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Key decision makers and direction setters in your company have concerns that IT systems and technology must address. You've decided to engineer your enterprise and demanded IT align with (and help define) strategic direction. Your IT strategy, assuming you even have one, is not effectively supporting the realization of your corporate vision. Your processes and technology, more often then not, are inhibiting business not enabling it. As applications are constructed and brought online to support new business requirements, cracks have appeared. In some cases, parallel (or silo) architectures emerged. In many cases, the newest applications - those focused on the frontiers of customer touch points, especially around e-business and on supply chain management are not reflected in any architecture at all. Moreover, the older applications where developed without any real design, growing out of a prototypes that were patched together by installing band-aids over band-aids to hold together more band-aides. A business unit leader (stakeholder) comes up with a great idea for using technology to create some huge competitive advantage. This idea will reduce time-to-market by 25%, reduce staffing by 25%, and reduce costs by 25%. This stakeholder spends 3 months trying to communicate this idea to his IT staff and still isnt sure they get it. The IT staff mumbles things about legacy incompatibility and dot Nurf and they quote a project. The stakeholder funds the initiative thinking that if he can get 50% of what he asks for he will still whip the competition. In another business unit, a different stakeholder comes up with a great idea for using technology to create some huge competitive advantage. She too thinks this idea will reduce time-to-market by 25%, reduce staffing by 25%, and reduce costs by 25%. She spends the same 3 months trying to communicate this idea to her IT staff. Her staff keeps mumbling things about legacy incompatibility and 2EEv10.3 and they quote a project. The stakeholder funds the initiative thinking that if she can get 50% of what she asks for she will still whip the competition. Back in IT the database folks have spent the last 3 months deciding what platform they should move to. The data warehouse team spent the last 3 months deciding what warehouse to purchase. The dot Nurf contingent has proposed a new infrastructure to support an enterprise move to dot Nurf. While a competing contingent of people who support 2EEv10.3 propose an alternative infrastructure to support an enterprise move to 2EEv10.3. The legacy contingent just wants to get by so they ask for a slight increase to support ongoing maintenance. Your company just burned through a quarter. The senior leadership meets on funding. All these proposals sound great but money is tight and choices must occur. For leadership, it would be critical, at this point, to know that both major business unit initiatives have 50% overlap, do not work together, and use competing technology. Further, due to communication problems between the technologist's and the stakeholders, both projects exceed size estimates by 50%. However, this will not become apparent until next year. Meanwhile, the database people would recommend a simplified approach in implementing a platform if they did not have to support both initiatives on the table. Both the initiatives have considerable functionality surrounding reporting. Functionality the data warehouse proposal mostly duplicates. Eliminating that functionality could have eliminated 20-30% from both initiatives. Unable to see the big picture and not able to afford all proposals but wanting everything proposed leadership trims the fat by cutting budgets by 33% across the board. Cost overruns are 70 percent over budget, the systems barely work, are not even close to working together. Now you are overhauling and implementing cost-cutting measures just to re-do what you just did. Where did that competitive advantage go? iTDept can help you by:
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