Aligning Technology to Strategy through Enterprise Architecture (2015)
The Business Challenge
- Multiple technologies that are expensive to operate and maintain.
- Various business processes not optimally enabled by technology
- Unable to align the many technologies and processes to deliver against the business strategy
The Goal
- Consolidate and streamline technology and processes to reduce costs
- Simplify and integrate business processes to improve productivity and reporting
- Reduce the number of non-standard business functions
- Implement changes without disruption to business
Our Approach
- Collaborate & Upskill
- Evaluate processes
- Evaluate technology
- Model existing processes and technology
- Optimise processes a and model future state
- Highlight risks and impacts
- Create Roadmap for solution deployment
The Solution
- A model showing an optimised future state of processes and technology, with risks and mitigation suggestions.
- A roadmap for the implementation of the solution
The Value
- Clear understanding of how to meet strategic business objectives
- Comprehensive plan to design and deploy a technology evolution solution
- Highlighted risks and impacts
- Socialised of the concept for greater project implementation success
IT Service Management Process Improvement (2014)
Background
In the first quarter of 2014, EMP set out to improve and document selected Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) processes and procedures. As a result of rapid growth the company needed to create transparency and clarity with respect to roles and responsibilities as well as process steps and activities.
Approach
Digiterra Consulting recommended its IT Service Management process improvement approach. This required an initial assessment of the core Change Management process, after which a prioritised list of action items would be addressed to close any gaps.
Initial Assessment
IT Change Management is the core controlling process for any organisation that needs to ensure changes are recorded, properly assessed and planned as well as thoroughly tested before risking business critical operations. The assessment compared existing EMP capability and maturity aspects against international IT Infrastructure management best practice guidelines (ITIL V3) and produced results for all governance, people, process, technology and quality assurance aspects of Change Management at EMP.
Assessment Results
EMP achieved an overall Maturity and Capability rating of 1.9 which meant the process lacked clarity, was informal, depended on individual performance and that there were limited level effectiveness and satisfaction with its performance.
Action Items
The ITSM Assessment highlighted various areas for improvement including, amongst others:
- Management commitment
- Process ownership
- Roles and responsibilities
- Policy and scope definition
- Process documentation
- Technology fit
- Training
- Meaningful reports
- Process metrics
- Ongoing Improvement strategy
An action plan to address these items was drawn up and an EMP improvement team assigned to address these, together with an ITSM Consultant from Digiterra.
Improvement Project
The idea was to spend up to 8 hours per week over a 6 month period and then to taper this down to 4 hours per week, to further refine the process and to monitor activities e.g. CAB, while in use.
Reduced risk of changes, improved processes and clear roles for EMP (2014)
Background
In the first quarter of 2014, the Emerging Markets Payments Group (EMP) set out to improve and document selected Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) processes and procedures. As a result of rapid growth the company needed to create transparency and clarity with respect to roles and responsibilities as well as process steps and activities.
Approach
Digiterra Consulting recommended its IT Service Management process improvement approach. This required an initial assessment of the core Change Management process, after which a prioritised list of action items would be addressed to close any gaps.
Assessment and Action Plan
IT Change Management is the core controlling process for any organisation that needs to ensure changes are recorded, properly assessed and planned as well as thoroughly tested before risking business critical operations. The assessment compared existing EMP capability and maturity aspects against international IT Infrastructure management best practice guidelines (ITIL V3) and produced results for all governance, people, process, technology and quality assurance aspects of Change Management at EMP.
An action plan to address these items was drawn up and an EMP improvement team assigned to address these, together with an ITSM Consultant from Digiterra.
Client Benefits
- Timely (Forward) Planning and Scheduling
- Risk Assessment as well as Impact and Urgency
- Stakeholder approval before work commences
- Tracking of Releases through every phase
- Final Authorisation before implementation time (Release readiness)
- Post implementation Reviews – reporting of failed changes and the reasons for these
- Measurement and Analysis against KPIs
- Reporting and Communication
- Audit as well as Quality control
- Continual Improvement