A critical review of IT Assets and a Roadmap for the Future

Rob Chapman talks about a time-sensitive project that got the IT infrastructure and Strategy back on track for a leading retailer.

Our Role 

Our client needed IT Architecture, Business Process and Strategy Review and Roadmaps to design their future.

The initial Challenge – IT Architecture & Business Process Review

The IT organisation inherited and lead by the Global  Information Office (GIO), was operating very tactically  and recovering  from underinvestment and technical debt, with a focus on: 

• Stabilisation and de-risk of legacy systems
• Providing an IT landscape and roadmap to secure critical client renewals 
• Immediate cost-cutting required to fund transformation projects and meet shareholder requirements
• Implement (and mature) the capabilities required to deliver the transformation projects 

As a consequence, it was necessary to run projects in silos using 3rd parties.  The approach enabled fast delivery to restore credibility and release MVPs (Minimum Viable Products); however, the limitations of this model became a constraint.

We undertook a rapid review to assess the current maturity level of the client’s  IT organisation, underlying architecture and supporting business processes and recommend suitable steps to improve. 

Approach/Solution

We reviewed key artefacts, interviewed the Leadership Team, Key SMEs and PMs and all of the strategic suppliers and partners. We presented our observations, findings and recommendations on the following:

• IT ‘As Is’ and ‘To Be’ business processes supporting the technology architecture
• Supporting functional business processes and potential operational gaps, risks and mitigations
• Technology ‘As Is’ and ‘To Be’ architecture deployed
• A priority plan and framework for the Service Management Architecture for review and consideration
• A view of potential tooling that could support the IT Architecture and Business Processes 

We used our knowledge of IT Architecture, Business Processes mapped to their Operating Model and an overlay of Service Management (based on SIAM) to create a series of recommendations for the GIO. 

Results

Our Assessment found a low level of IT Architectural, Process or Operational maturity with a high dependency on strategic vendors and partners. This demanded a much more focused Service Management approach. Our key findings included:

• An overarching recommendation was that their IT needed to align functionally to a Service Management Architecture (SMA) with a Design Authority and Enterprise Architecture at the core. The end-goal would be a Service Integration and Management (SIAM) environment.  
• Bridging to a Service Management Architecture would allow the IT functions to evolve and mature into an operational entity that will utilise proven industry frameworks and methods, address many of the actions and observations of recent audits and address the increasing demands that will come from the ISS Business as it moves to a ‘cluster’ model.

Benefits

Summary of Benefits:

We created an approach that allowed the GIO to:

• Communicate direction of travel for the IT Strategy – at the exec level and to the team
• Define the main priorities for the next 12-24 months (supporting the Annual Operating Plan (AOP))
• Demonstrate to Audit that IT was in control of its strategy and future roadmap

As a result of the above benefits, our client gained a cost saving of 10% on their budget.