What are Advancement Technology Assessments?
TSI’s advancement focused technology assessment and strategy consulting services identifies gaps and pain points in your existing inventory of applications, technology infrastructure, IT service catalogue, IT Budget (and current IT spend), and organization structure.
We typically start with an understanding of your advancement-oriented strategy and understand your vision for key experiences with your targeted constituents and personas. Based on your advancement strategic context, TSI reviews the IT assets and resources to optimize your IT services, quality, efficiency, and results. Our consultants will partner with your organization to determine the current state of your technology enterprise and strategically align your technology with your business objectives. Frequently we develop a business case that lays out the facts – estimated costs and benefits, risks and value to change.
TSI’s Advancement Technology Assessment and Strategy methodology aims to approach and answer the following questions:
- What performance levels are you striving for in the Foundation, Alumni Association, Campuses, Colleges and other Departments?
- What do you need from your supporting CRM and related technology?
- What role does IT need to play in the success of this strategy?
- When looking at some or all of these dimensions – People, Processes and your applications and infrastructure – how viable and scalable are we?
- Does your advancement CRM create a competitive advantage for the organization, or do they hold the organization back?
- Are you on an outdated version of Ellucian Advance, Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge or a CRM that is at end of life? Is there a legitimate case to change systems? If so, what are the costs and benefits to go, or remain on the existing technology infrastructure (as well as define scenarios that consider some of each)?
- What does it cost to maintain your organization’s legacy system?
- What are the risks? How agile is your organization with this system? Are there opportunity costs?
- What are the pros and cons of moving to the cloud?
- What about the trade-offs between industry specific packages (that might have a small install base) versus larger, potentially more generic software packages?
- What reporting applications, like SQL Server, Cognos, Tableau, Einstein Analytics, Power BI, and Micro Strategies need to be considered?
Why work with us?
TSI is completely unbiased and objective. We have no relationships with software vendors that would cause us to recommend one solution over another one. This is very unique in this industry. We are technology experts that pride ourselves on vendor objectivity that prevents bias in the work we do with our clients.
For each unique technology assessment project, our first objective is to understand your desired results and strategy, short and long-term goals. TSI aims to work with leadership teams and stakeholders to address unique advancement and technology challenges related to cost, strategy, and organizational alignment. Our team also gathers pain points and opportunities for improvement for your existing technology environment (looking holistically) so that we can add value for your future state.
As a result of projects like this, our clients benefit in many ways. These benefits range from having a more value-focused IT group to one that is more streamlined (having reduced the number of disparate systems that are not aligned with the strategic imperatives).
What we do?
Transforming Solutions’ Technology Assessment consulting services encompass the following components:
Application and Technology Inventory Our team often gets started by taking a detailed inventory of the technology an organization has. We then categorize it and identify the costs to keep it operational. Then we highlight duplicate applications or systems. We will also help determine cost savings opportunities or ways to optimize existing systems to meet your current business needs. With respect to analyzing the applications and other infrastructure components, TSI will review these applications from an architecture perspective, as well as a user/functionality perspective.
IT Competencies We help determine technical competencies and staffing levels necessary to accomplish goals and provide resourcing recommendations accordingly. We will answer the questions: what are the responsibilities of the IT department, and who defines its success?
Data Hygiene and Architecture TSI consultants will provide recommendations on data hygiene efforts and tools that can support these efforts. We can also provide insights into the best data models, policies, rules, standards and governance (this is a great resource from the Harvard Business Review for more information on governance) to optimize your data and ensure that clean data is entered into your existing systems. How your data is stored, integrated, and arranged within your data warehouse or other systems is crucial to your daily work.
Software Evaluation and Selection If the situation warrants, where there is a solid business case to evaluate and select an improved software package – TSI performs dozens of projects like this every year – please click here.
Independent Verification and Validation (or Health Check) – For Independent Verification and Validation efforts, Transforming Solutions acts as an independent third party organization. We were not involved in the development of the product or implementation of the package and provide an alternative perspective to evaluating success. This evaluation is based on a structured analysis framework that allows us to score the project and identify areas of strength as well as those where risk is present.
Tools we use
- Application inventory
- Application architecture
- Business Case
- Communication Plan
- Implementation Plan template
- Data architecture
- Information flow diagrams
- Application versus Capabilities heat map
- IV&V – Independent Verification and Validation