As a business services consultant, you need to design and deliver effective solutions for your clients' problems. But how can you align your consulting engagement plan with your client's technology infrastructure? This article will help you understand the importance of this alignment and how to achieve it in four steps.
The first step is to assess the current state of your client's technology infrastructure. This means identifying the existing systems, platforms, tools, processes, and capabilities that support their business goals and operations. You can use various methods to gather this information, such as interviews, surveys, audits, documentation reviews, and observations. The purpose of this step is to understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your client's technology environment and how it affects their performance and challenges.
An approach that’s given some good results in the past is to frame the ask and dissect it: “deliver effective solutions for your clients' problems” That’s the ask and nowhere in this sentence does it say we must solve the client’s IT problems. So it’s important to distinguish between IT problems and Business Problems. Technology should be seen as an enabler and if the enabler is faulty or not solving the correct problem… then we have more than just the Technology to be concerned about. Start at the begininning and assess whether the problem lies within Process, People, Infrastructure, Design or Technology. There are also other factors to consider such as Political, Environmental, or Community. So ask the right Qs before solutioning.
My firm's IT Strategy Assessment evaluates an organization’s IT business intent vs current capabilities to establish a clear improvement roadmap through: Stakeholder interviews and surveys to capture current IT pain points/capabilities and voice of the business Detailed analysis to calibrate current and target state IT capabilities and develop improvement hypothesis Identification of prioritized initiatives to improve capability maturity with corresponding roadmap Key evaluation areas: Business Strategic Intent IT Operating Structure IT Governance IT Capabilities IT Assets Financial Performance People & Skills Quality & Processes
More important is to understand the existing technology stack and its use in current IT landscape. Some update or upgrade makes more cost to Company For example in BFS area moving from on premises to cloud customer had always confusion on technology stack and data security.
Fully agreed . This is essential step to know the present situation of your customers. It’s important to find the proper way to collect the required data.
The second step is to define the desired state of your client's technology infrastructure. This means articulating the vision, objectives, and requirements for the future state that will enable your client to achieve their desired outcomes and address their pain points. You can use various techniques to facilitate this process, such as workshops, brainstorming, prototyping, benchmarking, and gap analysis. The purpose of this step is to create a clear and shared understanding of what your client wants and needs from their technology and how it will support their strategy and value proposition.
In addition, target state technology strategy and gap analysis is developed to: 1. Identify required technology investments to enable growth and increase scalability 2. Understand savings opportunities that can be achieved through technology 3. Establish an IT operating model that is optimally aligned with the business strategy
I think understanding the financial situation of the client is also important and the adding value of the technology to achieve the client strategy should be clear to the decision makers at the client organization
The third step is to develop the solution that will bridge the gap between the current and desired state of your client's technology infrastructure. This means designing and planning the technical architecture, functionality, integration, security, and governance of the solution that will meet your client's requirements and expectations. You can use various tools to document and communicate this process, such as diagrams, models, specifications, roadmaps, and business cases. The purpose of this step is to provide a detailed and feasible blueprint of how your solution will work and deliver value for your client.
Fully agree on using the proper tools and diagrams to explain how the solution will cover the gaps and the deliverables of each stage at the roadmap. this is should be combined with estimates figures and total investment to reach to goal.
The solution is a roadmap - establish clear roadmap to achieve capability maturity and guide execution of improvement initiatives. A standard and technical technology solution document will be developed that will include: 1. End-to-end architecture solution (scope, design assumptions, integration architecture, functional architecture, security baselines, deployment specifications, technology stack). 2. On the governance level, there should be cadence of engagements that are focused solely on accountability, alignment with the roadmap blueprint, executive and technical reporting levels, and agile methodology for effective delivery. 3.
The fourth step is to implement and evaluate the solution that will align your client's technology infrastructure with your consulting engagement plan. This means executing and managing the technical aspects of the solution delivery, such as development, testing, deployment, migration, training, and support. You can use various methods to monitor and measure this process, such as metrics, feedback, reviews, and reports. The purpose of this step is to ensure that your solution is implemented effectively and efficiently and that it meets or exceeds your client's expectations and goals.
So we've talked about current and target state, which is more centered on strategy. Let's talk about the steps of solution implementation in this order: Pre-implementation: 1. Project plan (signed off by necessary stakeholders) 2. Resource plan 3. Business analysis final walk-through Implementation: 1. MVP selection, Sprint definition 2. Production infrastructure deployment, Vendor integration, Vendor and integration partner test, SIT. 3. UAT, UVT. 4. Changes to the control environment, Lines of defense, Third-party vendor ongoing engagement model. Post-go live: 1. Training 2. Support 3. Change management plan
Basically, we have reviewed the consultant role in aligning consultancy with client's tech infrastructure and we can deduce the following process: Assess Plan (Design, Governance, etc.) Implement Manage