Our IT Services
Our IT services range from CIO advisory services focused on strategic issues to point-solutions for specific projects. We apply our proven methodologies to your specific business need to customize our approach. With our experience and our customer satisfaction ethic we ensure you receive value for your enterprise.
IT Review & Assessment
The Great Ridge Company's experience with IT organizations of all sizes, in varied industries, and different levels of maturity enable us to rapidly perform an IT Review and Assessment of our clients IT functions. We conduct a comprehensive inventory and assessment of the IT and Business strategy, applications, systems, data, technologies, IT processes, linkage to business processes, IT organizational structure, IT metrics and rewards, IT culture, and IT compliance areas. Our analysis of these areas will identify gaps in meeting business needs, as well as opportunities to utilize new technologies and enhanced IT delivery approaches. The IT review and assessment can be conducted in a "fast track" mode to jump-start your IT department and set a course for success supporting your company's sustainable business growth objectives.
Organization Design
There are various ways to design an IT organizational structure. At The Great Ridge Company we believe that it all starts with defining processes that support the business objectives. These processes must be seamlessly integrated with the business to enhance project success. Once efficient and effective IT processes are designed, we introduce multiple examples of IT organizational structures to determine the best structure to support your business and IT processes. By assessing the volume of work to be produced by the IT department and the sourcing strategy for resources, we then determine the appropriate headcount for each function within the organization. Only then do we assign resource names to the positions. This methodology assures that the IT organization design is the most appropriate for the business and is not built around a particular set of resources or pre-conceived notion of the correct design. We then plan the transition and implementation of any new processes, organizational roles and skills improvements needed. Our intention is to find the best fit of your existing team members into the new organization to provide career paths, succession planning, and improved effectiveness of the IT organization.
Process Design & Implementation
One of the keys to success in any IT organization is the efficient and effective execution of IT Processes. The Great Ridge Company has modified best-practice IT processes to support multiple organizational structures. These IT Process Design and Implementation efforts have streamlined processes to improve the throughput, quality, and responsiveness of the IT organization. By utilizing dashboards and scorecards we track the improvement in key IT metrics throughout the implementation of the new IT processes. These dashboards and scorecards can then be maintained by the IT organization to ensure continued improvement in key metrics. In any IT Process Design and Implementation it is critical not to "break" the things that are working in the organization and to build in flexibility to support business changes. This is where The Great Ridge Company provides additional value. Our experience allows us to anticipate the changes the business will require and build this flexibility into our IT process design and implementation initiatives.
Program & Project Management
Core to the success of IT organizations is the ability to consistently execute Project Management and Program Management functions. Managing demand for IT services, reporting on IT metrics, IT resource management, IT financials reporting, project execution tracking, and issue/risk resolution are some of the facets of The Great Ridge Company's Program and Project Management services. We are equally comfortable performing project management as we are establishing the organizational, skillset, processes, and reporting required for your internal PMO and PM's to be successful. Providing effective project management and program management functions are key to many compliance initiatives. We utilize industry standards such as COBIT, ITIL, CMM, and PMP as a foundation for our Program and project management activities. The Great Ridge Company resources have proven track records of successful execution of mission critical projects and effective Program Management Organizations. Whether performing these services to relieve over-burdened resources or expanding your capabilities with Program and Project Management, The Great Ridge Company can deliver on your priorities and assess your current capabilities to develop a roadmap of improvements for your organization.
IT Contracts Review
Many organizations spend countless hours negotiating excellent IT contracts. They spend little to no time managing those IT contracts. As a result, organizations become out of compliance with the contracts or fail to capitalize on all the terms and conditions of the contract. They often "leave money on the table" because they do not monitor and manage the vendors to comply with the contract terms and conditions. The Great Ridge Company has extensive experience negotiating and managing IT Contracts. Our IT Contract Review services allow you to determine whether or not you are getting the full value from your IT contracts. At the conclusion of an IT Contracts Review you will have a summary of the key terms and conditions along with a measure of you and your vendor's compliance with these terms and conditions. An additional summary is created for each contract with recommended next steps and the impact of executing those steps. The Great Ridge Company can then implement the recommendations or coach your internal resources through the implementation of these initiatives.
IT Strategy & Planning
Most IT departments struggle with linkage to the business. They are asked to explain their value and find it difficult to relate in business terms. This is where The Great Ridge Company's IT Strategy and Planning services can alleviate the pain. We conduct a comprehensive inventory and assessment of the IT and Business strategy, applications, systems, data, technologies, IT processes, linkage to business processes, IT organizational structure, IT metrics and rewards, IT culture, and IT compliance areas. Our analysis of these areas will identify gaps in meeting business needs, as well as opportunities to utilize new technologies and enhanced IT delivery approaches. This information serves as the basis for the development of an IT Strategy for the enterprise. The strategy is coupled with an implementation plan to achieve the desired results. An IT Value Index is developed to communicate the value of IT in business terms. Through these IT Strategy and Planning activities the business will gain confidence in the IT organization and can be assured the organization is focused on delivering the most value for the business.
Outsourcing Selection & Management
Companies must take advantage of the global economy. For some of them it means outsourcing and/or offshoring some components of IT. The correct IT Outsourcing Selection and Management answer varies significantly for each company. At The Great Ridge Company we conduct careful analysis of your business and IT capabilities to determine where IT Outsourcing would be beneficial. Whether your drivers are cost reduction, skillset expansion, peak resource needs response, developing new skills, legacy system maintenance/retirement, supporting rapid business growth, or any combination of these or other drivers, we can guide you through a successful IT Outsourcing Selection. Our services encompass: defining the objectives, an outsourcing readiness assessment of both IT and the business, developing a business case, identifying appropriate potential vendors, developing the request for proposal (RFP), vendor selection, vendor negotiations, contracting, creating a summary of key terms and conditions, training the IT department and business on proper management of the contract, transition planning, and managing the transition and ongoing business relationship after outsourcing. We provide periodic IT Outsourcing reviews to ensure your business is realizing the value of the outsourced arrangement. Our services can be initiated prior to outsourcing or anywhere during the process.
Vendor Management
Many IT professionals find themselves managing in a multi-vendor environment. There are often multiple contracts, statements of work, terms and conditions, and points of contact for the same vendor. These vendor relationships are critical to IT's success however many IT professionals need to improve their IT vendor management skills. The Great Ridge Company resources apply their vendor management experience to coach your IT professionals to improve their vendor management skills or perform the vendor management function for your organization. Our goal is to make your IT department self-sufficient to successfully manage your multi-vendor environment. At times the answer is to reduce the complexity by consolidating contracts, reducing the number of vendors engaged, or introducing processes to centralize many of the vendor management functions. These improvements can be performed as a project activity that includes the appropriate knowledge transfer to allow your IT staff to perform effective IT vendor management without our assistance at the conclusion of the project. Clients of our IT vendor management services often experience improved quality, lower costs, and more timely execution of projects which utilize third party vendors.
Quality Assurance
Delivering IT services that meet quality parameters often seems elusive. There are numerous issues that can arise to negatively impact the quality of an IT initiative. The Great Ridge Company's IT Quality Assurance services address quality issues at their root cause. This root cause is often a combination of gaps in project management oversight, incomplete or conflicting requirements, no overall integrated solution design, lack of involvement of key business users, unrealistic expectations, and incomplete executive sponsorship. While these issues manifest themselves as "bad coding" the root cause is often actually not the coding process itself. Our IT Quality Assurance services take a holistic approach to IT quality issues. We analyze and provide solutions to address the quality of the process and the quality of the deliverable. We believe that these two components are intertwined and must be addressed simultaneously. IT Quality can be improved dramatically by addressing the underlying issues. The Great Ridge Company can assess your IT quality environment and recommend specific actions to improve quality. Companies often engage us to implement these IT quality assurance programs to realize increased business value from their IT investment.
"SWAT Team"
Sometimes your IT organization needs a "quick fix". In these scenarios you want to fix a very specific problem or project and have a tight deadline. The Great Ridge Company can rapidly provide an "IT SWAT Team". As the name implies, this is a focused effort to address a specific problem as fast as possible with no casualties. The problem may be with an application, infrastructure, relationship, strategy, or any other area of IT or the Business/IT interface. Our focus on these projects is the short-term turn-around of the initiative. We will consider the solution's fit with the long-term strategy so that it is as sustainable as possible, but the primary objective is to turn the initiative around as fast as possible. Our IT SWAT Team's have successfully turned around mission critical infrastructure and application initiatives for our clients. These turn-arounds have enabled them to meet their business deadlines if at all possible.
IV&V (Independent Verification & Validation)
Independent Verification and Validation provides an independent third party review of a program or project in-progress. The Great Ridge Company's IV&V efforts provide a quick review and assessment of an individual projects risks, issues, timeline, deliverables, and overall ability to be successful. These IV&V efforts can be conducted once for a project or repeatedly at critical milestones. The level of analysis varies to meet the business needs. Since communication is often a critical component of the success of projects, our approach focuses considerably on the health of the business/IT communications processes. By conducting IV&V reviews on projects an uninvolved third party can provide more confidence that the initiative is on the road to success. Although not responsible for the project delivery itself, The Great Ridge Company's Independent Verification and Validation services have successfully guided many projects to meet their deadlines with quality and within budget.
Solution Analysis, Design, & Development
The Great Ridge Company's Solution Analysis, Design, and Development services are available when your company needs to upgrade an application, re-architect an application to meet new business needs, evaluate an application's ability to scale to meet business demands, expand and deploy an existing application, implement packaged software or write a new application. We have multi-vendor partnerships with both onshore and offshore companies to ensure the best quality and price-point for your company. We will manage many combinations of internal resources and external suppliers to deliver your solution. Our approach is always to consider reuse of an existing application first, then see if an appropriate solution can be purchased, and then determine the best course of action for your company. The solution analysis, design, and development can encompass a combination of these approaches. Our primary objective is to deliver the needed functionality with minimal maintenance costs. The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of a solution is paramount, and we deliver solutions that have lower TCO by planning ahead for maintenance and typical enhancements to applications. Our clients have experienced significant reductions in ongoing expenses by utilizing The Great Ridge Company's solution analysis, design, & development services.
RFP Development and Management
Every company faces difficult decisions when selecting a product or service to purchase. Our RFP development and management process simplifies and accelerates the process with our unique approach to RFP creation. We believe that your company is best served when the competition between vendors is fair and when they know enough about your needs to streamline the RFP process. Using our methodology the RFP is created collaboratively with the vendors which will bid on the project. The effort expended to create the RFP is the same as with a traditional approach with the advantage that the vendors are very familiar with your needs. Vendors are able to respond to the RFP in less time, with less questions, and with a more firm price. This enables your company to select the most appropriate vendor and conduct contract negotiations faster and speed your time to market for the solution. With our RFP Development and Management service our customers typically save a minimum of one month during the RFP process. Additional time savings are often found during the initial phases of the project since the selected vendor is already familiar with your company, resources, and requirements. This increased speed to market will give your company a competitive advantage over the traditional RFP development and management process.
IT Operations Review & Assessment
A streamlined and stable IT Operations environment is critical to every company. IT has become integrated into business processes and without high availability of the required IT solutions, the business is often impacted and revenues suffer. The Great Ridge Company's IT Operations Review & Assessment service evaluates your infrastructure to determine the ability of your IT operations functions to support and respond to business needs. We begin with an understanding of the primary business functions and the IT components that support those functions. This provides us with an analysis framework to determine which areas of the business are impacted by which IT infrastructure components. Next we develop an understanding of any known concerns in the environment and any upcoming business changes. From this knowledge and our ability to map emerging technologies to your needs, we develop future state requirements for your IT Operational environment. We then conduct an independent IT Operations Review and Assessment to determine what changes may be needed in your current IT Operations environment to meet business needs. We develop a transition plan including hardware, software, network, resources, time, and budget necessary to implement the plan. The plan often contains multiple phases which are executed over the course of time. These phases are linked to the business drivers that necessitate the IT Operations investment. This enables your company to make the most appropriate investment in infrastructure without over-spending or purchasing too far in advance.
IT-Driven Organizational Change
IT departments are often relied upon to drive company-wide change. Many IT organizations are not prepared or staffed to deliver IT-Driven Organizational Change. The skills necessary to help a company change its processes are unique. Many IT projects fail because they are a "technical success" and a "business failure". This is often due to the unspoken need for IT to drive the organizational change. At The Great Ridge Company we have delivered IT-driven organizational change for numerous companies. The key to changing the organization successfully is user involvement in the design, clear process definition, and multiple checkpoints throughout the solution design and development. This is followed by comprehensive user training. The Great Ridge Company has the unique blend of business and IT capabilities which enable us to communicate effectively with all facets of your business. A successful IT-Driven Organizational Change effort is founded in this effective communication.
Architecture Assessment & Development
The effectiveness and efficiency of your IT solutions lie in the application, technical, and information architectures that form the foundation of the solutions. The Great Ridge Company's Architecture Assessment & Development services review these architectures to determine their ability to support your business needs. These reviews are often required when undertaking a major systems upgrade, introducing new IT capabilities, planning for significant growth, or to identify areas to reduce ongoing operational expense. Our approach to Architecture Assessment & Development considers not only the technical aspects of your environment, but also the business environment and plans for your company. We develop recommendations and implementation plans that mesh with your company's objectives and timelines. Our goal is to provide the best possible solution for the correct investment.
CIO Coaching
Our CIO Coaching services are designed to enable your top technology leader to be a more effective business partner and member of the executive team. Companies need technology to compete in the global marketplace and your CIO needs to be an equal partner in delivering results. Our objective is to teach CIOs how to be Business Leaders without losing sight of the technology. At The Great Ridge Company we believe that this blend of knowledge is necessary to achieve sustainable business growth. Our years of experience as CIO's and successfully coaching CIOs to overcome challenges has positively impacted many organizations.
