Strategic Consulting Associates
 
   

For every business event, there is a corresponding IT event; yet IT’s critics say it lacks strategic importance.

So why does technology keep getting in the way of good strategy?

Usually because IT neither acts strategically, nor has an aligned strategic plan of its own.
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SCA consultants are experienced IT managers. Many are ex-CIO’s who understand the burdens of delivering technology under budget pressures, doing more with less people and in shorter timeframes.
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Did you know?
$1.2 trillion was spent on information technology in the U.S. alone between 1995 and 2000.

Source: McKinsey & Company


Did you harvest your IT investment for all it’s worth?
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An effective Scorecard accomplishes some of the following:


Maintains a balance between IT core competencies and IT value contribution

Effectively establishes alignment with corporate strategy

Ensures strategy is known at the individual level

Measures performance for improvement

Communicates the value of IT to the enterprise

Mobilization of initiatives to implement the strategy
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--CREATING VALUE THROUGH TRUE IT ALIGNMENT--

SCA helps companies create business value through the intelligent and practical use of information technology. SCA serve CEOs, CIOs, and other senior business and IT executives by taking a practitioner’s approach to IT strategy development.

As practitioners with extensive IT management experience, SCA works with clients on their toughest technology issues, ensuring that their technology decisions help them meet their companies’ strategic, operational, and economic goals. SCA consultants work extensively in financial services, life insurance, telecommunications, transportation, hi-tech, retail and direct marketing.



--CHARTING THE COURSE--

In today’s economically constrained environment, many corporate leaders are continuing to express concern regarding the overall alignment and value of the Information Technology function. Leaders are asking these and other questions regarding IT performance:

  • Is IT working on the right projects?
  • Are they delivering the expected results when needed and promised
  • Are corporate-wide IT costs appropriate and in-line with expectations?
  • Are IT customers satisfied?
  • To what extent is IT adding value as an enabler for corporate-wide innovation and competitive advantage?
IT can no longer be an organization lying outside the norms of performance measurement. In fact, more then ever before, IT must have an objective way of demonstrating its value to the organization. The IT Balanced Scorecard “operationalizes” IT strategy and performance management in a way that involves all levels of management and staff, both IT and IT customers. A powerful strategy management system, the IT Balanced Scorecard describes your IT strategy in terms of measures for organizational performance improvement.

As an original thought leader in the development and use of the IT Balanced Scorecard, SCA works with clients from training through implementation. Because the IT Balanced Scorecard is an on-going strategy management system, not just a one time event, SCA believes very strongly in training client teams to the point where they maintain their Scorecard on their own, without costly support from consulting firms.

More than a list of measures, a good IT Balanced Scorecard tells the story of the strategy. It does this by creating positive customer relationships; enabling the success of the business; creates positive influence on behaviors and values required for success; and finally, enable the creation of shareholder value, the purpose of all business strategy.








--DELEVERING SUCCESS--

SCA project services focus on providing practical management of projects. Our approach to project management is to accommodate our client’s project management methods and processes rather then dictate any particular methodology. SCA realizes the secret to project success is not in methodology but in its successful execution. Our project management professionals will provide leadership to your projects, bringing these projects in on time, within budget and delivering value – the only real success criteria for project delivery.

SCA provides project services in three specific areas:








--PROTECTING THE INVESTMENT--

A well-planned IT architecture protects the significant investments made in technology deployments while enabling the IT organization to achieve the balance between competency and contribution. An architecture approach protects the organization’s IT investment through intelligent planning, appropriate use of technology standards and adaptive flexibility while ensuring reliability and security – key elements of IT service competency. Poor architecture results in order-of-magnitude cost increases in your IT investments, delays in project schedules, and poor flexibility to adapt to the rapid pace of technology change.

SCA experience in architecture planning services will help your organization avoid the common pitfalls associated with otherwise poor architectures. The SCA approach to IT architecture focuses on three key elements:

  • Application Architecture
    If you are building and maintaining your own business systems and technology infrastructure, application architecture must be a core competency of your IT organization. Good application architecture makes systems more understandable and therefore manageable. Partitioning systems intelligently, creating well-defined interfaces between system components and building these components in a way that facilitates flexibility…this is the essence of application architecture.

  • Information Architecture
    SCA’s approach to information architecture ensures information sharing across organizational as well as functional boundaries. By developing the correct information framework to describe logical and organizational structure and the guidelines required to protect the information assets of the enterprise, SCA’s approach to IT architecture enables the foundation for long-term information growth, an absolute necessity in the information age.

  • Systems Architecture
    Through systems design and deployment - with emphasis on performance, security, reliability, and availability – SCA helps our clients through the complex choices required for designing high-performance system environments.







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