Justifying an Asset Management Software solution. The Technical and Strategic views.

Modla recently put forward a proposal to an electricity distribution utility, to justify an investment in our data to decision making platform, and we quickly realised that our main value differentiator is in strategic flexibility, not just solving the technical problems.

When justifying the addition of another software solution to your architecture, a common pitfall is to ignore the strategic context, and focus solely on the problem and needs.

Here there are two viewpoints:

• The Strategic
• The Immediate Need / Problem (usually the focus of the business case)

The strategic is what sets the boarder requirements and direction from the business, while the problem represents the current pain points.

Starting with the strategic view, it is important to be honest in the self reflection of the current business state. Below is an example of such an assessment:

It's important to note that this table describes the broader direction of this utility with regards to an Asset Analytics function, and the benefits described are as a result of adoption of an approach, rather than a specific solution or resolving a need.

This is a great way to link everything together, since the table can be read down the columns to understand the Context, Requirements, and Benefits, but also the across columns, and identify links between strategy and benefits.

Also, its harder to quantify the strategic benefits. How much is ISO alignment, continuous improvement, and insuring against knowledge capital loss WORTH to the business?

It's obvious there is tremendous value here, but building a business case for these strategic benefits is often difficult. Instead, it is suggested that they form part of the solution requirements.

Once the strategic view is understood, then we can dive into the specific needs or the immediate problem. Again here is an example of such an assessment:

The benefits here are more tangible, since they are resolving a pain point. When selecting a solution (In particular a software solution), it should be able to address the immediate need, while also fitting within the strategic view of the business.

Failure to account for the strategic direction, in this case could result in:

• Convoluted IT architectures with many solutions
• Inefficient processes
• Failing to capture the strategic benefits, and more.

Just like planning, business cases must have both short and long term views.

Food for thought.....