How to Build a Better IT Strategy, Part Two: Build

As we stated in our last blog, organizations that adopt an agile approach to their IT strategy benefit from reduced costs, improved company performance and a better position to embrace emerging technologies. 

The Think stage of this organizational model prepares your users and organization to avoid productivity and profitability issues, while the Build stage covers what needs fixing and how to fix it. This stage is about assessing your business goals and the needs of your company, and establishes a plan for your technology to help you reach these goals and meet these needs. The best way to explain this next phase of the technology planning process is to give you insight into an actual Build phase that was conducted with a real Lazorpoint client.

Beginning The Build: A Think, Build, Run Case Study

A healthcare facility called us to discuss a few issues with its current provider:

• Poor communication during project management
• Poor response time when addressing user issues
• Complete lack of technology planning and, therefore, an inability to predict future technology needs and provide an upgrade plan

Above all, the chosen IT provider operated from a reactive, break-fix methodology instead of a proactive approach based on the evolving needs of the company. We ran through our Think, Build, Run methodology, but the healthcare facility decided to continue with its current IT provider.

Fast-forward to two years later, and the CEO called to hear more about a new IT approach. The company’s previous issues had compounded due to the same support issues and an organization that doubled in size with employees and locations. Basically, the provider failed to grow with the organization and improve support. Technology problems persisted for months without a communicated resolution plan.

We explained our Think, Build, Run methodology to the CEO, and this time, the client agreed to move forward with a Think assessment. That’s when we found:

• Equipment that did not meet the company's current business needs and would not be suited for the near future
• A need to restructure the core IT infrastructure to support future growth

The cost to do this, including ongoing Run services to maintain and improve technologies, was about double the price offered by the current provider. We did, however, suggest other ideas of how they could choose to run future IT initiatives:

• Completely outsource IT support, like they were doing
• Completely insource IT by hiring several different people with various skill sets
• Develop a hybrid approach with two in-house people supporting day-to-day IT support issues (Run tasks), and outsource the rest of the work related to network and server support as well as future technology solutions (Think and Build tasks found in CIO and senior engineer roles)

After some deliberation, it was decided that the fully outsourced IT approach was the most cost-effective solution. Over the course of the next three months, Lazorpoint transitioned the healthcare facility away from the existing IT provider.

Since the transition, the following has happened:

• Client has grown from 18 sites to 22 sites with more expansion on the way
• We have been able to dive deeper into the business model and technology plan to recommend a new IT strategy for deploying and managing IT at each location

One of the ways in which we helped deploy new technologies was to look at the personal computers and laptops in use at every employee’s desk. We suggested an alternative to providing full-fledged computers to every new employee: utilizing a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environment, which allowed for more control and ease of deployment with new systems, ultimately leading to a lower total cost of ownership. After installing the proposed VDI environment, users were able to work from anywhere on any device while retaining access to all business applications in a seamless, cost-effective work environment.

Build: Designed To Meet Your Needs

By weighing the costs associated with break-fix IT support against a proactive process based on the Think, Build, Run methodology, our client was able to cut costs and adopt emerging technologies for a fresh, competitive edge. Now, the client is poised for the kind of growth that has no ceiling. That’s the benefit of an agile systems model grounded in strategic technology planning.

Stay tuned for our next blog, where we’ll uncover Run, the final phase in this organizational model supporting a proactive approach to your organization’s technology needs.