Technology Consulting Services

Just about every aspect of the world today is in transition and the IT services industry is no exception to this statement.  Professional IT services personnel must come to terms with the fact that the skills that they have developed in the past are valuable but they are not enough to sustain long-term growth in the IT field of today.

Technology touches every aspect of our lives and large enterprise organizations are dependent on technology to even operate.  The face of information technology consulting services has changed as well because being technical is not enough to meet the required skill sets of organizations.

Gartner has reported that the IT skills from yesterday are not enough to sustain an IT professional today.  The needs of business have changed and the IT professional of today needs to understand business and the business goals of their organization.  Everything and everyone needs to not only understand the big picture, they need to know how to flourish in it.

Gone are the days where IT departments were an island unto themselves.  The enterprise of today is an integrated machine that touches every part of the organization.  If an IT manager proposes a certain type of technology they must also be able to come up with the business case for their proposal.  Organizations need to understand and justify IT projects and not do them simply because the IT department suggests them.

This approach to business justification and accountability has also crossed over into the information technology staffing industry as well.  It is a fact that organizations will continue to need outside technical help but this technical help will have to be business savvy as well - there are no more shortcuts.  Just being technical is not enough anymore; an IT staffing person must appreciate the fact that they are placed in a position to do a job, but they must also understand the pressure that organization is dealing with when it comes to ensuring that information technology meets the needs of the company.  Firms are seeking staffers that can operate and function on both sides of the line, business and technology.

If one commits to this exciting world of information technology consulting services they must also commit to a pledge of life-long learning.  To not do so will not meet the needs of today’s business world and will place that person on the outside looking in and wondering why they did not get the position they sought.
 

Enterprises will soon recognize that IT is an organizational asset, not simply an organizational structure. Senior leadership will embrace that their understanding of IT and the ability to apply this knowledge in imagining future possibilities is essential to extracting greater value from IT-enabled initiatives.  In addition, there will be broad-based acceptance that day-to-day business operations are dependent on IT and that the costs and risks are too high to continue to place the burden of responsibility solely on the CIO and the IT team.

I believe IT will transition from being the sole provider of the asset to enabling the IT capabilities of others in the enterprise.  Application development projects will no longer be centrally controlled but will be part of an entire enterprise-wide solution.  IT department will become enablers not the central focal point of technology.  Information technology consulting services will need to meet the needs of the entire organization not simply the IT department.  The dedicated IT staff of the past will need to ensure that information technology is applied in direct support of the business strategy to help the business to compete and grow while outperforming their competition.

IT business solutions will shift from servicing to coaching on the proper solutions based upon the company need.  IT departments will grow into corporate leaders instead of trying to be the one stop shop for all technology products and services.  Leaders from each department will be accountable for their own needs.  They will be accountable for meeting the needs of the business and that includes technology.  Once business leaders achieve their goals by increasing their knowledge of systems, business processes, and information and how to identify justify and execute IT-enabled change, organizations will operate as a truly integrated enterprise instead of a company of soloed departments.  Once this type of approach is embrace, communication will improve, measurable progress will be seen and a true integrated enterprise will be realized.  

This morning I attended a seminar that was designed to be an informational seminar on the value of business process management and work process design.  The session was to last one hour and it took every minute of that hour to discuss--leaving little time for questions and answers. 

The two presenters missed the mark because they were emerged in their world of information technology consulting with little regard for the audience.  I believed that between the two of them they used every possible acronym and buzz-word known in the Information Technology Consulting industry.  I could tell the audience was bored and I know I was. It left me questioning why I came to the seminar in the first place.  So, on my drive back, it got me thinking on what is it that organizations want to hear and how do they like to converse.

First and foremost, I believe that any audience wants an individual to speak to them clearly and precisely.  I do not believe that decision makers appreciate technical jargon because many times they are not familiar with and people in the technology consulting business have a tendency to talk at them instead of to them.  That is exactly what happened this morning.

I am a technology consulting that works to help assist clients to use technology to solve problems and to build a competitive advantage.  I make it a point to make sure I place myself in any potential clients’ shoes and talk to them and engage them into conversation.  Once a client believes that someone really wants to listen and understand their challenges they are much more inclined to listen to what it is you are trying to convey.

In the technology consulting services industry we have to remember that clients and potential clients cannot be enamored with your product or services until you understand exactly what they are dealing with.  Once you understand, then you can diagnose.

Technology changes rapidly and organizations DO need assistance to stay on top of it all.  However, these organizations need partners to listen first and diagnose next.  In any type of seminars, the audience is usually there to gain knowledge but they need to completely understand what a subject is all about before they can understand and actually get value from what is being presented.  My suggestion is to set the table before you serve the meal in any conversation about technology and technology services.

As organizations grow, they often outgrow their IT departments. Business needs out pace their infrastructure.  This includes personnel, structure, process, and procedures.  Help can be provided to "mature" an IT department to a point where it is professionally managed and can scale with a growing operation. Often this includes a thorough implementation of procedures and processes that help the group become more dependable, secure, and able to meet the demands of the internal and external customers.

Recently, I had a meeting with a CIO of a sizeable firm that produces products for industry 24/7.  During the course of my “fact-finding” mission I made sure the individual I was meeting with understood that I was there to listen and to understand what challenges he had before him.  Over a period of time, my audience of one started to grasp the idea that I actually wanted to provide help and began to tell me what overwhelming challenges he faced.  The CEO of his organization was cutting IT budgets with little to no understanding of how this affected the operations of the organization and he was shouldering the blame from internal departments

In technology consulting services we often have a difficult time getting to the problem because IT departments are usually overburdened and overprotective of their departments.  Fact of the matter is that IT personnel and CIO’s are stretched so much they have little time to take a step back and look at their overall operations and infrastructure because they are too consumed in maintaining the day-to-day operations.

The value of a professional technology consulting services company is that they can offer an offer an objective opinion without pre-conceived ideas.  My firm STAR BASE, Inc. offers an IT Wellness Check™ that is designed to examine the IT infrastructure as well as the operational efficiency of an organization.  At the end of the survey a profile report is developed and our findings are given to the client.  This serves as a “checks and balance” report that allows the client to know exactly where they stand on IT, their IT perspective, as well as how IT meets the business goals and objectives of the organization.

How does your IT measure up?  Are you meeting your goals or are you just maintaining?  I would suggest that any CIO or CFO give these areas serious consideration to ensure 2009 will be an operationally sound and productive
New Year!

If you take the time to investigate, you will understand that technology is a vital part of our daily lives.  Technology is not just for business, but it can mean the difference of being competitive or not, delivering services and products or not, and it can actually make a real difference in winning and losing.  Recently we witnessed right before our eyes how president-elect Barack Obama and his team revolutionized the use of the Internet to reach millions of people to make a difference and raise more electoral funding ever.  Political campaigns will never again be approached in the same way.

In the field of technology consulting services, consultants use technology to solve problems and to enhance the working environment to become more productive.  In online learning we use technology and technology consulting services as a way to reach more learners in less time.  Like technology the face of learning has changed forever and organizations around the world are using technology to reach employees, customers and partners to better inform and educate them about processes, methodologies, procedures, and just basic knowledge on their product and services.

The value of technology is clear.  Technology can equip the people of any organization with the knowledge and tools they need to keep their systems and solutions long after an initial project has been implemented.  Good technology consultants do not tell clients what to do, instead that consultant uses technology to help organizations to develop solutions based on collective knowledge and experience.  Together organizations and technology can create solutions that were previously unimaginable.

Technology is simply a tool that can be used to ones advantage regardless of the task you have before you.  Many times I find myself marveling at the way we use to do things in the working world verses the way we accomplish tasks today.  When the computer first appeared on the scene developers touted how this “marvelous tool” would help us in working less and accomplishing more.   Well, I do not believe anyone believes it has helped any of us to work less but we would all agree it has assisted us in becoming more productive.  More production equates into being more competitive and keeping one step ahead of our competition. 

Those of us that have devoted our lives to technology consulting services enjoy being challenged to come up with workable solutions that fits a clients needs and is driven by technology.  I would suggest that technology will continue to evolve and those organizations that do not currently embrace it as a difference maker would best be served by taking a second look and deciding how it can make your world better as well.

How many of you have seen the TV commercial that shows a man buying an expensive painting at an auction only to turn around and want to resell it?   Most of us would never do such an investment strategy.  Most of us have some sort of investment strategy, but do you have an IT strategy? 

An IT strategy by itself is just a pipe dream or someone’s grand fantasy.  Your IT strategy must be linked to your business strategy.  So when I talk about managing IT like an investment portfolio, make sure that you IT plans are in line with the overall business plans. 

When investing most people don’t put all of their funds in to one investment.  A good investor also looks at other factors such as their own investment horizon, the economy and the world political situation.   So given those factors, one may put money into stocks, bonds and mutual funds with one being more heavily weighted than others.

One could look at an IT spending in the same way, using IT infrastructure, people and IT services in place of stocks, bonds and mutual funds.  Where will you get your best return on investment given the IT and business environment?  For example, if your business does a lot of mergers or acquisitions, investing in infrastructure might not make the most sense, because you’re acquiring assets from the other company.  You may need heavy investment in information technology consulting services to consolidate the businesses.

Another way to look at this is through a cycle approach.  Using a 3 year cycle as an example, year one may mean a heavy investment in IT infrastructure.  In year two there would be less IT infrastructure needs, so you might invest more in IT training for your application developers.  In year three, you might invest more productivity items or IT technology that could have a big strategic pay off.   As the cycle starts again, you might find yourself need to look at IT infrastructure again. 

By using the portfolio management approach, you can begin to be proactive instead of reactive. 

Expectations for Human Resource Management (HRM) service delivery goes well beyond what even large organizations can envision, create, manage, sustain, afford and do reliably on their own -- and those expectations now include global service delivery with local language and regulatory expertise.

All of this is resulting into IT Outsourcing, which is great for technology consultants such as myself, but that can be very risky for organizations with out a plan.  What I have been witnessing is that organizations are operating with piecemeal outsourcing approaches that many times have not been well thought through, do not align with the goals and business objectives of the organization and the money that these organizations thought they were saving actually ends up costing them more.

Other observations have been:

• Organizations have gotten use to using trusted vendors for critical applications software without identifying key objectives;
• HRM can put their resources to better use than having a centralized internal delivery system to deliver HRM services;
• ERP, CRM and HRM delivery services more times than not do not communicate and share valuable information that can assist an organization to gain a competitive advantage – lift and shift is not a sustainable business model;
• Problems occur when organizations customize and configure in-house implementations of Oracle/SAP/PeopleSoft etc and then want information technology consulting firms to service their account;
• There is a lack of agreed and precisely-defined vocabulary and objectives during the initial conversations or planning stages with business technology consulting firms

So how do organizations overcome these short-coming in their planning stages’?  First and foremost, any organization must start with the business goals and objectives of the organization and make sure that any application must contribute to the mission. 

Next, organizations must take the time to plan with their trusted vendors and not simply provide them with a list of tasks to fill.  Most of the time those of us involved in providing information technology consulting services can assist in the delivery of HRM services because we make it our business to stay abreast of the latest offerings and trends in technology.

Here at STAR BASE, Inc. we take the word partnership seriously because we understand if we do not meet the needs of our clients, and potential clients, we will not be working together for very long.  Any organization must include their trusted advisors along the way in the planning process, focus on their core competencies, and give real consideration to outsourcing parts of the their HRM services delivery.   

Those of us that are passionate about technology and providing solutions for our clients using technology have watched a great deal of work go to foreign competitors with India leading the pack.  Business IT Outsourcing has been a part of every global organizations operational strategy for sometime mainly because it cost less.  The argument for overseas outsourcing was that any organization can get IT resources, application development and information technology consulting service for much less investment by going to foreign countries.
 

There were problems mainly language barriers, delivery problems; and the insistence of large Indian firm delivering services in their preferred format not in a custom format tailored to your organization.  Still the cost factor outweighed the negatives. But now the cost benefits no longer appear to be the strategic advantage they once were.  With the fall of the real estate market in the United States, the escalating cost of oil and the de-valuation of the dollar foreign outsourcing is not the bargain it once was.

Know who the outsourcing bargain might be now?  Possibly it’s America. With the U.S. economy in a rut, the value of the rupee rising and wages increasing, mid-market CIO’s have good reason to look beyond India and instead evaluate opportunities in places such as Canada and South America as off-shoring alternatives, analysts say.   Even US based companies have been offering attractive price incentives in hopes of building long-term business partnerships.   Learn more: 

search: 
cio-midmarket.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid183_gci1319588,00.html

My company STAR BASE Consulting, Inc. offers smaller organizations strategic and operational alternatives to meet their immediate needs.  We believe that our pricing is competitive with the competition and suggest that the next time your organization is considering information technology staffing or It outsourcing we should sit down and discuss what works for your organization.

In a world made smaller by technology and innovation, companies are weighing the most cost-effective and operationally effective options to run their business globally.  We have learned that most executives believe that outsourcing overseas must be implemented but talent management gets lost in the process.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics projected that:

• 22 million baby-boomers would leave the workforce between 1998 and 2008
• This number will be even larger over the next decade, as virtually all boomers reach retirement age
• The pool of workers following the boomers is substancially smaller

This situation brings about a new shortage of skills and talent in IT and business and is threatening business growth, according to Gartner. Traditional technical IT skills will not suit the burgeoning demand for developing IT and business together. Several forces are coming together to create a competition for talent. Companies need to adjust their plans for a new reality of constrained resources.  The findings of the Garter research can be accessed at:  http://cio.tekrati.com/research/10076/

What's your IT talent acquisition strategy?

We believe that organizations are going to have to become more strategic in their planning both internally and externally with their IT partners.  The convergence of business models and IT requires people with varied experience, professional versatility, vision and the skills to multi-task in a variety of areas. 

Research has shown that many organizations are undergoing transformations that require multiple skills.  It is not simply a matter of hiring a team to do application development, enterprise application development or providing information technology services.  Organizations need individual team members and their strategic technology consulting services partners to understand what they are dealing with so both of these groups can provide the right thought leadership to assist the organization in meeting their goals.

Those are my thoughts.  What are yours?

I've been in information-technology consulting, long enough that nothing really wows me any more.  However, there is one technology that is just amazing, and that is virtualization.  Last October, we virtualized all but two of our servers, and we have been running virtually ever since. 

Being an application development company, we typically need application servers when developing business applications for customers.  Our server room was getting close to being physically filled and we probably exceeded our cooling capability.   Some of our servers were also getting old and we were running out on system drive space and space on our data drive.  It's not much fun provisioning and loading a new server with all the applications, so I decided it was time to try virtualization.

We bought two rack mounted servers with plenty has processing power and memory and loaded VMware’s ESX server.  We then used VMware’s converter to convert our physical windows server into a virtual server.  One of the options during the conversion process was to increase the memory during the conversion, so we elected to do this.  Another option is to the change the size of the disk drives, so we increased the size of the system drive and the data drive.   The converter ran in a couple of hours and since we had exclusive access on the physical server, we decided to power that one down and power on the virtual server.

This was the amazing part, all the applications fired up; all of the data and files were there. The only thing we had to do was configure the IP address.  Everything appeared to be functioning normally, so we just left that server on to see if anyone would notice any difference.  I've forgotten that I had a drive letter mapped back to that physical server.  When I got back to my desk, I tried clicking on the drive letter.  I was amazed when the directories and files appeared in Windows Explorer.

No one noticed any differences, other than things ran faster.  So for the course of the next week, we converted the rest of our physical servers to virtual servers.  Once everything was installed in the server room, we noticed a tremendous drop in temperature.  We were also able to extend the life of some of our application servers, since they now ran with more drive space.  We also have an easier time with disaster recovery and business continuity.

I have been so impressed with VMware; I'm considering adding VMware as another one of our technology consulting services.

I have been thinking about this post for a while now.  People are fascinated by my story when I have told them about my experience.  In Sunday's Cincinnati Enquirer there was an article entitled “Sleep, killing you slowly”.   So today we will take a break from IT Consulting and Technology Consulting services.  I found a copy of the article with a different title on the MSNBC web site and you can view that by clicking here.

Back in March I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea.  To give you an idea of how severe my case was, anything over 30 incidents an hour is considered severe.  At one point during the night of my sleep study, I was at 50 incidents an hour and my blood oxygen level would get down to 80%.  (An incident is where I would stop breathing and normal blood oxygen level is over 95%.)

The interesting thing is that I did not have some of the classic symptoms and just because you do have a few symptoms does not mean that you have sleep apnea.  For example, I snore, at least according to my wife, and that is a common symptom.  The thing that caused me to go for the sleep study after visiting several doctors for several other symptoms was my blood pressure was always higher in the morning than in the evening, which is the opposite of what it should be.

Some of my other symptoms that I now know were associated with sleep apnea, but at the time just thought they were a associated with getting older were:  Waking up in the morning and still feeling tired; having a headache in the morning; having my short-term memory deteriorate and getting up two to three times a night to go to the bathroom.  The last symptom I thought was particularly interesting.  Apparently, the body makes more urine when you have sleep apnea and forces you to get up so you can get more oxygen.  (Since I have been on the CPAP, I rarely get up at night.) 

Being the owner of an Information Technology Consulting Firm, I get quite a few emails everyday.  I used to be exhausted after getting though the email and considered that the accomplishment for that day.   Not any more!   As the article that I referenced above says sleep apnea can be fatal and if you don’t have your health, you are in trouble. 

In the last few weeks, I have learned that a couple of IT consultants that had worked for STAR BASE, Inc. in the past have passed away.  Our condolences and prayers go out to their families.  Both of these men were in their early 50’s and taken from this earth way too soon.  Fortunately both of them knew what really mattered and are now in a better place.