Where it begins

The planning phase is a holistic strategic IT assessment driven by key discovery questions, the analysis of existing information and observation. The collected information establishes the current state of the organization, determines the future direction and is used to define a base platform onto which all business improvements can build from.

Key areas that are evaluated or defined include:

Expected Outcomes

The planning phase was designed with the understanding that most businesses are unique and that they tend to vary in complexity and maturity. Each of these factors play a role in determining the necessary level of involvement the organization requires to achieve the desired objectives. There are a plethora of outcomes available but the most common for the planning phase includes:

• Cultural definitions (mission, vision, values and beliefs)
• A standardized operation/process manual
• IT software inventories, governance policies and data dictionaries
• Process improvement recommendations
• Strategic plans and implementation plans

Benefits

Many tangible and intangible benefits are realized in the planning phase but the main benefit is the clarity that is brought to the organization.

Cultural definitions provide employees with a better understanding of how the organization will conduct business and what is expected from the individual. A greater awareness and understanding is created between functional areas, which aids in improving workflow and communications. The information system landscape is inventoried and data dictionaries provide a single source of truth for all of the organization’s data. Finally, the organization is united by a strategy to achieve the corporate vision and the implementation plan provides both the guidance to achieve the objectives and the indicators to measure success.

Bringing business to life

The statistics for both custom and package software implementations are far from motivating, but now it should be easy to understand why. Like a broken record, it comes down to a lack of consideration for the business as a whole. We have found that software is often implemented to solve a specific functional problem and in many cases the “loudest” functional units make decisions for the organization which are biased to their comfort zones. Common examples include situations where organizations operate out of a financial packages, CRM or other software systems that are not cognoscente of distinct processes or key business differentiators.

In opposition to this poorly devised trend, the production phase utilizes the knowledge gained in the planning phase to produce a single software system that conforms to efficient processes, automates tasks and unifies data across the organization. Developed using a specialized framework, the resulting software is designed to be modular and extensible which allows for future adaptation with minimal effort.

How the magic happens

Expected Outcomes

The production phase is the perfect union of organizational intricacy and the development experience amassed over the past 30 years of operation. An optimized development process and close collaboration create an environment that fosters success. The outcomes of the production phase are grand, the options are limitless and we have yet to say "it can't be done". More common examples include but are not limited to:

• An enterprise system encapsulating the organization in its entirety
• Supporting database structures with live converted system data
• Customer facing web sites and portals
• Mobile applications
• Data import mechanisms
• eCommerce
• External APIs
• User manuals
• Training videos

Benefits

Technology has fueled the modern age, empowering society and spawning new unimaginable markets. The same benefits realized by society are even more beneficial to the corporation that implements a proper enterprise system.

The automation of menial and repetitive tasks allows an organization to do more with less. Automation allows employees to utilize their strengths to address challenges instead of spending time dealing with trivial tasks. Employees rejoice, as does the rest of the organization when the requirement to enter data more than once is eliminated and the data is meaningful and accurate.

Managers are better able to monitor performance, observe trends, forecast change and respond to customer inquiries with an immediate access to real-time consolidate corporate information. With an ability to primarily focus on exceptions, managers are liberated from having to decipher large amounts of common data.

Utilizing the previously defined data dictionary, process definitions and a development framework, organizations are able to easily modify their systems in response to strategic, market, organizational and operational change. The same foundations that help construct the enterprise system also reduce the risks associated with change because awareness and scope are recognized and understood throughout the organization.

The implementation of an enterprise system is one of the most significant investments an organization will make. With a properly implemented enterprise system an organization can expect to reap the aforementioned benefits which collectively contribute to significant reductions in operating costs. Reduction in costs allow the organization to strengthen their offering by creating competitive advantages that help to both retain precious existing customers and attract a mass of new ones.

Connecting the dots

Big Data is the latest buzzword taking the corporate world by storm. The concept originates out of the challenges faced by traditional data processing applications that are unable to work with large amounts of data. Big Data initiatives addresses challenges around the transfer, capture, storage, analysis and visualization of large complex data.

Value is recognized throughout the P2R process but the realization phase isn’t about that. It is strictly about analyzing data to realize opportunity then visualizing that data to tell the true story.

“Simply put, because of big data, managers can measure, and hence know, radically more about their businesses, and directly translate that knowledge into improved decision making and performance.” – Andrew McAffee and Erik Brynjolfsson

Without the planning and production phases a consolidated and accurate source of information would be unattainable. Now, the organization can fully unleash the power of data.

Expected Outcomes

Transfer, capture and storage considerations for the support of Big Data initiatives are already in place since they are inherently established in both the planning and production phases. Utilizing the same architecture, outcomes expected from the realization phase include:

• Raw meaningful decision supporting data
• Predictive results data
• Machine learning
• Formatted reports
• Customized dashboards
• Data driven website content
• Marketing materials

Benefits

We have all directly experienced the benefits of big data. Google predicts the search criteria as you type, Amazon recommends products based on what you are looking at and the news announces election results prior to the polls being closed.

The same method of predictive analysis can be used to create meaning within the organization. Stepping beyond the traditional performance reports, data analysis can reveal real-time patterns in product or service interactions allowing the organization to adjust the offering to maximize sales conversion opportunities. Data can also be used to identify many forms of risk including fraud, unexpected liabilities or changes in market or industry trends. A potentially unexpected revenue stream becomes possible when the organization is able to sell non-personalized data to others. Maintenance costs can be reduced by maximizing useful life through the observation of failure trends in equipment.

With the continual introduction of new easily accessible data, the opportunity for realizing potential is only limited by the imagination.