The engagement was to assess and stabilize the current situation, define the right roadmap for the future, determine the best delivery model (insource, outsource, or a combination), while being ever-mindful of the economics of each decision in the light of where the company was in its own business life cycle and its highly competitive marketplace and in the light of newly emerging IT services delivery options within the explosively changing IT services marketplace. In short, define the right model quickly, the right solution provider(s) quickly, and implement quickly with minimal capital expenditures and transition cost and operational disruption; and once achieved, have a new business & IT infrastructure (and partners) that would enable growth at scale with reasonable elasticity.
This client’s business needs were a unique combination of characteristics: they didn’t need, at least anytime soon, a set of Cadillac big-company capabilities but something closer to those of a mom and pop shop (which included not requiring a heavy vendor management burden). Their actual IT requirements were not particularly complex but what they needed, they needed all the time, and when changes occurred they need adequate on-sight support and rapid response on-call expertise. Yet at the same time, their world was changing rapidly as the business was growing quickly, including on-boarding and outfitting new high performing executives so they could hit the ground running. And they needed capabilities (though didn’t fully know it) that were built and managed according to IT service management (ITIL) to ensure continuity and continuous improvement in the midst of rapid change. Thus a small-time IT shop without cutting edge sophistication would not do; yet a large-scale globally focused shop was overkill.
We assessed the situation, developed a road map, defined the requirements, developed a select group of properly sized with the right capabilities, obtained bids, advised on the selection and contracts, and managed monitored the transition and implementation.
The business continues to grow rapidly and successfully and the new business and IT infrastructure partners are enabling at scale growth. Its IT services partners are not mere vendors but are business enablers.