Business Consultancy

GI Strategy Development

In recent years customers have increasingly asked ESRI (UK) to help them integrate geographic information (GI) into Enterprise IT strategies. In response we have helped organisations from a variety of industry sectors develop GI strategies which support the objectives of the Enterprise. This reflects the evolution of GIS from a departmental to an organisational resource.

Like any IS strategy, the goal of a GI strategy is to align the GI capabilities of the organisation with its business needs. Therefore the GI strategy is often an extension of an overall corporate IS strategy. The strategic needs of organisations vary but a GI strategy should consider some of the following:

• Demonstrate how to maximise the added-value of the spatial component of GI for business benefit.
• Exploit the capability of GI to integrate information from different domains.
• Ensure that GI can be efficiently managed as a corporate resource.

The outputs of the strategy will vary between clients but the strategy will typically be delivered as a written report or presentation covering the agreed range of topic areas. For example, an organisation might recognise that it has GI capabilities in several business units but each is using different tools, processes and standards. The organisation may wish to uncover the most effective method of integrating these into a common set of tools, processes and standards.

Each strategy will be designed to deliver a specific set of benefits to meet client needs. Typical strategic goals are to:

• Enable greater interoperability and integration with other business systems
• Improve data quality and reduce risk
• Reduce costs and streamline purchasing decisions
• Lower training costs and support people portability

Business Change

The development of any strategy will result in the need to implement change and the management of such change will be an essential part of such a strategy. The development of a suitable strategy for change will require a detailed analysis of the existing business processes, the identification of the proposed processes, and the specification of suitable methods and procedures for the implementation of such change.

Such change may include the following:

• changes to the organisation itself
• changes to business processes
• changes to the technical infrastructure

The benefits of such business analysis is the opportunity to identify major expenditure and major risks and the formulation of a suitable strategy designed for the management of such change together with the management of the risks associated with such change. In addition we can also document critical success factors, realistic schedules, measurable milestones, together with an assessment of personnel requirements as an essential part of the business transformation plan.

Business Case Development

The key objective of any Business Case developed by the Business Consulting Group on behalf of a customer is not to identify some single measure of return on investment but to demonstrate the robustness of the project proposal through rigorous risk and sensitivity analysis.

The objective here is to present the business case in the style preferred by the organisation itself be that Net Present Value, Internal Rate of Return or Payback period or any other measure of choice. The primary objective of the business case is a document to help a financial decision maker understand the nature of the investment and proposed return such that there will be agreement to release the necessary funding.

Services here include the preparation of a Business case which will typically cover the following issues:

• Business Strategy - describes the current business strategy and the context of the business case.
• As Is - description of current processes
• Options - description of current options
• Recommendations - based on analysis of risk, payback period and return on investment
• Implementation - description of who, what, when, how etc
• The benefits of a GI business case prepared by GI specialists include the opportunity to review the options across organisational boundaries, management levels, functional distinctions, and budget categories (ie capital v. recurring or operational) and to include industry specific, non-quantifiable as well as quantifiable cost and benefit impacts. The scenario may also anticipate important contributions to business goals which cannot be satisfactorily assigned a monetary value.

Programme Planning and Assurance

The earlier risks are identified in the project lifecycle the easier it is to resolve them. The ESRI (UK) Business Consulting Group has worked with a range of clients to ensure that projects are set-up and managed on a sound footing.

Project Planning and Assurance services address a number of considerations:

• Methodology - What is the best approach? How would we manage this project under PRINCE2? How could we take an agile approach?
• Architecture - How does the solution fit together? What are the options for hardware and software components?
• Risk - How do we manage risk in this project? What is the lowest risk approach?
• Benefits - How do we track the benefits and ensure that they are delivered?

The deliverables from these engagements may include detailed plans and estimates that determine how the project should progress to the next level.