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
Meaningful Management Information for Standard Bank (2015)
The Business Challenge
One of South Africa’s largest financial services groups was frustrated by a lack of good management information from their IT Service Management function. There was a lack of structure, no consolidated approach or clear reporting framework.
There was also a lack of alignment of metrics to KPIs to objectives and goals, thus reflecting a deficit of Information rather than abundance of knowledge. They required the development of IT Service Management process metrics and reports in line with industry best practices and standards.
The Goal
Develop a reporting model based on best practice ITSM process metrics, with a view to developing reports which would:
- Reflect the customer’s experience
- Measure the effectiveness
(capability and performance) of the processes - Produce relevant trending information across the various processes
- Add significant value to owners and managers for decision making purposes
Our Approach
- Agree framework and model
- Interviews with relevant stakeholders
- Analyse, Extrapolate & Consolidate data
- Compare Information to Best practice models
- Produce Graphs in Dashboards
The Solution
We presented graphs and charts in a dashboard for the client to easily see if they are meeting strategic and operational objectives. We provided a model and framework that client could plug and play into various tools.
The Value
Client data was linked to metrics, which were mapped to objectives to show performance against goals. The client’s data was converted into meaningful information for all relevant stakeholders to make better informed decisions faster.
Development of a Meta Model and Reference Model for Mediclinic (2018)
Mediclinic acquired iServer and engaged with Digiterra for assistance with the adoption of the solution within the organisation.
The work items included in the scope of the this engagement included:
- Understanding the requirement for a meta-model that would service the architectural needs of the domain
- Understanding the detailed requirements for templates and views in respect of the process domain, and customising templates and views to meet these requirements.
- Developing a reference model that shows how customised templates are to be used within the context of the process domain.
- Onsite training of users on the use of customised templates that related to the BPMN framework.
“We are happy to testify that Digiterra delivered on these objectives successfully and recommend them as a capable service provider in this regard”.
Dirk Kotze, Process Improvement Engineer, Mediclinic.
Standardising Architecture Practices for Liberty (2017)
The enterprise architecture competency within Liberty is tasked with standardising the architecture practices for the organisation. Liberty is using iServer as the tool for modelling the architectural domains, namely business, information systems, integration and infrastructure domains.
The architecture standardisation effort has not yet concluded with the following items remaining unresolved:
- All stakeholders have not yet reached consensus to the metamodel
- Governance surrounding the architecture practices has not been formalised
Liberty’s architecture competency therefore required:
- The arbitration between stakeholders across architectural domains in order to finalise the metamodel that will service the organisation’s needs
- The development of a governance strategy for the architecture practices
- The development of an adoption strategy that incorporates the architectural practice as well as iServer as a tool
Digiterra was engaged in a project towards the latter part of 2017 and delivered the following objectives:
- Metamodel Requirements Discovery
- Metamodel Future State Design
- Designing iServer Templates
- Develop a reference model
- Discover EA Practice Requirements
- Design Future State EA Practice
Improved Efficiency & Compliance of Student Registration Process for IIE (2017)
The Independent Institute of Education (IIE) is the county’s largest registered and accredited private provider of higher education delivering more than 70 qualifications to 30 000 students on 20 campuses. The IIE employs in the region of 100 people in the central team and over 3000 across the Institute (permanent and contract).
In the first engagement (2015/2016) Digiterra enabled the IIE to re-engineer all of its operations and material development processes. This resulted in the restructuring of the division and associated processes and enabled the IIE to scale without further additional staff in the central team by about 20% in terms of modules managed in the two years that followed Digiterra’s engagement.
This second engagement is related to the Registrar’s Office that required an analysis of current processes to enable them to deal with the increased student numbers as well as more complex and additional compliance requirements. The IIE engaged Digiterra’s services towards the back end of 2017 to address the increased demand and complications inherent to the Registrar’s Office.
The objectives of the engagement were to:
- Discover and document the current set of processes as per the project scope
- Discover and document gaps associated with the processes in question within the context of their efficiency and adherence to quality standards
- Make recommendations and document a future state of the processes in question
Dr Felicity Coughlan, Director of the IIE, is happy to testify that Digiterra has delivered on these objectives. “The engagement has been fruitful and productive, and the solutions are implementable, scalable and useful. We recommend them as a capable service provider in this regard”.
Process Transformation to meet Strategic Goals for Financial Exchange company (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
The 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
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
Understanding impact of Implementing ERP system for Total Coal (2015)
Total Coal – Blueprint – Enterprise Architecture
Total Coal acquired Digiterra’s consulting services to undertake an Enterprise Architecture Blueprint exercise for various divisions within the organisation, including: Finance, HR, IT, Legal, Logistics and Marketing, Rehabilitation, Safety, Supply Chain, Technical Services, Projects and planning and Overall mining operations.
Total Coal needed to understand the full extent and impact of implementing a central Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.
Phase 1 was analysis of the “As Is” Operational aspects of the division’s value chain, inclusive of high level processes, applications in use and technology platforms
The delivered objectives included:
- A detailed model of each division’s processes aligned to the company’s strategy.
- Identification and model of the application components mapped against the high level processes
- Identification and documentation of infrastructure components mapped to the application component
- Gap Analysis report highlighting the gaps in the current enterprise architecture in relation to core enterprise processes and enterprise support services.
- A road map for addressing gaps
The completed Blueprint metamodel gave Total Coal an in-depth understanding of their operational processes and underlying application and infrastructure components to prepare for and mitigate the risks of implementing a central Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.
In Phase 2, Digiterra provided Total Coal with a comprehensive RFI to enable them to select the best technology vendor and solution to meet their strategic and operations objectives. During this engagement, Digiterra prepared an evaluation pack (which included functional and non-functional requirements) and facilitated in the vendor selection process.
Materialising Strategic Objectives Within Data Management for Standard Bank (2015)
Std Bank (GDMP – Global Data Management Programme) – Blueprint
Standard Bank South Africa is currently on a journey of optimisation, which was initiated with a principle of “resolving the basics”. This was established in response to the organisation’s requirement to meet its Risk & Compliance and Financial strategic objectives.
Digiterra was contracted to help the Human Capital Management (HCM) department materialise these strategic objectives within the boundaries of data management.
Digiterrs provided a determination of the current business state that is serviced by the data management framework with reference to the organisation, strategy, process and application dimensions already identified.
The project included:
- An Information view extending to the establishment of a data dictionary including the formalisation of the conceptual and logical view of data across the business and the mapping of logical view to physical stores.
- Determination of a best practice high level design for a data management practice
- A the service catalogue requirement that incorporated description of the service as well as the governance constraints under which the service needs to be delivered;
- Facilitation and determination of a release plan organised into work packages for service catalogue implementation.
- Project Management
Digiterra delivered:
- A completed metamodel that gave data management service requirements to meet Risk & Compliance and Financial strategic objectives
- A data management service operational model– to effectively execute against the requirements
- A data management service catalogue and implementation plan.
Improved Process Efficiency and Compliance to Customer Service Standards for the IIE (2015)
Independent Institute of Education (IIE) – Blueprint Enterprise Architecture Project
The IIE required an analysis of their Student query and resolution and material development, moderation, review and distribution processes with a view to improving them in terms of their efficiency and adherence to customer service standards. Due to the fact that these processes cut across multiple units and duplication of tasks, customers were experiencing inefficiencies and a lack of coherence.
The team of Business Analysts, made use of Digiterra’s unique echelon blueprint and provided a:
- Current state view of the strategy, processes, application and organisational role dimensions of the scoped units.
- Gap analysis showing inefficiencies, bottlenecks and duplication across the dimensions.
- Organisational Change plan with recommendations and optimised future state view
The Organisational Change plan provided the IIE with a roadmap towards streamlining operations and increasing productivity and customer satisfaction.
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