associated with a lack of understanding of the benefits created when using enterprise management information systems. However, it has been proven many times that the success of a business largely depends on the "correct" use of information technologies (digital transformation) to ensure effective support of the company's key business processes, and here IT consulting specialists can be useful.

But, as a rule, the business does not know the capabilities and advantages of information technology, since internal IT specialists are busy supporting hardware and software and are not interested in improving business processes, and information system providers are more focused on selling an enterprise management information system than creating competitive ones. benefits for the company. At the same time, there is no longer that unjustified belief in the omnipotence of information technologies as 10-15 years ago. Now it is necessary to clearly justify before the business the directions of development of information technologies in the company, the advantages of the selected IT solutions and the return on investment from their implementation.

Business now requires information technology to focus on specific results, support business goals and increase the efficiency of core business processes. Based on the foregoing, it can be determined that the mission of IT consulting specialists is “to increase efficiency and gain competitive advantages from the use of information technologies at the customer and ensure the perfection of the internal activities of the customer's IT department.

The correct use of external IT consulting specialists in the field of information technology allows you to obtain not only knowledge in the field of IT development, methods for making strategic decisions and analytics on the IT market, but also to guarantee an independent point of view on the current state of information technology in the company and the direction of their development ... Initially, like any consulting activity, the activity of IT consulting is not aimed at solving problems arising for the customer, therefore, this article is devoted to the list of emerging problems associated with the use and development of IT in the company and the directions of their solution by attracting external consultants.

Reason for inviting IT consulting # 1.

Lack of experience in the formation of strategic planning processes for the development of information technology.
Looking at a typical CIO career, most of the time it is a technician who has grown to the level of IT management. Therefore, for most IT leaders in companies, the issues of strategic planning of Sugar Land IT consulting servicesbased on the goals and needs of the business are not always transparent. And even if these processes are based on the principle of "common logic", then along the way many "bicycles" will have to be invented, which will not make the work in the field of strategic planning of information technologies more effective. Any miscalculation in the strategic planning process can result in large losses and loss of competitive advantages, therefore, the use of an external qualified consulting resource in this case can save time and own resources, since for IT consulting specialists specializing in the development of information technology development strategies this is a typical task.

IT Strategy

However, if we talk about developing an IT development strategy, then a strategy developed by IT consulting specialists in isolation from internal IT specialists will not be a working document, and in this case, consultants bring methodology, experience and market knowledge, while filling the IT strategy with projects should carried out with the participation of experts from the business and the customer's internal IT specialists. It is important not only to form an IT strategy, but also to create a mechanism with which it is possible to control the implementation of this strategy in the company. Therefore, in order for the IT development strategy to turn from a formal document into an effective strategic management tool, you can use the Balanced Scorecard - BSC (Balanced Scorecard) technology, which allows you to bring the IT strategy to all IT employees and make it so that its implementation becomes daily the task of everyone.

The advantage of implementing a BSC is that the IT department receives a “frame of reference” for organizing actions in accordance with the strategy and the ability to subsequently monitor it through Key Performance Indicators (KPI). Due to the complexity of the methodology, this task is very often beyond the power of internal IT specialists and requires the involvement of IT consulting.

Reason for inviting IT consulting # 2.

Lack of mechanisms for making informed strategic decisions in the field of information technology
Very often, key decisions in the field of IT development are made not based on an analysis of the current market situation, development strategy and business process requirements, but only on the basis of materials in periodicals and conferences. Examples of such decisions can be: choosing an enterprise management information system, making a decision on outsourcing IT services, etc. Statistics show that the number of unsuccessful implementations of corporate information systems (CIS) reaches a fairly large percentage of the total number of implementations.