Select and Use SDLC Metrics Effectively

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  • Parent Category Name: Development
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  • Your organization wants to implement (or revamp existing) software delivery metrics to monitor performance as well as achieve its goals.
  • You know that metrics can be a powerful tool for managing team behavior.
  • You also know that all metrics are prone to misuse and mismanagement, which can lead to unintended consequences that will harm your organization.
  • You need an approach for selecting and using effective software development lifecycle (SDLC) metrics that will help your organization to achieve its goals while minimizing the risk of unintended consequences.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • Metrics are powerful, dangerous, and often mismanaged, particularly when they are tied to reward or punishment. To use SDLC metrics effectively, know the dangers, understand good practices, and then follow Info-Tech‘s TAG (team-oriented, adaptive, and goal-focused) approach to minimize risk and maximize impact.

Impact and Result

  • Begin by understanding the risks of metrics.
  • Then understand good practices associated with metrics use.
  • Lastly, follow Info-Tech’s TAG approach to select and use SDLC metrics effectively.

Select and Use SDLC Metrics Effectively Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Understand both the dangers and good practices related to metrics, along with Info-Tech’s TAG approach to the selection and use of SDLC metrics.

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Understand the dangers of metrics

Explore the significant risks associated with metrics selection so that you can avoid them.

  • Select and Use SDLC Metrics Effectively – Phase 1: Understand the Risks of Metrics

2. Know good practices related to metrics

Learn about good practices related to metrics and how to apply them in your organization, then identify your team’s business-aligned goals to be used in SDLC metric selection.

  • Select and Use SDLC Metrics Effectively – Phase 2: Know Good Practices Related to Metrics
  • SDLC Metrics Evaluation and Selection Tool

3. Rank and select effective SDLC metrics for your team

Follow Info-Tech’s TAG approach to selecting effective SDLC metrics for your team, create a communication deck to inform your organization about your selected SDLC metrics, and plan to review and revise these metrics over time.

  • Select and Use SDLC Metrics Effectively – Phase 3: Rank and Select Effective SDLC Metrics for Your Team
  • SDLC Metrics Rollout and Communication Deck
[infographic]

Workshop: Select and Use SDLC Metrics Effectively

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

1 Understand the Dangers of Metrics

The Purpose

Learn that metrics are often misused and mismanaged.

Understand the four risk areas associated with metrics: Productivity loss Gaming behavior Ambivalence Unintended consequences

Productivity loss

Gaming behavior

Ambivalence

Unintended consequences

Key Benefits Achieved

An appreciation of the dangers associated with metrics.

An understanding of the need to select and manage SDLC metrics carefully to avoid the associated risks.

Development of critical thinking skills related to metric selection and use.

Activities

1.1 Examine the dangers associated with metric use.

1.2 Share real-life examples of poor metrics and their impact.

1.3 Practice identifying and mitigating metrics-related risk.

Outputs

Establish understanding and appreciation of metrics-related risks.

Solidify understanding of metrics-related risks and their impact on an organization.

Develop the skills needed to critically analyze a potential metric and reduce associated risk.

2 Understand Good Practices Related to Metrics

The Purpose

Develop an understanding of good practices related to metric selection and use.

Introduce Info-Tech’s TAG approach to metric selection and use.

Identify your team’s business-aligned goals for SDLC metrics.

Key Benefits Achieved

Understanding of good practices for metric selection and use.

Document your team’s prioritized business-aligned goals.

Activities

2.1 Examine good practices and introduce Info-Tech’s TAG approach.

2.2 Identify and prioritize your team’s business-aligned goals.

Outputs

Understanding of Info-Tech’s TAG approach.

Prioritized team goals (aligned to the business) that will inform your SDLC metric selection.

3 Rank and Select Your SDLC Metrics

The Purpose

Apply Info-Tech’s TAG approach to rank and select your team’s SDLC metrics.

Key Benefits Achieved

Identification of potential SDLC metrics for use by your team.

Collaborative scoring/ranking of potential SDLC metrics based on their specific pros and cons.

Finalize list of SDLC metrics that will support goals and minimize risk while maximizing impact.

Activities

3.1 Select your list of potential SDLC metrics.

3.2 Score each potential metric’s pros and cons against objectives using a five-point scale.

3.3 Collaboratively select your team’s first set of SDLC metrics.

Outputs

A list of potential SDLC metrics to be scored.

A ranked list of potential SDLC metrics.

Your team’s first set of goal-aligned SDLC metrics.

4 Create a Communication and Rollout Plan

The Purpose

Develop a rollout plan for your SDLC metrics.

Develop a communication plan.

Key Benefits Achieved

SDLC metrics.

A plan to review and adjust your SDLC metrics periodically in the future.

Communication material to be shared with the organization.

Activities

4.1 Identify rollout dates and responsible individuals for each SDLC metric.

4.2 Identify your next SDLC metric review cycle.

4.3 Create a communication deck.

Outputs

SDLC metrics rollout plan

SDLC metrics review plan

SDLC metrics communication deck

Industry-Specific Digital Transformation

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Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

Infographic

Business Process Controls and Internal Audit

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  • Parent Category Name: Security and Risk
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Establish an Effective System of Internal IT Controls to Mitigate Risks.

Consolidate Your Data Centers

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  • Parent Category Name: Data Center & Facilities Strategy
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  • Data center operating costs continue to escalate as organizations struggle with data center sprawl.
  • While data center consolidation is an attractive option to reduce cost and sprawl, the complexity of these projects makes them extremely difficulty to execute.
  • The status quo is also not an option, as budget constraints and the challenges with managing multiple data centers continues to increase.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • Despite consolidation being an effective way of addressing sprawl, it is often difficult to secure buy-in and funding from the business.
  • Many consolidation projects suffer cost overruns due to unforeseen requirements and hidden interdependencies which could have been mitigated during the planning phase.
  • Organizations that avoid consolidation projects due to their complexity are just deferring the challenge, while costs and inefficiencies continue to increase.

Impact and Result

  • Successful data center consolidation will have an immediate impact on reducing data center sprawl. Maximize your chances of success by securing buy-in from the business.
  • Avoid cost overruns and unforeseen requirements by engaging with the business at the start of the process. Clearly define business requirements and establish common expectations.
  • While cost improvements often drive data center consolidation, successful projects will also improve scalability, operational efficiency, and data center redundancy.

Consolidate Your Data Centers Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should perform a data center consolidation, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Discover

Identify IT infrastructure systems and establish dependency bundles for the current and target sites.

  • Consolidate Your Data Centers – Phase 1: Discover
  • Data Center Consolidation Data Collection Workbook
  • Data Center Consolidation Project Planning and Prioritization Tool

2. Plan

Build a strong business case for data center consolidation by leveraging a TCO analysis and incorporating business requirements.

  • Consolidate Your Data Centers – Phase 2: Plan
  • Data Center Consolidation TCO Comparison Tool
  • Data Center Relocation Vendor Statement of Work Evaluation Tool

3. Execute

Streamline the move-day process through effective communication and clear delegation of duties.

  • Consolidate Your Data Centers – Phase 3: Execute
  • Communications Plan Template for Data Center Consolidation
  • Data Center Consolidation Executive Presentation
  • Minute-to-Minute Move Day Script (PDF)
  • Minute-to-Minute Move Day Script (Visio)
  • Data Center Relocation Minute-to-Minute Project Planning and Monitoring Tool

4. Close

Close the loop on the data center consolidation project by conducting an effective project retrospective.

  • Consolidate Your Data Centers – Phase 4: Close
  • Data Center Relocation QA Team Project Planning and Monitoring Tool
  • Data Center Move Issue Resolution and Change Order Template
  • Data Center Relocation Wrap-up Checklist
[infographic]

Reduce Time to Consensus With an Accelerated Business Case

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  • Parent Category Name: Business Analysis
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  • Enterprise application initiatives are complex, expensive, and require a significant amount of planning before initiation.
  • A financial business case is sometimes used to justify these initiatives.
  • Once the business case (and benefits therein) are approved, the case is forgotten, eliminating a critical check and balance of benefit realization.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

1. Frame the conversation.

Understand the audience and forum for the business case to best frame the conversation.

2. Time-box the process of building the case.

More time should be spent on performing the action rather than building the case.

3. The business case is a living document.

The business case creates the basis for review of the realization of the proposed business benefits once the procurement is complete.

Impact and Result

  • Understand the drivers for decision making in your organization, and the way initiatives are evaluated.
  • Compile a compelling business case that provides decision makers with sufficient information to make decisions confidently.
  • Evaluate proposed enterprise application initiatives “apples-to-apples” using a standardized and repeatable methodology.
  • Provide a mechanism for tracking initiative performance during and after implementation.

Reduce Time to Consensus With an Accelerated Business Case Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should build a business case for enterprise application investments, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand how we can support you in completing this project.

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Gather the required information

Complete the necessary preceding tasks to building the business case. Rationalize the initiative under consideration, determine the organizational decision flow following a stakeholder assessment, and conduct market research to understand the options.

  • Reduce Time to Consensus With an Accelerated Business Case – Phase 1: Gather the Required Information
  • Business Case Readiness Checklist
  • Business Case Workbook
  • Request for Information Template
  • Request for Quotation Template

2. Conduct the business case analysis

Conduct a thorough assessment of the initiative in question. Define the alternatives under consideration, identify tangible and intangible benefits for each, aggregate the costs, and highlight any risks.

  • Reduce Time to Consensus With an Accelerated Business Case – Phase 2: Conduct the Business Case Analysis

3. Make the case

Finalize the recommendation based on the analysis and create a business case presentation to frame the conversation for key stakeholders.

  • Reduce Time to Consensus With an Accelerated Business Case – Phase 3: Make the Case
  • Full-Form Business Case Presentation Template
  • Summary Business Case Presentation Template
  • Business Case Change Log
  • Business Case Close-Out Form
[infographic]

Workshop: Reduce Time to Consensus With an Accelerated Business Case

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

1 Plan for Business Case Development

The Purpose

Complete the necessary preceding tasks to building a strong business case.

Key Benefits Achieved

Alignment with business objectives.

Stakeholder buy-in.

Activities

1.1 Map the decision flow in your organization.

1.2 Define the proposed initiative.

1.3 Define the problem/opportunity statement.

1.4 Clarify goals and objectives expected from the initiative.

Outputs

Decision traceability

Initiative summary

Problem/opportunity statement

Business objectives

2 Build the Business Case Model

The Purpose

Put together the key elements of the business case including alternatives, benefits, and costs.

Key Benefits Achieved

Rationalize the business case.

Activities

2.1 Design viable alternatives.

2.2 Identify the tangible and intangible benefits.

2.3 Assess current and future costs.

2.4 Create the financial business case model.

Outputs

Shortlisted alternatives

Benefits tracking model

Total cost of ownership

Impact analysis

3 Enhance the Business Case

The Purpose

Determine more integral factors in the business case such as ramp-up time for benefits realization as well as risk assessment.

Key Benefits Achieved

Complete a comprehensive case.

Activities

3.1 Determine ramp-up times for costs and benefits.

3.2 Identify performance measures and tracking.

3.3 Assess initiative risk.

Outputs

Benefits realization schedule

Performance tracking framework

Risk register

4 Prepare the Business Case

The Purpose

Finalize the recommendation and formulate the business case summary and presentation.

Key Benefits Achieved

Prepare the business case presentation.

Activities

4.1 Choose the alternative to be recommended.

4.2 Create the detailed and summary business case presentations.

4.3 Present and incorporate feedback.

4.4 Monitor and close out.

Outputs

Final recommendation

Business case presentation

Final sign-off

Build a Digital Workspace Strategy

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  • Parent Category Name: End-User Computing Strategy
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  • IT must figure out what a digital workspace is, why they’re building one, and what type they want.
  • Remote work creates challenges that cannot be solved by technology alone.
  • Focusing solely on technology risks building something the business doesn’t want or can’t use.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Building a smaller digital workspace doesn’t mean that the workspace will have a smaller impact on the business.

Impact and Result

  • Partner with the business to create a team of digital workspace champions.
  • Empower employees with a tool that makes remote work easier.

Build a Digital Workspace Strategy Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should partner with the business for building a digital workspace, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Identify the digital workspace you want to build

Create a list of benefits that the organization will find compelling and build a cross-functional team to champion the workspace.

  • Build a Digital Workspace Strategy – Phase 1: Identify the Digital Workspace You Want to Build
  • Digital Workspace Strategy Template
  • Digital Workspace Executive Presentation Template

2. Identify high-level requirements

Design the digital workspace’s value proposition to drive your requirements.

  • Build a Digital Workspace Strategy – Phase 2: Identify High-Level Requirements
  • Sample Digital Workspace Value Proposition
  • Flexible Work Location Policy
  • Flexible Work Time Policy
  • Flexible Work Time Off Policy
  • Mobile Device Remote Wipe Waiver Template
  • Mobile Device Connectivity & Allowance Policy
  • General Security – User Acceptable Use Policy

3. Identify initiatives and a high-level roadmap

Take an agile approach to building your digital workspace.

  • Build a Digital Workspace Strategy – Phase 3: Identify Initiatives and a High-Level Roadmap
[infographic]

Workshop: Build a Digital Workspace Strategy

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

1 Identify the Digital Workspace You Want to Build

The Purpose

Ensure that the digital workspace addresses real problems the business is facing.

Key Benefits Achieved

Defined benefits that will address business problems

Identified strategic business partners

Activities

1.1 Identify the digital workspace’s direction.

1.2 Prioritize benefits and define a vision.

1.3 Assemble a team of digital workspace champions.

Outputs

Vision statement

Mission statement

Guiding principles

Prioritized business benefits

Metrics and key performance indicators

Service Owner, Business Owner, and Project Sponsor role definitions

Project roles and responsibilities

Operational roles and responsibilities

2 Identify Business Requirements

The Purpose

Drive requirements through a well-designed value proposition.

Key Benefits Achieved

Identified requirements that are based in employees’ needs

Activities

2.1 Design the value proposition.

2.2 Identify required policies.

2.3 Identify required level of input from users and business units.

2.4 Document requirements for user experiences, processes, and services.

2.5 Identify in-scope training and culture requirements.

Outputs

Prioritized functionality requirements

Value proposition for three business roles

Value proposition for two service provider roles

Policy requirements

Interview and focus group plan

Business process requirements

Training and culture initiatives

3 Identify IT and Service Provider Requirements

The Purpose

Ensure that technology is an enabler.

Key Benefits Achieved

Documented requirements for IT and service provider technology

Activities

3.1 Identify systems of record requirements.

3.2 Identify requirements for apps.

3.3 Identify information storage requirements.

3.4 Identify management and security integrations.

3.5 Identify requirements for internal and external partners.

Outputs

Requirements for systems for record

Prioritized list of apps

Storage system requirements

Data and security requirements

Outsourcing requirements

Define Service Desk Metrics That Matter

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  • Parent Category Name: Service Desk
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  • Consolidate your metrics and assign context and actions to ones currently tracked.
  • Establish tension metrics to see and tell the whole story.
  • Split your metrics for each stakeholder group. Assign proper cadences for measurements as a first step to building an effective dashboard.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • Identify the metrics that serve a real purpose and eliminate the rest. Establish a formal review process to ensure metrics are still valid, continue to provide the answers needed, and are at a manageable and usable level.

Impact and Result

  • Tracking goal- and action-based metrics allows you to make meaningful, data-driven decisions for your service desk. You can establish internal benchmarks to set your own baselines.
  • Predefining the audience and cadence of each metric allows you to construct targeted dashboards to aid your metrics analysis.

Define Service Desk Metrics That Matter Research & Tools

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Define Service Desk Metrics That Matter Storyboard – A deck that shows you how to look beyond benchmarks and rely on internal metrics to drive success.

Deciding which service desk metrics to track and how to analyze them can be daunting. Use this deck to narrow down your goal-oriented metrics as a starting point and set your own benchmarks.

  • Define Service Desk Metrics That Matter Storyboard

2. Service Desk Metrics Workbook – A tool to organize your service desk metrics.

For each metric, consider adding the relevant overall goal, audience, cadence, and action. Use the audience and cadence of the metric to split your tracked metrics into various dashboards. Your final list of metrics and reports can be added to your service desk SOP.

  • Service Desk Metrics Workbook
[infographic]

Further reading

Define Service Desk Metrics That Matter

Look beyond benchmarks and rely on internal metrics to drive success.

Analyst Perspective

Don’t get paralyzed by benchmarks when establishing metrics

When establishing a suite of metrics to track, it’s tempting to start with the metrics measured by other organizations. Naturally, benchmarking will enter the conversation. While benchmarking is useful, measuring you organization against others with a lack of context will only highlight your failures. Furthermore, benchmarks will highlight the norm or common practice. It does not necessarily highlight best practice.

Keeping the limitations of benchmarking in mind, establish your own metrics suite with action-based metrics. Define the audience, cadence, and actions for each metric you track and pair them with business goals. Measure only what you need to.

Slowly improve your metrics process over time and analyze your environment using your own data as your benchmark.

Benedict Chang

Research Analyst, Infrastructure & Operations

Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

  • Measure the business value provided by the service desk.
  • Consolidate your metrics and assign context and actions to ones currently tracked.
  • Establish tension metrics to see and tell the whole story.
  • Split your metrics for each stakeholder group. Assign proper cadences for measurements as a first step to building an effective dashboard or effective dashboards.

Common Obstacles

  • Becoming too focused on benchmarks or unidimensional metrics (e.g. cost, first-contact resolution, time to resolve) can lead to misinterpretation of the data and poorly informed actions.
  • Sifting through the many sources of data post hoc can lead to stalling in data analysis or slow reaction times to poor metrics.
  • Dashboards can quickly become cluttered with uninformative metrics, thus reducing the signal-to-noise ratio of meaningful data.

Info-Tech's Approach

  • Use metrics that drive productive change and improvement. Track only what you need to report on.
  • Ensure each metric aligns with the desired business goal, is action-based, and includes the answers to what, why, how, and who.
  • Establish internal benchmarks by analyzing the trends from your own data to set baselines.
  • Act on the results of your metrics by adjusting targets and measuring success.

Info-Tech Insight

Identify the metrics that serve a real purpose and eliminate the rest. Establish a formal review process to ensure metrics are still valid, continue to provide the answers needed, and are at a manageable and usable level.

Improve your metrics to align IT with strategic business goals

The right metrics can tell the business how hard IT works and how well they perform.

  • Only 19% of CXOs feel that their organization is effective at measuring the success of IT projects with their current metrics.
  • Implementing the proper metrics can facilitate communication between the business division and IT practice.
  • The proper metrics can help IT know what issues the business has and how the CEO and CIO should tackle them.
  • If the goals above resonate with your organization, our blueprint Take Control of Infrastructure and Operations Metrics will take you through the right steps.

Current Metrics Suite

19% Effective

36% Some Improvement Necessary

45% Significant Improvement Necessary

Source: Info-Tech Research Group’s CEO/CIO Alignment Diagnostic, 2019; N=622

CXOs stress that value is the most critical area for IT to improve in reporting

  • You most likely have to improve your metrics suite by addressing business value.
  • Over 80% of organizations say they need improvement to their business value metrics, with 32% of organizations reporting that significant improvement is needed.
  • Of course, measuring metrics for service desk operations is important, but don’t forget business-oriented metrics such as measuring knowledgebase articles written for shift-left enablement, cost (time and money) of service desk tickets, and overall end-user satisfaction.

The image shows a bar graph with percentages on the Y-Acis, and the following categories on the X-Axis: Business value metrics; Stakeholder satisfaction reporting; Risk metrics; Technology performance & operating metrics; Cost & Salary metrics; and Ad hoc feedback from executives and staff. Each bar is split into two sections, with the blue section marked a Significant Improvement Necessary, and the purple section labelled Some Improvement necessary. Two sections are highlighted with red circles: Business Value metrics--32% blue; 52% purple; and Technology performance & operating metrics--23% blue and 51% purple.

Source: Info-Tech Research Group’s CEO/CIO Alignment Diagnostic, 2019; N=622

Benchmarking used in isolation will not tell the whole story

Benchmarks can be used as a step in the metrics process

They can be the first step to reach an end goal, but if benchmarks are observed in isolation, it will only highlight your failures.

Benchmarking relies on standardized models

This does not account for all the unique variables that make up an IT organization.

For example, benchmarks that include cost and revenue may include organizations that prioritize first-call resolution (FCR), but the variables that make up this benchmark model will be quite different within your own organization.

Info-Tech Insight

Benchmarks reflect the norm and common practice, not best practice.

Benchmarks are open to interpretation

Taking the time to establish proper metrics is often more valuable time spent than going down the benchmark rabbit hole.

Being above or below the norm is neither a good nor a bad thing.

Determining what the results mean for you depends on what’s being measured and the unique factors, characteristics, and priorities in your organization.

If benchmark data is a priority within your IT organization, you may look up organizations like MetricNet, but keep the following in mind:

Review the collected benchmark data

See where IT organizations in your industry typically stand in relation to the overall benchmark.

Assess the gaps

Large gaps between yourself and the overall benchmark could indicate areas for improvement or celebration. Use the data to focus your analysis, develop deeper self-awareness, and prioritize areas for potential concern.

Benchmarks are only guidelines

The benchmark source data may not come from true peers in every sense. Each organization is different, so always explore your unique context when interpreting any findings.

Rely on internal metrics to measure and improve performance

Measure internal metrics over time to define goals and drive real improvement

  • Internally measured metrics are more reliable because they provide information about your actual performance over time. This allows for targeted improvements and objective measurements of your milestones.
  • Whether a given metric is the right one for your service desk will depend on several different factors, including:
    • The maturity and capability of your service desk processes
    • The volume of service requests and incidents
    • The complexity of your environment when resolving tickets
    • The degree to which your end users are comfortable with self-service

Take Info-Tech’s approach to metrics management

Use metrics that drive productive change and improvement. Track only what you need to report on.

Ensure each metric aligns with the desired business goal, is action-based, and includes the answers to what, why, how, and who.

Establish internal benchmarks by analyzing the trends from your own data to set baselines.

Act on the results of your metrics by adjusting targets and measuring success.

Define action-based metrics to cut down on analysis paralysis

Every metric needs to be backed with the following criteria:

  • Defining audience, cadence, goal, and action for each metric allows you to keep your tracked metrics to a minimum while maximizing the value.
  • The audience and cadence of each metric may allow you to define targeted dashboards.

Audience - Who is this metric tracked for?

Goal - Why are you tracking this metric? This can be defined along with the CSFs and KPIs.

Cadence - How often are you going to view, analyze, and action this metric?

Action - What will you do if this metric spikes, dips, trends up, or trends down?

Activity 1. Define your critical success factors and key performance indicators

Critical success factors (CSFs) are high-level goals that help you define the direction of your service desk. Key performance indicators (KPIs) can be treated as the trend of metrics that will indicate that you are moving in the direction of your CSFs. These will help narrow the data you have to track and action (metrics).

CSFs, or your overall goals, typically revolve around three aspects of the service desk: time spent on tickets, resources spent on tickets, and the quality of service provided.

  1. As a group, brainstorm the CSFs and the KPIs that will help narrow your metrics. Use the Service Desk Metrics Workbook to record the results.
  2. Look at the example to the right as a starting point.

Example metrics:

Critical success factor Key performance indicator
High End-User Satisfaction Increasing CSAT score on transactional surveys
High end-user satisfaction score
Proper resolution of tickets
Low time to resolve
Low Cost per Ticket Decreasing cost per ticket (due to efficient resolution, FCR, automation, self-service, etc.)
Improve Access to Self-Service (tangential to improve customer service) High utilization of knowledgebase
High utilization of portal

Download the Service Desk Metrics Workbook

Activity 2. Define action-based metrics that align with your KPIs and CSFs

  1. Now that you have defined your goals, continue to fill the workbook by choosing metrics that align with those goals.
  2. Use the chart below as a guide. For every metric, define the cadence of measurement, audience of the metric, and action associated with the metric. There may be multiple metrics for each KPI.
  3. If you find you are unable to define the cadence, audience, or action associated with a metric, you may not need to track the metric in the first place. Alternatively, if you find that you may action a metric in the future, you can decide to start gathering data now.

Example metrics:

Critical success factor Key performance indicator Metric Cadence Audience Action
High End-User Satisfaction Increasing CSAT score on transactional surveys Monthly average of ticket satisfaction scores Monthly Management Action low scores immediately, view long-term trends
High end-user satisfaction score Average end-user satisfaction score from annual survey Annually IT Leadership View IT satisfaction trends to align IT with business direction
Proper resolution of tickets Number of tickets reopened Weekly Service Desk Technicians Action reopened tickets, look for training opportunities
SLA breach rate Daily Service Desk Technicians Action reopened tickets, look for training opportunities
Low time to resolve Average TTR (incidents) Weekly Management Look for trends to monitor resources
Average TTR by priority Weekly Management Look for TTR solve rates to align with SLA
Average TTR by tier Weekly Management Look for improperly escalated tickets or shift-left opportunities

Download the Service Desk Metrics Workbook

Activity 3. Define the data ownership, metric viability, and dashboards

  1. For each metric, define where the data is housed. Ideally, the data is directly in the ticketing tool or ITSM tool. This will make it easy to pull and analyze.
  2. Determine how difficult the metric will be to pull or track. If the effort is high, decide if the value of tracking the metric is worth the hassle of gathering it.
  3. Lastly, for each metric, use the cadence and audience to place the metric in a reporting dashboard. This will help divide your metrics and make them easier to report and action.
  4. You may use the output of this exercise to add your tracked metrics to your service desk SOP.
  5. A full suite of metrics can be found in our Infrastructure & Operations Metrics Library in the Take Control of Infrastructure Metrics Storyboard. The metrics have been categorized by low, medium, and advanced capabilities for you.

Example metrics:

Metric Who Owns the Data? Efforts to Track? Dashboards
Monthly average of ticket satisfaction scores Service Desk Low Monthly Management Meeting
Average end-user satisfaction score Service Desk Low Leadership Meeting
Number of tickets reopened Service Desk Low Weekly Technician Standup
SLA breach rate Service Desk Low Daily Technician Standup
Average TTR (incidents) Service Desk Low Weekly Technician Standup
Average TTR by priority Service Desk Low Weekly Technician Standup
Average TTR by tier Service Desk Low Weekly Technician Standup
Average TTR (SRs) Service Desk Low Weekly Technician Standup
Number of tickets reopened Service Desk Low Daily Technician Standup

Download the Service Desk Metrics Workbook

Keep the following considerations in mind when defining which metrics matter

Keep the customer in mind

Metrics are typically focused on transactional efficiency and process effectiveness and not what was achieved against the customers’ need and satisfaction.

Understand the relationships between performance and metrics management to provide the end-to-end service delivery picture you are aiming to achieve.

Don’t settle for tool defaults

ITSM solutions offer an abundance of metrics to choose from. The most common ones are typically built into the reporting modules of the tool suite.

Do not start tracking everything. Choose metrics that are specifically aligned to your organization’s desired business outcomes.

Establish tension metrics to achieve balance

Don’t ignore the correlation and context between the suites of metrics chosen and how one interacts and affects the other.

Measuring metrics in isolation may lead to an incomplete picture or undesired technician behavior. Tension metrics help complete the picture and lead to proper actions.

Adjust those targets

An arbitrary target on a metric that is consistently met month over month is useless. Each metric should inform the overall performance by combining capable service level management and customer experience programs to prove the value IT is providing to the organization.

Related Info-Tech Research

Standardize the Service Desk

This project will help you build and improve essential service desk processes, including incident management, request fulfillment, and knowledge management, to create a sustainable service desk.

Take Control of Infrastructure and Operations Metrics

Make faster decisions and improve service delivery by using the right metrics for the job.

Analyze Your Service Desk Ticket Data

Take a data-driven approach to service desk optimization.

IT Diagnostics: Build a Data-Driven IT Strategy

Our data-driven programs ask business and IT stakeholders the right questions to ensure you have the inputs necessary to build an effective IT strategy.

First 30 Days Pandemic Response Plan

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  • Parent Category Name: DR and Business Continuity
  • Parent Category Link: /business-continuity
  • Given the speed and scope of the spread of the pandemic, governments are responding with changes almost daily as to what organizations and people can and can’t do. This volatility and uncertainty challenges organizations to respond, particularly in the absence of a business continuity or crisis management plan.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • Assess the risk to and viability of your organization in order to create appropriate action and communication plans quickly.

Impact and Result

  • HR departments must be directly involved in developing the organization’s pandemic response plan. Use Info-Tech's Risk and Viability Matrix and uncover the crucial next steps to take during the first 30 days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

First 30 Days Pandemic Response Plan Research & Tools

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Create a response plan for the first 30 days of a pandemic

Manage organizational risk and viability during the first 30 days of a crisis.

  • First 30 Days Pandemic Response Plan Storyboard
  • Crisis Matrix Communications Template: Business As Usual
  • Crisis Matrix Communications Template: Organization Closing
  • Crisis Matrix Communications Template: Manage Risk and Leverage Resilience
  • Crisis Matrix Communications Template: Reduce Labor and Mitigate Risk
[infographic]

Adopt Change Management Practices and Succeed at IT Organizational Redesign

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  • Parent Category Name: Organizational Design
  • Parent Category Link: /organizational-design

Organizational redesigns frequently fail when it comes to being executed. This leads to:

  • The loss of critical talent and institutional knowledge.
  • An inability to deliver on strategic goals and objectives.
  • Financial and time losses to the organization.

Organizational redesigns fail during implementation primarily because they do not consider the change management required to succeed.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Implementing your organizational design with good change management practices is more important than defining the new organizational structure.

Implementation is often negatively impacted due to:

  • Employees not understanding the need to redesign the organizational structure or operating model.
  • Employees not being communicated with or engaged throughout the process, which can cause chaos.
  • Managers not being prepared or trained to have difficult conversations with employees.

Impact and Result

When good change management practices are used and embedded into the implementation process:

  • Employees feel respected and engaged, reducing turnover and productivity loss.
  • The desired operating structure can be implemented faster, enabling the delivery of strategic objectives.
  • Gaps and disorganization are avoided, saving the organization time and money.

Invest change management for your IT redesign.

Adopt Change Management Practices and Succeed at IT Organizational Redesign Research & Tools

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Adopt Change Management Practices and Succeed at IT Organizational Redesign Deck – Succeed at implementing your IT organizational structure by adopting the necessary change management practices.

The best IT organizational structure will still fail to be implemented if the organization does not leverage and use good change management practices. Consider practices such as aligning the structure to a meaningful vision, preparing leadership, communicating frequently, including employees, and measuring adoption to succeed at organizational redesign implementation.

  • Adopt Change Management Practices and Succeed at IT Organizational Redesign Storyboard

2. IT Organizational Redesign Pulse Survey Template – A survey template that can be used to measure the success of your change management practices during organizational redesign implementation.

Taking regular pulse checks of employees and managers during the transition will enable IT Leaders to focus on the right practices to enable adoption.

  • IT Organizational Redesign Pulse Survey Template
[infographic]

Further reading

Adopt Change Management Practices & Succeed at IT Organizational Redesign

The perfect IT organizational structure will fail to be implemented if there is no change management.

Analyst Perspective

Don’t doom your organizational redesign efforts

The image contains a picture of Brittany Lutes.

After helping hundreds of organizations across public and private sector industries redesign their organizational structure, we can say there is one thing that will always doom this effort: A failure to properly identify and implement change management efforts into the process.

Employees will not simply move forward with the changes you suggest just because you as the CIO are making them. You need to be prepared to describe the individual benefits each employee can expect to receive from the new structure. Moreover, it has to be clear why this change was needed in the first place. Redesign efforts should be driven by a clear need to align to the organization’s vision and support the various objectives that will need to take place.

Most organizations do a great job defining a new organizational structure. They identify a way of operating that tells them how they need to align their IT capabilities to deliver on strategic objectives. What most organizations do poorly is invest in their people to ensure they can adopt this new way of operating.

Brittany Lutes
Research Director, Organizational Transformation

Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

Common Obstacles

Info-Tech’s Approach

Organizational redesigns frequently fail when it comes to being executed. This leads to:

  • The loss of critical talent and institutional knowledge.
  • An inability to deliver on strategic goals and objectives.
  • Financial and time losses to the organization.

Organizational redesigns fail during implementation primarily because they do not consider the change management required to succeed.

Implementation of the organizational redesign is often impacted when:

  • Employees do not understand the need to redesign the organizational structure or operating model.
  • Employees are not communicated with or engaged throughout the process, which can cause chaos.
  • Managers are not prepared or trained to have difficult conversations with employees.

Essentially, implementation is impacted when change management is not included in the redesign process.

When good change management practices are used and embedded into the implementation process:

  • Employees feel respected and engaged, reducing turnover and productivity loss.
  • The desired operating structure can be implemented faster, enabling the delivery of strategic objectives.
  • Gaps and disorganization are avoided, saving the organization time and money.

Invest in change management for your IT redesign.

Info-Tech Insight

Implementing your organizational design with good change management practices is more important than defining the new organizational structure.

Your challenge

This research enables organizations to succeed at their organizational redesign:

  • By implementing the right change management practices. These methods prevent:
    • The loss of critical IT employees who will voluntarily exit the organization.
    • Employees from creating rumors that will be detrimental to the change.
    • Confusion about why the change was needed and how it will benefit the strategic objectives the organization is seeking to achieve.
    • Spending resources (time, money, and people) on the initiative longer than is necessary.

McKinsey reported less than 25% of organizational redesigns are successful. Which is worse than the average change initiative, which has a 70% failure rate.

Source: AlignOrg, 2020.

The value of the organizational redesign efforts is determined by the percentage of individuals who adopt the changes and operate in the desired way of working.

When organizations properly use organizational design processes, they are:

4× more likely to delight customers

13× more effective at innovation

27× more likely to retain employees

Source: The Josh Bersin Company, 2022

Common obstacles

These barriers make implementing an organizational redesign difficult to address for many organizations:

  • You communicated the wrong message to the wrong audience at the wrong time. Repeatedly.
  • There is a lack of clarity around the drivers for an organizational redesign.
  • A readiness assessment was not completed ahead of the changes.
  • There is no flexibility built into the implementation approach.
  • The structure is not aligned to the strategic goals of IT and the organization.
  • IT leadership is not involved in their staff’s day-to-day activities, making it difficult to suggest realistic changes.

Don’t doom your organizational redesign with poor change management

Only 17% of frontline employees believe the lines of communication are open.

Source: Taylor Reach Group, 2019

43% Percentage of organizations that are ineffective at the organizational design methodology.

Source: The Josh Bersin Company, 2022.

Change management is a must for org design

Forgetting change management is the easiest way to fail at redesigning your IT organizational structure

  • Change management is not a business transformation.
  • Change management consists of the practices and approaches your organization takes to support your people through a transformation.
  • Like governance, change management happens regardless of whether it is planned or ad hoc.
  • However, good change management will be intentional and agile, using data to help inform the next action steps you will take.
  • Change management is 100% focused on the people and how to best support them as they learn to understand the need for the change, what skills they must have to support and adopt the change, and eventually to advocate for the change.

"Organizational transformation efforts rarely fail because of bad design, but rather from lack of sufficient attention to the transition from the old organization to the new one."

– Michael D. Watkins & Janet Spencer. ”10 Reason Why Organizational Change Fails.”

Info-Tech’s approach

Redesigning the IT structure depends on good change management

The image contains a screenshot of Info-Tech's approach, and good change management.

Common changes in organizational redesigns

Entirely New Teams

Additions, reductions, or new creations. The individuals that make up a functional team can shift.

New Team Members

As roles become defined, some members might be required to shift and join already established groups.

New Responsibilities

The capabilities individuals will be accountable or responsible for become defined.

New Ways of Operating

From waterfall to Agile, collaborative to siloed, your operating model provides insight into the ways roles will engage one another.

Top reasons organizational redesigns fail

  1. The rationale for the redesign is not clear.
  2. Managers do not have the skills to lead their teams through a change initiative like organizational redesign.
  3. You communicated the wrong messages at the wrong times to the wrong audiences.
  4. Frontline employees were not included in the process.
  5. The metrics you have to support the initiative are countering one another – if you have metrics at all.
  6. Change management and project management are being treated interchangeably.

Case study: restructuring to reduce

Clear Communication & Continuous Support

Situation

On July 26th, 2022, employees at Shopify – an eCommerce platform – were communicated to by their CEO that a round of layoffs was about to take place. Effective that day, 1,000 employees or 10% of the workforce would be laid off.

In his message to staff, CEO Tobi Lutke admitted he had assumed continual growth in the eCommerce market when the COVID-19 pandemic forced many consumers into online shopping. Unfortunately, it was clear that was not the case.

In his communications, Tobi let people know what to expect throughout the day, and he informed people what supports would be made available to those laid off. Mainly, employees could expect to see a transparent approach to severance pay; support in finding new jobs through coaching, connections, or resume creation; and ongoing payment for new laptops and internet to support those who depend on this connectivity to find new jobs.

Results

Unlike many of the other organizations (e.g. Wayfair and Peloton) that have had to conduct layoffs in 2022, Shopify had a very positive reaction. Many employees took to LinkedIn to thank their previous employer for all that they had learned with the organization and to ask their network to support them in finding new opportunities. Below is a letter from the CEO:

The image contains a screenshot of a letter from the CEO.

Shopify, 2022.
Forbes, 2022.

Aligned to a Meaningful Vision

An organizational redesign must be aligned to a clear and meaningful vision of the organization.

Define the drivers for organizational redesign

And align the structure to execute on those drivers.

  • Your structure should follow your strategy. However, 83% of people in an organization do not fully understand the strategy (PWC, 2017).
  • How can employees be expected to understand why the IT organization needs to be restructured to meet a strategy if the strategy itself is still vague and unclear?
  • When organizations pursue a structural redesign, there are often a few major reasons:
    • Digital/organizational transformation
    • New organizational strategy
    • Acquisition or growth of products, services, or capabilities
    • The need to increase effectiveness
    • Cost savings
  • Creating a line of sight for your employees and leadership team will increase the likelihood that they want to adopt this structure.

“The goal is to align your operating model with your strategy, so it directly supports your differentiating capabilities.”

– PWC, 2017.

How to align structure to strategy

Recommended action steps:

  • Describe the end state of the organizational structure and how long you anticipate it will take to reach that state. It's important that employees be able to visualize the end state of the changes being made.
  • Ensure people understand the vision and goals of the IT organization. Are you having discussions about these? Are managers discussing these? Do people understand that their day-to-day job is intended to support those goals?
  • Create a visual:
    • The goals of the organization → align to the initiatives IT → which require this exact structure to deliver.
  • Do not assume people are willing to move forward with this vision. If people are not willing, assess why and determine if there are benefits specific to the individual that can support them in adopting the future state.
  • Define and communicate the risks of not making the organizational structure changes.

Info-Tech Insight

A trending organizational structure or operating model should never be the driver for an organizational redesign.

IT Leaders Are Not Set Up To Succeed

Empower these leaders to have difficult conversations.

Lacking key leadership capabilities in managers

Technical leaders are common in IT, but people leaders are necessary during the implementation of an organizational structure.

  • Managers are important during a transformational change for many reasons:
    • Managers play a critical role in being able to identify the skill gaps in employees and to help define the next steps in their career path.
    • After the sponsor (CIO) has communicated to the group the what and the why, the personal elements of the change fall to managers.
    • Managers’ displays of disapproval for the redesign can halt the transformation.
  • However, many managers (37%) feel uncomfortable talking to employees and providing feedback if they think it will elicit a negative response (Taylor Reach Group, 2019).
  • Unfortunately, organizational redesign is known for eliciting negative responses from employees as it generates fears around the unknown.
  • Therefore, managers must be able to have conversations with employees to further the successful implementation and adoption of the structure.

“Successful organizational redesign is dependent on the active involvement of different managerial levels."

– Marianne Livijn, “Managing Organizational Redesign: How Organizations Relate Macro and Micro Design.”

They might be managers, but are they leaders?

Recommended action steps:

  • Take time to speak with managers one on one and understand their thoughts, feelings, and understanding of the change.
  • Ensure that middle-managers have an opportunity to express the benefits they believe will be realized through the proposed changes to the organizational chart.
  • Provide IT leaders with leadership training courses (e.g. Info-Tech’s Leadership Programs).
  • Do not allow managers to start sharing and communicating the changes to the organizational structure if they are not demonstrating support for this change. Going forward, the group is all-in or not, but they should never demonstrate not being bought-in when speaking to employees.
  • Ensure IT leaders want to manage people, not just progress to a management position because they cannot climb a technical career ladder within the proposed structure. Provide both types of development opportunities to all employees.
  • Reduce the managers’ span of control to ensure they can properly engage all direct reports and there is no strain on the managers' time.

Info-Tech Insight

47% of direct reports do not agree that their leader is demonstrating the change behaviors. Often, a big reason is that many middle-managers do not understand their own attitudes and beliefs about the change.

Source: McKinsey & Company “How Do We Manage the Change Journey?”

Check out Info-Tech’s Build a Better Manager series to support leadership development

These blueprints will help you create strong IT leaders who can manage their staff and themselves through a transformation.

Build a Better Manager: Basic Management Skills

Build a Better Manager: Personal Leadership

Build a Better Manager: Manage Your People

Build Successful Teams

Transparent & Frequent Communication

Provide employees with several opportunities to hear information and ask questions about the changes.

Communication must be done with intention

Include employees in the conversation to get the most out of your change management.

  • Whether it is a part of a large transformation or a redesign to support a specific goal of IT, begin thinking about how you will communicate the anticipated changes and who you will communicate those changes to right away.
  • The first group of people who need to understand why this initiative is important are the other IT leaders. If they are not included in the process and able to understand the foundational drivers of the initiative, you should not continue to try and gain the support of other members within IT.
  • Communication is critical to the success of the organizational redesign.
  • Communicating the right information at the right time will make the difference between losing critical talent and emerging from the transition successfully.
  • The sponsor of this redesign initiative must be able to communicate the rationale of the changes to the other members of leadership, management, and employees.
  • The sponsor and their change management team must then be prepared to accept the questions, comments, and ideas that members of IT might have around the changes.

"Details about the new organization, along with details of the selection process, should be communicated as they are finalized to all levels of the organization.”

– Courtney Jackson, “7 Reasons Why Organizational Structures Fail.”

Two-way communication is necessary

Recommended action steps:

  • Don't allow rumors to disrupt this initiative – be transparent with people as early as possible.
  • If the organizational restructure will not result in a reduction of staff – let them know! If someone's livelihood (job) is on the line, it increases the likelihood of panic. Let's avoid panic.
  • Provide employees with an opportunity to voice their concerns, questions, and recommendations – so long as you are willing to take that information and address it. Even if the answer to a recommendation is "no" or the answer to a question is "I don't know, but I will find out," you've still let them know their voice was heard in the process.
  • As the CIO, ensure that you are the first person to communicate the changes. You are the sponsor of this initiative – no one else.
  • Create communications that are clear and understandable. Imagine someone who does not work for your organization is hearing the information for the first time. Would they be able to comprehend the changes being suggested?
  • Conduct a pulse survey on the changes to identify whether employees understand the changes and feel heard by the management team.

Info-Tech Insight

The project manager of the organizational redesign should not be the communicator. The CIO and the employees’ direct supervisor should always be the communicators of key change messages.

Communication spectrum

An approach to communication based on the type of redesign taking place

← Business-Mandated Organizational Redesign

Enable Alignment & Increased Effectiveness

IT-Driven & Strategic Organizational Redesign →

Reduction in roles

Cost savings

Requires champions who will maintain employee morale throughout

Communicate with key individuals ahead of time

Restructure of IT roles

Increase effectiveness

Lean on managers & supervisors to provide consistent messaging

Communicate the individual benefits of the change

Increase in IT Roles

Alignment to business model

Frequent and ongoing communication from the beginning

Collaborate with IT groups for input on best structure

Include Employees in the Redesign Process

Stop talking at employees and ensure they are involved in the changes impacting their day-to-day lives.

Employees will enable the change

Old-school approaches to organizational redesign have argued employee engagement is a hinderance to success – it’s not.

  • We often fail to include the employees most impacted by a restructuring in the redesign process. As a result, one of the top reasons employees do not support the change is that they were not included in the change.
  • A big benefit of including employees in the process is it mitigates the emergence of a rumor mill.
  • Moreover, being open to suggestions from staff will help the transformation succeed.
  • Employees can best describe what this transition might entail on a day-to-day basis and the supports they will require to succeed in moving from their current state to their future state.
    • CIOs and other IT leaders are often too far removed from the day-to-day to best describe what will or will not work.
  • When employees feel included in the process, they are more likely to feel like they had a choice in what and how things change.

"To enlist employees, leadership has to be willing to let things get somewhat messy, through intensive, authentic engagement and the involvement of employees in making the transformation work."

– Michael D. Watkins & Janet Spencer, “10 Reasons Why Organizational Change Fails.”

Empowering employees as change agents

Recommended action steps:

  • Do not tell employees what benefits they will gain from this new change. Instead, ask them what benefits they anticipate.
  • Ask employees what challenges they anticipate, and identify actions that can be taken to minimize those challenges.
  • Identify who the social influencers are in the organization by completing an influencer map. The informal social networks in your organization can be powerful drivers of change when the right individuals are brought onboard.
  • Create a change network using those influencers. The change network includes individuals who represent all levels within the organization and can represent the employee perspective. Use them to help communicate the change and identify opportunities to increase the success of adoption: “Engaging influencers in change programs makes them 3.8 times more likely to succeed," (McKinsey & Company, 2020).
  • Ask members of the change network to identify possible resistors of the new IT structure and inform you of why they might be resisting the changes.

Info-Tech Insight

Despite the persistent misconceptions, including employees in the process of a redesign reduces uncertainty and rumors.

Monitor employee engagement & adoption throughout the redesign

Only 22% of organizations include the employee experience as a part of the design process

– The Josh Bersin Company, 2022.
1 2 3
Monitor IT Employee Experience

When Prosci designed their Change Impact Analysis, they identified the ways in which roles will be impacted across 10 different components:

  • Location
  • Process
  • Systems
  • Tools
  • Job roles
  • Critical behaviors
  • Mindset/attitudes/beliefs
  • Reporting structure
  • Performance reviews
  • Compensation

Engaging employees in the process so that they can define how their role might be impacted across these 10 categories not only empowers the employee, but also ensures they are a part of the process.

Source: Prosci, 2019.

Conduct an employee pulse survey

See the next slide for more information on how to create and distribute this survey.

Employee Pulse Survey

Conduct mindful and frequent check-ins with employees

Process to conduct survey:

  1. Using your desired survey solution (e.g. MS Forms, SurveyMonkey, Qualtrics) input the questions into the survey and send to staff. A template of the survey in MS Forms is available here: IT Organizational Redesign Pulse Survey Template.
  2. When sending to staff, ensure that the survey is anonymous and reinforce this message.
  3. Leverage the responses from the survey to learn where there might be opportunities to improve the transformation experience (aligning the structure to the vision, employee inclusion, communication, or managerial support for the change). Review the recommended action steps in this research set for help.
  4. This assessment is intended for frequent but purposeful use. Only send out the survey when you have taken actions in order to improve adoption of the change or have provided communications. The Employee Pulse Survey should be reevaluated on a regular basis until adoption across all four categories reaches the desired state (80-100% adoption is recommended).

The image contains a screenshot of the employee pulse survey.

Define Key Metrics of Adoption & Success

Metrics have a dual benefit of measuring successful implementation and meeting the original drivers.

Measuring the implementation is a two-pronged approach

Both employee adoption and the transformation of the IT structure need to be measured during implementation

  • Organizations that are going through any sort of transformation – such as organizational redesign – should be measuring whether they are successfully on track to meet their target or have already met that goal.
  • Throughout the organizational structure transition, a major factor that will impact the success of that goal is employee willingness to move forward with the changes.
  • However, rather than measuring these two components using hard data, we rely on gut checks that let us know if we think we are on track to gaining adoption and operating in the desired future state.
  • Given how fluid employees and their responses to change can be, conducting a pulse survey at a regular (but strategically identified) interval will provide insight into where the changes will be adopted or resisted.

“Think about intentionally measuring at the moments in the change storyline where feedback will allow leaders to make strategic decisions and interventions.”

– Bradley Wilson, “Employee Survey Questions: The Ultimate Guide.”

Report that the organizational redesign for IT was a success

Recommended action steps:

  • Create clear metrics related to how you will measure the success of the organizational redesign, and communicate those metrics to people. Ensure the metrics are not contrary to the goals of other initiatives or team outcomes.
  • Create one set of metrics related to adoption and another set of metrics tied to the successful completion of the project objective.
    • Are people changing their attitudes and behaviors to reflect the required outcome?
    • Are you meeting the desired outcome of the organizational redesign?
  • Use the metrics to inform how you move forward. Do not attempt the next phase of the organizational transformation before employees have clearly indicated a solid understanding of the changes.
  • Ensure that any metrics used to measure success will not negatively interfere with another team’s progress. The metrics of the group need to work together, not against each other.

Info-Tech Insight

Getting 100% adoption from employees is unlikely. However, if employee adoption is not sitting in the 80-90% range, it is not recommended that you move forward with the next phase of the transformation.

Example sustainment metrics

Driver Goal Measurement Key Performance Indicator (KPI)
Workforce Challenges and Increased Effectiveness Employee Engagement The change in employee engagement before, during, and after the new organizational structure is communicated and implemented.
Increased Effectiveness Alignment of Demand to Resources Does your organization have sufficient resources to meet the demands being placed on your IT organization?
Increased Effectiveness and Workforce Challenges Role Clarity An increase in role clarity or a decrease in role ambiguity.

Increased Effectiveness

Reduction in Silos

Employee effectiveness increases by 27% and efficiency by 53% when provided with role clarity (Effectory, 2019).
Increased Effectiveness Reduction in Silos Frequency of communication channels created (scrum meetings, Teams channels, etc.) specific to the organizational structure intended to reduce silos.
Operating in a New Org. Structure Change Adoption Rate The percentage of employees who have adopted their defined role within the new organizational chart in 3-, 6-, and 12-month increments.
Workforce Challenges Turnover Rate The number of employees who voluntarily leave the organization, citing the organizational redesign.
Workforce Challenges Active Resistors The number of active resistors anticipated related to the change in organizational structure versus the number of active resistors that actually present themselves to the organizational restructuring.
New Capabilities Needed Gap in Capability Delivery The increase in effectiveness in delivering on new capabilities to the IT organization.
Operating in a New Org. Structure Change Adoption Rate The percentage of employees who found the communication around the new organizational structure clear, easy to understand, and open to expressing feedback.
Lack of Business Understanding or Increased Effectiveness Business Satisfaction with IT Increase in business satisfaction toward IT products and services.
Workforce Challenges Employee Performance Increase in individual employee performances on annual/bi-annual reviews.
Adoption Pulse Assessment Increase in overall adoption scores on pulse survey.
Adoption Communication Effectiveness Reduction in the number of employees who are still unsure why the changes are required.
Adoption Leadership Training Percentage of members of leadership attending training to support their development at the managerial level.

Change Management ≠ Project Management

Stop treating the two interchangeably.

IT organizations struggle to mature their OCM capabilities

Because frankly they didn’t need it

  • Change management is all about people.
  • If the success of your organization is dependent on this IT restructuring, it is important to invest the time to do it right.
  • This means it should not be something done off the side of someone's desk.
  • Hire a change manager or look to roles that have a responsibility to deliver on organizational change management.
  • While project success is often measured by if it was delivered on time, on budget, and in scope, change management is adaptable. It can move backward in the process to secure people's willingness to adopt the required behaviors.
  • Strategic organizations recognize it’s not just about pushing an initiative or project forward. It’s about making sure that your employees are willing to move that initiative forward too.
  • A major organizational transformation initiative like restructuring requires you lean into employee adoption and buy-in.

“Only if you have your employees in mind can you implement change effectively and sustainably.”

– Creaholic Pulse Feedback, “Change Management – And Why It Has to Change.”

Take the time to educate & communicate

Recommended action steps:

  • Do not treat change management and project management as synonymous.
  • Hire a change manager to support the organizational redesign transformation.
  • Invest the resources (time, money, people) that can support the change and enable its success. This can look like:
    • Training and development.
    • Hiring the right people.
    • Requesting funds during the redesign process to support the transition.
  • Create a change management plan – and be willing to adjust the timelines or actions of this plan based on the feedback you receive from employees.
  • Implement the new organizational structure in a phased approach. This allows time to receive feedback and address any fears expressed by staff.

Info-Tech Insight

OCM is often not included or used due to a lack of understanding of how it differs from project management.

And an additional five experts across a variety of organizations who wish to remain anonymous.

Research Contributors and Experts

Info-Tech Research Group

Amanda Mathieson Research Director Heather Munoz Executive Counselor Valence Howden Principal Research Director
Ugbad Farah Research Director Lisa Hager Duncan Executive Counselor Alaisdar Graham Executive Counselor
Carlene McCubbin Practice Lead

Related Info-Tech Research

Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure

Build a Strategic IT Workforce Plan

Implement a New IT Organizational Structure

  • Organizational redesign is only as successful as the process leaders engage in.
  • Benchmarking your organizational redesign to other organizations will not work.
  • You could have the best IT employees in the world, but if they aren’t structured well, your organization will still fail in reaching its vision.
  • A well-defined strategic workforce plan (SWP) isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have.
  • Integrate as much data as possible into your workforce plan to best prepare you for the future. Without knowledge of your future initiatives, you are filling hypothetical holes.
  • To be successful, you need to understand your strategic initiatives, workforce landscape, and external and internal trends.
  • Organizational design implementations can be highly disruptive for IT staff and business partners. Without a structured approach, IT leaders may experience high turnover, decreased productivity, and resistance to change.
  • CIOs walk a tightrope as they manage operational and emotional turbulence while aiming to improve business satisfaction with IT. Failure to achieve balance could result in irreparable failure.

Bibliography

Aronowitz, Steven, et al. “Getting Organizational Design Right,” McKinsey, 2015. Web.
Ayers, Peg. “5 Ways to Engage Your Front-Line Staff.” Taylor Reach Group, 2019. Web.
Bushard, Brian, and Carlie Porterfield. “Meta Reportedly Scales Down, Again – Here Are the Major US Layoffs This Year.” Forbes, September 28, 2022. Web.
Caruci, Ron. “4 Organizational Design Issues that Most Leaders Misdiagnose.” Harvard Business Review, 2019.
“Change Management – And Why It Has to Change.” Creaholic Pulse Feedback. Web.
“Communication Checklist for Achieving Change Management.” Prosci, 27 Oct. 2022. Web.
“Defining Change Impact.” Prosci. 29 May 2019. Web.
“The Definitive Guide To Organization Design.” The Josh Bersin Company, 2022.
Deshler, Reed. “Five Reasons Organizational Redesigns Fail to Deliver.” AlignOrg. 28 Jan. 2020. Web.
The Fit for Growth Mini Book. PwC, 12 Jan. 2017.
Helfand, Heidi. Dynamic Reteaming: The Art and Wisdom of Changing Teams. 2nd ed., O’Reilly Media, 2020.
Jackson, Courtney. “7 Reasons Why Organizational Structures Fail.” Scott Madden Consultants. Web.
Livijn, Marianne. Managing Organizational Redesign: How Organizations Relate Macro and Micro Design. Doctoral dissertation. Department of Management, Aarhus University, 2020.
Lutke, Tobias. “Changes to Shopify’s Team.” Shopify. 26 July 2022.
McKinsey & Company. “How Do We Manage the Change Journey?” McKinsey & Company.2020.
Pijnacker, Lieke. “HR Analytics: Role Clarity Impacts Performance.” Effectory, 29 Sept. 2019. Web.
Tompkins, Teri C., and Bruce G. Barkis. “Conspiracies in the Workplace: Symptoms and Remedies.” Graziadio Business Review, vol. 21, no. 1, 2021.Web.
“Understanding Organizational Structures.” SHRM,2022.
Watkins, Michael D., and Janet Spencer. “10 Reasons Why Organizational Change Fails.” I by IMD, 10 March 2021. Web.
Wilson, Bradley. “Employee Survey Questions: The Ultimate Guide.” Perceptyx, 1 July 2020. Web.

Applications Priorities 2022

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  • Parent Category Name: Architecture & Strategy
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There is always more work than hours in the day. IT often feels understaffed and doesn’t know how to get it all done. Trying to satisfy all the requests results in everyone getting a small piece of the pie and in users being dissatisfied.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Focusing on one initiative will allow leaders to move the needle on what is important.

Impact and Result

Focus on the big picture, leveraging Info-Tech’s blueprints. By increasing maturity and efficiency, IT staff can spend more time on value-added activities.

Applications Priorities 2022 Research & Tools

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Applications Priorities 2022 – A deck that discusses the five priorities we are seeing among Applications leaders.

There is always more work than hours in the day. IT often feels understaffed and doesn’t know how to get it all done. Trying to satisfy all the requests results in everyone getting a small piece of the pie and in users being dissatisfied. Use Info-Tech's Applications Priorities 2022 to learn about the five initiatives that IT should prioritize for the coming year.

  • Applications Priorities Report for 2022
[infographic]

Mergers & Acquisitions: The Buy Blueprint

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There are four key scenarios or entry points for IT as the acquiring organization in M&As:

  • IT can suggest an acquisition to meet the business objectives of the organization.
  • IT is brought in to strategy plan the acquisition from both the business’ and IT’s perspectives.
  • IT participates in due diligence activities and valuates the organization potentially being acquired.
  • IT needs to reactively prepare its environment to enable the integration.

Consider the ideal scenario for your IT organization.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Acquisitions are inevitable in modern business, and IT’s involvement in the process should be too. This progression is inspired by:

  • The growing trend for organizations to increase, decrease, or evolve through these types of transactions.
  • A maturing business perspective of IT, preventing the difficulty that IT is faced with when invited into the transaction process late.
  • Transactions that are driven by digital motivations, requiring IT’s expertise.
  • There never being such a thing as a true merger, making the majority of M&A activity either acquisitions or divestitures.

Impact and Result

Prepare for a growth/integration transaction by:

  • Recognizing the trend for organizations to engage in M&A activity and the increased likelihood that, as an IT leader, you will be involved in a transaction in your career.
  • Creating a standard strategy that will enable strong program management.
  • Properly considering all the critical components of the transaction and integration by prioritizing tasks that will reduce risk, deliver value, and meet stakeholder expectations.

Mergers & Acquisitions: The Buy Blueprint Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how your organization can excel its growth strategy by engaging in M&A transactions. Review Info-Tech’s methodology and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Proactive Phase

Be an innovative IT leader by suggesting how and why the business should engage in an acquisition or divestiture.

  • One-Pager: M&A Proactive
  • Case Study: M&A Proactive
  • Information Asset Audit Tool
  • Data Valuation Tool
  • Enterprise Integration Process Mapping Tool
  • Risk Register Tool
  • Security M&A Due Diligence Tool

2. Discovery & Strategy

Create a standardized approach for how your IT organization should address acquisitions.

  • One-Pager: M&A Discovery & Strategy – Buy
  • Case Study: M&A Discovery & Strategy – Buy

3. Due Diligence & Preparation

Evaluate the target organizations to minimize risk and have an established integration project plan.

  • One-Pager: M&A Due Diligence & Preparation – Buy
  • Case Study: M&A Due Diligence & Preparation – Buy
  • IT Due Diligence Charter
  • Technical Debt Business Impact Analysis Tool
  • IT Culture Diagnostic
  • M&A Integration Project Management Tool (SharePoint)
  • SharePoint Template: Step-by-Step Deployment Guide
  • M&A Integration Project Management Tool (Excel)
  • Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator

4. Execution & Value Realization

Deliver on the integration project plan successfully and communicate IT’s transaction value to the business.

  • One-Pager: M&A Execution & Value Realization – Buy
  • Case Study: M&A Execution & Value Realization – Buy

Infographic

Workshop: Mergers & Acquisitions: The Buy Blueprint

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

1 Pre-Transaction Discovery & Strategy

The Purpose

Establish the transaction foundation.

Discover the motivation for acquiring.

Formalize the program plan.

Create the valuation framework.

Strategize the transaction and finalize the M&A strategy and approach.

Key Benefits Achieved

All major stakeholders are on the same page.

Set up crucial elements to facilitate the success of the transaction.

Have a repeatable transaction strategy that can be reused for multiple organizations.

Activities

1.1 Conduct the CIO Business Vision and CEO-CIO Alignment Diagnostics.

1.2 Identify key stakeholders and outline their relationship to the M&A process.

1.3 Identify the rationale for the company's decision to pursue an acquisition.

1.4 Assess the IT/digital strategy.

1.5 Identify pain points and opportunities tied to the acquisition.

1.6 Create the IT vision and mission statements and identify IT guiding principles and the transition team.

1.7 Document the M&A governance.

1.8 Establish program metrics.

1.9 Create the valuation framework.

1.10 Establish the integration strategy.

1.11 Conduct a RACI.

1.12 Create the communication plan.

1.13 Prepare to assess target organization(s).

Outputs

Business perspectives of IT

Stakeholder network map for M&A transactions

Business context implications for IT

IT’s acquiring strategic direction

Governance structure

M&A program metrics

IT valuation framework

Integration strategy

RACI

Communication plan

Prepared to assess target organization(s)

2 Mid-Transaction Due Diligence & Preparation

The Purpose

Establish the transaction foundation.

Discover the motivation for integration.

Assess the target organization(s).

Create the valuation framework.

Plan the integration roadmap.

Key Benefits Achieved

All major stakeholders are on the same page.

Methodology identified to assess organizations during due diligence.

Methodology can be reused for multiple organizations.

Integration activities are planned and assigned.

Activities

2.1 Gather and evaluate the stakeholders involved, M&A strategy, future-state operating model, and governance.

2.2 Review the business rationale for the acquisition.

2.3 Establish the integration strategy.

2.4 Create the due diligence charter.

2.5 Create a list of IT artifacts to be reviewed in the data room.

2.6 Conduct a technical debt assessment.

2.7 Assess the current culture and identify the goal culture.

2.8 Identify the needed workforce supply.

2.9 Create the valuation framework.

2.10 Establish the integration roadmap.

2.11 Establish and align project metrics with identified tasks.

2.12 Estimate integration costs.

Outputs

Stakeholder map

IT strategy assessment

IT operating model and IT governance structure defined

Business context implications for IT

Integration strategy

Due diligence charter

Data room artifacts

Technical debt assessment

Culture assessment

Workforce supply identified

IT valuation framework

Integration roadmap and associated resourcing

3 Post-Transaction Execution & Value Realization

The Purpose

Establish the transaction foundation.

Discover the motivation for integration.

Plan the integration roadmap.

Prepare employees for the transition.

Engage in integration.

Assess the transaction outcomes.

Key Benefits Achieved

All major stakeholders are on the same page.

Integration activities are planned and assigned.

Employees are set up for a smooth and successful transition.

Integration strategy and roadmap executed to benefit the organization.

Review what went well and identify improvements to be made in future transactions.

Activities

3.1 Identify key stakeholders and determine IT transaction team.

3.2 Gather and evaluate the M&A strategy, future-state operating model, and governance.

3.3 Review the business rationale for the acquisition.

3.4 Establish the integration strategy.

3.5 Prioritize integration tasks.

3.6 Establish the integration roadmap.

3.7 Establish and align project metrics with identified tasks.

3.8 Estimate integration costs.

3.9 Assess the current culture and identify the goal culture.

3.10 Identify the needed workforce supply.

3.11 Create an employee transition plan.

3.12 Create functional workplans for employees.

3.13 Complete the integration by regularly updating the project plan.

3.14 Begin to rationalize the IT environment where possible and necessary.

3.15 Confirm integration costs.

3.16 Review IT’s transaction value.

3.17 Conduct a transaction and integration SWOT.

3.18 Review the playbook and prepare for future transactions.

Outputs

M&A transaction team

Stakeholder map

IT strategy assessed

IT operating model and IT governance structure defined

Business context implications for IT

Integration strategy

Integration roadmap and associated resourcing

Culture assessment

Workforce supply identified

Employee transition plan

Employee functional workplans

Updated integration project plan

Rationalized IT environment

SWOT of transaction

M&A Buy Playbook refined for future transactions

Further reading

Mergers & Acquisitions: The Buy Blueprint

For IT leaders who want to have a role in the transaction process when their business is engaging in an M&A purchase.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Analyst Perspective

Don’t wait to be invited to the M&A table, make it.

Photo of Brittany Lutes, Research Analyst, CIO Practice, Info-Tech Research Group.
Brittany Lutes
Research Analyst,
CIO Practice
Info-Tech Research Group
Photo of Ibrahim Abdel-Kader, Research Analyst, CIO Practice, Info-Tech Research Group.
Ibrahim Abdel-Kader
Research Analyst,
CIO Practice
Info-Tech Research Group

IT has always been an afterthought in the M&A process, often brought in last minute once the deal is nearly, if not completely, solidified. This is a mistake. When IT is brought into the process late, the business misses opportunities to generate value related to the transaction and has less awareness of critical risks or inaccuracies.

To prevent this mistake, IT leadership needs to develop strong business relationships and gain respect for their innovative suggestions. In fact, when it comes to modern M&A activity, IT should be the ones suggesting potential transactions to meet business needs, specifically when it comes to modernizing the business or adopting digital capabilities.

IT needs to stop waiting to be invited to the acquisition or divestiture table. IT needs to suggest that the table be constructed and actively work toward achieving the strategic objectives of the business.

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

There are four key scenarios or entry points for IT as the acquiring organization in M&As:

  • IT can suggest an acquisition to meet the business objectives of the organization.
  • IT is brought in to strategy plan the acquisition from both the business’ and IT’s perspectives.
  • IT participates in due diligence activities and valuates the organization potentially being acquired.
  • IT needs to reactively prepare its environment to enable the integration.

Consider the ideal scenario for your IT organization.

Common Obstacles

Some of the obstacles IT faces include:

  • IT is often told about the transaction once the deal has already been solidified and is now forced to meet unrealistic business demands.
  • The business does not trust IT and therefore does not approach IT to define value or reduce risks to the transaction process.
  • The people and culture element are forgotten or not given adequate priority.

These obstacles often arise when IT waits to be invited into the transaction process and misses critical opportunities.

Info-Tech's Approach

Prepare for a growth/integration transaction by:

  • Recognizing the trend for organizations to engage in M&A activity and the increased likelihood that, as an IT leader, you will be involved in a transaction in your career.
  • Creating a standard strategy that will enable strong program management.
  • Properly considering all the critical components of the transaction and integration by prioritizing tasks that will reduce risk, deliver value, and meet stakeholder expectations.

Info-Tech Insight

As the number of merger, acquisition, and divestiture transactions continues to increase, so too does IT’s opportunity to leverage the growing digital nature of these transactions and get involved at the onset.

The changing M&A landscape

Businesses will embrace more digital M&A transactions in the post-pandemic world

  • When the pandemic occurred, businesses reacted by either pausing (61%) or completely cancelling (46%) deals that were in the mid-transaction state (Deloitte, 2020). The uncertainty made many organizations consider whether the risks would be worth the potential benefits.
  • However, many organizations quickly realized the pandemic is not a hindrance to M&A transactions but an opportunity. Over 16,000 American companies were involved in M&A transactions in the first six months of 2021 (The Economist). For reference, this had been averaging around 10,000 per six months from 2016 to 2020.
  • In addition to this transaction growth, organizations have increasingly been embracing digital. These trends increase the likelihood that, as an IT leader, you will engage in an M&A transaction. However, it is up to you when you get involved in the transactions.

The total value of transactions in the year after the pandemic started was $1.3 billion – a 93% increase in value compared to before the pandemic. (Nasdaq)

Virtual deal-making will be the preferred method of 55% of organizations in the post-pandemic world. (Wall Street Journal, 2020)

Your challenge

IT is often not involved in the M&A transaction process. When it is, it’s often too late.

  • The most important driver of an acquisition is the ability to access new technology (DLA Piper), and yet 50% of the time, IT isn’t involved in the M&A transaction at all (IMAA Institute, 2017).
  • Additionally, IT’s lack of involvement in the process negatively impacts the business:
    • Most organizations (60%) do not have a standardized approach to integration (Steeves and Associates).
    • Weak integration teams contribute to the failure of 70% of M&A integrations (The Wall Street Journal, 2019).
    • Less than half (47%) of organizations actually experience the positive results sought by the M&A transaction (Steeves and Associates).
  • Organizations pursuing M&A and not involving IT are setting themselves up for failure.

Only half of M&A deals involve IT (Source: IMAA Institute, 2017)

Common Obstacles

These barriers make this challenge difficult to address for many organizations:

  • IT is rarely afforded the opportunity to participate in the transaction deal. When IT is invited, this often happens later in the process where integration will be critical to business continuity.
  • IT has not had the opportunity to demonstrate that it is a valuable business partner in other business initiatives.
  • One of the most critical elements that IT often doesn’t take the time or doesn’t have the time to focus on is the people and leadership component.
  • IT waits to be invited to the process rather then actively involving themselves and suggesting how value can be added to the process.

In hindsight, it’s clear to see: Involving IT is just good business.

47% of senior leaders wish they would have spent more time on IT due diligence to prevent value erosion. (Source: IMAA Institute, 2017)

40% of acquiring businesses discovered a cybersecurity problem at an acquisition.” (Source: Okta)

Info-Tech's approach

Acquisitions & Divestitures Framework

Acquisitions and divestitures are inevitable in modern business, and IT’s involvement in the process should be too. This progression is inspired by:

  1. The growing trend for organizations to increase, decrease, or evolve through these types of transactions.
  2. Transactions that are driven by digital motivations, requiring IT’s expertise.
  3. A maturing business perspective of IT, preventing the difficulty that IT is faced with when invited into the transaction process late.
  4. There never being such a thing as a true merger, making the majority of M&A activity either acquisitions or divestitures.
A diagram highlighting the 'IT Executives' Role in Acquisitions and Divestitures' when they are integrated at different points in the 'Core Business Timeline'. There are four main entry points 'Proactive', 'Discovery and Strategy', 'Due Diligence and Preparation', and 'Execution and Value Realized'. It is highlighted that IT can and should start at 'Proactive', but most organizations start at 'Execution and Value Realized'. 'Proactive': suggest opportunities to evolve the organization; prove IT's value and engage in growth opportunities early. Innovators start here. Steps of the business timeline in 'Proactive' are 'Organization strategies are defined' and 'M and A is considered to enable strategy'. After a buy or sell transaction is initiated is 'Discovery and Strategy': pre-transaction state. If it is a Buy transaction, 'Establish IT's involvement and approach'. If it is a Sell transaction, 'Prepare to engage in negotiations'. Business Partners start here. Steps of the business timeline in 'Discovery and Strategy' are 'Searching criteria is set', 'Potential candidates are considered', and 'LOI is sent/received'. 'Due Diligence and Preparation': mid-transaction state. If it is a Buy transaction, 'Identify potential transaction benefits and risks'. If it is a Sell transaction, 'Comply, communicate, and collaborate in transaction'. Trusted Operators start here. Steps of the business timeline in 'Due Diligence and Preparation' are 'Due diligence engagement occurs', 'Final agreement is reached', and 'Preparation for transaction execution occurs'. 'Execution and Value Realization': post-transaction state. If it is a Buy transaction, 'Integrate the IT environments and achieve business value'. If it is a Sell transaction, 'Separate the IT environment and deliver on transaction terms'. Firefighters start here. Steps of the business timeline in 'Execution and Value Realization' are 'Staff and operations are addressed appropriately', 'Day 1 of implementation and integration activities occurs', '1st 100 days of new entity state occur' and 'Ongoing risk mitigating and value creating activities occur'.

The business’ view of IT will impact how soon IT can get involved

There are four key entry points for IT

A colorful visualization of the four key entry points for IT and a fifth not-so-key entry point. Starting from the top: 'Innovator', Information and Technology as a Competitive Advantage, 90% Satisfaction; 'Business Partner', Effective Delivery of Strategic Business Projects, 80% Satisfaction; 'Trusted Operator', Enablement of Business Through Application and Work Orders, 70% Satisfaction; 'Firefighter', Reliable Infrastructure and IT Service Desk, 60% Satisfaction; and then 'Unstable', Inability to Consistently Deliver Basic Services, <60% Satisfaction.
  1. Innovator: IT suggests an acquisition to meet the business objectives of the organization.
  2. Business Partner: IT is brought in to strategy plan the acquisition from both the business’ and IT’s perspective.
  3. Trusted Operator: IT participates in due diligence activities and valuates the organization potentially being acquired.
  4. Firefighter: IT reactively engages in the integration with little time to prepare.

Merger, acquisition, and divestiture defined

Merger

A merger looks at the equal combination of two entities or organizations. Mergers are rare in the M&A space, as the organizations will combine assets and services in a completely equal 50/50 split. Two organizations may also choose to divest business entities and merge as a new company.

Acquisition

The most common transaction in the M&A space, where an organization will acquire or purchase another organization or entities of another organization. This type of transaction has a clear owner who will be able to make legal decisions regarding the acquired organization.

Divestiture

An organization may decide to sell partial elements of a business to an acquiring organization. They will separate this business entity from the rest of the organization and continue to operate the other components of the business.

Info-Tech Insight

A true merger does not exist, as there is always someone initiating the discussion. As a result, most M&A activity falls into acquisition or divestiture categories.

Buying vs. selling

The M&A process approach differs depending on whether you are the executive IT leader on the buy side or sell side

This blueprint is only focused on the buy side:

  • More than two organizations could be involved in a transaction.
  • Examples of buy-related scenarios include:
    • Your organization is buying another organization with the intent of having the purchased organization keep its regular staff, operations, and location. This could mean minimal integration is required.
    • Your organization is buying another organization in its entirety with the intent of integrating it into your original company.
    • Your organization is buying components of another organization with the intent of integrating them into your original company.
  • As the purchasing organization, you will probably be initiating the purchase and thus will be valuating the selling organization during due diligence and leading the execution plan.

The sell side is focused on:

  • Examples of sell-related scenarios include:
    • Your organization is selling to another organization with the intent of keeping its regular staff, operations, and location. This could mean minimal separation is required.
    • Your organization is selling to another organization with the intent of separating to be a part of the purchasing organization.
    • Your organization is engaging in a divestiture with the intent of:
      • Separating components to be part of the purchasing organization permanently.
      • Separating components to be part of a spinoff and establish a unit as a standalone new company.
  • As the selling organization, you could proactively seek out suitors to purchase all or components of your organization, or you could be approached by an organization.

For more information on divestitures or selling your entire organization, check out Info-Tech’s Mergers & Acquisitions: The Sell Blueprint.

Core business timeline

For IT to be valuable in M&As, you need to align your deliverables and your support to the key activities the business and investors are working on.

Info-Tech’s methodology for Buying Organizations in Mergers, Acquisitions, or Divestitures

1. Proactive

2. Discovery & Strategy

3. Due Diligence & Preparation

4. Execution & Value Realization

Phase Steps

  1. Identify Stakeholders and Their Perspective of IT
  2. Assess IT’s Current Value and Future State
  3. Drive Innovation and Suggest Growth Opportunities
  1. Establish the M&A Program Plan
  2. Prepare IT to Engage in the Acquisition
  1. Assess the Target Organization
  2. Prepare to Integrate
  1. Execute the Transaction
  2. Reflection and Value Realization

Phase Outcomes

Be an innovative IT leader by suggesting how and why the business should engage in an acquisition or divestiture.

Create a standardized approach for how your IT organization should address acquisitions.

Evaluate the target organizations successfully and establish an integration project plan.

Deliver on the integration project plan successfully and communicate IT’s transaction value to the business.

Potential metrics for each phase

1. Proactive

2. Discovery & Strategy

3. Due Diligence & Preparation

4. Execution & Value Realization

  • % Share of business innovation spend from overall IT budget
  • % Critical processes with approved performance goals and metrics
  • % IT initiatives that meet or exceed value expectation defined in business case
  • % IT initiatives aligned with organizational strategic direction
  • % Satisfaction with IT's strategic decision-making abilities
  • $ Estimated business value added through IT-enabled innovation
  • % Overall stakeholder satisfaction with IT
  • % Percent of business leaders that view IT as an Innovator
  • % IT budget as a percent of revenue
  • % Assets that are not allocated
  • % Unallocated software licenses
  • # Obsolete assets
  • % IT spend that can be attributed to the business (chargeback or showback)
  • % Share of CapEx of overall IT budget
  • % Prospective organizations that meet the search criteria
  • $ Total IT cost of ownership (before and after M&A, before and after rationalization)
  • % Business leaders that view IT as a Business Partner
  • % Defects discovered in production
  • $ Cost per user for enterprise applications
  • % In-house-built applications vs. enterprise applications
  • % Owners identified for all data domains
  • # IT staff asked to participate in due diligence
  • Change to due diligence
  • IT budget variance
  • Synergy target
  • % Satisfaction with the effectiveness of IT capabilities
  • % Overall end-customer satisfaction
  • $ Impact of vendor SLA breaches
  • $ Savings through cost-optimization efforts
  • $ Savings through application rationalization and technology standardization
  • # Key positions empty
  • % Frequency of staff turnover
  • % Emergency changes
  • # Hours of unplanned downtime
  • % Releases that cause downtime
  • % Incidents with identified problem record
  • % Problems with identified root cause
  • # Days from problem identification to root cause fix
  • % Projects that consider IT risk
  • % Incidents due to issues not addressed in the security plan
  • # Average vulnerability remediation time
  • % Application budget spent on new build/buy vs. maintenance (deferred feature implementation, enhancements, bug fixes)
  • # Time (days) to value realization
  • % Projects that realized planned benefits
  • $ IT operational savings and cost reductions that are related to synergies/divestitures
  • % IT staff–related expenses/redundancies
  • # Days spent on IT integration
  • $ Accurate IT budget estimates
  • % Revenue growth directly tied to IT delivery
  • % Profit margin growth

The IT executive’s role in the buying transaction is critical

And IT leaders have a greater likelihood than ever of needing to support a merger, acquisition, or divestiture.

  1. Reduced Risk

    IT can identify risks that may go unnoticed when IT is not involved.
  2. Increased Accuracy

    The business can make accurate predictions around the costs, timelines, and needs of IT.
  3. Faster Integration

    Faster integration means faster value realization for the business.
  4. Informed Decision Making

    IT leaders hold critical information that can support the business in moving the transaction forward.
  5. Innovation

    IT can suggest new opportunities to generate revenue, optimize processes, or reduce inefficiencies.

The IT executive’s critical role is demonstrated by:

  • Reduced Risk

    47% of senior leaders wish they would have spent more time on IT due diligence to prevent value erosion (IMAA Institute, 2017).
  • Increased Accuracy

    87% of respondents to a Deloitte survey effectively conducted a virtual deal, with a focus on cybersecurity and integration (Deloitte, 2020).
  • Faster Integration

    Integration costs range from as low as $4 million to as high as $3.8 billion, making the process an investment for the organization (CIO Dive).
  • Informed Decision Making

    Only 38% of corporate and 22% of private equity firms include IT as a significant aspect in their transaction approach (IMAA Institute, 2017).
  • Innovation

    Successful CIOs involved in M&As can spend 70% of their time on aspects outside of IT and 30% of their time on technology and delivery (CIO).

Playbook benefits

IT Benefits

  • IT will be seen as an innovative partner to the business, and its suggestions and involvement in the organization will lead to benefits, not hindrances.
  • Develop a streamlined method to valuate the potential organization being purchased and ensure risk management concerns are brought to the business’ attention immediately.
  • Create a comprehensive list of items that IT needs to do during the integration that can be prioritized and actioned.

Business Benefits

  • The business will get accurate and relevant information about the organization being acquired, ensuring that the anticipated value of the transaction is correctly planned for.
  • Fewer business interruptions will happen, because IT can accurately plan for and execute the high-priority integration tasks.
  • The business can make a fair offer to the purchased organization, having properly valuated all aspects being bought, including the IT environment.

Insight summary

Overarching Insight

As an IT executive, take control of when you get involved in a growth transaction. Do this by proactively identifying acquisition targets, demonstrating the value of IT, and ensuring that integration of IT environments does not lead to unnecessary and costly decisions.

Proactive Insight

CIOs on the forefront of digital transformation need to actively look for and suggest opportunities to acquire or partner on new digital capabilities to respond to rapidly changing business needs.

Discovery & Strategy Insight

IT organizations that have an effective M&A program plan are more prepared for the buying transaction, enabling a successful outcome. A structured strategy is particularly necessary for organizations expected to deliver M&As rapidly and frequently.

Due Diligence & Preparation Insight

Most IT synergies can be realized in due diligence. It is more impactful to consider IT processes and practices (e.g. contracts and culture) in due diligence rather than later in the integration.

Execution & Value Realization Insight

IT needs to realize synergies within the first 100 days of integration. The most successful transactions are when IT continuously realizes synergies a year after the transaction and beyond.

Blueprint deliverables

Key Deliverable: M&A Buy Playbook

The M&A Buy Playbook should be a reusable document that enables your IT organization to successfully deliver on any acquisition transaction.

Screenshots of the 'M and A Buy Playbook' deliverable.

M&A Buy One-Pager

See a one-page overview of each phase of the transaction.

Screenshots of the 'M and A Buy One-Pagers' deliverable.

M&A Buy Case Studies

Read a one-page case study for each phase of the transaction.

Screenshots of the 'M and A Buy Case Studies' deliverable.

M&A Integration Project Management Tool (SharePoint)

Manage the integration process of the acquisition using this SharePoint template.

Screenshots of the 'M and A Integration Project Management Tool (SharePoint)' deliverable.

M&A Integration Project Management Tool (Excel)

Manage the integration process of the acquisition using this Excel tool if you can’t or don’t want to use SharePoint.

Screenshots of the 'M and A Integration Project Management Tool (Excel)' deliverable.

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit

Guided Implementation

Workshop

Consulting

"Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful." "Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track." "We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place." "Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

A typical GI is between 6 to 10 calls over the course of 2 to 4 months.

    Proactive Phase

  • Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.
  • Discovery & Strategy Phase

  • Call #2: Determine stakeholders and their perspectives of IT.
  • Call #3: Identify how M&A could support business strategy and how to communicate.
  • Due Diligence & Preparation Phase

  • Call #4: Establish a transaction team and acquisition strategic direction.
  • Call #5: Create program metrics and identify a standard integration strategy.
  • Call #6: Assess the potential organization(s).
  • Call #7: Identify the integration program plan.
  • Execution & Value Realization Phase

  • Call #8: Establish employee transitions to retain key staff.
  • Call #9: Assess IT’s ability to deliver on the acquisition transaction.

The Buy Blueprint

Phase 1

Proactive

Phase 1

Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4
  • 1.1 Identify Stakeholders and Their Perspective of IT
  • 1.2 Assess IT’s Current Value and Future State
  • 1.3 Drive Innovation and Suggest Growth Opportunities
  • 2.1 Establish the M&A Program Plan
  • 2.2 Prepare IT to Engage in the Acquisition
  • 3.1 Assess the Target Organization
  • 3.2 Prepare to Integrate
  • 4.1 Execute the Transaction
  • 4.2 Reflection and Value Realization

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

  • Conduct the CEO-CIO Alignment diagnostic
  • Conduct the CIO Business Vision diagnostic
  • Visualize relationships among stakeholders to identify key influencers
  • Group stakeholders into categories
  • Prioritize your stakeholders
  • Plan to communicate
  • Valuate IT
  • Assess the IT/digital strategy
  • Determine pain points and opportunities
  • Align goals to opportunities
  • Recommend growth opportunities

This phase involves the following participants:

  • IT and business leadership

What is the Proactive phase?

Embracing the digital drivers

As the number of merger, acquisition, or divestiture transactions driven by digital means continues to increase, IT has an opportunity to not just be involved in a transaction but actively seek out potential deals.

In the Proactive phase, the business is not currently considering a transaction. However, the business could consider one to reach its strategic goals. IT organizations that have developed respected relationships with the business leaders can suggest these potential transactions.

Understand the business’ perspective of IT, determine who the critical M&A stakeholders are, valuate the IT environment, and examine how it supports the business goals in order to suggest an M&A transaction.

In doing so, IT isn’t waiting to be invited to the transaction table – it’s creating it.

Goal: To support the organization in reaching its strategic goals by suggesting M&A activities that will enable the organization to reach its objectives faster and with greater-value outcomes.

Proactive Prerequisite Checklist

Before coming into the Proactive phase, you should have addressed the following:

  • Understand what mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures are.
  • Understand what mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures mean for the business.
  • Understand what mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures mean for IT.

Review the Executive Brief for more information on mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures for purchasing organizations.

Proactive

Step 1.1

Identify M&A Stakeholders and Their Perspective of IT

Activities

  • 1.1.1 Conduct the CEO-CIO Alignment diagnostic
  • 1.1.2 Conduct the CIO Business Vision diagnostic
  • 1.1.3 Visualize relationships among stakeholders to identify key influencers
  • 1.1.4 Group stakeholders into categories
  • 1.1.5 Prioritize your stakeholders
  • 1.16 Plan to communicate

This step involves the following participants:

  • IT executive leader
  • IT leadership
  • Critical M&A stakeholders

Outcomes of Step

Understand how the business perceives IT and establish strong relationships with critical M&A stakeholders.

Business executives' perspectives of IT

Leverage diagnostics and gain alignment on IT’s role in the organization

  • To suggest or get involved with a merger, acquisition, or divestiture, the IT executive leader needs to be well respected by other members of the executive leadership team and the business.
  • Specifically, the Proactive phase relies on the IT organization being viewed as an Innovator within the business.
  • Identify how the CEO/business executive currently views IT and where they would like IT to move within the Maturity Ladder.
  • Additionally, understand how other critical department leaders view IT and how they view the partnership with IT.
A colorful visualization titled 'Maturity Ladder' detailing levels of IT function that a business may choose from based on the business executives' perspectives of IT. Starting from the bottom: 'Struggle', Does not embarrass, Does not crash; 'Support', Keeps business happy, Keeps costs low; 'Optimize', Increases efficiency, Decreases costs; 'Expand', Extends into new business, Generates revenue; 'Transform', Creates new industry.

Misalignment in target state requires further communication between the CIO and CEO to ensure IT is striving toward an agreed-upon direction.

Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision (CIO BV) diagnostic measures a variety of high-value metrics to provide a well-rounded understanding of stakeholder satisfaction with IT.

Sample of Info-Tech's CIO Business Vision diagnostic measuring percentages of high-value metrics like 'IT Satisfaction' and 'IT Value' regarding business leader satisfaction. A note for these two reads 'Evaluate business leader satisfaction with IT this year and last year'. A section titled 'Relationship' has metrics such as 'Understands Needs' and 'Trains Effectively'. A note for this section reads 'Examine indicators of the relationship between IT and the business'. A section titled 'Security Friction' has metrics such as 'Regulatory Compliance-Driven' and 'Office/Desktop Security'.

Business Satisfaction and Importance for Core Services

The core services of IT are important when determining what IT should focus on. The most important services with the lowest satisfaction offer the largest area of improvement for IT to drive business value.

Sample of Info-Tech's CIO Business Vision diagnostic specifically comparing the business satisfaction of 12 core services with their importance. Services listed include 'Service Desk', 'IT Security', 'Requirements Gathering', 'Business Apps', 'Data Quality', and more. There is a short description of the services, a percentage for the business satisfaction with the service, a percentage comparing it to last year, and a numbered ranking of importance for each service. A note reads 'Assess satisfaction and importance across 12 core IT capabilities'.

1.1.1 Conduct the CEO-CIO Alignment diagnostic

2 weeks

Input: IT organization expertise and the CEO-CIO Alignment diagnostic

Output: An understanding of an executive business stakeholder’s perception of IT

Materials: CEO-CIO Alignment diagnostic, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, Business executive/CEO

  1. The CEO-CIO Alignment diagnostic can be a powerful input. Speak with your Info-Tech account representative to conduct the diagnostic. Use the results to inform current IT capabilities.
  2. You may choose to debrief the results of your diagnostic with an Info-Tech analyst. We recommend this to help your team understand how to interpret and draw conclusions from the results.
  3. Examine the results of the survey and note where there might be specific capabilities that could be improved.
  4. Determine whether there are any areas of significant disagreement between the you and the CEO. Mark down those areas for further conversations. Additionally, take note of areas that could be leveraged to support growth transactions or support your rationale in recommending growth transactions.

Download the sample report.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

1.1.2 Conduct the CIO Business Vision diagnostic

2 weeks

Input: IT organization expertise, CIO BV diagnostic

Output: An understanding of business stakeholder perception of certain IT capabilities and services

Materials: CIO Business Vision diagnostic, Computer, Whiteboard and markers, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, Senior business leaders

  1. The CIO Business Vision (CIO BV) diagnostic can be a powerful tool for identifying IT capability focus areas. Speak with your account representative to conduct the CIO BV diagnostic. Use the results to inform current IT capabilities.
  2. You may choose to debrief the results of your diagnostic with an Info-Tech analyst. We recommend this to help your team understand how to interpret the results and draw conclusions from the diagnostic.
  3. Examine the results of the survey and take note of any IT services that have low scores.
  4. Read through the diagnostic comments and note any common themes. Especially note which stakeholders identified they have a favorable relationship with IT and which stakeholders identified they have an unfavorable relationship. For those who have an unfavorable relationship, identify if they will have a critical role in a growth transaction.

Download the sample report.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

Create a stakeholder network map for M&A transactions

Follow the trail of breadcrumbs from your direct stakeholders to their influencers to uncover hidden stakeholders.

Example:

Diagram of stakeholders and their relationships with other stakeholders, such as 'Board Members', 'CFO/Finance', 'Compliance', etc. with 'CIO/IT Leader' highlighted in the middle. There are unidirectional black arrows and bi-directional green arrows indicating each connection.

    Legend
  • Black arrows indicate the direction of professional influence
  • Dashed green arrows indicate bidirectional, informal influence relationships

Info-Tech Insight

Your stakeholder map defines the influence landscape that the M&A transaction will occur within. This will identify who holds various levels of accountability and decision-making authority when a transaction does take place.

Use connectors to determine who may be influencing your direct stakeholders. They may not have any formal authority within the organization, but they may have informal yet substantial relationships with your stakeholders.

1.1.3 Visualize relationships among stakeholders to identify key influencers

1-3 hours

Input: List of M&A stakeholders

Output: Relationships among M&A stakeholders and influencers

Materials: M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive leadership

  1. The purpose of this activity is to list all the stakeholders within your organization that will have a direct or indirect impact on the M&A transaction.
  2. Determine the critical stakeholders, and then determine the stakeholders of your stakeholders and consider adding each of them to the stakeholder list.
  3. Assess who has either formal or informal influence over your stakeholders; add these influencers to your stakeholder list.
  4. Construct a diagram linking stakeholders and their influencers together.
    • Use black arrows to indicate the direction of professional influence.
    • Use dashed green arrows to indicate bidirectional, informal influence relationships.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

Categorize your stakeholders with a prioritization map

A stakeholder prioritization map helps IT leaders categorize their stakeholders by their level of influence and ownership in the merger, acquisition, or divestiture process.

A prioritization map of stakeholder categories split into four quadrants. The vertical axis is 'Influence', from low on the bottom to high on top. The horizontal axis is 'Ownership/Interest', from low on the left to high on the right. 'Spectators' are low influence, low ownership/interest. 'Mediators' are high influence, low ownership/interest. 'Noisemakers' are low influence, high ownership/interest. 'Players' are high influence, high ownership/interest.

There are four areas in the map, and the stakeholders within each area should be treated differently.

Players – players have a high interest in the initiative and the influence to effect change over the initiative. Their support is critical, and a lack of support can cause significant impediment to the objectives.

Mediators – mediators have a low interest but significant influence over the initiative. They can help to provide balance and objective opinions to issues that arise.

Noisemakers – noisemakers have low influence but high interest. They tend to be very vocal and engaged, either positively or negatively, but have little ability to enact their wishes.

Spectators – generally, spectators are apathetic and have little influence over or interest in the initiative.

1.1.4 Group stakeholders into categories

30 minutes

Input: Stakeholder map, Stakeholder list

Output: Categorization of stakeholders and influencers

Materials: Flip charts, Markers, Sticky notes, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive leadership, Stakeholders

  1. Identify your stakeholders’ interest in and influence on the M&A process as high, medium, or low by rating the attributes below.
  2. Map your results to the model to the right to determine each stakeholder’s category.

Same prioritization map of stakeholder categories as before. This one has specific stakeholders mapped onto it. 'CFO' is mapped as low interest and middling influence, between 'Mediator' and 'Spectator'. 'CIO' is mapped as higher than average interest and high influence, a 'Player'. 'Board Member' is mapped as high interest and high influence, a 'Player'.

Level of Influence
  • Power: Ability of a stakeholder to effect change.
  • Urgency: Degree of immediacy demanded.
  • Legitimacy: Perceived validity of stakeholder’s claim.
  • Volume: How loud their “voice” is or could become.
  • Contribution: What they have that is of value to you.
Level of Interest

How much are the stakeholder’s individual performance and goals directly tied to the success or failure of the product?

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

Prioritize your stakeholders

There may be too many stakeholders to be able to manage them all. Focus your attention on the stakeholders that matter most.

Level of Support

Supporter

Evangelist

Neutral

Blocker

Stakeholder Category Player Critical High High Critical
Mediator Medium Low Low Medium
Noisemaker High Medium Medium High
Spectator Low Irrelevant Irrelevant Low

Consider the three dimensions for stakeholder prioritization: influence, interest, and support. Support can be determined by answering the following question: How significant is that stakeholder to the M&A or divestiture process?

These parameters are used to prioritize which stakeholders are most important and should receive your focused attention.

1.1.5 Prioritize your stakeholders

30 minutes

Input: Stakeholder matrix

Output: Stakeholder and influencer prioritization

Materials: Flip charts, Markers, Sticky notes, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive leadership, M&A/divestiture stakeholders

  1. Identify the level of support of each stakeholder by answering the following question: How significant is that stakeholder to the M&A transaction process?
  2. Prioritize your stakeholders using the prioritization scheme on the previous slide.

Stakeholder

Category

Level of Support

Prioritization

CMO Spectator Neutral Irrelevant
CIO Player Supporter Critical

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

Define strategies for engaging stakeholders by type

A revisit to the map of stakeholder categories, but with strategies listed for each one, and arrows on the side instead of an axis. The vertical arrow is 'Authority', which increases upward, and the horizontal axis is Ownership/Interest which increases as it moves to the right. The strategy for 'Players' is 'Engage', for 'Mediators' is 'Satisfy', for 'Noisemakers' is 'Inform', and for 'Spectators' is 'Monitor'.

Type

Quadrant

Actions

Players High influence, high interest – actively engage Keep them updated on the progress of the project. Continuously involve Players in the process and maintain their engagement and interest by demonstrating their value to its success.
Mediators High influence, low interest – keep satisfied They can be the game changers in groups of stakeholders. Turn them into supporters by gaining their confidence and trust and including them in important decision-making steps. In turn, they can help you influence other stakeholders.
Noisemakers Low influence, high interest – keep informed Try to increase their influence (or decrease it if they are detractors) by providing them with key information, supporting them in meetings, and using Mediators to help them.
Spectators Low influence, low interest – monitor They are followers. Keep them in the loop by providing clarity on objectives and status updates.

Info-Tech Insight

Each group of stakeholders draws attention and resources away from critical tasks. By properly identifying stakeholder groups, the IT executive leader can develop corresponding actions to manage stakeholders in each group. This can dramatically reduce wasted effort trying to satisfy Spectators and Noisemakers while ensuring the needs of Mediators and Players are met.

1.1.6 Plan to communicate

30 minutes

Input: Stakeholder priority, Stakeholder categorization, Stakeholder influence

Output: Stakeholder communication plan

Materials: Flip charts, Markers, Sticky notes, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive leadership, M&A/divestiture stakeholders

The purpose of this activity is to make a communication plan for each of the stakeholders identified in the previous activities, especially those who will have a critical role in the M&A transaction process.

  1. In the M&A Buy Playbook, input the type of influence each stakeholder has on IT, how they would be categorized in the M&A process, and their level of priority. Use this information to create a communication plan.
  2. Determine the methods and frequency of communication to keep the necessary stakeholder satisfied and maintain or enhance IT’s profile within the organization.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

Proactive

Step 1.2

Assess IT’s Current Value and Method to Achieve a Future State

Activities

  • 1.2.1 Valuate IT
  • 1.2.2 Assess the IT/digital strategy

This step involves the following participants:

  • IT executive leader
  • IT leadership
  • Critical stakeholders to M&A

Outcomes of Step

Identify critical opportunities to optimize IT and meet strategic business goals through a merger, acquisition, or divestiture.

How to valuate your IT environment

And why it matters so much

  • Valuating your current organization’s IT environment is a critical step that all IT organizations should take, whether involved in an M&A or not, to fully understand what it might be worth.
  • The business investments in IT can be directly translated into a value amount. For every $1 invested in IT, the business might be gaining $100 in value back or possibly even loosing $100.
  • Determining, documenting, and communicating this information ensures that the business takes IT’s suggestions seriously and recognizes why investing in IT is so critical.
  • There are three ways a business or asset can be valuated:
    • Cost Approach: Look at the costs associated with building, purchasing, replacing, and maintaining a given aspect of the business.
    • Market Approach: Look at the relative value of a particular aspect of the business. Relative value can fluctuate and depends on what the markets and consequently society believe that particular element is worth.
    • Discounted Cash Flow Approach: Focus on what the potential value of the business could be or the intrinsic value anticipated due to future profitability.
  • (Source: “Valuation Methods,” Corporate Finance Institute)

Four ways to create value through digital

  1. Reduced costs
  2. Improved customer experience
  3. New revenue sources
  4. Better decision making
  5. (Source: McKinsey & Company)

1.2.1 Valuate IT

1 day

Input: Valuation of data, Valuation of applications, Valuation of infrastructure and operations, Valuation of security and risk

Output: Valuation of IT

Materials: Relevant templates/tools listed on the following slides, Capital budget, Operating budget, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership

The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate that IT is not simply an operational functional area that diminishes business resources. Rather, IT contributes significant value to the business.

  1. Review each of the following slides to valuate IT’s data, applications, infrastructure and operations, and security and risk. These valuations consider several tangible and intangible factors and result in a final dollar amount.
  2. Input the financial amounts identified for each critical area into a summary slide. Use this information to determine where IT is delivering value to the organization.

Info-Tech Insight

Consistency is key when valuating your IT organization as well as other IT organizations throughout the transaction process.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

Data valuation

Data valuation identifies how you monetize the information that your organization owns.

Create a data value chain for your organization

When valuating the information and data that exists in an organization, there are many things to consider.

Info-Tech has two tools that can support this process:

  1. Information Asset Audit Tool: Use this tool first to take inventory of the different information assets that exist in your organization.
  2. Data Valuation Tool: Once information assets have been accounted for, valuate the data that exists within those information assets.

Data Collection

Insight Creation

Value Creation

Data Valuation

01 Data Source
02 Data Collection Method
03 Data
04 Data Analysis
05 Insight
06 Insight Delivery
07 Consumer
08 Value in Data
09 Value Dimension
10 Value Metrics Group
11 Value Metrics
Screenshots of Tab 2 of Info-Tech's Data Valuation Tool.

Instructions

  1. Using the Data Valuation Tool, start gathering information based on the eight steps above to understand your organization’s journey from data to value.
  2. Identify the data value spectrum. (For example: customer sales service, citizen licensing service, etc.)
  3. Fill out the columns for data sources, data collection, and data first.
  4. Capture data analysis and related information.
  5. Then capture the value in data.
  6. Add value dimensions such as usage, quality, and economic dimensions.
    • Remember that economic value is not the only dimension, and usage/quality has a significant impact on economic value.
  7. Collect evidence to justify your data valuation calculator (market research, internal metrics, etc.).
  8. Finally, calculate the value that has a direct correlation with underlying value metrics.

Application valuation

Calculate the value of your IT applications

When valuating the applications and their users in an organization, consider using a business process map. This shows how business is transacted in the company by identifying which IT applications support these processes and which business groups have access to them. Info-Tech has a business process mapping tool that can support this process:

  • Enterprise Integration Process Mapping Tool: Complete this tool first to map the different business processes to the supporting applications in your organization.

Instructions

  1. Start by calculating user costs. This is the product of the (# of users) × (% of time spent using IT) × (fully burdened salary).
  2. Identify the revenue per employee and divide that by the average cost per employee to calculate the derived productivity ratio (DPR).
  3. Once you have calculated the user costs and DPR, multiply those total values together to get the application value.
  4. User Costs

    Total User Costs

    Derived Productivity Ratio (DPR)

    Total DPR

    Application Value

    # of users % time spent using IT Fully burdened salary Multiply values from the 3 user costs columns Revenue per employee Average cost per employee (Revenue P.E) ÷ (Average cost P.E) (User costs) X (DPR)

  5. Once the total application value is established, calculate the combined IT and business costs of delivering that value. IT and business costs include inflexibility (application maintenance), unavailability (downtime costs, including disaster exposure), IT costs (common costs statistically allocated to applications), and fully loaded cost of active (full-time equivalent [FTE]) users.
  6. Calculate the net value of applications by subtracting the total IT and business costs from the total application value calculated in step 3.
  7. IT and Business Costs

    Total IT and Business Costs

    Net Value of Applications

    Application maintenance Downtime costs (include disaster exposure) Common costs allocated to applications Fully loaded costs of active (FTE) users Sum of values from the four IT and business costs columns (Application value) – (IT and business costs)

(Source: CSO)

Infrastructure valuation

Assess the foundational elements of the business’ information technology

The purpose of this exercise is to provide a high-level infrastructure valuation that will contribute to valuating your IT environment.

Calculating the value of the infrastructure will require different methods depending on the environment. For example, a fully cloud-hosted organization will have different costs than a fully on-premises IT environment.

Instructions:

  1. Start by listing all of the infrastructure-related items that are relevant to your organization.
  2. Once you have finalized your items column, identify the total costs/value of each item.
    • For example, total software costs would include servers and storage.
  3. Calculate the total cost/value of your IT infrastructure by adding all of values in the right column.

Item

Costs/Value

Hardware Assets Total Value +$3.2 million
Hardware Leased/Service Agreement -$
Software Purchased +$
Software Leased/Service Agreement -$
Operational Tools
Network
Disaster Recovery
Antivirus
Data Centers
Service Desk
Other Licenses
Total:

For additional support, download the M&A Runbook for Infrastructure and Operations.

Risk and security

Assess risk responses and calculate residual risk

The purpose of this exercise is to provide a high-level risk assessment that will contribute to valuating your IT environment. For a more in-depth risk assessment, please refer to the Info-Tech tools below:

  1. Risk Register Tool
  2. Security M&A Due Diligence Tool

Instructions

  1. Review the probability and impact scales below and ensure you have the appropriate criteria that align to your organization before you conduct a risk assessment.
  2. Identify the probability of occurrence and estimated financial impact for each risk category detail and fill out the table on the right. Customize the table as needed so it aligns to your organization.
  3. Probability of Risk Occurrence

    Occurrence Criteria
    (Classification; Probability of Risk Event Within One Year)

    Negligible Very Unlikely; ‹20%
    Very Low Unlikely; 20 to 40%
    Low Possible; 40 to 60%
    Moderately Low Likely; 60 to 80%
    Moderate Almost Certain; ›80%

Note: If needed, you can customize this scale with the severity designations that you prefer. However, make sure you are always consistent with it when conducting a risk assessment.

Financial & Reputational Impact

Budgetary and Reputational Implications
(Financial Impact; Reputational Impact)

Negligible (‹$10,000; Internal IT stakeholders aware of risk event occurrence)
Very Low ($10,000 to $25,000; Business customers aware of risk event occurrence)
Low ($25,000 to $50,000; Board of directors aware of risk event occurrence)
Moderately Low ($50,000 to $100,000; External customers aware of risk event occurrence)
Moderate (›$100,000; Media coverage or regulatory body aware of risk event occurrence)

Risk Category Details

Probability of Occurrence

Estimated Financial Impact

Estimated Severity (Probability X Impact)

Capacity Planning
Enterprise Architecture
Externally Originated Attack
Hardware Configuration Errors
Hardware Performance
Internally Originated Attack
IT Staffing
Project Scoping
Software Implementation Errors
Technology Evaluation and Selection
Physical Threats
Resource Threats
Personnel Threats
Technical Threats
Total:

1.2.2 Assess the IT/digital strategy

4 hours

Input: IT strategy, Digital strategy, Business strategy

Output: An understanding of an executive business stakeholder’s perception of IT, Alignment of IT/digital strategy and overall organization strategy

Materials: Computer, Whiteboard and markers, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, Business executive/CEO

The purpose of this activity is to review the business and IT strategies that exist to determine if there are critical capabilities that are not being supported.

Ideally, the IT and digital strategies would have been created following development of the business strategy. However, sometimes the business strategy does not directly call out the capabilities it requires IT to support.

  1. On the left half of the corresponding slide in the M&A Buy Playbook, document the business goals, initiatives, and capabilities. Input this information from the business or digital strategies. (If more space for goals, initiatives, or capabilities is needed, duplicate the slide).
  2. On the other half of the slide, document the IT goals, initiatives, and capabilities. Input this information from the IT strategy and digital strategy.

For additional support, see Build a Business-Aligned IT Strategy.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

Proactive

Step 1.3

Drive Innovation and Suggest Growth Opportunities

Activities

  • 1.3.1 Determine pain points and opportunities
  • 1.3.2 Align goals with opportunities
  • 1.3.3 Recommend growth opportunities

This step involves the following participants:

  • IT executive leader
  • IT leadership
  • Critical M&A stakeholders

Outcomes of Step

Establish strong relationships with critical M&A stakeholders and position IT as an innovative business partner that can suggest growth opportunities.

1.3.1 Determine pain points and opportunities

1-2 hours

Input: CEO-CIO Alignment diagnostic, CIO Business Vision diagnostic, Valuation of IT environment, IT-business goals cascade

Output: List of pain points or opportunities that IT can address

Materials: Computer, Whiteboard and markers, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Business stakeholders

The purpose of this activity is to determine the pain points and opportunities that exist for the organization. These can be external or internal to the organization.

  1. Identify what opportunities exist for your organization. Opportunities are the potential positives that the organization would want to leverage.
  2. Next, identify pain points, which are the potential negatives that the organization would want to alleviate.
  3. Spend time considering all the options that might exist, and keep in mind what has been identified previously.

Opportunities and pain points can be trends, other departments’ initiatives, business perspectives of IT, etc.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

1.3.2 Align goals with opportunities

1-2 hours

Input: CEO-CIO Alignment diagnostic, CIO Business Vision diagnostic, Valuation of IT environment, IT-business goals cascade, List of pain points and opportunities

Output: An understanding of an executive business stakeholder’s perception of IT, Foundations for growth strategy

Materials: Computer, Whiteboard and markers, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Business stakeholders

The purpose of this activity is to determine whether a growth or separation strategy might be a good suggestion to the business in order to meet its business objectives.

  1. For the top three to five business goals, consider:
    1. Underlying drivers
    2. Digital opportunities
    3. Whether a growth or reduction strategy is the solution
  2. Just because a growth or reduction strategy is a solution for a business goal does not necessarily indicate M&A is the way to go. However, it is important to consider before you pursue suggesting M&A.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

1.3.3 Recommend growth opportunities

1-2 hours

Input: Growth or separation strategy opportunities to support business goals, Stakeholder communication plan, Rationale for the suggestion

Output: M&A transaction opportunities suggested

Materials: M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, Business executive/CEO

The purpose of this activity is to recommend a merger, acquisition, or divestiture to the business.

  1. Identify which of the business goals the transaction would help solve and why IT is the one to suggest such a goal.
  2. Leverage the stakeholder communication plan identified previously to give insight into stakeholders who would have a significant level of interest, influence, or support in the process.

Info-Tech Insight

With technology and digital driving many transactions, leverage this opening and begin the discussions with your business on how and why an acquisition would be a great opportunity.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

By the end of this Proactive phase, you should:

Be prepared to suggest M&A opportunities to support your company’s goals through growth or acquisition transactions

Key outcome from the Proactive phase

Develop progressive relationships and strong communication with key stakeholders to suggest or be aware of transformational opportunities that can be achieved through growth or reduction strategies such as mergers, acquisitions, or divestitures.

Key deliverables from the Proactive phase
  • Business perspective of IT examined
  • Key stakeholders identified and relationship to the M&A process outlined
  • Ability to valuate the IT environment and communicate IT’s value to the business
  • Assessment of the business, digital, and IT strategies and how M&As could support those strategies
  • Pain points and opportunities that could be alleviated or supported through an M&A transaction
  • Acquisition or buying recommendations

The Buy Blueprint

Phase 2

Discovery & Strategy

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3Phase 4
  • 1.1 Identify Stakeholders and Their Perspective of IT
  • 1.2 Assess IT’s Current Value and Future State
  • 1.3 Drive Innovation and Suggest Growth Opportunities
  • 2.1 Establish the M&A Program Plan
  • 2.2 Prepare IT to Engage in the Acquisition
  • 3.1 Assess the Target Organization
  • 3.2 Prepare to Integrate
  • 4.1 Execute the Transaction
  • 4.2 Reflection and Value Realization

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

  • Create the mission and vision
  • Identify the guiding principles
  • Create the future-state operating model
  • Determine the transition team
  • Document the M&A governance
  • Create program metrics
  • Establish the integration strategy
  • Conduct a RACI
  • Create the communication plan
  • Assess the potential organization(s)

This phase involves the following participants:

  • IT executive/CIO
  • IT senior leadership
  • Company M&A team

Workshop Overview

Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

Pre-Work

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Establish the Transaction FoundationDiscover the Motivation for AcquiringFormalize the Program PlanCreate the Valuation FrameworkStrategize the TransactionNext Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)

Activities

  • 0.1 Conduct the CIO Business Vision and CEO-CIO Alignment diagnostics
  • 0.2 Identify key stakeholders and outline their relationship to the M&A process
  • 0.3 Identify the rationale for the company's decisions to pursue an acquisition
  • 1.1 Review the business rationale for the acquisition
  • 1.2 Assess the IT/digital strategy
  • 1.3 Identify pain points and opportunities tied to the acquisition
  • 1.4 Create the IT vision statement, create the IT mission statement, and identify IT guiding principles
  • 2.1 Create the future-state operating model
  • 2.2 Determine the transition team
  • 2.3 Document the M&A governance
  • 2.4 Establish program metrics
  • 3.1 Valuate your data
  • 3.2 Valuate your applications
  • 3.3 Valuate your infrastructure
  • 3.4 Valuate your risk and security
  • 3.5 Combine individual valuations to make a single framework
  • 4.1 Establish the integration strategy
  • 4.2 Conduct a RACI
  • 4.3 Review best practices for assessing target organizations
  • 4.4 Create the communication plan
  • 5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days
  • 5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps

Deliverables

  1. Business perspectives of IT
  2. Stakeholder network map for M&A transactions
  1. Business context implications for IT
  2. IT’s acquisition strategic direction
  1. Operating model for future state
  2. Transition team
  3. Governance structure
  4. M&A program metrics
  1. IT valuation framework
  1. Integration strategy
  2. RACI
  3. Communication plan
  1. Completed M&A program plan and strategy
  2. Prepared to assess target organization(s)

What is the Discovery & Strategy phase?

Pre-transaction state

The Discovery & Strategy phase during an acquisition is a unique opportunity for many IT organizations. IT organizations that can participate in the acquisition transaction at this stage are likely considered a strategic partner of the business.

For one-off acquisitions, IT being invited during this stage of the process is rare. However, for organizations that are preparing to engage in many acquisitions over the coming years, this type of strategy will greatly benefit from IT involvement. Again, the likelihood of participating in an M&A transaction is increasing, making it a smart IT leadership decision to, at the very least, loosely prepare a program plan that can act as a strategic pillar throughout the transaction.

During this phase of the pre-transaction state, IT will also be asked to participate in ensuring that the potential organization being sought will be able to meet any IT-specific search criteria that was set when the transaction was put into motion.

Goal: To identify a repeatable program plan that IT can leverage when acquiring all or parts of another organization’s IT environment, ensuring customer satisfaction and business continuity

Discovery & Strategy Prerequisite Checklist

Before coming into the Discovery & Strategy phase, you should have addressed the following:

  • Understand the business perspective of IT.
  • Know the key stakeholders and have outlined their relationships to the M&A process.
  • Be able to valuate the IT environment and communicate IT's value to the business.
  • Understand the rationale for the company's decisions to pursue an acquisition and the opportunities or pain points the acquisition should address.

Discovery & Strategy

Step 2.1

Establish the M&A Program Plan

Activities

  • 2.1.1 Create the mission and vision
  • 2.1.2 Identify the guiding principles
  • 2.1.3 Create the future-state operating model
  • 2.1.4 Determine the transition team
  • 2.1.5 Document the M&A governance
  • 2.1.6 Create program metrics

This step involves the following participants:

  • IT executive/CIO
  • IT senior leadership
  • Company M&A team

Outcomes of Step

Establish an M&A program plan that can be repeated across acquisitions.

The vision and mission statements clearly articulate IT’s aspirations and purpose

The IT vision statement communicates a desired future state of the IT organization, whereas the IT mission statement portrays the organization’s reason for being. While each serves its own purpose, they should both be derived from the business context implications for IT.

Vision Statements

Mission Statements

Characteristics

  • Describe a desired future
  • Focus on ends, not means
  • Concise
  • Aspirational
  • Memorable
  • Articulate a reason for existence
  • Focus on how to achieve the vision
  • Concise
  • Easy to grasp
  • Sharply focused
  • Inspirational

Samples

To be a trusted advisor and partner in enabling business innovation and growth through an engaged IT workforce. (Source: Business News Daily) IT is a cohesive, proactive, and disciplined team that delivers innovative technology solutions while demonstrating a strong customer-oriented mindset. (Source: Forbes, 2013)

2.1.1 Create the mission and vision statements

2 hours

Input: Business objectives, IT capabilities, Rationale for the transaction

Output: IT’s mission and vision statements for growth strategies tied to mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures

Materials: Flip charts/whiteboard, Markers, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team

The purpose of this activity is to create mission and vision statements that reflect IT’s intent and method to support the organization as it pursues a growth strategy.

  1. Review the definitions and characteristics of mission and vision statements.
  2. Brainstorm different versions of the mission and vision statements.
  3. Edit the statements until you get to a single version of each that accurately reflects IT’s role in the growth process.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

Guiding principles provide a sense of direction

IT guiding principles are shared, long-lasting beliefs that guide the use of IT in constructing, transforming, and operating the enterprise by informing and restricting IT investment portfolio management, solution development, and procurement decisions.

A diagram illustrating the place of 'IT guiding principles' in the process of making 'Decisions on the use of IT'. There are four main items, connecting lines naming the type of process in getting from one step to the next, and a line underneath clarifying the questions asked at each step. On the far left, over the question 'What decisions should be made?', is 'Business context and IT implications'. This flows forward to 'IT guiding principles', and they are connected by 'Influence'. Next, over the question 'How should decisions be made?', is the main highlighted section. 'IT guiding principles' flows forward to 'Decisions on the use of IT', and they are connected by 'Guide and inform'. On the far right, over the question 'Who has the accountability and authority to make decisions?', is 'IT policies'. This flows back to 'Decisions on the use of IT', and they are connected by 'Direct and control'.

IT principles must be carefully constructed to make sure they are adhered to and relevant

Info-Tech has identified a set of characteristics that IT principles should possess. These characteristics ensure the IT principles are relevant and followed in the organization.

Approach focused. IT principles should be focused on the approach – how the organization is built, transformed, and operated – as opposed to what needs to be built, which is defined by both functional and non-functional requirements.

Business relevant. Create IT principles that are specific to the organization. Tie IT principles to the organization’s priorities and strategic aspirations.

Long lasting. Build IT principles that will withstand the test of time.

Prescriptive. Inform and direct decision making with actionable IT principles. Avoid truisms, general statements, and observations.

Verifiable. If compliance can’t be verified, people are less likely to follow the principle.

Easily Digestible. IT principles must be clearly understood by everyone in IT and by business stakeholders. IT principles aren’t a secret manuscript of the IT team. IT principles should be succinct; wordy principles are hard to understand and remember.

Followed. Successful IT principles represent a collection of beliefs shared among enterprise stakeholders. IT principles must be continuously communicated to all stakeholders to achieve and maintain buy-in.

In organizations where formal policy enforcement works well, IT principles should be enforced through appropriate governance processes.

Consider the example principles below

IT Principle Name

IT Principle Statement

1. Risk Management We will ensure that the organization’s IT Risk Management Register is properly updated to reflect all potential risks and that a plan of action against those risks has been identified.
2. Transparent Communication We will ensure employees are spoken to with respect and transparency throughout the transaction process.
3. Integration for Success We will create an integration strategy that enables the organization and clearly communicates the resources required to succeed.
4. Managed Data We will handle data creation, modification, integration, and use across the enterprise in compliance with our data governance policy.
5. Establish a single IT Environment We will identify, prioritize, and manage the applications and services that IT provides in order to eliminate redundant technology and maximize the value that users and customers experience.
6. Compliance With Laws and Regulations We will operate in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations for both our organization and the potentially purchased organization.
7. Defined Value We will create a plan of action that aligns with the organization’s defined value expectations.
8. Network Readiness We will ensure that employees and customers have immediate access to the network with minimal or no outages.
9. Operating to Succeed We will bring all of IT into a central operating model within two years of the transaction.

2.1.2 Identify the guiding principles

2 hours

Input: Business objectives, IT capabilities, Rationale for the transaction, Mission and vision statements

Output: IT’s guiding principles for growth strategies tied to mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures

Materials: Flip charts/whiteboard, Markers, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team

The purpose of this activity is to create the guiding principles that will direct the IT organization throughout the growth strategy process.

  1. Review the role of guiding principles and the examples of guiding principles that organizations have used.
  2. Brainstorm different versions of the guiding principles. Each guiding principle should start with the phrase “We will…”
  3. Edit and consolidate the statements until you have a list of approximately eight to ten statements that accurately reflect IT’s role in the growth process.
  4. Review the guiding principles every six months to ensure they continue to support the delivery of the business’ growth strategy goals.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

Create two IT teams to support the transaction

IT M&A Transaction Team

  • The IT M&A Transaction Team should consist of the strongest members of the IT team who can be expected to deliver on unusual or additional tasks not asked of them in normal day-to-day operations.
  • The roles selected for this team will have very specific skills sets or deliver on critical integration capabilities, making their involvement in the combination of two or more IT environments paramount.
  • These individuals need to have a history of proving themselves very trustworthy, as they will likely be required to sign an NDA as well.
  • Expect to have to certain duplicate capabilities or roles across the M&A transaction team and operational team.

IT Operational Team

  • This group is responsible for ensuring the business operations continue.
  • These employees might be those who are newer to the organization but can be counted on to deliver consistent IT services and products.
  • The roles of this team should ensure that end users or external customers remain satisfied.

Key capabilities to support M&A

Consider the following capabilities when looking at who should be a part of the M&A transaction team.

Employees who have a significant role in ensuring that these capabilities are being delivered will be a top priority.

Infrastructure

  • Systems Integration
  • Data Management

Business Focus

  • Service-Level Management
  • Enterprise Architecture
  • Stakeholder Management
  • Project Management

Risk & Security

  • Privacy Management
  • Security Management
  • Risk & Compliance Management

Build a lasting and scalable operating model

An operating model is an abstract visualization, used like an architect’s blueprint, that depicts how structures and resources are aligned and integrated to deliver on the organization’s strategy.

It ensures consistency of all elements in the organizational structure through a clear and coherent blueprint before embarking on detailed organizational design.

The visual should highlight which capabilities are critical to attaining strategic goals and clearly show the flow of work so that key stakeholders can understand where inputs flow in and outputs flow out of the IT organization.

As you assess the current operating model, consider the following:

  • Does the operating model contain all the necessary capabilities your IT organization requires to be successful?
  • What capabilities should be duplicated?
  • Are there individuals with the skill set to support those roles? If not, is there a plan to acquire or develop those skills?
  • A dedicated project team strictly focused on M&A is great. However, is it feasible for your organization? If not, what blockers exist?
A diagram with 'Initiatives' and 'Solutions' on the left and right of an area chart, 'Customer' at the top, the area between them labelled 'Functional Area n', and six horizontal bars labelled 'IT Capability' stacked on top of each other. The 'IT Capability' bars are slightly skewed to the 'Solutions' side of the chart.

Info-Tech Insight

Investing time up-front getting the operating model right is critical. This will give you a framework to rationalize future organizational changes, allowing you to be more iterative and allowing your model to change as the business changes.

2.1.3 Create the future-state operating model

4 hours

Input: Current operating model, IT strategy, IT capabilities, M&A-specific IT capabilities, Business objectives, Rationale for the transaction, Mission and vision statements

Output: Future-state operating model

Materials: Operating model, Capability overlay, Flip charts/whiteboard, Markers, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team

The purpose of this activity is to establish what the future-state operating model will be if your organization needs to adjust to support a growth transaction.

  1. Ensuring that all the IT capabilities are identified by the business and IT strategy, document your organization’s current operating model.
  2. Identify what core capabilities would be critical to the buying transaction process and integration. Highlight and make copies of those capabilities in the M&A Buy Playbook.
  3. Arrange the capabilities to clearly show the flow of inputs and outputs. Identify critical stakeholders of the process (such as customers or end users) if that will help the flow.
  4. Ensure the capabilities that will be decentralized are clearly identified. Decentralized capabilities do not exist within the central IT organization but rather in specific lines of businesses or products to better understand needs and deliver on the capability.

An example operating model is included in the M&A Buy Playbook. This process benefits from strong reference architecture and capability mapping ahead of time.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

2.1.4 Determine the transition team

3 hours

Input: IT capabilities, Future-state operating model, M&A-specific IT capabilities, Business objectives, Rationale for the transaction, Mission and vision statements

Output: Transition team

Materials: Reference architecture, Organizational structure, Flip charts/whiteboard, Markers

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team

The purpose of this activity is to create a team that will support your IT organization throughout the transaction. Determining which capabilities and therefore which roles will be required ensures that the business will continue to get the operational support it needs.

  1. Based on the outcome of activity 2.1.3, review the capabilities that your organization will require on the transition team. Group capabilities into functional groups containing capabilities that are aligned well with one another because they have similar responsibilities and functionalities.
  2. Replace the capabilities with roles. For example, stakeholder management, requirements gathering, and project management might be one functional group. Project management and stakeholder management might combine to create a project manager role.
  3. Review the examples in the M&A Buy Playbook and identify which roles will be a part of the transition team.

For more information, see Redesign Your Organizational Structure

What is governance?

And why does it matter so much to IT and the M&A process?

  • Governance is the method in which decisions get made, specifically as they impact various resources (time, money, and people).
  • Because M&A is such a highly governed transaction, it is important to document the governance bodies that exist in your organization.
  • This will give insight into what types of governing bodies there are, what decisions they make, and how that will impact IT.
  • For example, funds to support integration need to be discussed, approved, and supplied to IT from a governing body overseeing the acquisition.
  • A highly mature IT organization will have automated governance, while a seemingly non-existent governance process will be considered ad hoc.
A pyramid with four levels representing the types of governing bodies that are available with differing levels of IT maturity. An arrow beside the pyramid points upward. The bottom of the arrow is labelled 'Traditional (People and document centric)' and the top is labelled 'Adaptive (Data centric)'. Starting at the bottom of the pyramid is level 1 'Ad Hoc Governance', 'Governance that is not well defined or understood within the organization. It occurs out of necessity but often not by the right people'. Level 2 is 'Controlled Governance', 'Governance focused on compliance and decisions driven by hierarchical authority. Levels of authority are defined and often driven by regulatory'. Level 3 is 'Agile Governance', 'Governance that is flexible to support different needs and quick response in the organization. Driven by principles and delegated throughout the company'. At the top of the pyramid is level 4 'Automated Governance', 'Governance that is entrenched and automated into organizational processes and product/service design. Empowered and fully delegated governance to maintain fit and drive organizational success and survival'.

2.1.5 Document M&A governance

1-2 hours

Input: List of governing bodies, Governing body committee profiles, Governance structure

Output: Documented method on how decisions are made as it relates to the M&A transaction

Materials: Flip charts/whiteboard, Markers, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team

The purpose of this activity is to determine the method in which decisions are made throughout the M&A transaction as it relates to IT. This will require understanding both governing bodies internal to IT and those external to IT.

  1. First, determine the other governance structures within the organization that will impact the decisions made about M&A. List out these bodies or committees.
  2. Create a profile for each committee that looks at the membership, purpose of the committee, decision areas (authority), and the process of inputs and outputs. Ensure IT committees that will have a role in this process are also documented. Consider the benefits realized, risks, and resources required for each.
  3. Organize the committees into a structure, identifying the committees that have a role in defining the strategy, designing and building, and running.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

Current-state structure map – definitions of tiers

Strategy: These groups will focus on decisions that directly connect to the strategic direction of the organization.

Design & Build: The second tier of groups will oversee prioritization of a certain area of governance as well as design and build decisions that feed into strategic decisions.

Run: The lowest level of governance will be oversight of more-specific initiatives and capabilities within IT.

Expect tier overlap. Some committees will operate in areas that cover two or three of these governance tiers.

Measure the IT program’s success in terms of its ability to support the business’ M&A goals

Upper management will measure IT’s success based on your ability to support the underlying reasons for the M&A. Using business metrics will help assure business stakeholders that IT understands their needs and is working with the business to achieve them.

Business-Specific Metrics

  • Revenue Growth: Increase in the top line as seen by market expansion, product expansion, etc. by percentage/time.
  • Synergy Extraction: Reduction in costs as determined by the ability to identify and eliminate redundancies over time.
  • Profit Margin Growth: Increase in the bottom line as a result of increased revenue growth and/or decreased costs over time.

IT-Specific Metrics

  • IT operational savings and cost reductions due to synergies: Operating expenses, capital expenditures, licenses, contracts, applications, infrastructure over time.
  • Reduction in IT staff expense and headcount: Decreased budget allocated to IT staff, and ability to identify and remove redundancies in staff.
  • Meeting or improving on IT budget estimates: Delivering successful IT integration on a budget that is the same or lower than the budget estimated during due diligence.
  • Meeting or improving on IT time-to-integration estimates: Delivering successful IT integration on a timeline that is the same or shorter than the timeline estimated during due diligence.
  • Business capability support: Delivering the end state of IT that supports the expected business capabilities and growth.

Establish your own metrics to gauge the success of IT

Establish SMART M&A Success Metrics

S pecific Make sure the objective is clear and detailed.
M easurable Objectives are measurable if there are specific metrics assigned to measure success. Metrics should be objective.
A ctionable Objectives become actionable when specific initiatives designed to achieve the objective are identified.
R ealistic Objectives must be achievable given your current resources or known available resources.
T ime-Bound An objective without a timeline can be put off indefinitely. Furthermore, measuring success is challenging without a timeline.
  • What should IT consider when looking to identify potential additions, deletions, or modifications that will either add value to the organization or reduce costs/risks?
  • Provide a definition of synergies.
  • IT operational savings and cost reductions due to synergies: Operating expenses, capital expenditures, licenses, contracts, applications, infrastructure.
  • Reduction in IT staff expense and headcount: Decreased budget allocated to IT staff, and ability to identify and remove redundancies in staff.
  • Meeting or improving on IT budget estimates: Delivering successful IT integration on a budget that is the same or lower than the budget estimated during due diligence.
  • Meeting or improving on IT time-to-integration estimates: Delivering successful IT integration on a timeline that is the same or shorter than the timeline estimated during due diligence.
  • Revenue growth: Increase in the top line as a result, as seen by market expansion, product expansion, etc.
  • Synergy extraction: Reduction in costs, as determined by the ability to identify and eliminate redundancies.
  • Profit margin growth: Increase in the bottom line as a result of increased revenue growth and/or decreased costs.

Metrics for each phase

1. Proactive

2. Discovery & Strategy

3. Valuation & Due Diligence

4. Execution & Value Realization

  • % Share of business innovation spend from overall IT budget
  • % Critical processes with approved performance goals and metrics
  • % IT initiatives that meet or exceed value expectation defined in business case
  • % IT initiatives aligned with organizational strategic direction
  • % Satisfaction with IT's strategic decision-making abilities
  • $ Estimated business value added through IT-enabled innovation
  • % Overall stakeholder satisfaction with IT
  • % Percent of business leaders that view IT as an Innovator
  • % IT budget as a percent of revenue
  • % Assets that are not allocated
  • % Unallocated software licenses
  • # Obsolete assets
  • % IT spend that can be attributed to the business (chargeback or showback)
  • % Share of CapEx of overall IT budget
  • % Prospective organizations that meet the search criteria
  • $ Total IT cost of ownership (before and after M&A, before and after rationalization)
  • % Business leaders that view IT as a Business Partner
  • % Defects discovered in production
  • $ Cost per user for enterprise applications
  • % In-house-built applications vs. enterprise applications
  • % Owners identified for all data domains
  • # IT staff asked to participate in due diligence
  • Change to due diligence
  • IT budget variance
  • Synergy target
  • % Satisfaction with the effectiveness of IT capabilities
  • % Overall end-customer satisfaction
  • $ Impact of vendor SLA breaches
  • $ Savings through cost-optimization efforts
  • $ Savings through application rationalization and technology standardization
  • # Key positions empty
  • % Frequency of staff turnover
  • % Emergency changes
  • # Hours of unplanned downtime
  • % Releases that cause downtime
  • % Incidents with identified problem record
  • % Problems with identified root cause
  • # Days from problem identification to root cause fix
  • % Projects that consider IT risk
  • % Incidents due to issues not addressed in the security plan
  • # Average vulnerability remediation time
  • % Application budget spent on new build/buy vs. maintenance (deferred feature implementation, enhancements, bug fixes)
  • # Time (days) to value realization
  • % Projects that realized planned benefits
  • $ IT operational savings and cost reductions that are related to synergies/divestitures
  • % IT staff–related expenses/redundancies
  • # Days spent on IT integration
  • $ Accurate IT budget estimates
  • % Revenue growth directly tied to IT delivery
  • % Profit margin growth

2.1.6 Create program metrics

1-2 hours

Input: IT capabilities, Mission, vision, and guiding principles, Rationale for the acquisition

Output: Program metrics to support IT throughout the M&A process

Materials: Flip charts/whiteboard, Markers, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team

The purpose of this activity is to determine how IT’s success throughout a growth transaction will be measured and determined.

  1. Document a list of appropriate metrics on the whiteboard. Remember to include metrics that demonstrate the business impact. You can use the sample metrics listed on the previous slide as a starting point.
  2. Set a target and deadline for each metric. This will help the group determine when it is time to evaluate progression.
  3. Establish a baseline for each metric based on information collected within your organization.
  4. Assign an owner for tracking each metric as well as someone to be accountable for performance.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

Discovery & Strategy

Step 2.2

Prepare IT to Engage in the Acquisition

Activities

  • 2.2.1 Establish the integration strategy
  • 2.2.2 Conduct a RACI
  • 2.2.3 Create the communication plan
  • 2.2.4 Assess the potential organization(s)

This step involves the following participants:

  • IT executive/CIO
  • IT senior leadership
  • Company M&A team

Outcomes of Step

Identify IT’s plan of action when it comes to the acquisition and align IT’s integration strategy with the business’ M&A strategy.

Integration strategies

There are several IT integration strategies that will help you achieve your target technology environment.

IT Integration Strategies
  • Absorption. Convert the target organization’s strategy, structure, processes, and/or systems to that of the acquiring organization.
  • Best-of-Breed. Pick and choose the most effective people, processes, and technologies to form an efficient operating model.
  • Transformation Retire systems from both organizations and use collective capabilities, data, and processes to create something entirely new.
  • Preservation Retain individual business units that will operate within their own capability. People, processes, and technologies are unchanged.

The approach IT takes will depend on the business objectives for the M&A.

  • Generally speaking, the integration strategy is well understood and influenced by the frequency of and rationale for acquiring.
  • Based on the initiatives generated by each business process owner, you need to determine the IT integration strategy that will best support the desired target technology environment.

Key considerations when choosing an IT integration strategy include:

  • What are the main business objectives of the M&A?
  • What are the key synergies expected from the transaction?
  • What IT integration best helps obtain these benefits?
  • What opportunities exist to position the business for sustainable growth?

Absorption and best-of-breed

Review highlights and drawbacks of absorption and best-of-breed integration strategies

Absorption
    Highlights
  • Recommended for businesses striving to reduce costs and drive efficiency gains.
  • Economies of scale realized through consolidation and elimination of redundant applications.
  • Quickest path to a single company operation and systems as well as lower overall IT cost.
    Drawbacks
  • Potential for disruption of the target company’s business operations.
  • Requires significant business process changes.
  • Disregarding the target offerings altogether may lead to inferior system decisions that do not yield sustainable results.
Best-of-Breed
    Highlights
  • Recommended for businesses looking to expand their market presence or acquire new products. Essentially aligning the two organizations in the same market.
  • Each side has a unique offering but complementing capabilities.
  • Potential for better buy-in from the target because some of their systems are kept, resulting in willingness to
    Drawbacks
  • May take longer to integrate because it tends to present increased complexity that results in higher costs and risks.
  • Requires major integration efforts from both sides of the company. If the target organization is uncooperative, creating the desired technology environment will be difficult.

Transformation and preservation

Review highlights and drawbacks of transformation and preservation integration strategies

Transformation
    Highlights
  • This is the most customized approach, although it is rarely used.
  • It is essential to have an established long-term vision of business capabilities when choosing this path.
  • When executed correctly, this approach presents potential for significant upside and creation of sustainable competitive advantages.
    Drawbacks
  • This approach requires extensive time to implement, and the cost of integration work may be significant.
  • If a new system is created without strategic capabilities, the organizations will not realize long-term benefits.
  • The cost of correcting complexities at later stages in the integration effort may be drastic.
Preservation
    Highlights
  • This approach is appropriate if the merging organizations will remain fairly independent, if there will be limited or no communication between companies, and if the companies’ market strategies, products, and channels are entirely distinct.
  • Environment can be accomplished quickly and at a low cost.
    Drawbacks
  • Impact to each business is minimal, but there is potential for lost synergies and higher operational costs. This may be uncontrollable if the natures of the two businesses are too different to integrate.
  • Reduced benefits and limited opportunities for IT integration.

2.2.1 Establish the integration strategy

1-2 hours

Input: Business integration strategy, Guiding principles, M&A governance

Output: IT’s integration strategy

Materials: Flip charts/whiteboard, Markers, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team

The purpose of this activity is to determine IT’s approach to integration. The approach might differ slightly from transaction to transaction. However, the business’ approach to transactions should give insight into the general integration strategy IT should adopt.

  1. Make sure you have clearly articulated the business objectives for the M&A, the technology end state for IT, and the magnitude of the overall integration.
  2. Review and discuss the highlights and drawbacks of each type of integration.
  3. Use Info-Tech’s Integration Posture Selection Framework on the next slide to select the integration posture that will appropriately enable the business. Consider these questions during your discussion:
    1. What are the main business objectives of the M&A? What key IT capabilities will need to support business objectives?
    2. What key synergies are expected from the transaction? What opportunities exist to position the business for sustainable growth?
    3. What IT integration best helps obtain these benefits?

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

Integration Posture Selection Framework

Business M&A Strategy

Resultant Technology Strategy

M&A Magnitude (% of Acquirer Assets, Income, or Market Value)

IT Integration Posture

A. Horizontal Adopt One Model ‹10% Absorption
10 to 75% Absorption or Best-of-Breed
›75% Best-of-Breed
B. Vertical Create Links Between Critical Systems Any
  • Preservation (Differentiated Functions)
  • Absorption or Best-of-Breed (Non-Differentiated Functions)
C. Conglomerate Independent Model Any Preservation
D. Hybrid: Horizontal & Conglomerate Independent Model Any Preservation

2.2.2 Conduct a RACI

1-2 hours

Input: IT capabilities, Transition team, Integration strategy

Output: Completed RACI for transition team

Materials: Reference architecture, Organizational structure, Flip charts/whiteboard, Markers, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team

The purpose of this activity is to identify the core accountabilities and responsibilities for the roles identified as critical to your transition team. While there might be slight variation from transaction to transaction, ideally each role should be performing certain tasks.

  1. First, identify a list of critical tasks that need to be completed to support the purchase or acquisition. For example:
    • Communicate with the company M&A team.
    • Identify critical IT risks that could impact the organization after the transaction.
    • Identify key artifacts to collect and review during due diligence.
  2. Next, identify at the activity level which role is accountable or responsible for each activity. Enter an A for accountable, R for responsible, or A/R for both.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

Communication and change

Prepare key stakeholders for the potential changes

  • Anytime you are starting a project or program that will depend on users and stakeholders to give up their old way of doing things, change will force people to become novices again, leading to lost productivity and added stress.
  • Change management can improve outcomes for any project where you need people to adopt new tools and procedures, comply with new policies, learn new skills and behaviors, or understand and support new processes.
  • M&As move very quickly, and it can be very difficult to keep track of which stakeholders you need to be communicating with and what you should be communicating.
  • Not all organizations embrace or resist change in the same ways. Base your change communications on your organization’s cultural appetite for change in general.
    • Organizations with a low appetite for change will require more direct, assertive communications.
    • Organizations with a high appetite for change are more suited to more open, participatory approaches.

Three key dimensions determine the appetite for cultural change:

  • Power Distance. Refers to the acceptance that power is distributed unequally throughout the organization.
    In organizations with a high power distance, the unequal power distribution is accepted by the less powerful employees.
  • Individualism. Organizations that score high in individualism have employees who are more independent. Those who score low in individualism fall into the collectivism side, where employees are strongly tied to one another or their groups.
  • Uncertainty Avoidance. Describes the level of acceptance that an organization has toward uncertainty. Those who score high in this area find that their employees do not favor uncertain situations, while those that score low in this area find that their employees are comfortable with change and uncertainty.

2.2.3 Create the communication plan

1-2 hours

Input: IT’s M&A mission, vision, and guiding principles, M&A transition team, IT integration strategy, RACI

Output: IT’s M&A communication plan

Materials: Flip charts/whiteboard, Markers, RACI, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team

The purpose of this activity is to create a communication plan that IT can leverage throughout the initiative.

  1. Create a structured communication plan that allows for continuous communication with the integration management office, senior management, and the business functional heads.
  2. Outline key topics of communication, with stakeholders, inputs, and outputs for each topic.
  3. Review Info-Tech’s example communication plan in the M&A Buy Playbook and update it with relevant information.
  4. Does this communication plan make sense for your organization? What doesn’t make sense? Adjust the communication guide to suit your organization.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

Assessing potential organizations

As soon as you have identified organizations to consider, it’s imperative to assess critical risks. Most IT leaders can attest that they will receive little to no notice when they have to assess the IT organization of a potential purchase. As a result, having a standardized template to quickly gauge the value of the business can be critical.

Ways to Assess

  1. News: Assess what sort of news has been announced in relation to the organization. Have they had any risk incidents? Has a critical vendor announced working with them?
  2. LinkedIn: Scan through the LinkedIn profiles of employees. This will give you a sense of what platforms they have based on their employees.
  3. Trends: Some industries will have specific solutions that are relevant and popular. Assess what the key players are (if you don’t already know) to determine the solution.
  4. Business Architecture: While this assessment won’t perfect, try to understand the business’ value streams and the critical business and IT capabilities that would be needed to support them.

2.2.4 Assess the potential organization(s)

1-2 hours

Input: Publicized historical risk events, Solutions and vendor contracts likely in the works, Trends

Output: IT’s valuation of the potential organization(s) for acquisition

Materials: M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO

The purpose of this activity is to assess the organization(s) that your organization is considering purchasing.

  1. Complete the Historical Valuation Worksheet in the M&A Buy Playbook to understand the type of IT organization that your company may inherit and need to integrate with.
    • The business likely isn’t looking for in-depth details at this time. However, as the IT leader, it is your responsibility to ensure critical risks are identified and communicated to the business.
  2. Use the information identified to help the business narrow down which organizations should be targeted for the acquisition.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

By the end of this pre-transaction phase you should:

Have a program plan for M&As and a repeatable M&A strategy for IT when engaging in growth transactions

Key outcomes from the Discovery & Strategy phase
  • Be prepared to analyze and recommend potential organizations that the business can acquire or merge with, using a strong program plan that can be repeated across transactions.
  • Create a M&A strategy that accounts for all the necessary elements of a transaction and ensures sufficient governance, capabilities, and metrics exist.
Key deliverables from the Discovery & Strategy phase
  • Create vision and mission statements
  • Establish guiding principles
  • Create a future-state operating model
  • Identify the key roles for the transaction team
  • Identify and communicate the M&A governance
  • Determine target metrics
  • Identify the M&A operating model
  • Select the integration strategy framework
  • Conduct a RACI for key transaction tasks for the transaction team
  • Document the communication plan

M&A Buy Blueprint

Phase 3

Due Diligence & Preparation

Phase 1Phase 2

Phase 3

Phase 4
  • 1.1 Identify Stakeholders and Their Perspective of IT
  • 1.2 Assess IT’s Current Value and Future State
  • 1.3 Drive Innovation and Suggest Growth Opportunities
  • 2.1 Establish the M&A Program Plan
  • 2.2 Prepare IT to Engage in the Acquisition
  • 3.1 Assess the Target Organization
  • 3.2 Prepare to Integrate
  • 4.1 Execute the Transaction
  • 4.2 Reflection and Value Realization

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

  • Drive value with a due diligence charter
  • Identify data room artifacts
  • Assess technical debt
  • Valuate the target IT organization
  • Assess culture
  • Prioritize integration tasks
  • Establish the integration roadmap
  • Identify the needed workforce supply
  • Estimate integration costs
  • Create an employee transition plan
  • Create functional workplans for employees
  • Align project metrics with identified tasks

This phase involves the following participants:

  • IT executive/CIO
  • IT senior leadership
  • Company M&A team
  • Business leaders
  • Prospective IT organization
  • Transition team

Workshop Overview

Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

Pre-Work

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Establish the Transaction FoundationDiscover the Motivation for IntegrationAssess the Target Organization(s)Create the Valuation FrameworkPlan the Integration RoadmapNext Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)

Activities

  • 0.1 Identify the rationale for the company's decisions to pursue an acquisition.
  • 0.2 Identify key stakeholders and determine the IT transaction team.
  • 0.3 Gather and evaluate the M&A strategy, future-state operating model, and governance.
  • 1.1 Review the business rationale for the acquisition.
  • 1.2 Identify pain points and opportunities tied to the acquisition.
  • 1.3 Establish the integration strategy.
  • 1.4 Create the due diligence charter.
  • 2.1 Create a list of IT artifacts to be reviewed in the data room.
  • 2.2 Conduct a technical debt assessment.
  • 2.3 Assess the current culture and identify the goal culture.
  • 2.4 Identify the needed workforce supply.
  • 3.1 Valuate the target organization’s data.
  • 3.2 Valuate the target organization’s applications.
  • 3.3 Valuate the target organization’s infrastructure.
  • 3.4 Valuate the target organization’s risk and security.
  • 3.5 Combine individual valuations to make a single framework.
  • 4.1 Prioritize integration tasks.
  • 4.2 Establish the integration roadmap.
  • 4.3 Establish and align project metrics with identified tasks.
  • 4.4 Estimate integration costs.
  • 5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days.
  • 5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.

Deliverables

  1. IT strategy
  2. IT operating model
  3. IT governance structure
  4. M&A transaction team
  1. Business context implications for IT
  2. Integration strategy
  3. Due diligence charter
  1. Data room artifacts
  2. Technical debt assessment
  3. Culture assessment
  4. Workforce supply identified
  1. IT valuation framework to assess target organization(s)
  1. Integration roadmap and associated resourcing
  1. Acquisition integration strategy for IT

What is the Due Diligence & Preparation phase?

Mid-transaction state

The Due Diligence & Preparation phase during an acquisition is a critical time for IT. If IT fails to proactively participate in this phase, IT will have to merely react to integration expectations set by the business.

While not all IT organizations are able to participate in this phase, the evolving nature of M&As to be driven by digital and technological capabilities increases the rationale for IT being at the table. Identifying critical IT risks, which will inevitably be business risks, begins during the due diligence phase.

This is also the opportunity for IT to plan how it will execute the planned integration strategy. Having access to critical information only available in data rooms will further enable IT to successfully plan and execute the acquisition to deliver the value the business is seeking through a growth transaction.

Goal: To thoroughly evaluate all potential risks associated with the organization(s) being pursued and create a detailed plan for integrating the IT environments

Due Diligence Prerequisite Checklist

Before coming into the Due Diligence & Preparation phase, you must have addressed the following:

  • Understand the rationale for the company's decisions to pursue an acquisition and what opportunities or pain points the acquisition should alleviate.
  • Identify the key roles for the transaction team.
  • Identify the M&A governance.
  • Determine target metrics.
  • Select an integration strategy framework.
  • Conduct a RACI for key transaction tasks for the transaction team.

Before coming into the Due Diligence & Preparation phase, we recommend addressing the following:

  • Create vision and mission statements.
  • Establish guiding principles.
  • Create a future-state operating model.
  • Identify the M&A operating model.
  • Document the communication plan.
  • Examine the business perspective of IT.
  • Identify key stakeholders and outline their relationship to the M&A process.
  • Be able to valuate the IT environment and communicate IT’s value to the business.

The Technology Value Trinity

Delivery of Business Value & Strategic Needs

  • Digital & Technology Strategy
    The identification of objectives and initiatives necessary to achieve business goals.
  • IT Operating Model
    The model for how IT is organized to deliver on business needs and strategies.
  • Information & Technology Governance
    The governance to ensure the organization and its customers get maximum value from the use of information and technology.

All three elements of the Technology Value Trinity work in harmony to deliver business value and achieve strategic needs. As one changes, the others need to change as well.

  • Digital and IT Strategy tells you what you need to achieve to be successful.
  • IT Operating Model and Organizational Design is the alignment of resources to deliver on your strategy and priorities.
  • Information & Technology Governance is the confirmation of IT’s goals and strategy, which ensures the alignment of IT and business strategy. It’s the mechanism by which you continuously prioritize work to ensure that what is delivered is in line with the strategy. This oversight evaluates, directs, and monitors the delivery of outcomes to ensure that the use of resources results in the achieving the organization’s goals.

Too often strategy, operating model and organizational design, and governance are considered separate practices. As a result, “strategic documents” end up being wish lists, and projects continue to be prioritized based on who shouts the loudest – not based on what is in the best interest of the organization.

Due Diligence & Preparation

Step 3.1

Assess the Target Organization

Activities

  • 3.1.1 Drive value with a due diligence charter
  • 3.1.2 Identify data room artifacts
  • 3.1.3 Assess technical debt
  • 3.1.4 Valuate the target IT organization
  • 3.1.5 Assess culture

This step involves the following participants:

  • IT executive/CIO
  • IT senior leadership
  • Company M&A team
  • Business leaders
  • Prospective IT organization
  • Transition team

Outcomes of Step

This step of the process is when IT should actively evaluate the target organization being pursued for acquisition.

3.1.1 Drive value with a due diligence charter

1-2 hours

Input: Key roles for the transaction team, M&A governance, Target metrics, Selected integration strategy framework, RACI of key transaction tasks for the transaction team

Output: IT Due Diligence Charter

Materials: M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team

The purpose of this activity is to create a charter leveraging the items completed in the previous phase, as listed on the Due Diligence Prerequisite Checklist slide, to gain executive sign-off.

  1. In the IT Due Diligence Charter in the M&A Buy Playbook, complete the aspects of the charter that are relevant for you and your organization.
  2. We recommend including these items in the charter:
    • Communication plan
    • Transition team roles
    • Goals and metrics for the transaction
    • Integration strategy
    • Acquisition RACI
  3. Once the charter has been completed, ensure that business executives agree to the charter and sign off on the plan of action.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

3.1.2 Identify data room artifacts

4 hours

Input: Future-state operating model, M&A governance, Target metrics, Selected integration strategy framework, RACI of key transaction tasks for the transaction team

Output: List of items to acquire and review in the data room

Materials: Critical domain lists on following slides, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team, Transition team

The purpose of this activity is to create a list of the key artifacts that should be asked for and reviewed during the due diligence process.

  1. Review the lists on the following pages as a starting point. Identify which domains, stakeholders, artifacts, and information should be requested for the data room. This information should be directed to the target organization.
  2. IT leadership may or may not be asked to enter the data room directly. Therefore, it’s important that you clearly identify these artifacts.
  3. List each question or concern, select the associated workstream in the M&A Buy Playbook, and update the status of the information retrieval.
  4. Use the comments section to document your discoveries or concerns.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

Critical domains

Understand the key stakeholders and outputs for each domain

Each critical domain will likely have different stakeholders who know that domain best. Communicate with these stakeholders throughout the M&A process to make sure you are getting accurate information and interpreting it correctly.

Domain

Stakeholders

Key Artifacts

Key Information to request

Business
  • Enterprise Architecture
  • Business Relationship Manager
  • Business Process Owners
  • Business capability map
  • Capability map (the M&A team should be taking care of this, but make sure it exists)
  • Business satisfaction with various IT systems and services
Leadership/IT Executive
  • CIO
  • CTO
  • CISO
  • IT budgets
  • IT capital and operating budgets (from current year and previous year)
Data & Analytics
  • Chief Data Officer
  • Data Architect
  • Enterprise Architect
  • Master data domains, system of record for each
  • Unstructured data retention requirements
  • Data architecture
  • Master data domains, sources, and storage
  • Data retention requirements
Applications
  • Applications Manager
  • Application Portfolio Manager
  • Application Architect
  • Applications map
  • Applications inventory
  • Applications architecture
  • Copy of all software license agreements
  • Copy of all software maintenance agreements
Infrastructure
  • Head of Infrastructure
  • Enterprise Architect
  • Infrastructure Architect
  • Infrastructure Manager
  • Infrastructure map
  • Infrastructure inventory
  • Network architecture (including which data centers host which infrastructure and applications)
  • Inventory (including integration capabilities of vendors, versions, switches, and routers)
  • Copy of all hardware lease or purchase agreements
  • Copy of all hardware maintenance agreements
  • Copy of all outsourcing/external service provider agreements
  • Copy of all service-level agreements for centrally provided, shared services and systems
Products and Services
  • Product Manager
  • Head of Customer Interactions
  • Product lifecycle
  • Product inventory
  • Customer market strategy

Critical domains (continued)

Understand the key stakeholders and outputs for each domain

Domain

Stakeholders

Key Artifacts

Key Information to request

Operations
  • Head of Operations
  • Service catalog
  • Service overview
  • Service owners
  • Access policies and procedures
  • Availability and service levels
  • Support policies and procedures
  • Costs and approvals (internal and customer costs)
IT Processes
  • CIO
  • IT Management
  • VP of IT Governance
  • VP of IT Strategy
  • IT process flow diagram
  • Processes in place and productivity levels (capacity)
  • Critical processes/processes the organization feels they do particularly well
IT People
  • CIO
  • VP of Human Resources
  • IT organizational chart
  • Competency & capacity assessment
  • IT organizational structure (including resources from external service providers such as contractors) with appropriate job descriptions or roles and responsibilities
  • IT headcount and location
Security
  • CISO
  • Security Architect
  • Security posture
  • Information security staff
  • Information security service providers
  • Information security tools
  • In-flight information security projects
Projects
  • Head of Projects
  • Project portfolio
  • List of all future, ongoing, and recently completed projects
Vendors
  • Head of Vendor Management
  • License inventory
  • Inventory (including what will and will not be transitioning, vendors, versions, number of licenses)

Assess the target organization’s technical debt

The other organization could be costly to purchase if not yet modernizing.

  • Consider the potential costs that your business will have to spend to get the other IT organization modernized or even digital.
  • This will be highly affected by your planned integration strategy.
  • A best-of-breed strategy might simply mean there's little to bring over from the other organization’s environment.
  • It’s often challenging to identify a direct financial cost for technical debt. Consider direct costs but also assess categories of impact that can have a long-term effect on your business: lost customer, staff, or business partner goodwill; limited flexibility and resilience; and health, safety, and compliance impacts.
  • Use more objective measures to track subjective impact. For example, consider the number of customers who could be significantly affected by each tech debt in the next quarter.

Focus on solving the problems you need to address.

Analyzing technical debt has value in that the analysis can help your organization make better risk management and resource allocation decisions.

Review these examples of technical debt

Do you have any of these challenges?

Applications
  • Inefficient or incomplete code
  • Fragile or obsolete systems of record that limit the implementation of new functionality
  • Out-of-date IDEs or compilers
  • Unsupported applications
Data & Analytics
  • Data presented via API that does not conform to chosen standards (EDI, NRF-ARTS, etc.)
  • Poor data governance
  • No transformation between OLTP and the data warehouse
  • Heavy use of OLTP for reporting
  • Lack of AI model and decision governance, maintenance
End-User Computing
  • Aging and slow equipment
  • No configuration management
  • No MDM/UEM
Security
  • Unpatched/unpatchable systems
  • Legacy firewalls
  • No data classification system
  • “Perimeter” security architecture
  • No documented security incident response
  • No policies, or unenforced policies
Operations
  • Incomplete, ineffective, or undocumented business continuity and disaster recovery plans
  • Insufficient backups or archiving
  • Inefficient MACD processes
  • Application sprawl with no record of installed applications or licenses
  • No ticketing or ITSM system
  • No change management process
  • No problem management process
  • No event/alert management
Infrastructure
  • End-of-life/unsupported equipment
  • Aging power or cooling systems
  • Water- or halon-based data center fire suppression systems
  • Out-of-date firmware
  • No DR site
  • Damaged or messy cabling
  • Lack of system redundancy
  • Integrated computers on business equipment (e.g. shop floor equipment, medical equipment) running out-of-date OS/software
Project & Portfolio Management
  • No project closure process
  • Ineffective project intake process
  • No resource management practices

“This isn’t a philosophical exercise. Knowing what you want to get out of this analysis informs the type of technical debt you will calculate and the approach you will take.” (Scott Buchholz, CTO, Deloitte Government & Public Services Practice, The Wall Street Journal, 2015)

3.1.3 Assess technical debt

1-2 hours

Input: Participant views on organizational tech debt, Five to ten key technical debts, Business impact scoring scales, Reasonable next-quarter scenarios for each technical debt, Technical debt business impact analysis

Output: Initial list of tech debt for the target organization

Materials: Whiteboard, Sticky notes, Technical Debt Business Impact Analysis Tool, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Business leaders, Transition team

The purpose of this activity is to assess the technical debt of the other IT organization. Taking on unnecessary technical debt is one of the biggest risks to the IT environment

  1. This activity can be completed by leveraging the blueprint Manage Your Technical Debt, specifically the Technical Debt Business Impact Analysis Tool. Complete the following activities in the blueprint:
    • 1.2.1 Identify your technical debt
    • 1.2.2 Select tech debt for your impact analysis
    • 2.2.2 Estimate tech debt impact
    • 2.2.3 Identify the most-critical technical debts
  2. Review examples of technical debt in the previous slide to assist you with this activity.
  3. Document the results from tab 3, Impact Analysis, in the M&A Buy Playbook if you are trying to record all artifacts related to the transaction in one place.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

How to valuate an IT environment

And why it matters so much

  • Valuating the target organization’s IT environment is a critical step to fully understand what it might be worth. Business partners are often not in the position to valuate the IT aspects to the degree that you would be.
  • The business investments in IT can be directly translated to a value amount. Meaning for every $1 invested in IT, the business might be gaining $100 in value back or possibly even loosing $100.
  • Determining, documenting, and communicating this information ensures that the business takes IT’s suggestions seriously and recognizes why investing in IT can be so critical.
  • There are three ways a business or asset can be valuated:
    • Cost Approach: Look at the costs associated with building, purchasing, replacing, and maintaining a given aspect of the business.
    • Market Approach: Look at the relative value of a particular aspect of the business. Relative value can fluctuate and depends on what the markets and consequently society believe that particular element is worth.
    • Discounted Cash Flow Approach: Focus on what the potential value of the business could be or the intrinsic value anticipated due to future profitability.

The IT valuation conducted during due diligence can have a significant impact on the final financials of the transaction for the business.

3.1.4 Valuate the target IT organization

1 day

Input: Valuation of data, Valuation of applications, Valuation of infrastructure and operations, Valuation of security and risk

Output: Valuation of target organization’s IT

Materials: Relevant templates/tools, Capital budget, Operating budget, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Prospective IT organization

The purpose of this activity is to valuate the other IT organization.

  1. Review each of slides 42 to 45 to generate a valuation of IT’s data, applications, infrastructure, and security and risk. These valuations consider several tangible and intangible factors and result in a final dollar amount. For more information on this activity, review Activity 1.2.1 from the Proactive phase.
  2. Identify financial amounts for each critical area and add the financial output to the summary slide in the M&A Buy Playbook.
  3. Compare this information against your own IT organization’s valuation.
    1. Does it add value to your IT organization?
    2. Is there too much risk to accept if this transaction goes through?

Info-Tech Insight

Consistency is key when valuating your IT organization as well as other IT organizations throughout the transaction process.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

Culture should not be overlooked, especially as it relates to the integration of IT environments

  • There are three types of culture that need to be considered.
  • Most importantly, this transition is an opportunity to change the culture that might exist in your organization’s IT environment.
  • Make a decision on which type of culture you’d like IT to have post-transition.

Target Organization’s Culture

The culture that the target organization is currently embracing. Their established and undefined governance practices will lend insight into this.

Your Organization’s Culture

The culture that your organization is currently embracing. Examine people’s attitudes and behaviors within IT toward their jobs and the organization.

Ideal Culture

What will the future culture of the IT organization be once integration is complete? Are there aspects that your current organization and the target organization embrace that are worth considering?

Culture categories

Map the results of the IT Culture Diagnostic to an existing framework

Competitive
  • Autonomy
  • Confront conflict directly
  • Decisive
  • Competitive
  • Achievement oriented
  • Results oriented
  • High performance expectations
  • Aggressive
  • High pay for good performance
  • Working long hours
  • Having a good reputation
  • Being distinctive/different
Innovative
  • Adaptable
  • Innovative
  • Quick to take advantage of opportunities
  • Risk taking
  • Opportunities for professional growth
  • Not constrained by rules
  • Tolerant
  • Informal
  • Enthusiastic
Traditional
  • Stability
  • Reflective
  • Rule oriented
  • Analytical
  • High attention to detail
  • Organized
  • Clear guiding philosophy
  • Security of employment
  • Emphasis on quality
  • Focus on safety
Cooperative
  • Team oriented
  • Fair
  • Praise for good performance
  • Supportive
  • Calm
  • Developing friends at work
  • Socially responsible

Culture Considerations

  • What culture category was dominant for each IT organization?
  • Do you share the same dominant category?
  • Is your current dominant culture category the most ideal to have post-integration?

3.1.5 Assess Culture

3-4 hours

Input: Cultural assessments for current IT organization, Cultural assessment for target IT organization

Output: Goal for IT culture

Materials: IT Culture Diagnostic, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, IT employees of current organization, IT employees of target organization, Company M&A team

The purpose of this activity is to assess the different cultures that might exist within the IT environments of both organizations. More importantly, your IT organization can select its desired IT culture for the long term if it does not already exist.

  1. Complete this activity by leveraging the blueprint Fix Your IT Culture, specifically the IT Culture Diagnostic. Fill out the diagnostic for the IT department in your organization:
    1. Answer the 16 questions in tab 2, Diagnostic.
    2. Find out your dominant culture and review recommendations in tab 3, Results.
  2. Document the results from tab 3, Results, in the M&A Buy Playbook if you are trying to record all artifacts related to the transaction in one place.
  3. Repeat the activity for the target organization.
  4. Leverage the information to determine what the goal for the culture of IT will be post-integration if it will differ from the current culture.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

Due Diligence & Preparation

Step 3.2

Prepare to Integrate

Activities

  • 3.2.1 Prioritize integration tasks
  • 3.2.2 Establish the integration roadmap
  • 3.2.3 Identify the needed workforce supply
  • 3.2.4 Estimate integration costs
  • 3.2.5 Create an employee transition plan
  • 3.2.6 Create functional workplans for employees
  • 3.2.7 Align project metrics with identified tasks

This step involves the following participants:

  • IT executive/CIO
  • IT senior leadership
  • Transition team
  • Company M&A team

Outcomes of Step

Have an established plan of action toward integration across all domains and a strategy toward resources.

Don’t underestimate the importance of integration preparation

Integration is the process of combining the various components of one or more organizations into a single organization.

80% of integration should happen within the first two years. (Source: CIO Dive)

70% of M&A IT integrations fail due to components that could and should be addressed at the beginning. (Source: The Wall Street Journal, 2019)

Info-Tech Insight

Integration is not rationalization. Once the organization has integrated, it can prepare to rationalize the IT environment.

Integration needs

Identify your domain needs to support the target technology environment

Set up a meeting with your IT due diligence team to:

  • Address data, applications, infrastructure, and other domain gaps.
  • Discuss the people and processes necessary to achieve the target technology environment and support M&A business objectives.

Use this opportunity to:

  • Identify data and application complexities between your organization and the target organization.
  • Identify the IT people and process gaps, redundancies, and initiatives.
  • Determine your infrastructure needs and identify redundancies.
    • Does IT have the infrastructure to support the applications and business capabilities of the resultant enterprise?
    • Identify any gaps between the current infrastructure in both organizations and the infrastructure required in the resultant enterprise.
    • Identify any redundancies.
    • Determine the appropriate IT integration strategies.
  • Document your gaps, redundancies, initiatives, and assumptions to help you track and justify the initiatives that must be undertaken and help estimate the cost of integration.

Integration implications

Understand the implications for integration with respect to each target technology environment

Domain

Independent Models

Create Links Between Critical Systems

Move Key Capabilities to Common Systems

Adopt One Model

Data & Analytics

  • Consider data sources that might need to be combined (e.g. financials, email lists, internet).
  • Understand where each organization will warehouse its data and how it will be managed in a cost-effective manner.
  • Consider your reporting and transactional needs. Initially systems may remain separate, but eventually they will need to be merged.
  • Analyze whether or not the data types are compatible between companies.
  • Understand the critical data needs and the complexity of integration activities.
  • Consider your reporting and transactional needs. Initially systems may remain separate, but eventually they will need to be merged.
  • Focus on the master data domains that represent the core of your business.
  • Assess the value, size, location, and cleanliness of the target organization’s data sets.
  • Determine the data sets that will be migrated to capture expected synergies and drive core capabilities while addressing how other data sets will be maintained and managed.
  • Decide which applications to keep and which to terminate. This includes setting timelines for application retirement.
  • Establish interim linkages and common interfaces for applications while major migrations occur.

Applications

  • Establish whether or not there are certain critical applications that still need to be linked (e.g. email, financials).
  • Leverage the unique strengths and functionalities provided by the applications used by each organization.
  • Confirm that adequate documentation and licensing exists.
  • Decide which critical applications need to be linked versus which need to be kept separate to drive synergies. For example, financial, email, and CRM may need to be linked, while certain applications may remain distinct.
  • Pay particular attention to the extent to which systems relating to customers, products, orders, and shipments need to be integrated.
  • Determine the key capabilities that require support from the applications identified by business process owners.
  • Assess which major applications need to be adopted by both organizations, based on the M&A goals.
  • Establish interim linkages and common interfaces for applications while major migrations occur.
  • Decide which applications to keep and which to terminate. This includes setting timelines for application retirement.
  • Establish interim linkages and common interfaces for applications while major migrations occur.

Integration implications (continued)

Understand the implications for integration with respect to each target technology environment

Domain

Independent Models

Create Links Between Critical Systems

Move Key Capabilities to Common Systems

Adopt One Model

Infrastructure

  • Assess the infrastructure demands created by retaining separate models (e.g. separate domains, voice, network integration).
  • Evaluate whether or not there are redundant data centers that could be consolidated to reduce costs.
  • Assess the infrastructure demands created by retaining separate models (e.g. separate domains, voice, network integration).
  • Evaluate whether or not there are redundant data centers that could be consolidated to reduce costs.
  • Evaluate whether certain infrastructure components, such as data centers, can be consolidated to support the new model while also eliminating redundancies. This will help reduce costs.
  • Assess which infrastructure components need to be kept versus which need to be terminated to support the new application portfolio. Keep in mind that increasing the transaction volume on a particular application increases the infrastructure capacity that is required for that application.
  • Extend the network to integrate additional locations.

IT People & Processes

  • Retain workers from each IT department who possess knowledge of key products, services, and legacy systems.
  • Consider whether there are redundancies in staffing that could be eliminated.
  • The IT processes of each organization will most likely remain separate.
  • Consider the impact of the target organization on your IT processes.
  • Retain workers from each IT department who possess knowledge of key products, services, and legacy systems.
  • Consider whether there are redundancies in staffing that could be eliminated.
  • Consider how critical IT processes of the target organization fit with your current IT processes.
  • Identify which redundant staff members should be terminated by focusing on the key skills that will be necessary to support the common systems.
  • If there is overlap with the IT processes in both organizations, you may wish to map out both processes to get a sense for how they might work together.
  • Assess what processes will be prioritized to support IT strategies.
  • Identify which redundant staff members should be terminated by focusing on the key skills that will be necessary to support the prioritized IT processes.

Integration implications (continued)

Understand the implications for integration with respect to each target technology environment

Domain

Independent Models

Create Links Between Critical Systems

Move Key Capabilities to Common Systems

Adopt One Model

Leadership/IT Executive

  • Have insight into the goals and direction of the organization’s leadership. Make sure that a communication path has been established to receive information and provide feedback.
  • The decentralized model will require some form of centralization and strong governance processes to enable informed decisions.
  • Ensure that each area can deliver on its needs while not overstepping the goals and direction of the organization.
  • This will help with integration in the sense that front-line employees can see a single organization beginning to form.
  • In this model, there is the opportunity to select elements of each leadership style and strategy that will work for the larger organization.
  • Leadership can provide a single and unified approach to how the strategic goals will be executed.
  • More often than not, this would be the acquiring organization’s strategic direction.

Vendors

  • Determine which contracts the target organization currently has in place.
  • Having different vendors in place will not be a bad model if it makes sense.
  • Spend time reviewing the contracts and ensuring that each organization has the right contracts to succeed.
  • Identify what redundancies might exist (ERPs, for example) and determine if the vendor would be willing to terminate one contract or another.
  • Through integration, it might be possible to engage in one set of contract negotiations for a single application or technology.
  • Identify whether there are opportunities to combine contracts or if they must remain completely separated until the end of the term.
  • In an effort to capitalize on the contracts working well, reduce the contracts that might be hindering the organization.
  • Speak to the vendor offering the contract.
  • Going forward, ensure the contracts are negotiated to include clauses to allow for easier and more cost-effective integration.

Integration implications (continued)

Understand the implications for integration with respect to each target technology environment

Domain

Independent Models

Create Links Between Critical Systems

Move Key Capabilities to Common Systems

Adopt One Model

Security

  • Both organizations would need to have a process for securing their organization.
  • Sharing and accessing information might be more difficult, as each organization would need to keep the other organization separate to ensure the organization remains secure.
  • Creating standard policies and procedures that each organization must adhere to would be critical here (for example, multifactor authentication).
  • Establish a single path of communication between the two organizations, ensuring reliable and secure data and information sharing.
  • Leverage the same solutions to protect the business as a whole from internal and external threats.
  • Identify opportunities where there might be user points of failure that could be addressed early in the process.
  • Determine what method of threat detection and response will best support the business and select that method to apply to the entire organization, both original and newly acquired.

Projects

  • Projects remain ongoing as they were prior to the integration.
  • Some projects might be made redundant after the initial integration is over.
  • Re-evaluate the projects after integration to ensure they continue to deliver on the business’ strategic direction.
  • Determine which projects are similar to one another and identify opportunities to leverage business needs and solutions for each organization where possible.
  • Review project histories to determine the rationale for and success of projects that could be reused in either organization going forward.
  • Determine which projects should remain ongoing and which projects could wait to be implemented or could be completely stopped.
  • There might be certain modernization projects ongoing that cannot be stopped.
  • However, for all other projects, embrace a single portfolio.
  • Completely reduce or remove all ongoing projects from the one organization and continue with only the projects of the other organization.
  • Add in new projects when they arise as needed.

3.2.1 Prioritize integration tasks

2 hours

Input: Integration tasks, Transition team, M&A RACI

Output: Prioritized integration list

Materials: Integration task checklist, Integration roadmap

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team

The purpose of this activity is to prioritize the different integration tasks that your organization has identified as necessary to this transaction. Some tasks might not be relevant for this particular transaction, and others might be critical.

  1. Download the SharePoint or Excel version of the M&A Integration Project Management Tool. Identify which integration tasks you want as part of your project plan. Alter or remove any tasks that are irrelevant to your organization. Add in tasks you think are missing.
  2. When deciding criticality of the task, consider the effect on stakeholders, those who are impacted or influenced in the process of the task, and dependencies (e.g. data strategy needs to be addressed first before you can tackle its dependencies, like data quality).
  3. Feel free to edit the way you measure criticality. The standard tool leverages a three-point scale. At the end, you should have a list of tasks in priority order based on criticality.

Record the updates in the M&A Integration Project Management Tool (SharePoint).

Record the updates in the M&A Integration Project Management Tool (Excel).

Integration checklists

Prerequisite Checklist
  • Build the project plan for integration and prioritize activities
    • Plan first day
    • Plan first 30/100 days
    • Plan first year
  • Create an organization-aligned IT strategy
  • Identify critical stakeholders
  • Create a communication strategy
  • Understand the rationale for the acquisition or purchase
  • Develop IT's purchasing strategy
  • Determine goal opportunities
  • Create the mission and vision statements
  • Create the guiding principles
  • Create program metrics
  • Consolidate reports from due diligence/data room
  • Conduct culture assessment
  • Create a transaction team
  • Assess workforce demand and supply
  • Plan and communicate potential layoffs
  • Create an employee transition plan
  • Identify the IT investment
Business
  • Design an enterprise architecture
  • Document your business architecture
  • Identify and assess all of IT's risks
Leadership/IT Executive
  • Build an IT budget
  • Structure operating budget
  • Structure capital budget
  • Identify the needed workforce demand vs. capacity
  • Establish and monitor key metrics
  • Communicate value realized/cost savings
Data
  • Confirm data strategy
  • Confirm data governance
  • Data architecture
  • Data sources
  • Data storage (on-premises vs. cloud)
  • Enterprise content management
  • Compatibility of data types between organizations
  • Cleanliness/usability of target organization data sets
  • Identify data sets that need to be combined to capture synergies/drive core capabilities
  • Reporting and analytics capabilities
Applications
  • Prioritize and address critical applications
    • ERP
    • CRM
    • Email
    • HRIS
    • Financial
    • Sales
    • Risk
    • Security
  • Leverage application rationalization framework to determine applications to keep, terminate, or create
  • Develop method of integrating applications
  • Model critical applications that have dependencies on one another
  • Identify the infrastructure capacity required to support critical applications
Operations
  • Communicate helpdesk/service desk information
  • Manage sales access to customer data
  • Determine locations and hours of operation
  • Consolidate phone lists and extensions
  • Synchronize email address books

Integration checklists (continued)

Infrastructure
  • Determine single network access
  • Manage organization domains
  • Consolidate data centers
  • Compile inventory of vendors, versions, switches, and routers
  • Review hardware lease or purchase agreements
  • Review outsourcing/service provider agreements
  • Review service-level agreements
  • Assess connectivity linkages between locations
  • Plan to migrate to a single email system if necessary
Vendors
  • Establish a sustainable vendor management office
  • Review vendor landscape
  • Identify warranty options
  • Rationalize vendor services and solutions
  • Identify opportunities to mature the security architecture
People
  • Design an IT operating model
  • Redesign your IT organizational structure
  • Conduct a RACI
  • Conduct a culture assessment and identify goal IT culture
  • Build an IT employee engagement program
  • Determine critical roles and systems/process/products they support
  • Create a list of employees to be terminated
  • Create employee transition plans
  • Create functional workplans
Projects
  • Stop duplicate or unnecessary target organization projects
  • Communicate project intake process
  • Prioritize projects
Products & Services
  • Ensure customer services requirements are met
  • Ensure customer interaction requirements are met
  • Select a solution for product lifecycle management
Security
  • Conduct a security assessment of target organization
  • Develop accessibility prioritization and schedule
  • Establish an information security strategy
  • Develop a security awareness and training program
  • Develop and manage security governance, risk, and compliance
  • Identify security budget
  • Build a data privacy and classification program
IT Processes
  • Evaluate current process models
  • Determine productivity/capacity levels of processes
  • Identify processes to be terminated
  • Identify process expectations from target organization
  • Establish a communication plan
  • Develop a change management process
  • Establish/review IT policies

3.2.2 Establish the integration roadmap

2 hours

Input: Prioritized integration tasks, Employee transition plan, Integration RACI, Costs for activities, Activity owners

Output: Integration roadmap

Materials: M&A Integration Project Plan Tool (SharePoint), M&A Integration Project Plan Tool (Excel)

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Transition team, Company M&A team

The purpose of this activity is to create a roadmap to support IT throughout the integration process. Using the information gathered in previous activities, you can create a roadmap that will ensure a smooth integration.

  1. Leverage our M&A Integration Project Management Tool to track critical elements of the integration project. There are a few options available:
    1. Follow the instructions on the next slide if you are looking to upload our SharePoint project template.
    2. If you cannot or do not want to use SharePoint as your project management solution, download our Excel version of the tool.
      **Remember that this your tool, so customize to your liking.
  2. Identify who will own or be accountable for each of the integration tasks and establish the time frame for when each project should begin and end. This will confirm which tasks should be prioritized.

Record the updates in the M&A Integration Project Management Tool (SharePoint).

Record the updates in the M&A Integration Project Management Tool (Excel).

Integration Project Management Tool (SharePoint Template)

Follow these instructions to upload our template to your SharePoint environment

  1. Create or use an existing SP site.
  2. Download the M&A Integration Project Plan Tool (SharePoint) .wsp file from the Mergers & Acquisitions: The Buy Blueprint landing page.
  3. To import a template into your SharePoint environment, do the following:
    1. Open PowerShell.
    2. Connect-SPO Service (need to install PowerShell module).
    3. Enter in your tenant admin URL.
    4. Enter in your admin credentials.
    5. Set-SPO Site https://YourDomain.sharepoint.com/sites/YourSiteHe... -DenyAddAndCustomizePages 0
    OR
    1. Turn on both custom script features to allow users to run custom
  4. Screenshot of the 'Custom Script' option for importing a template into your SharePoint environment. Feature description reads 'Control whether users can run custom script on personal sites and self-service created sites. Note: changes to this setting might take up to 24 hours to take effect. For more information, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkIn=397546'. There are options to prevent or allow users from running custom script on personal/self-service created sites.
  5. Enable the SharePoint Server Standard Site Collection features.
  6. Upload the .wsp file in Solutions Gallery.
  7. Deploy by creating a subsite and select from custom options.
    • Allow or prevent custom script
    • Security considerations of allowing custom script
    • Save, download, and upload a SharePoint site as a template
  8. Refer to Microsoft documentation to understand security considerations and what is and isn’t supported:

For more information, check out the SharePoint Template: Step-by-Step Deployment Guide.

Participate in active workforce planning to transition employees

The chosen IT operating model, primary M&A goals, and any planned changes to business strategy will dramatically impact IT staffing and workforce planning efforts.

Visualization of the three aspects of 'IT workforce planning', as listed below.

IT workforce planning

  • Primary M&A goals
    If the goal of the M&A is cost cutting, then workforce planning will be necessary to identify labor redundancies.
  • Changes to business strategy
    If business strategy will change after the merger, then workforce planning will typically be more involved than if business strategy will not change.
  • Integration strategy
    For independent models, workforce planning will typically be unnecessary.
    For connection of essential systems or absorption, workforce planning will likely be an involved, time-consuming process.
  1. Estimate the headcount you will need through the end of the M&A transition period.
  2. Outline the process you will use to assess staff for roles that have more than one candidate.
  3. Review employees in each department to determine the best fit for each role.
  4. Determine whether terminations will happen all together or in waves.

Info-Tech Insight

Don’t be a short-term thinker when it comes to workforce planning! IT teams that only consider the headcount needed on day one of the new entity will end up scrambling to find skilled resources to fill workforce gaps later in the transition period.

3.2.3 Identify the needed workforce supply

3-4 hours

Input: IT strategy, Prioritized integration tasks

Output: A clear indication of how many resources are required for each role and the number of resources that the organization actually has

Materials: Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Target organization employees, Company M&A team, Transition team

The purpose of this activity is to determine the anticipated amount of work that will be required to support projects (like integration), administrative, and keep-the-lights-on activities.

  1. Download the Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator.
  2. The calculator requires minimal up-front staff participation: You can obtain meaningful results with participation from as few as one person with insight on the distribution of your resources and their average work week or month.
  3. The calculator will yield a report that shows a breakdown of your annual resource supply and demand, as well as the gap between the supply and demand. Further insight on project and non-project supply and demand are provided.
  4. Repeat the tool several times to identify the needs of your IT environment for day one, day 30/100, and year one. Anticipate that these will change over time. Also, do not forget to obtain this information from the target organization. Given that you will be integrating, it’s important to know how many staff they have in which roles.
  5. **For additional information, please review slides starting from slide 44 in Establish Realistic IT Resource Management Practices to see how to use the tool.

Record the results in the Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator.

Resource Supply-Demand Calculator Output Example

Example of a 'Resource Management Supply-Demand Analysis Report' with charts and tables measuring Annualized Resource Supply and Demand, Resource Capacity Confidence, Project Capacity, and combinations of those metrics.

Resource Capacity Confidence. This figure is based on your confidence in supply confidence, demand stability, and the supply-demand ratio.

Importance of estimating integration costs

Change is the key driver of integration costs

Integration costs are dependent on the following:
  • Meeting synergy targets – whether that be cost saving or growth related.
    • Employee-related costs, licensing, and reconfiguration fees play a huge part in meeting synergy targets.
  • Adjustments related to compliance or regulations – especially if there are changes to legal entities, reporting requirements, or risk-mitigation standards.
  • Governance or third party–related support required to ensure timelines are met and the integration is a success.
Integration costs vary by industry type.
  • Certain industries may have integration costs made up of mostly one type, differing from other industries, due to the complexity and different demands of the transaction. For example:
    • Healthcare integration costs are mostly driven by regulatory, safety, and quality standards, as well as consolidation of the research and development function.
    • Energy and Utilities tend to have the lowest integration costs due to most transactions occurring within the same sector rather than as a cross-sector investment. For example, oil and gas acquisitions tend to be for oil fields and rigs (strategic fixed assets), which can easily be added to the buyer’s portfolio.

Integration costs are more related to the degree of change required than the size of the transaction.

3.2.4 Estimate integration costs

3-4 hours

Input: Integration tasks, Transition team, Valuation of current IT environment, Valuation of target IT environment, Outputs from data room, Technical debt, Employees

Output: List of anticipated costs required to support IT integration

Materials: Integration task checklist, Integration roadmap, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team, Transition team

The purpose of this activity is to estimate the costs that will be associated with the integration. It’s important to ensure a realistic figure is identified and communicated to the larger M&A team within your company as early in the process as possible. This ensures that the funding required for the transaction is secured and budgeted for in the overarching transaction.

  1. On the associated slide in the M&A Buy Playbook, input:
    • Task
    • Domain
    • Cost type
    • Total cost amount
    • Level of certainty around the cost
  2. Provide a copy of the estimated costs to the company’s M&A team. Also provide any additional information identified earlier to help them understand the importance of those costs.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

Employee transition planning

Considering employee impact will be a huge component to ensure successful integration

  • Meet With Leadership
  • Plan Individual and Department Redeployment
  • Plan Individual and Department Layoffs
  • Monitor and Manage Departmental Effectiveness
  • For employees, the transition could mean:
    • Changing from their current role to a new role to meet requirements and expectations throughout the transition.
    • Being laid off because the role they are currently occupying has been made redundant.
  • It is important to plan for what the M&A integration needs will be and what the IT operational needs will be.
  • A lack of foresight into this long-term plan could lead to undue costs and headaches trying to retain critical staff, rehiring positions that were already let go, and keeping redundant employees longer then necessary.

Info-Tech Insight

Being transparent throughout the process is critical. Do not hesitate to tell employees the likelihood that their job may be made redundant. This will ensure a high level of trust and credibility for those who remain with the organization after the transaction.

3.2.5 Create an employee transition plan

3-4 hours

Input: IT strategy, IT organizational design, Resource Supply-Demand Calculator output

Output: Employee transition plans

Materials: M&A Buy Playbook, Whiteboard, Sticky notes, Markers

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team, Transition team

The purpose of this activity is to create a transition plan for employees.

  1. Transition planning can be done at specific individual levels or more broadly to reflect a single role. Consider these four items in the transition plan:
    • Understand the direction of the employee transitions.
    • Identify employees that will be involved in the transition (moved or laid off).
    • Prepare to meet with employees.
    • Meet with employees.
  2. For each employee that will be facing some sort of change in their regular role, permanent or temporary, create a transition plan.
  3. For additional information on transitioning employees, review the blueprint Streamline Your Workforce During a Pandemic.

**Note that if someone’s future role is a layoff, then there is no need to record anything for skills needed or method for skill development.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

3.2.6 Create functional workplans for employees

3-4 hours

Input: Prioritized integration tasks, Employee transition plan, Integration RACI, Costs for activities, Activity owners

Output: Employee functional workplans

Materials: M&A Buy Playbook, Learning and development tools

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, IT management team, Company M&A team, Transition team

The purpose of this activity is to create a functional workplan for the different employees so that they know what their key role and responsibilities are once the transaction occurs.

  1. First complete the transition plan from the previous activity (3.2.5) and the separation roadmap. Have these documents ready to review throughout this process.
  2. Identify the employees who will be transitioning to a new role permanently or temporarily. Creating a functional workplan is especially important for these employees.
  3. Identify the skills these employees need to have to support the separation. Record this in the corresponding slide in the M&A Buy Playbook.
  4. For each employee, identify someone who will be a point of contact for them throughout the transition.

It is recommended that each employee have a functional workplan. Leverage the IT managers to support this task.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

Metrics for integration

Valuation & Due Diligence

  • % Defects discovered in production
  • $ Cost per user for enterprise applications
  • % In-house-built applications vs. enterprise applications
  • % Owners identified for all data domains
  • # IT staff asked to participate in due diligence
  • Change to due diligence
  • IT budget variance
  • Synergy target

Execution & Value Realization

  • % Satisfaction with the effectiveness of IT capabilities
  • % Overall end-customer satisfaction
  • $ Impact of vendor SLA breaches
  • $ Savings through cost-optimization efforts
  • $ Savings through application rationalization and technology standardization
  • # Key positions empty
  • % Frequency of staff turnover
  • % Emergency changes
  • # Hours of unplanned downtime
  • % Releases that cause downtime
  • % Incidents with identified problem record
  • % Problems with identified root cause
  • # Days from problem identification to root cause fix
  • % Projects that consider IT risk
  • % Incidents due to issues not addressed in the security plan
  • # Average vulnerability remediation time
  • % Application budget spent on new build/buy vs. maintenance (deferred feature implementation, enhancements, bug fixes)
  • # Time (days) to value realization
  • % Projects that realized planned benefits
  • $ IT operational savings and cost reductions that are related to synergies/divestitures
  • % IT staff–related expenses/redundancies
  • # Days spent on IT integration
  • $ Accurate IT budget estimates
  • % Revenue growth directly tied to IT delivery
  • % Profit margin growth

3.2.7 Align project metrics with identified tasks

3-4 hours

Input: Prioritized integration tasks, Employee transition plan, Integration RACI, Costs for activities, Activity owners, M&A goals

Output: Integration-specific metrics to measure success

Materials: Roadmap template, M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Transition team

The purpose of this activity is to understand how to measure the success of the integration project by aligning metrics to each identified task.

  1. Review the M&A goals identified by the business. Your metrics will need to tie back to those business goals.
  2. Identify metrics that align to identified tasks and measure achievement of those goals. For each metric you consider, ask the following questions:
    • What is the main goal or objective that this metric is trying to solve?
    • What does success look like?
    • Does the metric promote the right behavior?
    • Is the metric actionable? What is the story you are trying to tell with this metric?
    • How often will this get measured?
    • Are there any metrics it supports or is supported by?

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

By the end of this mid-transaction phase you should:

Have successfully evaluated the target organization’s IT environment, escalated the acquisition risks and benefits, and prepared IT for integration.

Key outcomes from the Due Diligence & Preparation phase
  • Participate in due diligence activities to accurately valuate the target organization(s) and determine if there are critical risks or benefits the current organization should be aware of.
  • Create an integration roadmap that considers the tasks that will need to be completed and the resources required to support integration.
Key deliverables from the Due Diligence & Preparation phase
  • Establish a due diligence charter
  • Create a list of data room artifacts and engage in due diligence
  • Assess the target organization’s technical debt
  • Valuate the target IT organization
  • Assess and plan for culture
  • Prioritize integration tasks
  • Establish the integration roadmap
  • Identify the needed workforce supply
  • Estimate integration costs
  • Create employee transition plans
  • Create functional workplans for employees
  • Align project metrics with identified tasks

M&A Buy Blueprint

Phase 4

Execution & Value Realization

Phase 1Phase 2Phase 3

Phase 4

  • 1.1 Identify Stakeholders and Their Perspective of IT
  • 1.2 Assess IT’s Current Value and Future State
  • 1.3 Drive Innovation and Suggest Growth Opportunities
  • 2.1 Establish the M&A Program Plan
  • 2.2 Prepare IT to Engage in the Acquisition
  • 3.1 Assess the Target Organization
  • 3.2 Prepare to Integrate
  • 4.1 Execute the Transaction
  • 4.2 Reflection and Value Realization

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

  • Rationalize the IT environment
  • Continually update the project plan
  • Confirm integration costs
  • Review IT’s transaction value
  • Conduct a transaction and integration SWOT
  • Review the playbook and prepare for future transactions

This phase involves the following participants:

  • IT executive/CIO
  • IT senior leadership
  • Vendor management team
  • IT transaction team
  • Company M&A team

Workshop Overview

Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

Pre-Work

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Engage in Integration

Day 4

Establish the Transaction FoundationDiscover the Motivation for IntegrationPlan the Integration RoadmapPrepare Employees for the TransitionEngage in IntegrationAssess the Transaction Outcomes (Must be within 30 days of transaction date)

Activities

  • 0.1 Understand the rationale for the company's decisions to pursue an acquisition.
  • 0.2 Identify key stakeholders and determine the IT transaction team.
  • 0.3 Gather and evaluate the M&A strategy, future-state operating model, and governance.
  • 1.1 Review the business rationale for the acquisition.
  • 1.2 Identify pain points and opportunities tied to the acquisition.
  • 1.3 Establish the integration strategy.
  • 1.4 Prioritize Integration tasks.
  • 2.1 Establish the integration roadmap.
  • 2.2 Establish and align project metrics with identified tasks.
  • 2.3 Estimate integration costs.
  • 3.1 Assess the current culture and identify the goal culture.
  • 3.2 Identify the needed workforce supply.
  • 3.3 Create an employee transition plan.
  • 3.4 Create functional workplans for employees.
  • I.1 Complete the integration by regularly updating the project plan.
  • I.2 Begin to rationalize the IT environment where possible and necessary.
  • 4.1 Confirm integration costs.
  • 4.2 Review IT’s transaction value.
  • 4.3 Conduct a transaction and integration SWOT.
  • 4.4 Review the playbook and prepare for future transactions.

Deliverables

  1. IT strategy
  2. IT operating model
  3. IT governance structure
  4. M&A transaction team
  1. Business context implications for IT
  2. Integration strategy
  1. Integration roadmap and associated resourcing
  1. Culture assessment
  2. Workforce supply identified
  3. Employee transition plan
  1. Rationalized IT environment
  2. Updated integration project plan
  1. SWOT of transaction
  2. M&A Buy Playbook refined for future transactions

What is the Execution & Value Realization phase?

Post-transaction state

Once the transaction comes to a close, it’s time for IT to deliver on the critical integration tasks. Set the organization up for success by having an integration roadmap. Retaining critical IT staff throughout this process will also be imperative to the overall transaction success.

Throughout the integration process, roadblocks will arise and need to be addressed. However, by ensuring that employees, technology, and processes are planned for ahead of the transaction, you as IT will be able to weather those unexpected concerns with greater ease.

Now that you as an IT leader have engaged in an acquisition, demonstrating the value IT was able to provide to the process is critical to establishing a positive and respected relationship with other senior leaders in the business. Be prepared to identify the positives and communicate this value to advance the business’ perception of IT.

Goal: To carry out the planned integration activities and deliver the intended value to the business

Execution Prerequisite Checklist

Before coming into the Execution & Value Realization phase, you must have addressed the following:

  • Understand the rationale for the company's decisions to pursue an acquisition and what opportunities or pain points the acquisition should alleviate.
  • Identify the key roles for the transaction team.
  • Identify the M&A governance.
  • Determine target metrics and align to project tasks.
  • Select an integration strategy framework.
  • Conduct a RACI for key transaction tasks for the transaction team.
  • Create a list of data room artifacts and engage in due diligence (directly or indirectly).
  • Prioritize integration tasks.
  • Establish the integration roadmap.
  • Identify the needed workforce supply.
  • Create employee transition plans.

Before coming into the Execution & Value Realization phase, we recommend addressing the following:

  • Create vision and mission statements.
  • Establish guiding principles.
  • Create a future-state operating model.
  • Identify the M&A operating model.
  • Document the communication plan.
  • Examine the business perspective of IT.
  • Identify key stakeholders and outline their relationship to the M&A process.
  • Be able to valuate the IT environment and communicate IT's value to the business.
  • Establish a due diligence charter.
  • Assess the target organization’s technical debt.
  • Valuate the target IT organization.
  • Assess and plan for culture.
  • Estimate integration costs.
  • Create functional workplans for employees.

Integration checklists

Prerequisite Checklist
  • Build the project plan for integration and prioritize activities
    • Plan first day
    • Plan first 30/100 days
    • Plan first year
  • Create an organization-aligned IT strategy
  • Identify critical stakeholders
  • Create a communication strategy
  • Understand the rationale for the acquisition or purchase
  • Develop IT's purchasing strategy
  • Determine goal opportunities
  • Create the mission and vision statements
  • Create the guiding principles
  • Create program metrics
  • Consolidate reports from due diligence/data room
  • Conduct culture assessment
  • Create a transaction team
  • Assess workforce demand and supply
  • Plan and communicate potential layoffs
  • Create an employee transition plan
  • Identify the IT investment
Business
  • Design an enterprise architecture
  • Document your business architecture
  • Identify and assess all of IT's risks
Leadership/IT Executive
  • Build an IT budget
  • Structure operating budget
  • Structure capital budget
  • Identify the needed workforce demand vs. capacity
  • Establish and monitor key metrics
  • Communicate value realized/cost savings
Data
  • Confirm data strategy
  • Confirm data governance
  • Data architecture
  • Data sources
  • Data storage (on-premises vs. cloud)
  • Enterprise content management
  • Compatibility of data types between organizations
  • Cleanliness/usability of target organization data sets
  • Identify data sets that need to be combined to capture synergies/drive core capabilities
  • Reporting and analytics capabilities
Applications
  • Prioritize and address critical applications
    • ERP
    • CRM
    • Email
    • HRIS
    • Financial
    • Sales
    • Risk
    • Security
  • Leverage application rationalization framework to determine applications to keep, terminate, or create
  • Develop method of integrating applications
  • Model critical applications that have dependencies on one another
  • Identify the infrastructure capacity required to support critical applications
Operations
  • Communicate helpdesk/service desk information
  • Manage sales access to customer data
  • Determine locations and hours of operation
  • Consolidate phone lists and extensions
  • Synchronize email address books

Integration checklists (continued)

Infrastructure
  • Determine single network access
  • Manage organization domains
  • Consolidate data centers
  • Compile inventory of vendors, versions, switches, and routers
  • Review hardware lease or purchase agreements
  • Review outsourcing/service provider agreements
  • Review service-level agreements
  • Assess connectivity linkages between locations
  • Plan to migrate to a single email system if necessary
Vendors
  • Establish a sustainable vendor management office
  • Review vendor landscape
  • Identify warranty options
  • Rationalize vendor services and solutions
  • Identify opportunities to mature the security architecture
People
  • Design an IT operating model
  • Redesign your IT organizational structure
  • Conduct a RACI
  • Conduct a culture assessment and identify goal IT culture
  • Build an IT employee engagement program
  • Determine critical roles and systems/process/products they support
  • Create a list of employees to be terminated
  • Create employee transition plans
  • Create functional workplans
Projects
  • Stop duplicate or unnecessary target organization projects
  • Communicate project intake process
  • Prioritize projects
Products & Services
  • Ensure customer services requirements are met
  • Ensure customer interaction requirements are met
  • Select a solution for product lifecycle management
Security
  • Conduct a security assessment of target organization
  • Develop accessibility prioritization and schedule
  • Establish an information security strategy
  • Develop a security awareness and training program
  • Develop and manage security governance, risk, and compliance
  • Identify security budget
  • Build a data privacy and classification program
IT Processes
  • Evaluate current process models
  • Determine productivity/capacity levels of processes
  • Identify processes to be terminated
  • Identify process expectations from target organization
  • Establish a communication plan
  • Develop a change management process
  • Establish/review IT policies

Execution & Value Realization

Step 4.1

Execute the Transaction

Activities

  • 4.1.1 Rationalize the IT environment
  • 4.1.2 Continually update the project plan

This step involves the following participants:

  • IT executive/CIO
  • IT senior leadership
  • Vendor management team
  • IT transaction team
  • Company M&A team

Outcomes of Step

Successfully execute on the integration and strategize how to rationalize the two (or more) IT environments and update the project plan, strategizing against any roadblocks as they might come.

Compile –› Assess –› Rationalize

Access to critical information often does not happen until day one

  • As the transaction comes to a close and the target organization becomes the acquired organization, it’s important to start working on the rationalization of your organization.
  • One of the most important elements will be to have a complete understanding of the acquired organization’s IT environment. Specifically, assess the technology, people, and processes that might exist.
  • This rationalization will be heavily dependent on your planned integration strategy determined in the Discovery & Strategy phase of the process.
  • If your IT organization was not involved until after that phase, then determine whether your organization plans on remaining in its original state, taking on the acquired organization’s state, or forming a best-of-breed state by combining elements.
  • To execute on this, however, a holistic understanding of the new IT environment is required.

Some Info-Tech resources to support this initiative:

  • Reduce and Manage Your Organization’s Insider Threat Risk
  • Build an Application Rationalization Framework
  • Rationalize Your Collaboration Tools
  • Consolidate IT Asset Management
  • Build Effective Enterprise Integration on the Back of Business Process
  • Consolidate Your Data Centers

4.1.1 Rationalize the IT environment

6-12 months

Input: RACI chart, List of critical applications, List of vendor contracts, List of infrastructure assets, List of data assets

Output: Rationalized IT environment

Materials: Software Terms & Conditions Evaluation Tool

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Vendor management

The purpose of this activity is to rationalize the IT environment to reduce and eliminate redundant technology.

  1. Compile a list of the various applications and vendor contracts from the acquired organization and the original organization.
  2. Determine where there is repetition. Have a member of the vendor management team review those contracts and identify cost-saving opportunities.

This will not be a quick and easy activity to complete. It will require strong negotiation on the behalf of the vendor management team.

For additional information and support for this activity, see the blueprint Master Contract Review and Negotiations for Software Agreements.

4.1.2 Continually update the project plan

Reoccurring basis following transition

Input: Prioritized integration tasks, Integration RACI, Activity owners

Output: Updated integration project plan

Materials: M&A Integration Project Management Tool

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, IT transaction team, Company M&A team

The purpose of this activity is to ensure that the project plan is continuously updated as your transaction team continues to execute on the various components outlined in the project plan.

  1. Set a regular cadence for the transaction team to meet, update and review the status of the various integration task items, and strategize how to overcome any roadblocks.
  2. Employ governance best practices in these meetings to ensure decisions can be made effectively and resources allocated strategically.

Record the updates in the M&A Integration Project Management Tool (SharePoint).

Record the updates in the M&A Integration Project Management Tool (Excel).

Execution & Value Realization

Step 4.2

Reflection and Value Realization

Activities

  • 4.2.1 Confirm integration costs
  • 4.2.2 Review IT’s transaction value
  • 4.2.3 Conduct a transaction and integration SWOT
  • 4.2.4 Review the playbook and prepare for future transactions

This step involves the following participants:

  • IT executive/CIO
  • IT senior leadership
  • Transition team
  • Company M&A team

Outcomes of Step

Review the value that IT was able to generate around the transaction and strategize on how to improve future acquisition transactions.

4.2.1 Confirm integration costs

3-4 hours

Input: Integration tasks, Transition team, Previous RACI, Estimated costs

Output: Actual integration costs

Materials: M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, IT transaction team, Company M&A team

The purpose of this activity is to confirm the associated costs around integration. While the integration costs would have been estimated previously, it’s important to confirm the costs that were associated with the integration in order to provide an accurate and up-to-date report to the company’s M&A team.

  1. Taking all the original items identified previously in activity 3.2.4, identify if there were changes in the estimated costs. This can be an increase or a decrease.
  2. Ensure that each cost has a justification for why the cost changed from the original estimation.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

Track synergy capture through the IT integration

The ultimate goal of the M&A is to achieve and deliver deal objectives. Early in the M&A, IT must identify, prioritize, and execute upon synergies that deliver value to the business and its shareholders. Continue to measure IT’s contribution toward achieving the organization’s M&A goals throughout the integration by keeping track of cost savings and synergies that have been achieved. When these achievements happen, communicate them and celebrate success.

  1. Define Synergy Metrics: Select metrics to track synergies through the integration.
    1. You can track value by looking at percentages of improvement in process-level metrics depending on the synergies being pursued.
    2. For example, if the synergy being pursued is increasing asset utilization, metrics could range from capacity to revenue generated through increased capacity.
  2. Prioritize Synergistic Initiatives: Estimate the cost and benefit of each initiative's implementation to compare the amount of business value to the cost. The benefits and costs should be illustrated at a high level. Estimating the exact dollar value of fulfilling a synergy can be difficult and misleading.
      Steps
    • Determine the benefits that each initiative is expected to deliver.
    • Determine the high-level costs of implementation (capacity, time, resources, effort).
  3. Track Synergy Captures: Develop a detailed workplan to resource the roadmap and track synergy captures as the initiatives are undertaken.

Once 80% of the necessary synergies are realized, executive pressure will diminish. However, IT must continue to work toward the technology end state to avoid delayed progression.

4.2.2 Review IT’s transaction value

3-4 hours

Input: Prioritized integration tasks, Integration RACI, Activity owners, M&A company goals

Output: Transaction value

Materials: M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company's M&A team

The purpose of this activity is to track how your IT organization performed against the originally identified metrics.

  1. If your organization did not have the opportunity to identify metrics earlier, determine from the company M&A team what those metrics might be. Review activity 3.2.7 for more information on metrics.
  2. Identify whether the metric (which should be used to support a goal) was at, below, or above the original target metric. This is a very critical task for IT to complete because it allows IT to confirm that they were successful engaging in the transaction and that the business can count on them in future transactions.
  3. Be sure to record accurate and relevant information on why the outcomes (good or bad) are supporting the M&A goals that were set out by the business.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

4.2.3 Conduct a transaction and integration SWOT

2 hours

Input: Integration costs, Retention rates, Value IT contributed to the transaction

Output: Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats

Materials: Flip charts, Markers, Sticky notes

Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Business transaction team

The purpose of this activity is to assess the positive and negative elements of the transaction.

  1. Consider the various internal and external elements that could have impacted the outcome of the transaction.
    • Strengths. Internal characteristics that are favorable as they relate to your development environment.
    • Weaknesses Internal characteristics that are unfavorable or need improvement.
    • Opportunities External characteristics that you may use to your advantage.
    • Threats External characteristics that may be potential sources of failure or risk.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

M&A Buy Playbook review

With an acquisition complete, your IT organization is now more prepared then ever to support the business through future M&As

  • Now that the transaction is more than 80% complete, take the opportunity to review the key elements that worked well and the opportunities for improvement in future transactions.
  • Critically examine the M&A Buy Playbook your IT organization created and identify what worked well to help the transaction and where your organization could adjust to do better in future transactions.
  • If your organization were to engage in another acquisition under your IT leadership, how would you go about the transaction to make sure the company meets its goals?

4.2.4 Review the playbook and prepare for future transactions

4 hours

Input: Transaction and integration SWOT

Output: Refined M&A playbook

Materials: M&A Buy Playbook

Participants: IT executive/CIO

The purpose of this activity is to revise the playbook and ensure it is ready to go for future transactions.

  1. Using the outputs from the previous activity, 4.2.3, determine what strengths and opportunities there were that should be leveraged in the next transaction.
  2. Likewise, determine which threats and weaknesses could be avoided in the future transactions.
    Remember, this is your M&A Buy Playbook, and it should reflect the most successful outcome for you in your organization.

Record the results in the M&A Buy Playbook.

By the end of this post-transaction phase you should:

Have completed the integration post-transaction and be fluidly delivering the critical value that the business expected of IT.

Key outcomes from the Execution & Value Realization phase
  • Ensure the integration tasks are being completed and that any blockers related to the transaction are being removed.
  • Determine where IT was able to realize value for the business and demonstrate IT’s involvement in meeting target goals.
Key deliverables from the Execution & Value Realization phase
  • Rationalize the IT environment
  • Continually update the project plan for completion
  • Confirm integration costs
  • Review IT’s transaction value
  • Conduct a transaction and integration SWOT
  • Review the playbook and prepare for future transactions

Summary of Accomplishment

Problem Solved

Congratulations, you have completed the M&A Buy Blueprint!

Rather than reacting to a transaction, you have been proactive in tackling this initiative. You now have a process to fall back on in which you can be an innovative IT leader by suggesting how and why the business should engage in an acquisition. You now have:

  • Created a standardized approach for how your IT organization should address acquisitions.
  • Evaluated the target organizations successfully and established an integration project plan.
  • Delivered on the integration project plan successfully and communicated IT’s transaction value to the business.

Now that you have done all of this, reflect on what went well and what can be improved in case if you have to do this all again in a future transaction.

If you would like additional support, have our analysts guide you through other phases as part of an Info-Tech workshop.

Contact your account representative for more information
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8899

Research Contributors and Experts

Ibrahim Abdel-Kader
Research Analyst | CIO
Info-Tech Research Group
Brittany Lutes
Senior Research Analyst | CIO
Info-Tech Research Group
John Annand
Principal Research Director | Infrastructure
Info-Tech Research Group
Scott Bickley
Principal Research Director | Vendor Management
Info-Tech Research Group
Cole Cioran
Practice Lead | Applications
Info-Tech Research Group
Dana Daher
Research Analyst | Strategy & Innovation
Info-Tech Research Group
Eric Dolinar
Manager | M&A Consulting
Deloitte Canada
Christoph Egel
Director, Solution Design & Deliver
Cooper Tire & Rubber Company
Nora Fisher
Vice President | Executive Services Advisory
Info-Tech Research Group
Larry Fretz
Vice President | Industry
Info-Tech Research Group

Research Contributors and Experts

David Glazer
Vice President of Analytics
Kroll
Jack Hakimian
Senior Vice President | Workshops and Delivery
Info-Tech Research Group
Gord Harrison
Senior Vice President | Research & Advisory
Info-Tech Research Group
Valence Howden
Principal Research Director | CIO
Info-Tech Research Group
Jennifer Jones
Research Director | Industry
Info-Tech Research Group
Nancy McCuaig
Senior Vice President | Chief Technology and Data Office
IGM Financial Inc.
Carlene McCubbin
Practice Lead | CIO
Info-Tech Research Group
Kenneth McGee
Research Fellow | Strategy & Innovation
Info-Tech Research Group
Nayma Naser
Associate
Deloitte
Andy Neill
Practice Lead | Data & Analytics, Enterprise Architecture
Info-Tech Research Group

Research Contributors and Experts

Rick Pittman
Vice President | Research
Info-Tech Research Group
Rocco Rao
Research Director | Industry
Info-Tech Research Group
Mark Rosa
Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer
Mohegan Gaming and Entertainment
Tracy-Lynn Reid
Research Lead | People & Leadership
Info-Tech Research Group
Jim Robson
Senior Vice President | Shared Enterprise Services (retired)
Great-West Life
Steven Schmidt
Senior Managing Partner Advisory | Executive Services
Info-Tech Research Group
Nikki Seventikidis
Senior Manager | Finance Initiative & Continuous Improvement
CST Consultants Inc.
Allison Straker
Research Director | CIO
Info-Tech Research Group
Justin Waelz
Senior Network & Systems Administrator
Info-Tech Research Group
Sallie Wright
Executive Counselor
Info-Tech Research Group

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Take Advantage of Big Tech Layoffs

  • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}573|cart{/j2store}
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  • Parent Category Name: Attract & Select
  • Parent Category Link: /attract-and-select

Tech layoffs have been making the news over the past year, with thousands of Big Tech employees having been laid off. After years of record low unemployment in IT, many leaders are looking to take advantage of these layoffs to fill their talent gaps.

However, IT leaders need to determine their response – wait and see the impact of the recession on budgets and candidate expectations, or dive in and secure great talent to execute today on strategic needs. This research is designed to help those IT leaders who are looking to take advantage employee effective talents to secure talent.

  • With the impact of the economic slowdown still unknown, the first question IT leaders need to ask is whether now is the time to act.
  • Even with these layoffs, IT unemployment rates are at record lows, with many organizations continuing to struggle to attract talent. While these layoffs have opened a window, IT leaders need to act quickly to secure great talent.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

The “where has the talent gone?” puzzle has been solved. Many tech firms over-hired and were able to outcompete everyone, but it wasn’t sustainable. This correction won’t impact unemployment numbers in the short term – the job force is just in flux right now.

Impact and Result

This research is designed to help IT leaders understand the talent market and to provide winning tactics to those looking to take advantage of the layoffs to fill their hiring needs.

Take Advantage of Big Tech Layoffs Research & Tools

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Take Advantage of Big Tech Layoffs Storyboard – A snapshot of the current talent market in IT and quick tactics IT leaders can employ to improve their hiring process to find and attract tech talent.

Straightforward tactics you can execute to successfully recruit IT staff impacted by layoffs.

  • Take Advantage of Big Tech Layoffs Storyboard

2. IT Talent Acquisition Optimization Tool – Use this tool to document the current and future talent acquisition process.

To hire efficiently, create a clear, consistent talent acquisition process. The IT Talent Acquisition Process Optimization Tool will help to:

  • Map out the current talent acquisition workflow
  • Identify areas of opportunity and potential gaps in the current process
    • IT Talent Acquisition Optimization Tool
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Take Advantage of Big Tech Layoffs

    Simple tactics to secure the right talent in times of economic uncertainty.

    Why are the layoffs making the news?

    After three years of record low unemployment rates in IT and organizations struggling to hire IT talent into their organization, the window appears to be opening with tens of thousands layoffs from Big Tech employers.

    Big brand organizations such as Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Twitter, Netflix, and Meta have been hitting major newswires, but these layoffs aren't exclusive to the big names. We've also seen smaller high-growth tech organizations following suit. In fact, in 2022, it's estimated that there were more than 160,997 layoffs across over 1,045 tech organizations. This trend has continued into 2023. By mid-February 2023, there were already 108,754 employees laid off at 385 tech companies (Layoffs.fyi).(1)

    While some of these layoffs have been openly connected to economic slowdown, others are pointing to the layoffs being a correction for over-hiring during the pandemic. It is also important to note that many of these workers were not IT employees, as these organizations also saw cuts across other areas of the business such as sales, marketing, recruitment, and operations.

    (1)This global database is constantly being updated, and these numbers are changing on an ongoing basis. For up-to-date statistics, see https://layoffs.fyi

    While tech layoffs have been making the news, so far many of these layoffs have been a correction to over-hiring, with most employees laid off finding work, if they want it, within three months.

    IT leaders need to determine their response – wait and see the impact of the recession on budgets and candidate expectations or dive in and secure great talent to execute today on strategic needs.

    This research is designed to help IT leaders understand the talent market and provide winning strategies to those looking to take advantage of the layoffs to fill their hiring needs.

    Three key drivers for Big Tech layoffs

    Economic uncertainty

    Globally, economists are predicting an economic slowdown, though there is not a consistent prediction on the impact. We have seen an increase in interest rates and inflation, as well as reduced investment budgets.

    Over-hiring during the pandemic

    High growth and demand for digital technologies and services during the early pandemic led to over-hiring in the tech industry. Many organizations overestimated the future demand and had to rebalance staffing as a result.

    New automation investments

    Many tech organizations that have conducted layoffs are still in a growth mindset. This is demonstrated though new tech investments by these companies in products like chatbots and RPA to semi-automate processes to reduce the need for certain roles.

    Despite layoffs, the labor market remains competitive

    There were at least 160,997 layoffs from more than 1,045 tech companies last year (2022). (Layoffs.fyi reported as of Feb 21/2023)

    But just because Big Tech is laying people off doesn't mean the IT job market has cooled.

    Between January and October 2022 technology- focused job postings rose 25% compared to the same period in 2021, and there were more than 375,000 tech jobs posted in October of 2022.
    (Dice: Tech Jobs Report.)

    Info-Tech Insight

    The "where has the talent gone?" puzzle has been solved. Many tech firms over-hired and were able to outcompete everyone, but it wasn't sustainable. This correction won't impact unemployment numbers in the short term – the job force is just in flux right now.

    So far, many of the layoffs have been a market correction

    Tech Layoffs Since COVID-19

    This is an image of a combo line graph plotting the number of tech layoffs from Q1 2020 to Q4 2022.

    Source: Layoffs.fyi - Tech Layoff Tracker and Startup Layoff Lists

    Tech Companies Layoffs vs. Early Pandemic Hiring # of People

    This is an image of a bar graph plotting Tech Companies Layoffs vs. Early Pandemic Hiring # of People

    Source: Yahoo Finance. Q4 '19 to Q3 '22

    Tech Layoffs between 2020 Q3- 2022 Q1 remained very low across the sector. In fact, outside of the initial increase at the start of the pandemic, layoffs have remained at historic low levels of around 1% (HBR, 2023). While the layoffs look significant in isolation, when you compare these numbers to pandemic hiring and growth for these organizations, the figures are relatively small.

    The first question IT leaders need to ask is whether now is the time to act

    The big gamble many CIOs face is whether to strike now to secure talent or to wait to better understand the impact of the recession. While two-thirds of IT professionals are still expecting their budgets to increase in 2023, CIOs must account for the impact of inflation and the recession on their IT budgets and staffing decisions (see Info-Tech's CEO-CIO Alignment Program).

    Ultimately, while unemployment is low today, it's common to see unemployment numbers drop right before a recession. If that is the case, then we will see more talent entering the market, possibly at more competitive salaries. But organizations that wait to hire risk not having the staff they need to execute on their strategy and finding themselves in a hiring freeze. CIOs need to decide on how to approach the economic uncertainty and where to place their bets.

    Looking ahead to 2023, how do you anticipate your IT spending will change compared to spending in 2022?

    This is an image of anticipated changes to IT spending compared to 2022 for the following categories: Decrease of more than 30%; Decrease between 16-30%; Decrease between 6-15%; Decrease between 1-5%; No Change; Increase between 1-5%; Increase between 6-15%; Increase between 16-30%; Increase of more than 30%

    Info-Tech's CEO-CIO Alignment Program

    Organizations ready to take advantage will need to act fast when layoffs happen

    Organizations looking to fill hiring needs or grow their IT/digital organization will need to be strategic and efficient when it comes to recruitment. Regardless of the number of layoffs, it continues to be an employee market when it comes to IT roles.

    While it is likely that the recession will impact unemployment rates, so far, the market remains hot, and the number of open roles continues to grow. This means that organizations that want to take advantage need to act quickly when news hits.

    Leaders not only need to compete with other organizations for talent, but the other challenge hiring organizations will need to compete with is that many in tech received generous severance packages and will be considering taking time off. To take advantage, leaders need to establish a plan and a clear employee value proposition to entice these highly skilled workers to get off the bench.

    Why you need to act fast:

    • Unemployment rates remain low:
      • Tech unemployment's rates in the US dropped to 1.5% in January 2023 (CompTIA), compared to overall unemployment which is at 3.4% in the US as of January 2023 (Yahoo Finance). While the layoffs look significant, we can see that many workers have been rehired into the labor market.
    • Long time-to-hire results in lost candidates:
      • According to Info-Tech's IT Talent Trend Report, 58% of IT leaders report time-to-hire is longer than two months. This timing increases for tech roles which require unique skills or higher seniority. IT leaders who can increase the timeline for their requirement process are much more likely to be able to take advantage of tech layoffs.

    IT must take a leading role in IT recruitment to take advantage of layoffs

    A personal connection is the differentiator when it comes to talent acquisition

    There is a statistically significant relationship between IT leadership involvement in talent acquisition and the effectiveness of this process in the IT department. The more involved they are, the higher the effectiveness.(1)

    More IT leadership involvement

    An image of two upward facing arrows. The left arrow is faded purple, and the right arrow is dark purple.

    Higher recruitment effectiveness

    Involved leaders see shorter times to hire

    There is a statistically significant relationship between IT leadership involvement in the talent acquisition process and time to fill vacant positions. The more involved they are, the shorter the time to hire.(2)

    Involved leaders are an integral part of effective IT departments

    There is a statistically significant relationship between IT leadership involvement in talent acquisition and overall IT department effectiveness. Those that are more involved have higher levels of effectiveness.(3)

    Increased IT Leadership in Recruitment Is Directly Correlated to Recruitment Effectiveness.

    This is an image of a combo bar graph plotting Overall Effectiveness for IT leadership involvement in recruitment.

    Focus your layoff recruitment strategy on critical and strategic roles

    If you are ready to take advantage of tech layoffs, focus hiring on critical and strategic roles, rather than your operational backfills. Roles related to security, cloud migration, data and analytics, and digital transformation are more likely to be shielded from budget cuts and are logical areas to focus on when looking to recruit from Big Tech organizations.

    Additionally, within the IT talent market, scarcity is focused in areas with specialized skill sets, such as security and architecture, which are dynamic and evolving faster than other skill sets. When looking to recruit in these areas, it's critical that you have a targeted recruitment approach; this is why tech layoffs represent a strong opportunity to secure talent in these specialized areas.

    ROLES DIFFICULT TO FILL

    An image of a bar graph plotting roles by difficulty to fill.

    Info-Tech Talent Trends 2022 Survey

    Four quick tactics to take advantage of Big Tech layoffs

    TALENT ACQUISITION PROCESS TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF LAYOFFS

    This is an image of the talent acquisition process to take advantage of layoffs. It involves the following four steps: 1 Prepare organization and job ads for recruitment.  2 Actively track and scan for layoff activity.  3 Prioritize and screen candidates using salary benchmarks and keywords.  4 Eliminate all unnecessary hiring process steps.

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4

    Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.

    Call #2: IT job ad review.

    Call #4: Identify screening and sourcing opportunities.

    Call #5: Review your IT talent acquisition process.

    Call #3: Employee value proposition review.

    Call #7: Refine your talent acquisition process.

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

    A typical GI is 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

    Tactics to take advantage of tech layoffs

    Activities

    1.1 Spot check your employee value proposition
    1.2 Update job advertisements
    1.3 Document your talent acquisition process
    1.4 Refine your talent acquisition process

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT executive leadership
    • IT hiring manager
    • Human resources
    • Marketing/public relations

    Outcomes of this step

    Streamlined talent acquisition process tailored to take advantage of tech layoffs.

    This is an image of the talent acquisition process to take advantage of layoffs. It involves the following fo steps: 1 Prepare organization and job ads for recrtment.  2 Actively track and scan for layoff aivity.  3 Prioritize and screen candidates using salary benchmarks and kwords.  4 Eliminate all unnecessary hiring process steps.

    Requisition: update job ads and secure approval to hire

    Critical steps:

    1. Ensure you have secured budget and hiring approval.
    2. Identify an IT recruitment partner within the IT organization who will be accountable for working with HR throughout the process and who will actively track and scan for recruitment opportunities.
    3. Update your IT job descriptions.
    4. Spot check your employee value proposition (EVP) to appeal to targeted candidates (Exercise 1.1).
    5. Write employee job ads for relevant skills and minimum viable experience (Exercise 1.2).
    6. Work with HR to develop your candidate outreach messages – ensure that your outreach is empathetic, aligns with your EVP, and focuses on welcoming them to apply to a role.

    The approval process to activate a requisition can be one of the longest stages in the talent acquisition process. Ensure all your roles are up to date and approved so you can trigger outreach as soon as news hits; otherwise, you'll be late before you've even begun.

    Your employee value proposition (EVP) is a key tool for attracting and retaining talent

    Any updates to your EVP need to be a genuine reflection of the employee experience at your organization – and should resonate internally and externally.

    Internal (retention) perspective: These characteristics help to retain new and existing talent by ensuring that new hires' expectations are met and that the EVP is experienced throughout the organization.

    External (attraction) perspective: These characteristics help to attract talent and are targeted so the right candidates are motivated to join, while those who aren't a good fit will self-select out.

    McLean & Company's Employee Value Proposition Framework

    This is an image of McLean & Company's Employee Value Proposition Framework.  It is divided into Retain and Attract.  under Retain, are the following three headings: Aligned; Accurate; Aspirational.  Under Attract are: Compelling; Clear; Comprehensive.

    Source: McLean & Company

    1.1 Spot check your EVP

    1-3 hours

    1. Review your existing IT employee value proposition. If you do not have an EVP, see Info-Tech's comprehensive research Improve the IT Recruitment Process to draft a new EVP.
    2. Invite a representative group of employees to participate in a working group to improve your employee value proposition. Ask each participant to brainstorm the top five things they value most about working at the organization.
    3. Consider the following categories: work environment, career advancement, benefits, and ESG and diversity impact. Brainstorm as a group if there is anything unique your organization offers with regard to these categories.
    4. Compare your notes to your existing EVP, identify up to four key statements to focus on for the EVP, ensuring that your EVP speaks to at least one of the categories above. Remove any statements that no longer speak to who you are as an organization or what you offer.

    Input

    • Existing employee value proposition
    • Employee Engagement Surveys (If Available)

    Output

    • Updated employee value proposition

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/flip charts
    • Job ad template

    Participants

    • Representative group of internal employees.
    • HR
    • Marketing/PR (if possible)

    Four critical factors considered by today's job seeker

    1. Be specific about remote work policies: Include verbiage about whether there is an option to work hybrid or remote. 81% of job seekers stated that whether a job is remote, hybrid, or in-person was a top factor in whether they'd accept an offer (Benefits Canada, 2022).
    2. Career advancement and stability: "37% of Gen Z employees and 25% of millennial employees are currently looking for a job that offers career progression transparency — or, in other words, a job with clear opportunities for growth. This is significantly higher than our findings for older generations Gen X (18%) and baby boomers (7%)," (Lattice, 2021).
    3. Unique benefits: Consider your unique benefits – it's not the Big Tech "fun perks" like slides and ping pong that drive interest. Employees are increasingly looking for roles with long-term benefits programs. 90% of job seekers consider higher pension contributions to be a key factor, and 85% are considering bonuses/profit sharing" (Benefits Canada, 2022). Candidates may accept lower total compensation in exchange for flexibility, culture, work/life balance that was lacking in the start-up scene or the mega-vendors' fast-paced world.
    4. ESG and diversity impact: Include details of how the candidate will make a societal impact through their role, and how the company is acting on climate and sustainability. "Nearly two in five [Gen Z's and millennials] say they have rejected a job or assignment because it did not align with their values," (Deloitte Global, 2022).

    Update or establish job ads for candidate outreach

    Take the time up front to update your IT job descriptions and to write effective job advertisements. A job advertisement is an external-facing document that advertises a position with the intent of attracting job applicants. It contains key elements from the job description as well as information on the organization and its EVP. A job description informs a job ad, it doesn't replace it.
    When updating job descriptions and job ads, it's critical that your requirements are an accurate representation of what you need in the position. For the job ads especially, focus on the minimum requirements for the role, highlight your employee value proposition, and ensure that they are using inclusive language.
    Don't be lulled into using a job description as a posting when there's a time crunch to fill a position – use your preparation time to complete this key step.

    Three tips to consider when building a job ad

    Include the minimum desired requirements

    Include the required skills, responsibilities, and certifications required. Instead of looking for a unicorn, look for what you need and a demonstrated ability to learn. 70% of business executives say they are getting creative about sourcing for skills rather than just considering job experience (Deloitte Insights, 2022).

    Strategically include certifications

    When including certifications, ensure you have validated the process to be certified – i.e. if you are hiring for a role with 3-5 years' experience, ensure that the certification does not take 5-10 years of experience be eligible.

    Use inclusive language

    Consider having a review group within your IT organization to ensure the language is inclusive, that the responsibilities don't read as overly complex, and that it is an accurate representation of the organization's culture.

    1.2 Update or build job ads

    1-3 hours

    1. Begin with a copy of the job ad you are looking to fill, if you haven't begun to draft the role, start with Info-Tech's Job Description Library and Info-Tech's Job Ad Template.
    2. Review the job accountabilities, rank each responsibility based on its importance and volume of work. Determine if there are any responsibilities that are uncommon to be executed by the role and remove unnecessary responsibilities.
    3. For each of the job accountabilities, identify if there is a level of experience, knowledge or competency that would be the minimum bar for a candidate. Remove technical skills, specific technologies, and competencies that aren't directly relevant to the role, responsibilities or values.
    4. Review the education and requirements, and ensure that any certification or educational background is truly needed or suggested.
    5. Use the checklist on the following tab to review and update your job ad.

    Input

    • Job description
    • Employee value proposition
    • Job ad template

    Output

    • Completed job ad

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/flip charts
    • Web share

    Participants

    • Representative group of internal employees.
    • HR
    • Marketing/PR (if possible)

    1.2 Job ad checklist:

    A job ad needs to be two things: effective and inclusive.

    Effective

    The job ad does include:

    The organization's logo.
    Description of the organization.
    Information about benefits.
    A link to the organization's website and social media platforms.
    Steps in the application process and what candidates can expect.

    The job ad:

    Paints an accurate picture of key aspects of the role.
    Tells a story to show potential candidates how the role and organization will fit into their career path (outlines potential career paths, growth opportunities, training, etc.).
    Does not contain too many details and tasks that would overwhelm applicants.
    Highlights the employer brand in a manner that conveys the EVP and markets the organization to attract potential applicants.
    Includes creative design or formatting to make the ad stand out.
    The job ad speaks to the audience by using targeted language (e.g. using creative language when recruiting for a creative role).
    The job ad has been reviewed by HR, Marketing, PR.

    Inclusive

    The job ad does NOT include:

    Industry jargon or abbreviations that are not spelled out.
    Personality characteristics and unnecessary adjectives that would deter qualified candidates (e.g. extroverted, aggressive, competitive).
    A list of specific academic disciplines or schools, GPA requirements, or inflated degree requirements.

    The job ad:

    Uses gender-neutral language and does not contain terms that indicate traits that are typically associated with a specific gender.
    Can be viewed and applications can be completed on mobile devices.
    Focuses on results, day-to-day requirements, competencies, and transferrable skills.
    Includes design that is accessible (e.g. alternative text is provided for images, clear posting structure with headings, color is not used to convey information).

    Sourcing: Set up news trackers and review layoff source lists

    • Set up news and social media trackers to track layoff updates, and ensure you have an IT staff member on standby to complete a more detailed opportunity analysis when layoffs happen.
    • Use layoff source lists such as Layoffs.fyi to actively track organizations that have laid people off, noting the industry, location, and numbers in order to identify potential candidates. Limit your future analysis to locations that would be geographically possible to hire from.
    • Review open-source lists of laid-off employees to quickly identify potential candidates for your organization.
    • Many organizations that have completed layoffs have established outplacement programs to help laid-off staff find new roles. Set a plan in motion with HR to reach out to organizations once a layoff has occurred to understand their layoff support program.

    The key to successful sourcing is for IT to take an active role in identifying which organizations impacted by layoffs would be a good fit, and to quickly respond by searching open-source lists and LinkedIn to reach out potential candidates.

    Consider leveraging open-source lists

    Layoffs.fyi has been tracking and reporting on layoffs since the start of COVID-19. While they are not an official source of information, the site has more than a million views per month and is a strong starting point for IT leaders looking to source candidates from tech layoffs beyond the big organizations that are making the news.

    The site offers a view of companies with layoffs by location, industry, and the source of the info. Additionally, it often lists the names and contact information of laid-off employees, which you can leverage to start your deeper LinkedIn outreach or candidate screening.

    This is an image of two screenshots of open source lists from Layoffs.fyi

    Screenshots from Layoffs.fyi.

    Screening: Prioritize by considering salary benchmarks and keywords

    • Determine a set of consistent pre-screening questions to leverage while screening candidates, which every candidate must answer, including knockout questions.
    • Prioritize by going for salary ranges you can afford: It is important to be aware of what companies are paying within the tech arena, so you know if your salary bands are within a competitive range.
    • Pre-screen resumes using appropriate keywords that are critical for the role, and widen the terms if you do not have enough candidates. Given the pool you are looking to recruit from, consider removing criteria specifically related to education or certifications; instead, prioritize skills and on-the-job experience.

    Screening is one of the most time-consuming stages of the TA process. For each open position, it can take 23 hours to screen resumes (Toolbox, 2021). In fact, 52% of TA leaders believe that screening candidates from a large pool of applicants is the hardest part of recruitment (Ideal, 2021).

    Compensation comparison reports

    Keep in mind that the market may be shifting rapidly as layoffs proliferate, so what the data shows, particularly on free-to-use sites with little data-checking, may not be current and may be overstated. Info-Tech does not provide salary analysis; however, there are publicly available reports and online websites with self-reported data.

    This list contains several market data sources for the tech industry, which may be a good starting point for comparison. Info-Tech is not affiliated with or endorsing any of these market data sources.

    Aon Global Cyber Security Compensation and Talent Survey
    Aon – Radford Surveys Radford Global Technology Survey
    Culpepper Comprehensive Compensation Survey Solution for Technology-Focused Companies
    Modis 2022 IT Compensation Guide
    Motion Recruitment 2023 Tech Salary Guide
    Mondo 2022 Salary Guide for roles & jobs across the technology, creative & digital marketing industries.
    Willis Towers Watson Willis Towers Watson Data Services - Artificial Intelligence and Digital Talent
    Willis Towers Watson 2022 Artificial Intelligence and Digital Talent Survey Report - Canada
    Willis Towers Watson 2022 Artificial Intelligence and Digital Talent Survey Report - U.S.
    Michael Page Salary Guide 2022 for the Greater Toronto Area Technology Industry
    Willis Towers Watson Willis Towers Watson Data Services - Tech, Media, and Gaming
    Willis Towers Watson 2022 Tech, Media and Gaming Executive Survey Report - Canada
    Willis Towers Watson 2022 Tech, Media and Gaming Middle Management, Professional and Support Survey Report - Canada
    Willis Towers Watson 2022 Tech, Media and Gaming Executive Survey Report - U.S.
    Willis Towers Watson 2022 Tech, Media and Gaming Middle Management, Professional and Support Survey Report - U.S.

    Work with your HR partner to streamline your talent acquisition process

    A slow talent acquisition process presents multiple risks to your ability to recruit. Candidates are likely having multiple hiring conversations, and you could lose a good candidate just by being slower than another organization. Additionally, long hiring processes are also an indicator of a high level of bureaucracy in an organization, which may turn off tech candidates who are used to faster-paced decision making.

    Reducing your time-to-hire needs to be a strategic priority, and companies that manage to do this are reaping the benefits: There is a statistically significant relationship between time to fill vacant positions and overall IT department effectiveness. The shorter the time to fill a position, the higher the effectiveness (Bika, 2019).

    Key Considerations for Optimizing your Talent Acquisition Process

    Key Considerations for Optimizing your Talent Acquisition Process

    Review the end-to-end experience

    50%

    of job seekers surveyed had "declined a job offer due to poor [candidate] experience," (Echevarria, 2020).

    Reduce the time to hire

    55%

    "of candidates believe that it should take one to two weeks from the first interview to being offered the job," (Duszyński, 2021).

    Be clear on Timelines

    83%

    "of candidates say it would greatly improve the overall experience if employers provided a clear timeline of the hiring process," (Miller, n.d.).

    Time to hire: Identify solutions to drive efficient hiring

    1. Document all steps between screening and hiring and remove any unnecessary steps.
    2. Create clearly defined interview guides to ensure consistent questioning by interviewers.
    3. Enable hiring managers to schedule their own interviews.
    4. Determine who needs to approve an offer. Streamline the number of approvals, if possible.
    5. Eliminate unnecessary background checks. Many companies have eliminated reference checks, for example, after determining that it was it was not adding value to their decision.
    6. Identify and track key metrics across your talent acquisition process.

    It is critical to partner with your HR department on optimizing this process, as they are typically the process owners and will have deep knowledge of the rationale for decisions. Together, you can identify some opportunities to streamline the process and improve the time to hire.

    4.1 Document your TA process

    1-3 hours

    1. If you have a documented talent acquisition process, begin with that; if not, open the IT Talent Acquisition Process Optimization Tool and map the stages of the talent acquisition process with your HR leader. Stages are the top level in the process (e.g. requisition, sourcing, screening).
    2. Identify all the stakeholders involved in IT talent acquisition and document these in the tool.
    3. Next, identify the steps required for each stage. These are more detailed actions that together will complete the stage (e.g. enter requisition into ATS, intake meeting). Ask subject matter experts to add steps to their portion of the process and document these in the cells.
    4. For each step in the stage, record the time required and the number of people who are involved.

    Input

    • Existing talent acquisition (TA) process document
    • Any TA process metrics
    • Info-Tech's Talent Acquisition Process Optimization Tool

    Output

    • Documented TA process

    Materials

    • Info-Tech's Talent Acquisition Process Optimization Tool
    • Whiteboard/flip charts
    • Sticky notes

    Participants

    • HR
    • IT leaders
    • Hiring manager

    Download the IT Talent Acquisition Process Optimization Tool

    Example of steps in each stage of the TA process

    Activities

    Requisition

    Source

    Screen

    Interview & Assess

    Offer

    Background Check

    Vacancy identified Posted on website Resumes screened in system Interviews scheduled Offer letter drafted Reference checks conducted
    Requisition submitted Posted on job boards Resume screened by recruited First round interviews Offer letter sent Medical checks conducted
    Requisition approved Identification of layoff sources Resumed reviewed by hiring manager Assessment Negotiations Other background checks conducted
    Job description updated Review layoff source lists Screening calls Second round interview First date confirmed
    Job ad updated Screening questions developed Candidates selected
    Intake meeting

    4.2 Refine your TA process

    1-3 hours

    1. Collectively identify any:
      1. Inconsistent applications: Activities that are done differently by different participants.
      2. Bottlenecks: A place in the process where activity is constrained and holds up next steps.
      3. Errors: When a mistake occurs requiring extra time, resources, or rework.
      4. Lack of value: An activity that adds little to no value (often a legacy activity).
    2. Work with HR to identify any proposed solutions to improve consistency, reduce bottlenecks, errors, or eliminate steps that lack value. Document your proposed solutions in tab 3 of the IT Talent Acquisition Optimization Tool.
    3. Identify any new steps needed that would drive greater efficiency, including the tactics suggested in this research. Document any proposed solutions in tab 3.
    4. For each proposed solution, evaluate the general level of effort and impact required to move forward with that solution and select the appropriate classification from the drop-down.
    5. Determine if you will move forward with the proposed solution at this time. Update the TA workflow with your decisions.

    Input

    • Existing talent acquisition (TA) process document
    • Any TA process metrics
    • Info-Tech's Talent Acquisition Process Optimization Tool

    Output

    • Documented TA process

    Materials

    • Info-Tech's Talent Acquisition Process Optimization Tool
    • Whiteboard/flip charts
    • Sticky notes

    Participants

    • HR
    • IT leaders
    • Hiring manager

    Use Info-Tech's IT Talent Acquisition Optimization Tool to document current challenges & target solutions.

    Map your process and identify opportunities to streamline

    This is an image of the talent aquisitions workflow page from Info-Tech's Map your process and identify opportunities to streamline

    Brainstorm and select solutions to improve your process

    This is an image of the Effort Analysis page from Info-Tech's Brainstorm and select solutions to improve your process

    Key considerations when optimizing your process

    • Put yourself in each stakeholder's shoes (candidate, HR, hiring manager). Think through what they need from the process.
    • Challenge assumptions and norms. It can be tempting to get caught up in "how we do it today." Think beyond how it is today.
    • Question timing of activities and events. Identify if they are occurring when they need to.
    • Rebalance work to align with priorities. Identify if work can be redistributed or condensed to use time more efficiently.
    • Distinguish when consistency will add value and when there should be process flexibility.
    • Question the value. For each activity, ask "What value does this activity add?"

    Select metrics to measure Talent Acquisition process improvement

    METRICS INFORMATION
    Metric Definition Calculation
    Average applicants per posting The average number of applicants received per post. Number of applications / Number of postings
    Average number of interviews for open job positions Average number of interviews for open job positions. Total number of interviews / Total number of open job positions
    Average external time to fill Average number of calendar days from when the requisition is issued to when a candidate accepts the position from outside the organization. External days to fill / External candidates
    Pipeline throughput Percentage of candidates advancing through to the next stage. (Number of candidates in chosen stage / Number of candidates in preceding stage) * 100
    External offer acceptance rate Percentage of job offers extended to external candidates that were accepted. (Number of job offers that are accepted / Number of job offers extended) * 100
    Percentage of target group hired The percentage of a target group that was hired. Number of FTE hired / Target number of FTE to be hired
    Average time to hire Average number of calendar days between first contact with the candidate and when they accept the offer. Sum of number of days between first contact and offer acceptance / External candidates
    Quality of hire Percentage of new hires achieving a satisfactory appraisal at their first assessment. New hires who achieve a satisfactory rating at their first appraisal / Total number of new hires
    Vacancy rate Percentage of positions being actively recruited for at the end of the reporting period. Count of vacant positions / (Headcount + Vacant positions)

    Bibliography

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    Andre, Louie. "40 Notable Candidate Experience Statistics: 2023 Job Application Trends & Challenges." Financesonline.Com, 15 Mar. 2023.
    Bika, Nikoletta. "Key Hiring Metrics: Useful Benchmarks for Tech Roles." Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better, 10 Jan. 2019.
    "Bureau of Labor Statistics Labor Market Revisions Contribute to Conflicting Signals in Latest Tech Employment Data, CompTIA Analysis Finds." CompTIA, 3 Feb. 2023. Press release.
    Byrnes, Amy. "ICIMS Insights Workforce Report: Time to Press the Reset Button?" ICIMS | The Leading Cloud Recruiting Software, 1 Dec. 2022.
    Cantrell, Sue, et al. "The Skills-Based Organization: A New Operating Model for Work and the Workforce." Deloitte Insights, 8 Sept. 2022.
    deBara, Deanna. "Top Findings from Lattice's Career Progression Survey." Lattice, 13 Sept. 2021. Accessed 16 Feb. 2023.
    Duszyński, Maciej. "Candidate Experience Statistics (Survey of 1,000+ Americans)." Zety, 14 Oct. 2019.
    Duszyński, Maciej. "Candidate Experience Statistics." Zety, 2021.
    Echevarria, Desiree. "2020 Candidate Experience Report." Career Plug, 17 Mar. 2021.
    Ghosh, Prarthana. "Candidate Screening and Selection Process: The Complete Guide for 2021." Spiceworks, 26 Feb. 2021. Accessed 22 Jun. 2021
    "Introduction - Dice Tech Job Report: Tech Hiring Trends by Location, Industry, Role and Skill." Accessed 16 Feb. 2023.
    Lee, Roger. "Tech Layoff Tracker and Startup Layoff Lists." Layoffs.fyi. Accessed 16 Feb. 2023.
    Miller, Kandace. "Candidate Experience And Engagement Metrics You Should Be Tracking." ConveyIQ, n.d. Accessed 16 Feb. 2023.
    Min, Ji-A. "Resume Screening: A How-To Guide for Recruiters." Ideal, 15 Mar. 2021. Web.
    Palmeri, Shelby. "2023 Candidate Experience Research: Strategies for Recruiting." CareerPlug, 6 Feb. 2023.
    Semenova, Alexandra. "Jobs Report: U.S. Economy Adds 517,000 Jobs in January, Unemployment Rate Falls to 3.4% as Labor Market Stuns." Yahoo!Finance, 3 Feb. 2023.
    Sozzi, Brian. "Big Tech Layoffs: What Companies Such as Amazon and Meta Have in Common." Yahoo!News, 6 Feb. 2023.
    Tarki, Atta. "Despite Layoffs, It's Still a Workers' Labor Market." Harvard Business Review, 30 Jan. 2023.
    The Deloitte Global 2022 Gen Z and Millennial Survey. Deloitte Global, 2022. Accessed 16 Feb. 2023.
    "Uncover the Employee Value Proposition." McLean & Company, 21 Jun. 2022. Accessed 22 Feb. 2023.

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    • Parent Category Name: Selection & Implementation
    • Parent Category Link: /selection-and-implementation
    • Software selection needs to provide satisfaction. Across the board, satisfaction is easy to achieve in the short term, but long-term satisfaction is much harder to attain. It’s not clear what leads to long-term satisfaction, and it’s even more difficult to determine which software continuously delivers on key satisfaction drivers to support the business.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Software satisfaction drops over time. After the initial purchase, the novelty factor of new software begins to wane, and only long-term satisfaction drivers sustain satisfaction after five years.
    • Surface-level satisfaction has immediate effects, but it only provides satisfaction in the short term. Deep satisfaction has a lasting impact that can shape organizational satisfaction and productivity in meaningful ways.
    • Empower IT decision makers with knowledge about what drives satisfaction in the top five and bottom five software vendors in spotlighted categories.

    Impact and Result

    • Reorient discussion around how software is implemented around satisfaction rather than what’s in fashion.
    • Identify software satisfaction drivers that provide deep satisfaction to get the most out of software over the long term.
    • Appreciate the best from the rest and learn which software categories and brands buck the trend of declining satisfaction.

    Select Software With the Right Satisfaction Drivers in Mind Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Understand what drives user satisfaction

    Gain insight on the various factors that influence software satisfaction.

    • Select Software With the Right Satisfaction Drivers in Mind Storyboard

    2. Learn what provides deep satisfaction

    Reduce the size of your RFPs or skip them entirely to limit time spent watching vendor dog and pony shows.

    3. Appreciate what separates the best from the rest

    Narrow the field to four contenders prior to in-depth comparison and engage in accelerated enterprise architecture oversight.

    [infographic]

    Build a Cloud Security Strategy

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    • Parent Category Name: Security Strategy & Budgeting
    • Parent Category Link: /security-strategy-and-budgeting
    • Leveraging the cloud introduces IT professionals to a new world that they are tasked with securing.
    • With many cloud vendors proposing to share the security responsibility, it can be a challenge for organizations to develop a clear understanding of how they can best secure their data off premises.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Cloud security is not fundamentally different from security on premises.
    • While some of the mechanics are different, the underlying principles are the same. Accountability doesn’t disappear.
    • By virtue of its broad network accessibility, the cloud does expose decisions to extreme scrutiny, however.

    Impact and Result

    • The business is adopting a cloud environment and it must be secured, which includes:
      • Ensuring business data cannot be leaked or stolen.
      • Maintaining privacy of data and other information.
      • Securing the network connection points.
    • This blueprint and associated tools are scalable for all types of organizations within various industry sectors.

    Build a Cloud Security Strategy Research & Tools

    Start Here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should build a cloud security strategy, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Explore security considerations for the cloud

    Explore how the cloud changes the required controls and implementation strategies for a variety of different security domains.

    • Build a Cloud Security Strategy – Phase 1: Explore Security Considerations for the Cloud
    • Cloud Security Information Security Gap Analysis Tool
    • Cloud Security Strategy Template

    2. Prioritize initiatives and construct a roadmap

    Develop your organizational approach to various domains of security in the cloud, considering the cloud’s unique risks and challenges.

    • Build a Cloud Security Strategy – Phase 2: Prioritize Initiatives and Construct a Roadmap
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Build a Cloud Security Strategy

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Define Your Approach

    The Purpose

    Define your unique approach to improving security in the cloud.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An understanding of the organization’s requirements for cloud security.

    Activities

    1.1 Define your approach to cloud security.

    1.2 Define your governance requirements.

    1.3 Define your cloud security management requirements.

    Outputs

    Defined cloud security approach

    Defined governance requirements

    2 Respond to Cloud Security Challenges

    The Purpose

    Explore challenges posed by the cloud in various areas of security.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An understanding of how the organization needs to evolve to combat the unique security challenges of the cloud.

    Activities

    2.1 Explore cloud asset management.

    2.2 Explore cloud network security.

    2.3 Explore cloud application security.

    2.4 Explore log and event management.

    2.5 Explore cloud incident response.

    2.6 Explore cloud eDiscovery and forensics.

    2.7 Explore cloud backup and recovery.

    Outputs

    Understanding of cloud security strategy components (cont.).

    3 Build Cloud Security Roadmap

    The Purpose

    Identify initiatives to mitigate challenges posed by the cloud in various areas of security.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A roadmap for improving security in the cloud.

    Activities

    3.1 Define tasks and initiatives.

    3.2 Finalize your task list

    3.3 Consolidate gap closure actions into initiatives.

    3.4 Finalize initiative list.

    3.5 Conduct a cost-benefit analysis.

    3.6 Prioritize initiatives and construct a roadmap.

    3.7 Create effort map.

    3.8 Assign initiative execution waves.

    3.9 Finalize prioritization.

    3.10 Incorporate initiatives into a roadmap.

    3.11 Schedule initiatives.

    3.12 Review your results.

    Outputs

    Defined task list.

    Cost-benefit analysis

    Roadmap

    Effort map

    Initiative schedule

    Build an Application Integration Strategy

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    • Parent Category Name: Enterprise Integration
    • Parent Category Link: /enterprise-integration
    • Even though organizations are now planning for Application Integration (AI) in their projects, very few have developed a holistic approach to their integration problems resulting in each project deploying different tactical solutions.
    • Point-to-point and ad hoc integration solutions won’t cut it anymore: the cloud, big data, mobile, social, and new regulations require more sophisticated integration tooling.
    • Loosely defined AI strategies result in point solutions, overlaps in technology capabilities, and increased maintenance costs; the correlation between business drivers and technical solutions is lost.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Involving the business in strategy development will keep them engaged and align business drivers with technical initiatives.
    • An architectural approach to AI strategy is critical to making appropriate technology decisions and promoting consistency across AI solutions through the use of common patterns.
    • Get control of your AI environment with an appropriate architecture, including policies and procedures, before end users start adding bring-your-own-integration (BYOI) capabilities to the office.

    Impact and Result

    • Engage in a formal AI strategy and involve the business when aligning business goals with AI value; each double the AI success rate.
    • Benefits from a formal AI strategy largely depend on how gaps will be filled.
    • Create an Integration Center of Competency for maintaining architectural standards and guidelines.
    • AI strategies are continuously updated as new business drivers emerge from changing business environments and/or essential technologies.

    Build an Application Integration Strategy Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Make the Case for AI Strategy

    Obtain organizational buy-in and build a standardized and formal AI blueprint.

    • Storyboard: Build an Application Integration Strategy

    2. Assess the organization's readiness for AI

    Assess your people, process, and technology for AI readiness and realize areas for improvement.

    • Application Integration Readiness Assessment Tool

    3. Develop a Vision

    Fill the required AI-related roles to meet business requirements

    • Application Integration Architect
    • Application Integration Specialist

    4. Perform a Gap Analysis

    Assess the appropriateness of AI in your organization and identify gaps in people, processes, and technology as it relates to AI.

    • Application Integration Appropriateness Assessment Tool

    5. Build an AI Roadmap

    Compile the important information and artifacts to include in the AI blueprint.

    • Application Integration Strategy Template

    6. Build the Integration Blueprint

    Keep a record of services and interfaces to reduce waste.

    • Integration Service Catalog Template

    Infographic

    Workshop: Build an Application Integration Strategy

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Make the Case for AI Strategy

    The Purpose

    Uncover current and future AI business drivers, and assess current capabilities.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Perform a current state assessment and create a future vision.

    Activities

    1.1 Identify Current and Future Business Drivers

    1.2 AI Readiness Assessment

    1.3 Integration Service Catalog Template

    Outputs

    High-level groupings of AI strategy business drivers.

    Determine the organization’s readiness for AI, and identify areas for improvement.

    Create a record of services and interfaces to reduce waste.

    2 Know Current Environment

    The Purpose

    Identify building blocks, common patterns, and decompose them.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Develop an AI Architecture.

    Activities

    2.1 Integration Principles

    2.2 High-level Patterns

    2.3 Pattern decomposition and recomposition

    Outputs

    Set general AI architecture principles.

    Categorize future and existing interactions by pattern to establish your integration framework.

    Identification of common functional components across patterns.

    3 Perform a Gap Analysis

    The Purpose

    Analyze the gaps between the current and future environment in people, process, and technology.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Uncover gaps between current and future capabilities and determine if your ideal environment is feasible.

    Activities

    3.1 Gap Analysis

    Outputs

    Identify gaps between the current environment and future AI vision.

    4 Build a Roadmap for Application Integration

    The Purpose

    Define strategic initiatives, know your resource constraints, and use a timeline for planning AI.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Create a plan of strategic initiatives required to close gaps.

    Activities

    4.1 Identify and prioritize strategic initiatives

    4.2 Distribute initiatives on a timeline

    Outputs

    Use strategic initiatives to build the AI strategy roadmap.

    Establish when initiatives are going to take place.

    Modernize and Transform Your End-User Computing Strategy

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    • Parent Category Name: End-User Computing Strategy
    • Parent Category Link: /end-user-computing-strategy

    IT needs to answer these questions:

    • What types of computing devices, provisioning models, and operating systems should be offered to end users?
    • How will IT support devices?
    • What are the policies and governance surrounding how devices are used?
    • What actions are we taking and when?
    • How do end-user devices support larger corporate priorities and strategies?

    Your answers need to balance choice, risk, and cost.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Even if a user has a prestigious tablet, if the apps aren’t built well, they can’t get support on it, or they can’t connect, then that device is useless. Focus on supportability, use cases, connection, and policy – and the device.

    Impact and Result

    • Identify desired benefits that align to IT and corporate priorities and strategies.
    • Perform a persona analysis.
    • Define a vision for end-user computing.
    • Define the standard device and app offerings.
    • Improve the supporting services surrounding devices.
    • Develop a roadmap for implementing your strategy.

    Modernize and Transform Your End-User Computing Strategy Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. End-User Computing Strategy Deck – A step-by-step document to walk you through end-user computing trends and processes to improve customer satisfaction.

    This storyboard will help you identify your goals, build standard offerings for users, define governance and policies around offerings, and develop a roadmap for your EUC program.

    • Modernize and Transform Your End-User Computing Strategy – Phases 1-3

    2. End-User Computing Strategy Template – A repository for your current-state and persona analysis to identify technology requirements for each user group.

    Use these templates to document your end-user computing strategy. Follow the guidelines in the blueprint and record activity results in the template. The findings will be presented to the management team.

    • End-User Computing Strategy Template
    • User Group Analysis Workbook

    3. End-User Computing Ideas Catalog and Standard Offering Guide – Templates that guide you to document the outcome from persona analysis to define standard offerings and policies.

    The Ideas Catalog introduces provisioning models, form factors, and supported operating systems. Use the Standard Offering Template to document provisioning models and define computing devices along with apps and peripherals according to the outcome of the user group analysis.

    • Standard End-User Entitlements and Offerings Template
    • End-User Computing Ideas Catalog

    4. End-User Computing Policies – Policies that establish requirements for end-user computing.

    Use these policy templates to communicate the purposes behind each end-user computing decision and establish company standards, guidelines, and procedures for the purchase of technologies. The policies will ensure purchasing, reimbursement, security, and remote wiping enforcements are consistent and in alignment with the company strategy.

    • Mobile Device Connectivity & Allowance Policy
    • Purchasing Policy
    • Mobile Device Reimbursement Agreement
    • Mobile Device Reimbursement Policy
    • BYOD Acceptable Use Policy
    • Mobile Device Remote Wipe Waiver Template
    • General Security – User Acceptable Use Policy
    • Device Entitlement Policy Template

    Infographic

    Workshop: Modernize and Transform Your End-User Computing Strategy

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Set the Direction

    The Purpose

    Dig into the current state and build user persona.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Determine your challenges and strengths.

    Delineate user IT requirements.

    Activities

    1.1 Assess the current state of end-user computing.

    1.2 Perform SWOT analysis.

    1.3 Map benefits to stakeholder drivers and priorities.

    1.4 Identify user groups.

    1.5 Identify supporting technology.

    1.6 Identify opportunities to provide value.

    Outputs

    SWOT analysis of current state

    Goals cascade

    Persona analysis

    2 Define the Offering

    The Purpose

    Define your EUC vision and standard offerings.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Brainstorm EUC vision and mission.

    Find out the standard offerings.

    Set the direction for end-user computing to support shift-left enablement.

    Activities

    2.1 Prioritize benefits.

    2.2 Craft a vision and mission statement.

    2.3 Identify goals.

    2.4 Define guiding principles for your strategy.

    2.5 Select a provisioning model for each persona.

    2.6 Define the standard device offerings.

    2.7 Document each persona's entitlements.

    Outputs

    Vision statement, mission statement, and guiding principles

    Goals and indicators

    End-user device entitlements standard

    3 Support the Offering

    The Purpose

    Outline supporting practices and define policies for each use case.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Document supporting practices.

    Document EUC policies.

    Activities

    3.1 Define device management tools and approach.

    3.2 Identify groups involved in supporting practices.

    3.3 Identify opportunities to improve customer service.

    3.4 Define acceptable use.

    3.5 Define BYOD policies.

    3.6 Define procurement and entitlement policies.

    3.7 Define security policies.

    Outputs

    List of management tools for end-user computing

    Roles and responsibilities for maintaining the end-user computing environment

    Opportunities to improve customer service

    End-user computing policy templates

    4 Bridge the Gap and Create the Roadmap

    The Purpose

    Build a user migration roadmap.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Make the project a reality by documenting initiatives and building a roadmap.

    Activities

    4.1 Identify the gaps in devices, user support, use cases, policy & governance, and fitness for use.

    4.2 Plan the deployment and user migration journey.

    4.3 Document initiatives in the roadmap.

    Outputs

    Initiatives mapped to practice areas

    User migration journey map

    Further reading

    Modernize and Transform Your End-User Computing Strategy

    Support the workforce of the future.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    Focus beyond the device

    It’s easy to think that if we give end users nice devices, then they will be more engaged and they will be happy with IT. If only it were that easy.

    Info-Tech Research Group has surveyed over 119,000 people through its CIO Business Vision diagnostic. The results show that a good device is necessary but not enough for high satisfaction with IT. Once a user has a decent device, the other aspects of the user’s experience has a higher impact on their satisfaction with IT.

    After all, if a person is trying to run apps designed in the 1990s, if they are struggling to access resources through an underperforming VPN connection, or if they can’t get help when their devices and apps aren’t working, then it doesn’t matter that you gave them a state-of-the-art MacBook or Microsoft Surface.

    As you build out your end-user computing strategy to reflect the new reality of today’s workforce, ensure you focus on shifting user support left, modernizing apps to support how users need to work, and ensuring that your network and collaboration tools can support the increased demands. End-user computing teams need to focus beyond the device.

    Ken Weston, ITIL MP, PMP, Cert.APM, SMC

    Research Director, Infrastructure and Operations Info-Tech Research Group

    Mahmoud Ramin, PhD

    Senior Research Analyst, Infrastructure and Operations Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    IT needs to answer these questions:

    • What types of computing devices, provisioning models, and operating systems (OSes) should be offered to end users?
    • How will IT support devices?
    • What are the policies and governance surrounding how devices are used?
    • What actions are we taking and when?
    • How do end-user devices support larger corporate priorities and strategies?

    Your answers need to balance choice, risk, and cost.

    Common Obstacles

    Management paradigms have shifted:

    • OSes, device management, and IT asset management (ITAM) practices have changed.
    • Users expect full capabilities on any personal device.
    • Virtual desktops are switching to the cloud.
    • Low-code/no-code platforms allow the business to manage their own apps or comanage with IT.
    • Work-from-anywhere is the default.
    • Users have higher customer service expectations.

    Take end-user computing beyond the OS.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    This blueprint will help you:

    • Identify desired benefits that align to IT and corporate priorities and strategies.
    • Perform a persona analysis.
    • Define a vision for end-user computing.
    • Define the standard device and app offerings.
    • Improve the supporting services surrounding devices.
    • Develop a roadmap for implementing your strategy.

    A good device is necessary for satisfaction with IT but it’s not enough.

    If a user has a prestigious tablet but the apps aren’t built well, they can’t get support on it, or they can’t connect to the internet, then that device is useless. Focus on supportability, use cases, connection, policy – and device.

    Your challenge

    This blueprint will help you build a strategy that answers these questions:

    • What types of computing devices should be offered to end users?
    • What provisioning models will be used?
    • What operating systems are supported?
    • How will IT support devices?
    • What are the policies and governance surrounding how devices are used?
    • What actions are we taking and when?
    • How do end-user devices support larger corporate priorities and strategies?

    Definition: End-User Computing (EUC)

    End-user computing (EUC) is the domain of information and technology that deals with the devices used by workers to do their jobs. EUC has five focus areas: devices, user support, use cases, policy & governance, and fitness for use.

    A good end-user computing strategy will effectively balance:

    User Choice

    Cost

    Risk

    The right balance will be unique for every organization.

    Strike the right balance

    The discussion is larger than desktop support

    If IT is an influencer, then you get to drive this conversation. If IT is not an influencer, then you need to support whatever option the business wants.

    Cost Risk Choice Result
    Higher Education High importance Low importance High importance Full BYOD for professors. Standardized offerings for administration.
    Software Development Firms Low importance Medium/High importance High importance Standardized offerings for developers. Virtual desktops for users on BYOD.
    Legal Firm Medium importance High importance Low importance Partners offered prestigious devices. Everyone else uses Windows PCs. Virtual desktops and apps for remote access.

    Healthcare

    High importance High importance Low importance Nurses, janitors, and other frontline staff use shared tablets. Doctors are provisioned their own tablet. Admin staff and doctors are provisioned virtual desktops to maintain security and compliance.
    Government High importance High importance Low importance Standardized PC offerings for all employees. MacBooks are provided with justification. Devices managed with Intune and ConfigMgr.

    Good devices are necessary for overall IT satisfaction

    BUT

    Good devices are not enough for high satisfaction

    A bad device can ruin a person’s satisfaction with IT

    Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision has shown that when someone is dissatisfied with their device, their satisfaction with IT overall is only 40.92% on average.

    When a person is satisfied with their device, their average satisfaction increases by approximately 30 percentage points to 70.22%. (Info-Tech Research Group, CIO Business Vision, 2021; N=119,383)

    The image is a bar graph, with the Y-axis labelled Overall IT Satisfaction. There are two bars, one labelled Satisfied With Devices, which is at 70.22%, and the other labelled Dissatisfied With Devices, which is at 40.92%.

    Improvements in the service desk, business apps, networks and communication infrastructure, and IT policy all have a higher impact on increasing satisfaction.

    For every one-point increase in satisfaction in those areas, respondents’ overall satisfaction with IT increased by the respective percentage of a point. (Info-Tech Research Group, CIO Business Vision, 2021; N=119,409)

    The image shows a graphic of five arrows pointing upwards. They are labelled (from right to left): Devices--42.20%; IT Policy--45.90%; Network & Comms Infra--59.49%; Business Apps--63.89%; Service Desk--65.19%, 1.54 times the impact of devices.

    End-User Paradigms Have Shifted

    Take end-user computing beyond the device

    Operating System - OS

    Only Windows

    • More choices than ever before

    Endpoint Management System - UEM

    Group Policy & Client Management

    • Modern & Unified Endpoint Management

    Personal Devices - BYOD

    Limited to email on phones

    • Full capabilities on any device

    IT Asset Management - ITAM

    Hands-on with images

    • Zero-touch with provisioning packages

    Virtual Desktops - DaaS

    Virtual Desktop Infrastructure in the Data Center

    • Desktop-as-a-Service in the cloud

    Business-Managed Apps - BMA

    Performed by IT

    • Performed by the Business and IT

    Work-From-Anywhere - WFA

    Rare

    • Default

    Customer Satisfaction - C Sat

    Phone calls and transactional interactions

    • Self-serve & managing entire experience

    Don’t limit your focus to only Windows and Macs

    Android is the OS with the largest market share

    Users and IT have more choices than ever before

    Operating System - OS

    Only Windows

    • More choices than ever before

    Microsoft is still the dominant player in end-user computing, but Windows has only a fraction of the share it once had.

    IT needs to revisit their device management practices. Modern management tools such as unified endpoint management (UEM) tools are better suited than traditional client management tools (CMT) for a cross-platform world.

    IT must also revisit their application portfolios. Are business apps supported on Android and iOS or are they only supported on Windows? Is there an opportunity to offer more options to end users? Are end users already running apps and handling sensitive data on Android and iOS through software-as-a-service and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) capabilities in Office 365 and Google apps?

    The image shows a bar graph titled OS Market Share, 2011-2021. On the x-axis are OS names with a bar in blue representing their market share in 2011, and a bar in purple showing their market share in 2021. The data shown is as follows: Windows--85.98% (2011), 31.62% (2021); Android--1.22% (2011), 40.85% (2021); iOS--2.1% (2011), 16.42% (2021); Mac OS X--6.19% (2011); 6.8% (2021); Other--4.51% (2011), 4.31% (2021). Source: StatCounter Global Stats.

    OS market share is partly driven by the digital divide

    If someone must choose between a smartphone and a computer, they go with a smartphone

    IT can’t expect everyone to be fluent on Windows and Mac, have a computer at home, or even have home broadband.

    Of US adults aged 18-29:

    • 96% have a smartphone (the rest have cellphones).
    • Only 70% of US adults aged 18-29 have a home broadband connection.

    Further, only 59% of US adults making less than $30,000/year have a laptop or desktop. (“Mobile Technology” and “Digital Divide,” Pew Research, 2021.)

    Globally, people are likelier to have a cell subscription than they are to have access to broadband.

    The image is a bar graph, with a list of countries on the X-axis, with each having two bars: blue indicating Fixed Broadband Subscriptions per 100 people and purple indicating Mobile Cellular Subscriptions per 100 people. In all listed countries, the number of Mobile Cellular Subscriptions per 100 people is higher than Fixed Broadband Subscriptions. Source: The World Bank, 2020. Most recent data for USA mobile cellular subscriptions is from 2019.

    Embrace new device management paradigms

    Endpoint Management System - UEM

    Group Policy & Client Management

    • Modern & Unified Endpoint Management

    Evaluate enterprise mobility management and unified endpoint management to better support a remote-first, cross-platform reality.

    Client Management Tool (CMT)

    CMTs such as Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr, aka SCCM) can be used to distribute apps, apply patches, and enforce group policy.

    Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM)

    EMM tools allow you to manage multiple device platforms through mobile device management (MDM) protocols. These tools enforce security settings, allow you to push apps to managed devices, and monitor patch compliance through reporting.

    EMM tools often support mobile application management (MAM) and mobile content management (MCM). Most EMM tools can manage devices running Windows, Mac OS, iOS, and Android, although there are exceptions.

    Unified Endpoint Management (UEM)

    UEM solutions combine CMT and EMM for better control of remote computers running Windows or Macs. Examples include:

    • Windows devices comanaged by Intune and ConfigMgr.
    • Mac devices managed by Jamf Pro.
    • Mac devices comanaged by Jamf Pro and Intune.

    Most UEM tools can manage devices running Windows, Mac OS, iOS, and Android, allowing IT to manage all end-user devices from a unified tool set (although there are exceptions).

    Mobile Application Management (MAM)

    MAM provides the ability to package an app with security settings, distribute app updates, and enforce app updates. Some capabilities do not require apps to be enrolled in an EMM or UEM solution.

    Mobile Content Management (MCM)

    MCM tools distribute files to remote devices. Many MCM solutions allow for security settings to be applied, such as encrypting the files or prohibiting data from leaving the secure container. Examples include OneDrive, Box, and Citrix ShareFile.

    Adopt modern management with EMM and UEM – better toolsets for today’s state of EUC

    Sacrifice your Group Policy Objects to better manage Windows computers

    Windows Management Features Traditional CMT Hybrid UEM Cloud-Based EMM
    Group Policy ✔ Primary management approach ✔ Available alongside configuration service providers X Replaced by configuration service providers
    Manage remote devices without VPN X X
    No longer manage and maintain images X ✔ Images are still available ✔ Images replaced by provisioning packages
    Secure and support BYOD X (Certain tools may offer limited MDM capabilities)
    Support remote zero-touch provisioning X (Only available via PXE boot)
    App, patch, update deployments Via defined distribution points Via defined distribution points or MAM Via MAM

    IT asset management practices are shifting

    IT Asset Management - ITAM

    Hands-on with images

    • Zero-touch with provisioning packages

    Supply chain issues are making computers longer to procure, meaning users are waiting longer for computers (Cision, 2021). The resulting silicon chip shortage is expected to last until at least 2023 (Light Reading, 2021).

    IT departments are delaying purchases, delaying refreshes, and/or purchasing more to reserve devices before they need them.

    Remote work has increased by 159% over the past 12 years (NorthOne, 2021). New hires and existing users can’t always go into the office to get a new computer.

    IT departments are paying vendors to hold onto computers and then drop-ship them directly to the end user. The devices are provisioned using zero touch (e.g. Autopilot, Apple Device Manager, or another tool). Since zero-touch provisioning tools do not support images, teams have had to switch to provisioning packages.

    The pandemic saw an increase in spending on virtual desktops

    Virtual desktops offered powerful tools for supporting remote devices and personal computers without compromising sensitive data

    Virtual Desktops - DaaS

    Virtual Desktop Infrastructure in the Data Center

    • Desktop-as-a-Service in the cloud

    The pandemic helped cloud-based virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)

    Citrix saw subscription revenue increase 71% year over year in 2020 (Citrix 2020 Annual Report, p. 4). VMware saw subscription and SaaS revenue increase 38% from January 2020 to 2021 – while on-premises licensing revenue decreased by 5% (VMware Annual Report 2021, p. 40).

    IT no longer needs to manage the underlying infrastructure

    Microsoft and AWS are offering desktops as a service (i.e. cloud-based virtual desktops). IT needs to manage only the device, not the underlying virtual desktop infrastructure. This is in addition to Citrix’s and VMware’s cloud offerings, where IT doesn’t need to manage the underlying infrastructure that supports VDI.

    Visit the blueprint Implement Desktop Virtualization and Transition to Everything as a Service to get started.

    Work-from-anywhere (WFA) is now the default

    COVID-19 forced this shift

    Work-From-Anywhere - WFA

    Rare

    • Default

    Be prepared to support a hybrid workforce, where people are sometimes working remotely and sometimes working in the office.

    • Device provisioning and deployment need to be rethought. In-person deployment is not always possible. IT should evaluate tools such as zero-touch provisioning.
    • Service desks need better monitoring and management tools. End-user experience management (EUEM) can allow you to better identify where network issues are occurring – in your data center, at the user’s house, in the cloud, or somewhere in between. Remote control tools can then allow your tier 1 to remediate issues on the user’s device.
    • Apps and devices need to be usable from anywhere. Environments that rely on desktops and on-premises apps need to be rearchitected for a remote-first workforce.
    • Users are living inside video conferencing tools. With the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, there are about 145 million daily users of Microsoft Teams, almost twice the number of users in 2020 (MUO, 2021). Ensure they have the training and expertise to effectively use these tools.

    “More technical troubleshooting due to users working from home a lot more. It can be more difficult to talk users through fixes when they are off site if you cannot remotely assist so more emphasis on the communication skill which was already important.” (Service Desk Institute, 2021)

    Visit the Hybrid Workplace Research Center to better support a hybrid workforce.

    BYOD fully includes personal computers

    It’s no longer about whether IT will allow BYOD

    Stop pretending BYOD doesn’t happen

    Personal Devices - BYOD

    Limited to email on phones

    • Full capabilities on any device
    • BYOD (including BYOPC) is turned on by default. SaaS tools like Office 365 are built to be used on multiple devices, including multiple computers. Further, the pandemic saw 47% of organizations significantly increase their use of BYOD (Cybersecurity Insiders, 2021; N=271).
    • BYOD can boost productivity. When employees can use smartphones for work, they report that it increases their productivity by 34 percent (Samsung Insights, 2016).
    • BYOD is hard to support, so most organizations don’t. Only 22% of organizations provide full support for mobile devices, while 20% provide no support, 25% provide ad hoc support, and 26% provide limited support (Cybersecurity Insiders, 2021). If smartphones and tablets are heavily ingrained in business processes, then migrating to BYOD can overload the service desk.
    • Securely enable employees. Mobile application management (MAM), mobile content management (MCM), and Office 365 have gotten smarter at protecting corporate data.

    Action Item: Identify how IT can provide more support to personally owned computers, tablets, and smartphones.

    58% of working Americans say their work devices are “awful to work on." (PCMag, 2021)

    But only 22% of organizations provide full support to BYOD. (Cybersecurity Insiders, 2021)

    IT must either provide better devices or start fully supporting users on personal PCs.

    Build governance practices for low-code development platforms

    Managing 1,000 different apps built out on low-code business process management platforms is hard, but it’s not nearly as hard as managing 1,000 unique SaaS apps or access databases

    Business-Managed Apps - BMA

    Performed by IT

    • Performed by the Business and IT

    Pros - Opportunities

    • Offers DIY to users
    • Business can build them quickly
    • IT has central visibility
    • IT can focus on the platform

    Cons - Threats

    • Sensitive data can get exposed
    • Users may have issues with continuity and backup
    • Responding to platform changes will be potentially challenging
    • Support may be difficult after the app creator leaves

    Action Item: Build a governance framework that describes the roles and responsibilities involved in business-owned apps. Identify the user’s role and end-user computing’s role in supporting low-code apps.

    Visit the blueprint Embrace Business-Managed Apps to learn how to build a governance framework for low-code development platforms.

    Visit the Low-Code Business Process Management SoftwareReviews category to compare different platforms.

    Update your customer service practices

    End users expect self-service and help from tier 1

    Re-evaluate how you support both corporate-issued and personal-owned computers and mobile devices

    Customer Satisfaction - C Sat

    Phone calls and transactional interactions

    • Self-serve & managing entire experience

    Microsoft’s 2019 “Global State of Customer Service” report shows that people have high expectations:

    • 31% of people expect call agents to have a “deep understanding of the caller’s relationship with the company”
    • 11% expect self-service capabilities

    End users have the same expectations of IT, the service desk, and end-user computing teams:

    • Users expect any IT person with whom they are talking to have a deep understanding of their devices, apps, open tickets, and closed tickets.
    • Users expect tier 1 to be able to resolve their incidents and requests without escalating to tier 2 or tier 3 end-user computing specialists.

    Most Important Aspects of Customer Service

    Resolving issue in one interaction - 35%

    Knowledgeable agent - 31%

    Finding information myself - 11%

    Not repeating information - 20%

    (Microsoft, 2019)

    Desktop engineering needs to shift left

    Revisit what work can only be done by tier 2 and tier 3 teams

    Shifting left involves shifting resolution of incidents and service requests down from more costly resources to the first line of support and to end users themselves through self-service options

    • Tier 1 needs up-to-date information on the end users’ devices and open tickets.
    • Users should be able to request apps and download those apps through a self-service portal, a software catalog, or an app store.
    • Tier 1 needs to be empowered to remote wipe devices, see troubleshooting and diagnostics information, and resolve incidents without needing to escalate.

    Action Item: Apply shift-left enablement to train tier 1 agents on troubleshooting more incidents and fulfilling more service requests. Build top-notch self-service capabilities for end users.

    The image is a graphic titled Shift-Left Strategy. At the top, it lists Auto-Fix; User, Tier 1, Tier 2/3, and Vendor. On the left, it lists Metrics vertically: Cost, Time, Satisfaction. A bar displays how high or low the metric is based on the categories listed at the top.

    Work with your service desk on the blueprint Optimize the Service Desk with a Shift-Left Strategy.

    Windows 11 is coming

    Prepare to make the jump

    The sooner you start, the easier the migration will be

    • Begin planning hardware refreshes. Old computers that do not have a TPM 2.0 chip are not currently supported on Windows 11 (“Enable TPM 2.0,” Microsoft, 2021). If you have old computers that will not support the jump to Windows 11– especially given the supply chain disruptions and silicon chip shortages – it is time to consider computer upgrades.
    • The end of Windows 10 is coming. Windows 10’s retirement date is currently October 14, 2025 (“Windows 10 Home and Pro,” Microsoft, 2021). If you want to continue running Windows 10 on older computers beyond that time, you will need to pay for extended support or risk those computers being more easily breached.
    • Begin testing your apps internally. Run Windows 11 within IT and test whether your apps will work on Windows 11.
    • Pilot Windows 11 with IT-friendlies. Find users that are excited for Windows 11 and will not mind a bit of short-term pain.
    • What is your risk appetite? Risk-averse organizations will want to wait until Microsoft, DISA, and/or Center for Internet Security have published security configuration best practices.

    Info-Tech’s approach

    Master the ever-expanding puzzle of end-user computing

    User Group Analysis

    Supported Devices and Apps

    Fitness for Use

    Device Support

    The Info-Tech difference:

    1. Balance user choice, risk mitigation, and cost optimization. The right balance will be unique for every organization.
    2. Standardize the nonstandard. Anticipate your users’ needs by having power options and prestigious options ready to offer.
    3. Consider multiple personas when building your standards, training, and migrations. Early Adopters, Late Adopters, VIP Users, Road Warriors, and Hoarders – these five personas will exist in one form or another throughout your user groups.

    Modernize and Transform Your End-User Computing Strategy

    Focus on the Big Picture

    End-User Paradigms Have Shifted

    Take end-user computing beyond the device

    Operating System - OS

    Only Windows

    • More choices than ever before

    Endpoint Management System - UEM

    Group Policy & Client Management

    • Modern & Unified Endpoint Management

    Personal Devices - BYOD

    Limited to email on phones

    • Full capabilities on any device

    IT Asset Management - ITAM

    Hands-on with images

    • Zero-touch with provisioning packages

    Virtual Desktops - DaaS

    Virtual Desktop Infrastructure in the Data Center

    • Desktop-as-a-Service in the cloud

    Business-Managed Apps - BMA

    Performed by IT

    • Performed by the Business and IT

    Work-From-Anywhere - WFA

    Rare

    • Default

    Customer Satisfaction - C Sat

    Phone calls and transactional interactions

    • Self-serve & managing entire experience

    Don't just focus on the device!

    Improvements in the service desk, business apps, networks and communication infrastructure, and IT policy have a higher impact on increasing satisfaction.

    Impact of End-User Satisfaction of IT by Area Compared to Devices

    Devices (x1.0)

    IT Policy (x1.09)

    Network & Communications Infrastructure (x1.41)

    Business Apps (x1.51)

    Service Desk (x1.54)

    (Info-Tech Research Group, CIO Business Vision, 2021; n=119,409)

    Build your strategy with these components...

    End-User Group Analysis

    • Work location
    • Information interactions
    • Apps
    • Data and files
    • Business capabilities
    • Current offering
    • Pain points
    • Desired gains

    Supported Devices & Apps

    • Primary computing device offerings
    • Power computing device offering
    • Prestigious device offerings
    • Secondary computing device offerings
    • Provisioning models
    • Standard apps
    • Peripherals

    Device Support

    • Self-service
    • Service Desk
    • Specialists

    Fitness for Use

    • Organizational policies
    • Security policies

    Vision

    ...to answer these questions:

    1. What devices will people have?
    2. How will you support these devices?
    3. How will you govern these devices?

    Balance choice, risk, and cost

    The right balance will be unique for every organization. Get the balance right by aligning your strategy's goals to senior leadership’s most important priorities.

    • User choice
    • Risk
    • Cost

    + Standardize the non-standard

    Have a more prestigious option ready for users, such as VIPs, who want more than the usual offerings. This approach will help you to proactively anticipate your users' needs.

    +Consider multiple personas when building your standards, training, and migrations

    These five personas will exist in one form or another throughout your user groups.

    • Early Adopters
    • Late Adopters
    • VIP Users
    • Road Warriors
    • Hoarders

    Use our approach to answer these questions:

    What computers will people have?

    Types of computing devices

    • Power desktop
    • Power laptop
    • Desktop
    • Laptop
    • Virtual Desktop
    • Thin Client Device
    • Pro Tablet
    • Tablet
    • Smartphone

    Corporate-Issued Approaches

    • Kiosk – Shared, Single Purpose
    • Pooled – Shared, Multipurpose
    • Persistent – Individual
    • Personally Owned

    Supported Operating Systems

    • Windows
    • Mac
    • Chrome OS
    • Linux
    • iOS/iPad OS
    • Android

    How will you support these devices?

    Device Management

    • Manual
    • CMT
    • EMM
    • UEM
    • Pooled Virtual Desktop Manager

    Supporting Practices

    • Self-Service
    • Tier 1 Support
    • Specialist Support

    How will you govern these devices?

    Corporate Policies

    • Personal Use Allowed?
    • Management and Security Policies
    • Personal Device Use Allowed?
    • Supported Apps and Use Cases
    • Who Is Allowed to Purchase?
    • Prohibited Apps and Use Cases
    • Device Entitlement
    • Stipends and/or Reimbursement to Users

    Use our blueprint to improve your EUC practices

    1. Devices
      • Corporate-issued devices
      • Standard offerings
    2. User Support
      • Self-service
      • Tier 1 support
    3. Use Cases
      • Providing value
      • Business apps
    4. Policy & Governance
      • Personal device use
      • IT policy
    5. Fitness for Use
      • Securing devices
      • Patching

    Info-Tech’s methodology for end-user computing strategy

    1. Set the Direction 2. Define the Offering 3. Build the Roadmap
    Phase Steps

    1.1 Identify Desired Benefits

    1.2 Perform a User Group Analysis

    1.3 Define the Vision

    2.1 Define the Standard Offerings

    2.2 Outline Supporting Services

    2.3 Define Governance and Policies

    3.1 Develop Initiatives
    Phase Outcomes

    Current-State Assessment

    Goals Cascade

    User Group Assessment

    Vision Statement

    Mission Statement

    Guiding Principles

    Standard Offerings by User Group

    Device Management Model

    Technical Support Model

    Device Entitlement Policy

    Acceptable Use Policy

    Remote Wipe Policy & Waiver

    Personal Device Reimbursement Policy

    End-User Migration Journey Map

    Strategy and Roadmap

    Insight summary

    Once users are satisfied with devices, focus on the bigger picture

    If end users are dissatisfied with devices, they will also be dissatisfied with IT. But if you don’t also focus on apps and supportability, then giving users better devices will only marginally increase satisfaction with IT.

    Bring it back to stakeholder priorities

    Before you build your vision statement, make sure it resonates with the business by identifying senior leadership’s priorities and aligning your own goals to them.

    Balance choice, risk, and cost

    The balance of user choice, risk mitigation, and cost optimization is unique for each company. Get the balance right by aligning your strategy’s goals to senior leadership’s most important priorities.

    Communicate early and often with users

    Expect users to become anxious when you start targeting their devices. Address this anxiety by bringing them into the conversation early in the planning – they will see that their concerns are being addressed and may even feel a sense of ownership over the strategy.

    Standardize the nonstandard

    When users such as VIP users want more than the standard offering, have a more prestigious option available. This approach will help you to proactively anticipate your users’ needs.

    Consider multiple personas when building your standards, training, and migrations

    Early Adopters, Late Adopters, VIP Users, Road Warriors, and Hoarders – these five personas will exist in one form or another throughout your user groups.

    Blueprint deliverables

    Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:

    User Group Analysis Workbook

    Use these worksheets to guide your analysis.

    End-User Computing Ideas Catalog

    Compare options for your end-user computing environment.

    Standard End-User Entitlements and Offerings

    Define your supported offerings and publish this document in your service catalog.

    Policy Templates

    Use these templates as a starting point for addressing policy gaps.

    Key deliverable:

    End-User Computing Strategy

    Document your strategy using this boardroom-ready template.

    Blueprint benefits

    IT Benefits

    • Deliver immediate value to end users.
    • Provide the best service based on the user persona.
    • Provide better device coverage.
    • Use fewer tools to manage a less diverse but equally effective array of end-user computing devices.
    • Provide more managed devices that will help to limit risk.
    • Have better visibility into the end-user computing devices and apps.

    Business Benefits

    • Conduct corporate business under one broad strategy.
    • Provide support to IT for specific applications and devices.
    • Take advantage of more scalable economies for providing more advantageous technologies.
    • Experience less friction between end users and the business and higher end-user satisfaction.

    Measure the value of this blueprint

    Your end-user computing strategy is an investment

    Track the returns on your investment, even if those returns are soft benefits and not cost reductions

    User Satisfaction

    • Satisfaction with device
    • Satisfaction with business apps
    • Satisfaction with service desk timeliness
    • Satisfaction with service desk effectiveness
    • Satisfaction with IT Employee engagement

    Total Cost

    • Spend on each type of device
    • Cost of licenses for management tools, operating systems, and apps
    • Cost of support agreements # of support tickets per device per employee
    • Time spent supporting devices per tier or support team
    • Time spent per OS/app release

    Risk Mitigation

    • # of devices that are end-of-life
    • % of devices in compliance
    • # of unmanaged devices
    • # of devices that have not checked in to management tool

    Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

    DIY Toolkit

    "Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful."

    Guided Implementation

    "Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track."

    Workshop

    "We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place."

    Consulting

    "Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

    A typical GI is 8 to 10 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

    Phase 1: Set the Direction

    • Call #1: Review trends in end-user computing and discuss your current state.
    • Call #2: Perform a user group analysis.
    • Call #3: Identify desired benefits and map to stakeholder drivers.

    Phase 2: Define the Offering

    • Call #4: Define standard offerings.
    • Call #5: Select provisioning models.
    • Call #6: Outline supporting services and opportunities to shift end-user computing support left.
    • Call #7: Identify gaps in governance and policies.

    Phase 3: Build the Roadmap

    • Call #8: Develop initiatives.
    • Call #9: Plan migration and build roadmap.

    EUC Strategy Workshop Overview

    Contact your account representative for more information.

    workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

    Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
    Set the Direction Define the Offering Support the Offering Bridge the Gap and Create the Roadmap Next Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)
    Activities

    1.1 Identify desired benefits.

    1.1.1 Assess the current state of end-user computing.

    1.1.2 Perform a SWOT analysis.

    1.1.3 Map benefits to stakeholder drivers and priorities.

    1.2 Analyze user groups.

    1.2.1 Identify user groups.

    1.2.2 Identify supporting technology.

    1.2.3 Record use cases.

    1.2.4 Identify opportunities to provide value.

    1.3 Define the vision.

    1.3.1 Prioritize benefits.

    1.3.2 Craft a vision and mission statement.

    1.3.3 Identify goals.

    1.3.4 Define guiding principles for your strategy.

    2.1 Define the standard offerings.

    2.1.1 Select a provisioning model for each persona.

    2.1.2 Define the standard device offerings.

    2.1.3 Document each personas’ entitlements.

    2.2 Outline supporting practices.

    2.2.1 Define device management tools and approach.

    2.2.2 Identify groups involved in supporting practices.

    2.2.4 Identify opportunities to improve customer service.

    2.3 Define policies. 2.3.1 Define acceptable use. 2.3.2 Define BYOD policies. 2.3.3 Define procurement and entitlement policies. 2.3.4 Define security policies.

    3.1 Develop initiatives.

    3.1.1 Identify the gaps in devices, user support, use cases, policy & governance, and fitness for use.

    3.1.2 Plan the deployment and user migration journey.

    3.1.3 Document initiatives in the roadmap .

    5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days.

    5.2 Set up time to review workshop deliverables and discuss next steps

    Deliverables
    1. SWOT analysis of current state
    2. Goals cascade
    3. Persona analysis
    1. Vision statement, mission statement, and guiding principles
    2. Goals and indicators
    3. End-user device entitlements standard
    1. List of management tools for end-user computing
    2. Roles and responsibilities for maintaining the end-user computing environment
    3. Opportunities to improve customer service
    4. End-user computing policy templates
    1. Initiatives mapped to practice areas
    2. User’s migration journey map
    1. End-user computing strategy template
    2. End-user computing roadmap

    Phase 1

    Set the Direction

    Set the Direction

    1.1 Identify Desired Benefits

    1.2 Perform a User Group Analysis

    1.3 Define the Vision

    Define the Offering

    2.1 Define the Standard Offerings

    2.2 Outline Supporting Services

    2.3 Define Governance and Policies

    Build the Roadmap

    3.1 Develop Initiatives

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Current-state analysis
    • Goals cascade
    • Persona analysis

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • End-User Computing Team
    • IT Leadership

    Set a direction that will create value for IT, stakeholders, and end users

    Use your insights to build your strategy

    Start by downloading Info-Tech’s End-User Computing Strategy Template

    1. Perform a stop-start-continue exercise for how IT supports end-user devices.
    2. Perform a goals cascade to identify how the end-user computing strategy can align with and support senior leaders’ priorities and strategic objectives.
    3. Perform a user group analysis to identify what IT can do to provide additional value to end users.
    4. Use the results to define a vision for your end-user computing strategy and in-scope benefits.

    Download the End-User Computing Strategy Template.

    Step 1.1

    Identify Desired Benefits

    Activities

    1.1.1 Assess the current state of end-user computing

    1.1.2 Perform a SWOT analysis

    1.1.3 Map benefits to stakeholder drivers and priorities

    Optional: Identify current total cost of ownership

    This step requires the following inputs:

    • Current approach for end-user computing
    • List of strengths and weaknesses of the current approach

    This step involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • End-User Computing Team
    • IT Leadership
    • End-User Computing Manager

    Outcomes of this step

    • Defined success metrics that are tied to business value
    • Vision statement, mission statement, and guiding principles

    Review your current state for each end-user computing practice

    1. Devices
      • Corporate-issued devices
      • Standard offerings
    2. User Support
      • Self-service
      • Tier 1 support
    3. Use Cases
      • Providing value
      • Business apps
    4. Policy & Governance
      • Personal device use
      • IT policy
    5. Fitness for Use
      • Securing devices
      • Patching

    1.1.1 Assess the current state of end-user computing

    Discuss IT’s strengths and challenges

    Review your success in responding to the trends highlighted in the executive brief.

    • Start by reviewing the trends in the executive brief. Identify which trends you would like to focus on.
    • Review the domains below. Discuss:
      • Your current approach
      • Strengths about this approach
      • Challenges faced with this approach
    • Document the results in the “Current-State Assessment” section of your End-User Computing Strategy.
    1. Devices
      • Corporate-issued devices
      • Standard offerings
    2. User Support
      • Self-service
      • Tier 1 support
    3. Use Cases
      • Providing value
      • Business apps
    4. Policy & Governance
      • Personal device use
      • IT policy
    5. Fitness for Use
      • Securing devices
      • Patching

    Download the End-User Computing Strategy Template.

    Consider these aspects of end-user computing in your assessment

    Devices: As shown in the executive brief, devices are necessary for satisfaction in IT. In your current-state assessment, outline the principal means by which users are provided with a desktop and computing.

    • Corporate-issued devices: Document the types of devices (e.g. laptops, desktops, smartphones) and operating systems that IT currently supports.
      • Strengths: Highlight user satisfaction with your current offerings by referencing recent relationship surveys.
      • Challenges: Document corporate-issued devices where stakeholders and users are not satisfied, platforms that stakeholders would like IT to support, etc.
    • Standard offerings: Name the high-level categories of devices that you offer to end users (e.g. standard device, power device).
      • Strengths: Outline steps that IT has taken to improve the portfolio of standard offerings and to communicate the offerings.
      • Challenges: Identify areas to improve the standard offerings.

    User support: Examine how the end-user computing team enables a high-quality customer service experience. Especially consider self-service and tier 1 support.

    • Self-service: Describe the current state of your self-service capabilities (e.g. name of the self-service portal, number of apps in the app store).
      • Strengths: Outline successes with your self-service capabilities (e.g. use of self-service tools, recently deployed tools, newly supported platforms).
      • Challenges: Identify gaps in self-service capabilities.
    • Tier 1 support: Document the number of end-user computing incidents and service requests that are resolved at tier 1 as well as the number of incidents and service requests that are resolvable without escalation.
      • Strengths: Identify technologies that make first contact resolution possible. Outline other items that support tier 1 resolution of end-user computing tickets, such as knowledgebase articles and training programs.
      • Challenges: Document areas in which tier 1 resolution of end-user computing tickets is not feasible.

    Considerations (cont’d.)

    Use cases: Reflect on how IT and end-user computing supports users’ most important use cases. Consider these aspects:

    • Providing value: Identify the number of user groups for which you have completed a user group analysis. Outline your major approaches for capturing feedback, such as relationship surveys.
      • Strengths: Document any successful initiatives around stakeholder relationships and requirements gathering. You can also highlight successful metrics, such as high satisfaction scores from a team, department, or division.
      • Challenges: Identify where there are dissatisfied stakeholders and gaps in product offerings and where additional work around value generation is required.
    • Business apps: Outline your major business apps and your approach to improvement for these apps. If you need assistance gathering feedback from end users and stakeholders, you can use Info-Tech’s Application Portfolio Assessment.
      • Strengths: Show the EUC team’s successes in supporting critical business apps (e.g. facilitating user acceptance testing, deploying via endpoint management tool).
      • Challenges: Name business apps that are not meeting stakeholder needs. Consider if end users are dissatisfied with an app, if IT is unable to adequately monitor and support a business app, etc.

    Policy and governance: Document the current state of policies governing the use of end-user computing devices, both corporate-issued and personally owned. Review Step 2.3 for a list of policy questions to address and for links to policy templates.

    • Personal device use: Explain which users are allowed to use personally owned devices, what use cases are supported, and which types of devices are supported. Also, highlight explicit prohibitions.
      • Strengths: Highlight major accomplishments with BYOD, utilization metrics, etc. Consider including any platforms or apps that support BYOD (e.g. Microsoft Office 365).
      • Challenges: Identify where there are gaps in your support for personal devices. Examples can include insufficient management tools, lack of feedback from end users on BYOD support, undefined policies and governance, and inadequate support for personal devices.

    Considerations (cont’d.)

    IT policies: List your current policy documents. Include policies that relate to end-user computing, such as security policy documents; acceptable use policy documents; purchasing policies; documents governing entitlements to computers, tablets, smartphones, and prestigious devices; and employee monitoring policy documents.

    • Strengths: Outline the effectiveness of these policies, user compliance to these policies, and your success in enforcing these policies.
    • Challenges: Identify where you have gaps in user compliance, gaps in enforcing policies, many exceptions to a policy, etc.

    Fitness for use: Reflect on your ability to secure users, enterprise data, and computers. Document your current capabilities to ensure devices are adequately secured and risks adequately mitigated.

    • Securing devices: Describe your current approach to implementing security baselines, protecting data, and ensuring compliance.
      • Strengths: Highlight your accomplishments with ensuring devices meet your security standards and are adequately managed.
      • Challenges: Identify areas that are not adequately protected, where IT does not have enough visibility, and devices on which IT cannot enforce security standards.
    • Patching: Describe your current approach to distributing OS patches, distributing app patches, and ensuring patch compliance.
      • Strengths: Outline steps that IT has taken to improve release and deployment practices (e.g. user acceptance testing, deployment rings).
      • Challenges: When is IT unable to push a patch to a device? Outline when devices cannot receive a patch, when IT is unable to ensure patches are installed, and when patches are disruptive to end users.

    1.1.2 Perform a SWOT analysis

    Summarize your current-state analysis

    To build a good strategy, you need to clearly understand the challenges you face and opportunities you can leverage.

    • Summarize IT’s strengths. These are positive aspects internal to IT.
    • Summarize IT’s challenge. What internal IT weakness should the strategy address?
    • Identify high-level opportunities. Summarize positive factors that are external to IT (e.g. within the larger organization, strong vendor relationships).
    • Document threats. What external factors present a risk to the strategy?

    Record your SWOT analysis in the “Current-State Assessment” section of your End-User Computing Strategy Template.

    Download the End-User Computing Strategy Template.

    1.1.3 Map benefits to stakeholder drivers and priorities

    Use a goals cascade to identify benefits that will resonate with the business

    Identify how end-user computing will support larger organizational strategies, drivers, and priorities

    1. Identify stakeholders. Focus on senior leaders – user groups will be addressed in Step 1.2.
    2. For each stakeholder, identify three to five drivers or strategic priorities. Use the drivers as a starting point to:
      1. Increase productivity
      2. Mitigate risks
      3. Optimize costs
    3. Map the benefits you brainstormed in Step 1.1 to the drivers. It’s okay to have benefits map to multiple drivers.
    4. Re-evaluate benefits that don’t map to any drivers. Consider removing them.
    Stakeholder Drivers and Strategic Priorities End-User Computing Benefits
    CEO Ensure service continuity with remote work
    • Customers can still be served by remote workers
    Respond to COVID-19 changes with agility
    • Workers can transition seamlessly between working remotely and working in the office
    Reduce unnecessary costs
    • Standardize computer models to reduce spend on devices
    COO Business continuity: being able to work from home
    • Workers can transition seamlessly between working remotely and working in the office

    Record this table on the “Goals Cascade” slide in the “Vision and Desired Benefits” section of your End-User Computing Strategy Template.

    Use the CEO-CIO Alignment Program to identify which business benefits are most important.

    Sample end-user computing benefits

    Business Goals End-User Computing Benefits
    Manage risk Controls are effectively enforced on remote devices Sensitive data is secured Devices and data are accounted for
    Ensure service continuity Business processes can still function with remote personnel Customers can still be served by remote workers Personnel can be productive from anywhere IT practices can still operate remotely
    Comply with external regulation Improved ability to demonstrate compliance
    Respond to change with agility Personnel can be productive from anywhere More business processes can be performed remotely
    Improve operational efficiency More efficient sales practices More efficient customer service practices Increased number of digitized business processes Increased use of IT and HR self-service tools
    Offer competitive products and services Increased customer satisfaction with online services Number of piloted new products
    Manage people Increased employee productivity Increased employee engagement Increased talent attraction Increased workforce retention
    Make data-driven decisions Increased workforce retention Improved understanding of customers Access to accurate data on services and spending Improved IT cost forecasting
    Improve customer experience Increased customer satisfaction with online services Ability to scale up capacity to meet increased demand Customers can still be served by remote workers Improved customer self-service options
    Maximize stakeholder value Transition to OpEx spend and reduce CapEx investments Access to accurate data on services and spending Improved IT cost forecasting

    Optional: Identify current total cost of ownership

    Be mindful of hidden costs, such as those associated with supporting multiple devices and maintaining a small fleet of corporate devices to ensure business continuity with BYOD.

    • Use the Hardware Asset Management Budgeting Tool to forecast spend on devices (and infrastructure) based on project needs and devices nearing end of life.
    • Use the Mobile Strategy TCO Calculator to estimate the total cost of all the different aspects of your mobile strategy, including:
      • Training
      • Management platforms
      • Custom app development
      • Travel and roaming
      • Stipends and taxes
      • Support
    • Revisit these calculators in Phase 2. Use the TCO calculator when considering different approaches to mobility and end-user computing.

    Insert the results into your End-User Computing Strategy Template.

    Download the HAM Budgeting Tool.

    Download the Mobile Strategy TCO Calculator.

    Step 1.2

    Perform a User Group Analysis

    Activities

    1.2.1 Organize roles based on how they work

    1.2.2 Organize users into groups

    1.2.3 Document the current offerings

    1.2.4 Brainstorm pain points and desired gains for each user group

    This step requires the following inputs:

    • List of roles and technologies
    • User feedback
    • List of personas

    This step involves the following participants:

    • End-User Computing Team
    • IT Leadership
    • End-User Computing Manager

    Outcomes of this step

    • List of user groups and use cases for each group
    • List of current offerings for each user group
    • Value analysis for each user group

    Gather the information you need

    Use the Application Portfolio Assessment to run a relationship survey.

    Dive deeper with the blueprint Improve Requirements Gathering.

    List of Roles and Technology

    Organization chart: Consult with HR or department leaders to provide a list of the different roles that exist in each department.

    Identity access management tools: You can consult tools like Active Directory, but only if the data is clean.

    Apps and devices used: Run a report from your endpoint management tool to see what devices and apps are used by one another. Supplement this report with a report from a network management tool to identify software as a service that are in use and/or consult with department leaders.

    User Feedback

    Relationship surveys: Tools like the End-User Application Satisfaction Diagnostic allow you to assess overall satisfaction with IT.

    Focus groups and interviews: Gather unstructured feedback from users about their apps and devices.

    User shadowing: Observe people as they use technology to identify improvement opportunities (e.g. shadow meetings, review video call recordings).

    Ticket data: Identify apps or systems that users submit the most incidents about as well as high-volume requests that could be automated.

    1.2.1 Organize roles based on how they work

    Start by organizing roles into categories based on where they work and how they interact with information.

    1. Define categories of where people work. Examples include:
      1. In office, at home, at client sites
      2. Stationary, sometimes mobile, always mobile
      3. Always in same location, sometimes in different locations, always in different locations within a site, mobile between sites
    2. Define categories of how people interact with information. Examples include:
      1. Reads information, reads and writes information, creates information
      2. Cases, projects, relationships
    3. Build a matrix. Use the location categories on one axis and the interaction categories on the other axis.
    4. Place unique job roles on the matrix. Review each functional group’s organizational chart. It is okay if you don’t fill every spot. See the diagram on this page for an example.
    Always Works in the Same Location Sometimes Works in Different Locations Always Works in Different Locations
    Predominantly Reads Information
    • Janitor
    • Receptionist
    • Receiving
    • Accounts Payable Clerk
    Reads and Writes Information
    • Sales Rep
    • Sales Manager
    • Director of Sales
    • Developer
    • Scrum Master
    • Customer Service Agent
    • CS Manager
    • Call Center Director
    • Accountant
    • Controller
    • HR Specialist
    • Business Analyst
    • VP, Sales
    • Product Manager
    • Project Manager
    • Director of Engineering
    • VP, HR
    • CFO
    • Director of PMO
    • Field Sales Rep
    • CEO
    • CIO
    • COO
    Predominantly Creates Information
    • External Consultants
    • Design
    • Marketing
    • Copywriting

    1.2.2 Organize users into groups

    Populate a user group worksheet for each in-scope group.

    1. Within each quadrant, group similar roles together into “User Groups.” Consider similarities such as:
      1. Applications they use
      2. Data and files with which they interact
      3. Business capabilities they support
    2. Document their high-level profile:
      1. Where they work
      2. Sensitivity of data they access
      3. Current device and app entitlements
    3. Document the resulting user groups. Record each user group on a separate worksheet in the User Group Analysis Workbook.

    Download the User Group Analysis Workbook.

    1.2.3 Document the current offerings

    For each user group, document:

    • Primary and secondary computing devices: Their most frequently used computing devices.
    • Acceptable use: Whether corporate-issued devices are personally enabled.
    • BYOD: Whether this persona is authorized to use their personal devices.
    • Standard equipment provided: Equipment that is offered to everyone in this persona.
    • Additional devices and equipment offered: Equipment that is offered to a subset of this user group. These items can include more prestigious computers, additional monitors, and office equipment for users allowed to work remotely. This category can include items that require approval from budget owners.
    • Top apps: What apps are most commonly used by this user group? What common nonstandard apps are used by this user group?

    Standardize the nonstandard

    When users such as VIP users want more than the standard offering, have a more prestigious option available. This approach will help you to proactively anticipate your users’ needs.

    1.2.4 Brainstorm pain points and desired gains for each user group

    Don’t focus only on their experiences with technology

    Reference the common personas listed on the next page to help you brainstorm additional pain points and desired gains.

    1. Brainstorm pain points. Answer these questions for each role:
      1. What do people find tedious about their day-to-day jobs?
      2. What takes the most effort for them to do?
      3. What about their current toolset makes this user frustrated?
      4. What makes working difficult? Consider their experiences working from a home office, attending meetings virtually or in person, and working in the office.
      5. What challenges does that role have with each process?
    2. Brainstorm desired gains from their technology. Answer these questions for each role:
      1. For your end-user computing vision to become a reality for this persona, what outcomes or benefits are required?
      2. What benefits will this persona expect an end-user computing strategy to have?
      3. What improvements does this role desire?
      4. What unexpected benefits or outcomes would surprise this role?
      5. What would make this role’s day-to-day easier?
      6. What location-specific benefits are there (e.g. outcomes specific to working in the office or at home)?

    Record each user group’s pain points and desired gains on their respective worksheet.

    For additional questions you can ask, visit this Strategyzer blog post by Alexander Osterwalder.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Identify out-of-scope benefits?

    If that desired gain is required for the vision to be achieved for a specific role, you have two options:

    • Bring the benefit in scope. Ensure your metrics are updated.
    • Bring this user group out of scope. End-user computing improvements will not be valuable to this role without that benefit.

    Forcing a user group to use an unsatisfactory tool will severely undermine your chance of success, especially in the project’s early stages.

    Consider these common personas when brainstorming challenges and desired gains

    What unique challenges will these personas face within each of your user groups? What improvements would each of these personas expect out of an end-user computing strategy?

    Early Adopters

    • Like trying new ways of working and using the latest technology.
    • Very comfortable solving their own issues.
    • Enjoy exploring and creating new ways of handling challenges.

    Late Adopters

    • Prefer consistent ways of working, be it tech or business processes.
    • React to tech issues with anxiety and need assistance to get issues fixed.

    VIP

    • Has a prestigious job and would like to use technology that communicates their status.
    • Does not like to resolve their own issues.

    Road Warriors

    • Always on the go, running between work meetings and appointments.
    • Value flexibility and want devices, apps, and tech support that can be used anywhere at any time.

    Hoarders

    • Want to keep all their devices, data, and apps.
    • Will stall when they need to migrate devices or uninstall apps and become unresponsive any time there is a risk of losing something.

    Step 1.3

    Define the Vision

    Activities

    1.3.1 Prioritize which benefits you want to achieve

    1.3.2 Identify how you will track performance

    1.3.3 Craft a vision statement that demonstrates what you’re trying to create

    1.3.4 Craft a mission statement for your end-user computing team

    1.3.5 Define guiding principles

    This step requires the following inputs:

    • Goals cascade
    • List of benefits
    • List of critical success factors (CSFs)

    This step involves the following participants:

    • End-User Computing Manager
    • CIO
    • Help Desk Manager
    • Infrastructure Manager

    Outcomes of this step

    • End-User computing KPIs and metrics
    • Vision statement
    • Mission statement

    1.3.1 Prioritize which benefits you want to achieve

    Use the MoSCoW sorting technique

    Select benefits that appear multiple times in the goals cascade from Activity 1.1.3 as well as your challenges from your current-state assessment.

    1. Record which benefits are “Must Haves.” Select benefits that are most important to your highest-priority stakeholders.
    2. Record which benefits are “Should Haves.” These benefits are important but not critical.
    3. Record which benefits are “Could Haves.” These are low-priority benefits.
    4. Record the remaining benefits under “Won’t Have.” These benefits are out-of-scope but can be revisited in the future.

    Record the output in your End-User Computing Strategy Template under “Benefit Prioritization” in the “Vision and Desired Benefits” section.

    Sample output:

    Must Have Should Have Could Have Won't Have
    • Customers can still be served by remote workers.
    • Easier to work in multiple locations.
    • More options for provisioning computers to new workers.
    • Improved patching and security compliance checking of remote devices.
    • Self-service app installs on Windows.
    • More consistent experience across all devices and platforms, including BYOD.
    • Improved visibility into and manageability of BYOD.
    • Ability for users to create their own low-code apps (e.g. in Microsoft Power Apps).
    • Improved guidelines for running hybrid/remote meetings.
    • BYOD support for workers handling sensitive data.
    • Support for any type of Android smartphone or tablet.

    1.3.2 Identify how you will track performance

    1. List each unique high-priority benefit from Activity 1.3.1 as a critical success factor (CSF).
    2. For each CSF, identify key performance indicators (KPIs) that you can use to track how well you’re progressing on the CSF.
      1. Articulate that KPI as a SMART goal (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timebound).
    3. For each KPI, identify the metrics you will use to calculate it.
    4. Identify how and when you will:
      1. Capture the current state of these metrics.
      2. Update changes to the metrics.
      3. Re-evaluate the CSFs.
      4. Communicate the progress to the project team and to stakeholders.

    Record this information in your End-User Computing Strategy Template.

    Sample output:

    Critical Success Factor Key Performance Indicator Metrics
    Improve remote worker productivity Increase employee engagement by 10% in two years
    • McLean Employee Engagement Score
    • Gallup Q Score
    Integrate relevant information sources into one spot for sales Integrate three information sources that will be useful to sales in one year
    • # of sales-specific apps integrated into a dashboard, portal, or workspace
    • Sales satisfaction scores
    Reduce real-estate costs Reduce office space by 50% in two cities over three years
    • $ spent on office leases
    Securely deliver all apps, information, and data to any device, anywhere, at any time Build the apps and information sources into a digital workspace for three business processes over one year
    • # of business processes supported in the workspace

    1.3.3 Craft a vision statement that demonstrates what you’re trying to create

    The vision statement communicates a desired future state of the IT organization. The statement is expressed in the present tense. It seeks to articulate the desired role of IT and how IT will be perceived.

    Strong IT vision statements have the following characteristics:

    • Describes a desired future
    • Focuses on ends, not means
    • Communicates promise
    • Is:
      • Concise; no unnecessary words
      • Compelling
      • Achievable
      • Inspirational
      • Memorable

    Sample IT Vision Statements:

    • To support an exceptional employee experience by providing best-in-class end-user devices.
    • Securely enable access to corporate apps and data from anywhere, at any time, on any device.
    • Enable business and digital transformation through secure and powerful virtualization technology.
    • IT is a cohesive, proactive, and disciplined team that delivers innovative technology solutions while demonstrating a strong customer-oriented mindset.

    1.3.4 Craft a mission statement for your end-user computing team

    The IT mission statement specifies the function’s purpose or reason for being. The mission should guide each day’s activities and decisions. The mission statement should use simple and concise terminology and speak loudly and clearly, generating enthusiasm for the organization.

    Strong IT mission statements have the following characteristics:

    • Articulate the IT function’s purpose and reason for existence
    • Describe what the IT function does to achieve its vision
    • Define the customers of the IT function
    • Can be described as:
      • Compelling
      • Easy to grasp
      • Sharply focused
      • Inspirational
      • Memorable
      • Concise

    Sample IT Mission Statements:

    • To provide infrastructure, support, and innovation in the delivery of secure, enterprise-grade information technology products and services that enable and empower the workforce at [Company Name].
    • To help fulfill organizational goals, the IT department is committed to empowering business stakeholders with technology and services that facilitate effective processes, collaboration, and communication.
    • The mission of the information technology (IT) department is to build a solid, comprehensive technology infrastructure; to maintain an efficient, effective operations environment; and to deliver high-quality, timely services that support the business goals and objectives of [Company Name].
    • The IT group is customer-centered and driven by its commitment to management and staff. It oversees services in computing, telecommunications, networking, administrative computing, and technology training.

    1.3.5 Define guiding principles

    Select principles that align with your stakeholders’ goals and objectives

    Use these examples as a starting point:

    IT Principle Name IT Principle Statement
    1. Enterprise value focus We aim to provide maximum long-term benefits to the enterprise as a whole while optimizing total costs of ownership and risks.
    2. Fit for purpose We maintain capability levels and create solutions that are fit for purpose without over-engineering them.
    3. Simplicity We choose the simplest solutions and aim to reduce operational complexity of the enterprise.
    4. Reuse > buy > build We maximize reuse of existing assets. If we can’t reuse, we procure externally. As a last resort, we build custom solutions.
    5. Managed data We handle data creation, modification, and use enterprise-wide in compliance with our data governance policy.
    6. Controlled technical diversity We control the variety of technology platforms we use.
    7. Managed security We manage, support, and assist in the implementation of security enterprise-wide in collaboration with our security governance team.
    8. Compliance to laws and regulations We operate in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.
    9. Innovation We seek innovative ways to use technology for business advantage.
    10. Customer centricity We deliver best experiences to our end users by aligning to customer service best practices.

    Phase 2

    Define the Offering

    Set the Direction

    1.1 Identify Desired Benefits

    1.2 Perform a User Group Analysis

    1.3 Define the Vision

    Define the Offering

    2.1 Define the Standard Offerings

    2.2 Outline Supporting Services

    2.3 Define Governance and Policies

    Build the Roadmap

    3.1 Develop Initiatives

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Defining standard device entitlements and provisioning models for end-user devices and equipment
    • Shifting end-user computing support left
    • Identifying policy gaps

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • End-User Computing Team
    • IT Leadership

    Step 2.1

    Define the Standard Offerings

    Activities

    2.1.1 Identify the provisioning models for each user group

    2.1.2 Define the standard device offerings

    2.1.3 Document each user group’s entitlements

    This step requires the following inputs:

    • Standard End-User Entitlements and Offerings Template
    • List of persona groups
    • Primary computing devices
    • Secondary computing devices
    • Supporting operating systems
    • Applications and office equipment

    This step involves the following participants:

    • End-User Computing Manager
    • CIO
    • Help Desk Manager
    • Infrastructure Manager

    Outcomes of this step

    • End-user device entitlements and offerings standard

    This step will walk you through defining standard offerings

    You will define the base offering for all users in each user group as well as additional items that users can request (but that require additional approvals).

    1. Primary Computing Device
      • The main device used by a worker to complete their job (e.g. laptop for knowledge workers, kiosk or shared tablet for frontline workers).
    2. Secondary Computing Devices
      • Additional devices that supports a worker (e.g. a smartphone, tablet, personal computer).
    3. Provisioning Models
      • Whether the equipment is corporate-issued versus personally owned and whether personal use of corporate resources is allowed.
    4. Apps
      • The software used by the worker. Apps can be locally installed, cloud-based (e.g. SaaS), and/or virtualized and running remotely.
    5. Peripherals
      • Additional equipment provisioned to the end user (e.g. monitors, docking station, mice, keyboards).

    There is always a challenge of determining who gets what and when

    The goal is balancing cost, risk, and employee engagement

    The right balance will be different for every organization

    • IT can’t always say no to new ideas from the business. For example, if the organization wants to adopt Macs, rather than resisting IT should focus on identifying how Macs can be safely implemented.
    • Smartphones may not be necessary for a job, but they can be a valid employee perk. Not every employee may be entitled to the perk. There may be resentment between employees of the same level if one of the employees has a corporate-issued, business-only phone for their job function.
    • The same laptop model may not work for everyone. Some employees may need more powerful computers. Some employees may want more prestigious devices. Other employees may require a suite of apps that is only available on non-Windows operating systems.

    Action Item: Provide a defined set of standard options to the business to proactively address different needs.

    A good end-user computing strategy will effectively balance:

    • User Choice
    • Risk
    • Cost

    Your standard offerings need to strike the right balance for your organization.

    Review the End-User Computing Ideas Catalog

    Compare pros and cons of computing devices and operating systems for better decision making

    The catalog provides information about choices in:

    • Provisioning models
    • Operating systems
    • Device form factors

    Review the catalog to learn about items that can help your organization to achieve the desired vision from Phase 1.

    As you review the catalog, think about these questions:

    • What primary and secondary devices can you provide?
    • What operating systems do these devices support?
    • What are the provisioning models you will use, considering each model’s weaknesses and strengths?
    • How can you more effectively balance user choice, risk, and cost?

    Download the End-User Computing Ideas Catalog.

    2.1.1 Identify the provisioning models for each user group

    1. Review the definitions in the End-User Computing Ideas Catalog.
    2. Build a table. List the major user groups along the top of the table and applications down the rows.
    3. Brainstorm provisioning models that will be used for primary and secondary devices for each persona group.
    4. Record your provisioning models in the Standard End-User Entitlements and Offerings Template.

    Download the End-User Computing Ideas Catalog.

    Download the Standard End-User Entitlements and Offerings Template.

    Persona Primary Computing Device Secondary Laptops or Computers Smartphone Tablet
    Sales COPE BYOD BYOD BYOD
    Field Sales CYOD BYOD COBO COBO
    Customer Service COBO None None None
    Knowledge Worker COPE BYOD BYOD BYOD
    App Dev CYOPED None CYOD CYOD
    VIP CYOPED CYOPED CYOPE BYOD

    Identify multiple device options

    Offer standard, power, and prestigious offerings

    Prioritize offering models and align them with your user groups.

    • Standard device: This offering will work for most end users.
    • Power device: This offering will provide additional RAM, processor speed, storage, etc., for users that require it. It is usually offered as an additional option that requires approval.
    • Prestigious device: This offering will be provided to VIP users.
    • Portable device: This offering is for employees within a user group that moves around more often than others. This type of offering is optional – consider having a separate user group for these users that get a more portable laptop as their standard device.

    Standardize the nonstandard

    When users such as VIP users want more than the standard offering, have a more prestigious option ready to offer. This approach will help you to proactively anticipate your users’ needs.

    Who approves?

    Generally, if it is a supported device, then the budget owner determines whether to allow the user to receive a more powerful or more prestigious device.

    This decision can be based on factors such as:

    • Business need – does the user need the device to do their job?
    • Perk or benefit – is the device being offered to the end user as a means of increasing their engagement?

    If IT gets this answer wrong, then it can result in shadow IT

    Document your answer in the Device Entitlement Policy Template.

    2.1.2 Define the standard device offerings

    Consider all devices and their supporting operating systems.

    1. On a flip chart or whiteboard, build a matrix of the supported form factors and operating systems.
    2. For each cell, document the supported vendor and device model.
    3. Identify where you will provide additional options.
    Windows Mac OS iOS Android
    Laptops Lenovo T15 Gen 2 MacBook Pro 14” N/A N/A
    Power Laptops Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon MacBook Pro 16” N/A N/A
    Prestigious Laptops Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 6 MacBook Pro 16” N/A N/A
    Tablets Microsoft Surface N/A iPad Pro Samsung Galaxy Tab
    Smartphones N/A N/A iPhone 13 Samsung Galaxy S21

    2.1.3 Document each user groups’ entitlements

    Not every persona needs to be entitled to every supported option

    Use the Standard End-User Entitlements and Offerings Template as a starting point.

    • Create a separate section in the document for each persona. Start by documenting the provisioning models for each type of device.
    • Record the standard offering provided to members of each persona as well as additional items that can be provided with approval. Record this information for:
      • Primary computing devices
      • Secondary computing devices
    • Optional: Document additional items that will be provided to members of each persona as well as additional items they can request, such as:
      • Apps
      • Office equipment

    Download the Standard End-User Entitlements and Offerings Template.

    Step 2.2

    Outline Supporting Services

    Activities

    2.2.1 Review device management tools and capabilities

    2.2.2 Identify common incidents and requests for devices

    2.2.3 Record how you want to shift resolution

    2.2.4 Define which IT groups are involved in supporting practices

    Define the Offering

    This step requires the following inputs:

    • Standard End-User Entitlements and Offerings Template
    • List of supporting devices
    • Common incidents and requests
    • List of supporting practices

    This step involves the following participants:

    • End-User Computing Manager
    • CIO
    • Help Desk Manager
    • Infrastructure Manager

    Outcomes of this step

    • List of IT groups who are involved in supporting devices
    • Responsibilities of each group for requests and incidents

    2.2.1 Review device management tools and capabilities

    Document the tools that you use to manage each OS and identify gaps

    If there are different approaches to managing the same OS (e.g. Windows devices that are co-managed versus Windows devices that are only managed by Intune), then list those approaches on separate rows.

    Provision Protect from loss/theft Deploy/update apps Backup & protect Protect from injections Complies with policies Track Decommission
    Windows 10 & 11 (co-managed) Autopilot Gap ConfigMgr Gap Windows Security ConfigMgr ConfigMgr Intune Intune and Autopilot
    Windows 10 & 11 (Intune) Autopilot Intune (remote wipe) Intune OneDrive for Business Windows Security Microsoft Advanced Threat Protection Intune Intune and Autopilot
    Mac OS Jamf Pro Intune (remote wipe) Jamf Pro OneDrive for Business Gap Jamf Pro Intune Jamf Pro

    Document the results on the “IT Management Tools” slide in the “IT Support” section of your End-User Computing Strategy Template.

    2.2.2 Identify common incidents and requests for devices

    Analyze your service desk ticket data. Look for the following information:

    • The most common incidents and service requests around end-user devices and business apps
    • Incident categories and service requests that almost always involve escalations

    Record the level at which these tickets can be resolved today. Ensure you include these groups:

    • Tier 0 (i.e. end-user self-service)
    • Tier 1 (i.e. user’s first point of contact at the service desk)
    • Desk-side support and field-support groups
    • End-user computing specialist teams (e.g. desktop engineering, mobile device management teams)
    • Other specialist teams (e.g. security, enterprise applications, DevOps)

    Record the desired state. For each incident and request, to where do you want to shift resolution?

    Record this chart on the “Current State of IT Support” slide in the “IT Support” section of your End-User Computing Strategy Template.

    Most Common Incidents & Requests Self-Service Service Desk Tier 1 Desk-Side or Field Support End-User Computing
    Connect/fix a printer X
    Web conferencing issue X
    Bluetooth issues X
    Outlook issues X
    Install standard app X
    Install app requiring approval X
    Install nonstandard app X
    Enroll personal iOS/Android device X
    Enroll personal Mac/Windows computer X
    Perform a factory reset on a lost or stolen device X
    Unenroll device X

    2.2.3 Record how you want to shift resolution

    Identify opportunities to improve self-service and first contact resolution.

    Starting with the chart you created in Activity 2.2.2, record the desired state. For each incident and request, to where do you want to shift resolution?

    • Identify quick wins. Where will it take low effort to shift resolution? Denote these items with a “QW” for quick win.
    • Identify high-value, high-effort shifts. Where do you want to prioritize shifting resolution? Base this decision on the desired benefits, guiding principles, and vision statement built in Phase 1. Denote these items with an “H” for high.
    • Identify low-value areas. Where would shifting provide low value to end users and/or would have low alignment to the benefits identified in Phase 1? Denote these items with an “L” for low.
    • Identify where no shift can occur. Some items cannot be shifted to self-service or to tier 1 due to governance considerations, security factors, or technical complexity. Denote these items with an “OoS” for out of scope.

    Use the “Opportunities to Provide Self-Service and Articles” and “Desired State” slides in the “IT Support” section of your End-User Computing Strategy Template to document quick wins and high-value, high-effort shifts.

    Most Common Incidents & Requests Self-Service Service Desk Tier 1 Desk-Side or Field Support End-User Computing
    Connect/fix a printer H QW X
    Web conferencing issue H X
    Bluetooth issues L X
    Outlook issues H H X
    Install standard app X
    Install app requiring approval H X
    Install nonstandard app OoS X
    Enroll personal iOS/Android device QW QW X
    Enroll personal Mac/Windows computer QW QW X
    Perform a factory reset on a lost or stolen device QW QW X
    Unenroll device QW QW X

    2.2.4 Define which IT groups are involved in supporting practices

    Repeat activities 2.2.2 and 2.2.3 with the following list of tasks

    IT Asset Management

    • Purchasing devices
    • Purchasing software licenses
    • Imaging devices
    • Deploying devices
    • Deploying software
    • Recovering devices
    • Recovering software

    Release Management

    • Testing patches
    • Testing app updates
    • Testing OS updates
    • User acceptance testing

    Managing Service Catalogs

    • Defining standard device offerings
    • Defining standard software offerings
    • Defining device and software entitlements
    • Updating published catalog entries

    Knowledge Management

    • Writing internal KB articles
    • Writing user-facing articles
    • Training specialists
    • Training service desk agents
    • Training users

    Portfolio Management

    • Prioritizing app upgrades or migrations
    • Prioritizing OS migrations
    • Prioritizing end-user computing projects

    Step 2.3

    Define Governance and Policies

    Activities

    2.3.1 Answer these organizational policy questions

    2.3.2 Answer these security policy questions

    Define the Offering

    This step requires the following inputs:

    • List of supporting devices
    • List of persona groups
    • List of use cases

    This step involves the following participants:

    • End-User Computing Manager
    • CIO
    • Help Desk Manager
    • Infrastructure Manager

    Outcomes of this step

    • End-user computing organizational and security policies

    Focus on organizational policies and enforcement

    Policies set expectations and limits for mobile employees

    Enforcement refers to settings on the devices, management and security tools, and process steps.

    • Policies define what should and should not be done with user-facing technology. These policies define expectations about user and IT behavior.
    • Enforcement ensures that policies are followed. User policies must often be enforced through human intervention, while technology policies are often enforced directly through infrastructure before any people get involved.

    Use the “Policies” section in the End-User Computing Strategy Template to document the answers in this section. Activities 2.3.2 and 2.3.3 present links to policy templates. Use these templates to help address any gaps in your current policy suite.

    2.3.1 Answer these organizational policy questions

    Identify if there are different expectations for certain user groups, where exceptions are allowed, and how these policies will be enforced.

    Entitlements

    • Who is entitled to receive and use prestigious computers?
    • Who is entitled to receive and use a smartphone?
    • What users are entitled to a stipend for personal device use?

    Personal Device Use

    • What use cases are supported and are not supported on personal devices?
    • What level of visibility and control does IT need over personal devices?

    Acceptable Use

    • Are people allowed to use corporate resources for personal use?
    • What are the guidelines around personal use?
    • Are users allowed to install personal apps on their corporate-issued computers and/or mobile devices?

    Purchasing and Reimbursement

    • Who is allowed to purchase devices? Apps?
    • When can users file a reimbursement request?

    Employee Monitoring

    • What user information is monitored?
    • When can that information be used and when can it not be used?

    Use the “Policies” section of the End-User Computing Strategy Template to document these answers.

    Identify organizational policy gaps

    Use these templates as a starting point

    Entitlements

    Download the Mobile Device Connectivity & Allowance Policy template.

    Purchasing & Reimbursement

    Download the Purchasing Policy template.

    Download the Mobile Device Reimbursement Policy template.

    Download the Mobile Device Reimbursement Agreement template.

    Acceptable Use

    Download the General Security – User Acceptable Use Policy template.

    Personal Device Use

    Download the BYOD Acceptable Use Policy template.

    Download the Mobile Device Remote Wipe Waiver template.

    Employee Monitoring

    Download the General Security – User Acceptable Use Policy template.

    Visit the Reduce and Manage Your Organization’s Insider Threat Risk blueprint to address this gap.

    2.3.2 Answer these security policy questions

    Identify if there are different expectations for certain user groups, where exceptions are allowed, and how these policies will be enforced.

    Use Cases

    • What data and use cases are subject to stricter security measures?
    • Are certain use cases or data prohibited on personal devices?
    • Are there restrictions around where certain use cases are performed and by whom?

    Patching

    • Are users expected to apply OS and app updates and patches? Or does IT automate patching?

    Physical Security

    • What does the user need to do to secure their equipment?
    • If a device is lost or stolen, who does the user contact to report the lost or stolen device?

    Cybersecurity

    • How will IT enforce security configuration baselines?
    • What does the user need to do (or not do) to secure their device?
    • Are certain users allowed to have local admin rights?
    • What happens when a device doesn’t comply with the required security configuration baseline?

    Use the “Policies” section of the End-User Computing Strategy Template to document these answers.

    Identify security policy gaps

    Use these templates as a starting point

    Use Cases

    Download the General Security – User Acceptable Use Policy template.

    Visit the Discover and Classify Your Data blueprint to address this gap.

    Patching

    Download the General Security – User Acceptable Use Policy template.

    Physical and Cyber Security

    Download the General Security – User Acceptable Use Policy template.

    Visit the Develop and Deploy Security Policies blueprint to address this gap.

    For help defining your own security configuration baselines for each operating system, reference best practice documentation such as:

    National Institute of Standards and Technology’s National Checklist Program.

    Center for Internet Security’s solutions.

    Microsoft’s security baseline settings for Windows 10 and 11 Configuration Service Providers.

    Phase 3

    Build the Roadmap

    Set the Direction

    1.1 Identify Desired Benefits

    1.2 Perform a User Group Analysis

    1.3 Define the Vision

    Define the Offering

    2.1 Define the Standard Offerings

    2.2 Outline Supporting Services

    2.3 Define Governance and Policies

    Build the Roadmap

    3.1 Develop Initiatives

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Defining initiatives for each EUC domain
    • Building a customer journey map for any end-user computing migrations
    • Building a roadmap for EUC initiatives

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • End-User Computing Team

    Step 3.1

    Develop Initiatives

    Activities

    3.1.1 Identify initiatives for each EUC practice

    3.1.2 Build out the user’s migration journey map

    3.1.3 Build out a list of initiatives

    Build the Roadmap

    This step requires the following inputs:

    • User group workbook
    • Migration initiatives

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Infrastructure Director
    • Head of End-User Computing
    • End-User Computing Team
    • Project Manager (if applicable)

    Outcomes of this step

    • End-user computing roadmap
    • Migration plan

    3.1.1 Identify the gaps in each EUC area

    Build a high-level profile of the changes you want to make

    For each of the five areas, build a profile for the changes you want to implement. Record:

    1. The owner of the area
    2. The objective that you want to accomplish
    3. The desired benefits from focusing on that area
    4. Any dependencies to the work
    5. Risks that can cause the objective and benefits to not be achieved

    Identify the initiatives involved in each area.

    Document these profiles and initiatives in the “Roadmap” section of your End-User Computing Strategy Template.

    1. Devices
      • Corporate-issued devices
      • Standard offerings
    2. User Support
      • Self-service
      • Tier 1 support
    3. Use Cases
      • Providing value
      • Business apps
    4. Policy & Governance
      • Personal device use
      • IT policy
    5. Fitness for Use
      • Securing devices
      • Patching

    Your initiatives may require a user migration

    Plan the user’s migration journey

    Consider each user group’s and each persona’s unique needs and challenges throughout the migration.

    1. Preparing to migrate: The user may need to schedule the migration with IT and back up files.
    2. Migrating: IT executes the migration (e.g. updates the OS, changes management tools).
    3. Getting assistance: When a user experiences an error during the migration, how will they get help from IT?
    4. Post-migration: How will IT and the user know that the migration was successful one week later?

    Understand the three migration approaches

    Online

    Users execute the migrate on their own (e.g. Microsoft’s consumer migration to Windows 10).

    In person

    Users come in person, select a device, and perform the migration with a specialist. If the device needs support, they return to the same place (e.g. buying a computer from a store).

    Hybrid

    Users select a device. When the device is ready, they can schedule time to pick up the device and perform the migration with a specialist (e.g. purchasing an iPhone in advance from Apple’s website with in-store pick-up).

    Be prepared to support remotely

    Migrations to the new tool may fail. IT should check in with the user to confirm that the device successfully made the migration.

    3.1.2 Build out the user’s migration journey map

    Contemplate a roadmap to plan for end-user computing initiatives

    • As a group, brainstorm migration initiatives.
    • For each of the four phases, identify:
      • User activities: actions we need the user to do
      • IT activities: actions and processes that IT will perform internally
      • User touchpoints with IT: how the user will interact with the IT group
      • Opportunities: ideas for how IT can provide additional value to the end user in this phase.
    • Use the example in the End-User Computing Strategy Template as a starting point.

    Download the End-User Computing Strategy Template.

    Embed requirements gathering throughout your roadmap

    Use a combination of surveys, focus groups, and interviews

    You’re doing more than eliciting opinions – you’re performing organizational change management.

    • Use surveys to profile the demand for specific requirements. When a project is announced, develop surveys to gauge what users consider must-have, should-have, and could-have requirements.
    • Interviews should be used with high-value targets. Those who receive one-on-one face time can help generate good requirements and allow for effective communication around requirements.
    • Focus groups are used to get input from multiple people in a similar role. This format allows you to ask a few open-ended questions to groups of about five people.

    The benefits of interviews and focus groups:

    • Foster direct engagement: IT is able to hear directly from stakeholders about what they are looking to do with a solution and the level of functionality that they expect from it.
    • Offer greater detail: With interviews, greater insight can be gained by leveraging information that traditional surveys wouldn’t uncover. Face-to-face interactions provide thorough answers and context that helps inform requirements.
    • Remove ambiguity: Face-to-face interactions allow opportunities to follow up on ambiguous answers. Clarify what stakeholders are looking for and expect in a project.
    • Enable stakeholder management: Interviews are a direct line of communication with project stakeholders. They provide input and insight and help to maintain alignment, plan next steps, and increase awareness within the IT organization.

    Activity instructions:

    1. Early requirements ideation: Identify who you want to interview through one-on-one meetings and focus groups.
    2. Requirements validation and prioritization: Identify which user groups you plan to survey and when.
    3. Usability testing: Plan to include usability testing during each phase. Build it into your release practices.

    3.1.3 Build out a list of initiatives

    Download a copy of the Roadmap Tool

    On tab “1. Setup”:

    • Update category 1 to be all the EUC areas (i.e. Devices, User Support).
    • Update category 2 and category 3 with meaningful items (e.g. operating system, device model, persona group).

    Use tab “2. Data Entry” to record your list of initiatives.

    • Each initiative should have its own row. Write a high-level summary under “Roadmap Item” and include more detail under “Description and Rationale.”
    • Enter each initiative’s effort, priority, and timeline for beginning. These are mandatory fields for tab “3. Roadmap” to work properly.

    Use tab “3. Roadmap” to visualize your data. You will have to press “Refresh All” under Data in the ribbon for the PivotChart to update.

    Copy the roadmap visual on tab “3. Roadmap” into your End-User Computing Strategy Template. You can also copy the list of initiatives over into the document.

    Download the Roadmap Tool.

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Problem Solved

    You built a strategy to improve the balance between user enablement, risk mitigation, and cost optimization. Throughout the blueprint, you identified opportunities to provide additional value to end users and stakeholders during these activities:

    • Goals cascade
    • User group analysis
    • Definition of standard device types and platforms
    • IT support shift-left analysis
    • Policy gap analysis
    • Roadmapping

    If you would like additional support, have our analysts guide you through other phases as part of an Info-Tech workshop.

    Contact your account representative for more information.

    workshops@infotech.com

    1-888-670-8889

    Additional Support

    If you would like additional support, have our analysts guide you through other phases as part of an Info-Tech Workshop.

    Contact your account representative for more information.

    workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

    To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.

    Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.

    The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:

    Identify User Groups

    Identify each user group based on the business processes, tasks, and applications they use.

    Define Standard Device Offerings

    Record your provisioning models for each user group and the primary and secondary devices, apps, and peripherals that each group receives.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Simplify Remote Deployment With Zero-Touch Provisioning

    This project helps you align your zero-touch approach with stakeholder priorities and larger IT strategies. You will be able to build your zero-touch provisioning and patching plan from both the asset lifecycle and the end-user perspective to create a holistic approach that emphasizes customer service. Tailor deployment plans to more easily scope and resource deployment projects.

    Implement Hardware Asset Management

    This project will help you analyze the current state of your HAM program, define assets that will need to be managed, and build and involve the ITAM team from the beginning to help embed the change. It will also help you define standard policies, processes, and procedures for each stage of the hardware asset lifecycle, from procurement through to disposal.

    Govern Office 365

    This project will help you conduct a goals exercise and capability assessment for Office 365. You will be able to refine governance objectives, build out controls, formalize governance, build out one pagers, and finalize a communication plan.

    Research Contributors and Experts

    • Steve Fox, Deputy IT Director, Virginia State Corporation Commission
    • Mazen Joukhadar, TransForm Shared Service Organization
    • Nathan Schlaud, PMO Senior Director, RPC Inc.
    • Rebecca Mountjoy, Infrastructure Systems Manager, BlueScope Buildings
    • DJ Robins, Director of Information Technology, Mohawk MedBuy
    • Jason Jenkins, Tech. Specialist, Michal Baker Corp.
    • Brad Wells, IT Infrastructure Solutions Architect, London Police Service
    • Danelle Peddell, Director, Project Management Office, Emco Corporation
    • John Annand, Principal Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group
    • Allison Kinnaird, Research Director and Research Lead, Info-Tech Research Group
    • Sandi Conrad, Principal Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group
    • Andrew Kum-Seun, Senior Research Analyst, Info-Tech Research Group
    • Mark Tauschek, Vice President IT Infrastructure & Operations Research, Info-Tech Research Group

    A special thank-you to 6 anonymous contributors

    Bibliography

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    “2021 BYOD Security Report.” Cybersecurity Insiders, 2021. Web.

    Anderson, Arabella. “12 Remote Work Statistics to Know in 2022.” NorthOne, 2021. Accessed Oct. 2021.

    Bayes, Scarlett. “ITSM: 2021 & Beyond.” Service Desk Institute, 14 April 2021, p. 14. Web.

    Belton, Padraig. “Intel: Chip shortage will extend to at least 2023.” Light Reading, 22 Oct. 2021. Web.

    Beroe Inc. “Demand for PC Components Saw a Surge Due to COVID-19, Says Beroe Inc.” Cision PR Newswire, 2 Sept. 2021. Web.

    Devaraj, Vivekananthan. “Reference Architecture: Remote PC Access.” Citrix, 2021. Accessed Aug. 2021.

    “Elements of the Project Charter and Project Scope Statement.” A Guide to PMBOK, 7th edition, PMI, 2021. Accessed Sept. 2021.

    Elliott, Christopher. “This Is How The Pandemic Improved Customer Service.” Forbes, 2021. Accessed Oct. 2021.

    “Enable TMP 2.0 on your PC.” Microsoft, Support, Aug. 2021. Web.

    “End User Computing Trends to Look Out for in 2021.” Stratodesk, 30 Oct. 2020. Accessed September 2021.

    “Global State of Customer Service: The Transformation of Customer Service from 2015 to Present Day.” Microsoft, 2019. Web.

    Goodman, Elizabeth et al. “Observing the User Experience” A Practitioner's Guide to User Research, 2nd edition. Elsevier, 2012. Accessed Sept. 2021.

    Govindarajulu, Chittibabu. “An Instrument to Classify End-Users Based On the User Cube” Informing Science, June 2002. Accessed September 2021.

    Griffith, Eric. “Remote Employees to Bosses: Our PCs Suck!” PCMag, 11 Oct. 2021. Web.

    Hutchings, Jeffrey D., and Craig A. de Ridder. “Impact of Remote Working on End User Computing Solutions and Services.” Pillsbury, 2021. Accessed Sept. 2021

    “ITIL4 Create, Deliver, and Support.” Axelos, 2020. Accessed Sept. 2021.

    “ITIL4 Drive Stakeholder Value” Axelos, 2020. Accessed Sept. 2021.

    Mcbride, Neil, and Trevor Wood-Harper. “Towards User-Oriented Control of End-User Computing in Large Organizations” Journal of Organizational and End User Computing, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 33-41, 2002. Accessed September 2021.

    ““Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager Documentation.” Microsoft Docs, Microsoft, 2021. Accessed Sept. 2021.

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    Morgan, Jacob. “The Employee Experience Advantage: How to Win the War for Talent by Giving Employees the Workspaces they Want, the Tools they Need, and a Culture They Can Celebrate.” Wiley, 2017. Accessed Sept. 2021.

    Murphy, Anna. “How the pandemic has changed customer support forever.” Intercom, 2021. Accessed Sept. 2021.

    “Operating System Market Share Worldwide, Jan 2021-Jan 2022.” StatCounter GlobalStats, 2022. Web.

    “Operating System Market Share Worldwide, Jan-Dec 2011.” StatCounter GlobalStats, 2012. Web.

    Pereira, Karla Susiane, et al. “A Taxonomy to Classify Risk End-User Profile in Interaction with the Computing Environment.” In: Tryfonas T. (eds.) Human Aspects of Information Security, Privacy, and Trust. HAS 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 9750. Accessed Sept. 2021.

    Perrin, Andrew. “Mobile Technology and Home Broadband 2020.” Pew Research Center, 3 June 2021. Web.

    Quan-Haase, Anabel. “Technology and Society: Social Networks, Power, and Inequality” Oxford University Press, 2012. Accessed Aug. 2021.

    Reed, Karin, and Joseph Allen. “Suddenly Virtual: Making Remote Meetings Work.” Wiley, 2021. Accessed Aug. 2021.

    Rockart, John F., and Lauren S. Flannery. “The management of end user computing.” Communications of the ACM, vol. 26, no. 10, Oct. 1983. Accessed September 2021.

    Turek, Melanie. “Employees Say Smartphones Boost Productivity by 34 Percent: Frost & Sullivan Research.” Samsung Insights, 3 Aug. 2016. Web.

    Vladimirskiy, Vadim. “Windows 365 vs. Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) – Comparing Two DaaS Products.” Nerdio, 2021. Accessed Aug. 2021.

    “VMware 2021 Annual Report.” VMware, Financial Document Library, 2021. Web.

    VMworld 2021, Oct. 2021.

    Vogels, Emily A. “Digital divide persists even as americans with lower incomes make gains in tech adoption.” Pew Research Center, 22 June 2021. Web.

    “What is End-User computing?” VMware, 2021. Accessed Aug. 2021.

    “Windows 10 Home and Pro.” Microsoft, Docs, 2021. Web.

    Zibreg, Christian. “Microsoft 365 Now Boasts Over 50 Million Subscribers.” MUD, 29 April 2021. Web.

    Leverage Big Data by Starting Small

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    • Parent Category Name: Big Data
    • Parent Category Link: /big-data
    • The desire for rapid decision making is increasing and the complexity of data sources is growing; business users want access to several new data sources, but in a way that is controlled and easily consumable.
    • Organizations may understand the transformative potential of a big data initiative, but struggle to make the transition from the awareness of its importance to identifying a concrete use case for a pilot project.
    • The big data ecosystem is crowded and confusing, and a lack of understanding of that ecosystem may cause a paralysis for organizations.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Big data is simply data. With technological advances, what was once considered big data is now more approachable for all organizations irrespective of size.
    • The variety element is the key to unlocking big data value. Drill down into your specific use cases more effectively by focusing on what kind of data you should use.
    • Big data is about deep analytics. Deep doesn’t mean difficult. Visualization of data, integrating new data, and understanding associations are ways to deepen your analytics.

    Impact and Result

    • Establish a foundational understanding of what big data entails and what the implications of its different elements are for your organization.
    • Confirm your current maturity for taking on a big data initiative, and make considerations for core data management practices in the context of incorporating big data.
    • Avoid boiling the ocean by pinpointing use cases by industry and functional unit, followed by identifying the most essential data sources and elements that will enable the initiative.
    • Leverage a repeatable pilot project framework to build out a successful first initiative and implement future projects en-route to evolving a big data program.

    Leverage Big Data by Starting Small Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should leverage big data, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Undergo big data education

    Build a foundational understanding of the current big data landscape.

    • Leverage Big Data by Starting Small – Phase 1: Undergo Big Data Education

    2. Assess big data readiness

    Appraise current capabilities for handling a big data initiative and revisit the key data management practices that will enable big data success.

    • Leverage Big Data by Starting Small – Phase 2: Assess Big Data Readiness
    • Big Data Maturity Assessment Tool

    3. Pinpoint a killer big data use case

    Armed with Info-Tech’s variety dimension framework, identify the top use cases and the data sources/elements that will power the initiative.

    • Leverage Big Data by Starting Small – Phase 3: Pinpoint a Killer Big Data Use Case
    • Big Data Use-Case Suggestion Tool

    4. Structure a big data proof-of-concept project

    Leverage a repeatable framework to detail the core components of the pilot project.

    • Leverage Big Data by Starting Small – Phase 4: Structure a Big Data Proof-of-Concept Project
    • Big Data Work Breakdown Structure Template
    • Data Scientist
    • Big Data Cost/Benefit Tool
    • Big Data Stakeholder Presentation Template
    • Big Data Communication Tracking Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Leverage Big Data by Starting Small

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Undergo Big Data Education

    The Purpose

    Understand the basic elements of big data and its relationship to traditional business intelligence.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Common, foundational knowledge of what big data entails.

    Activities

    1.1 Determine which of the four Vs is most important to your organization.

    1.2 Explore new data through a social lens.

    1.3 Brainstorm new opportunities for enhancing current reporting assets with big data sources.

    Outputs

    Relative importance of the four Vs from IT and business perspectives

    High-level improvement ideas to report artifacts using new data sources

    2 Assess Your Big Data Readiness

    The Purpose

    Establish an understanding of current maturity for taking on big data, as well as revisiting essential data management practices.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Concrete idea of current capabilities.

    Recommended actions for developing big data maturity.

    Activities

    2.1 Determine your organization’s current big data maturity level.

    2.2 Plan for big data management.

    Outputs

    Established current state maturity

    Foundational understanding of data management practices in the context of a big data initiative

    3 Pinpoint Your Killer Big Data Use Case

    The Purpose

    Explore a plethora of potential use cases at the industry and business unit level, followed by using the variety element of big data to identify the highest value initiative(s) within your organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    In-depth characterization of a pilot big data initiative that is thoroughly informed by the business context.

    Activities

    3.1 Identify big data use cases at the industry and/or departmental levels.

    3.2 Conduct big data brainstorming sessions in collaboration with business stakeholders to refine use cases.

    3.3 Revisit the variety dimension framework to scope your big data initiative in further detail.

    3.4 Create an organizational 4-column data flow model with your big data sources/elements.

    3.5 Evaluate data sources by considering business value and risk.

    3.6 Perform a value-effort assessment to prioritize your initiatives.

    Outputs

    Potential big data use cases

    Potential initiatives rooted in the business context and identification of valuable data sources

    Identification of specific data sources and data elements

    Characterization of data sources/elements by value and risk

    Prioritization of big data use cases

    4 Structure a Big Data Proof-of-Concept Project

    The Purpose

    Put together the core components of the pilot project and set the stage for enterprise-wide support.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A repeatable framework for implementing subsequent big data initiatives.

    Activities

    4.1 Construct a work breakdown structure for the pilot project.

    4.2 Determine your project’s need for a data scientist.

    4.3 Establish the staffing model for your pilot project.

    4.4 Perform a detailed cost/benefit analysis.

    4.5 Make architectural considerations for supporting the big data initiative.

    Outputs

    Comprehensive list of tasks for implementing the pilot project

    Decision on whether or not a data scientist is needed, and where data science capabilities will be sourced

    RACI chart for the project

    Big data pilot cost/benefit summary

    Customized, high-level architectural model that incorporates technologies that support big data

    Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind

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    • Parent Category Name: DR and Business Continuity
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    • Writing SOPs is the last thing most people want to do, so the work gets pushed down the priority list and the documents become dated.
    • Most organizations know it is good practice to have SOPs as it improves consistency, facilitates process improvement, and contributes to efficient operations.
    • Though the benefits are understood, many organizations don't have SOPs and those that do don't maintain them.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Create visual documents, not dense SOP manuals.
    • Start with high-impact SOPs, and identify the most critical undocumented SOPs and address them first.
    • Integrate SOP creation into project requirements and create SOP approval steps to ensure documentation is reviewed and completed in a timely fashion.

    Impact and Result

    • Create visual documents that can be scanned. Flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams are quicker to create, take less time to update, and are ultimately more usable than a dense manual.
    • Use simple but effective document management practices.
    • Make SOPs part of your project deliverables rather than an afterthought. That includes checking documentation status as part of your change management process.

    Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind – Make SOPs work for you with visual documents that are easier to create and more effective for process management and optimization.

    Learn best practices for creating, maintaining, publishing, and managing effective SOP documentation.

    • Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind – Phases 1-3

    2. Standard Operating Procedures Workbook and Document Management Checklist – Prioritize, optimize, and document critical SOPs.

    Identify required documentation and prioritize them according to urgency and impact.

    • Standard Operating Procedures Workbook
    • Document Management Checklist

    3. Process Templates and Examples – Review and assess templates to find samples that are fit for purpose.

    Review the wide variety of samples to see what works best for your needs.

    • Standard Operating Procedures Project Roadmap Tool
    • System Recovery Procedures Template
    • Application Development Process – AppDev Example (Visio)
    • Application Development Process – AppDev Example (PDF)
    • Network Backup for Atlanta Data Center – Backups Example
    • DRP Recovery Workflow Template (PDF)
    • DRP Recovery Workflow Template (Visio)
    • Employee Termination Process Checklist – IT Security Example
    • Sales Process for New Clients – Sales Example (Visio)
    • Sales Process for New Clients – Sales Example (PDF)
    • Incident and Service Management Procedures – Service Desk Example (Visio)
    • Incident and Service Management Procedures – Service Desk Example (PDF)
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind

    Change your focus from satisfying auditors to driving process optimization, consistent IT operations, and effective knowledge transfer.

    Project Outline

    Two flowcharts are depicted. The first is labelled 'Executive Brief' and the second is labelled 'Tools and Templates Roadmap'. Both outline the following project.

    ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

    Do your SOPs drive process optimization?

    "Most organizations struggle to document and maintain SOPs as required, leading to process inconsistencies and inefficiencies. These breakdowns directly impact the performance of IT operations. Effective SOPs streamline training and knowledge transfer, improve transparency and compliance, enable automation, and ultimately decrease costs as processes improve and expensive breakdowns are avoided. Documenting SOPs is not just good practice; it directly impacts IT efficiency and your bottom line."

    Frank Trovato, Senior Manager, Infrastructure Research Info-Tech Research Group

    Our understanding of the problem

    This Research Is Designed For:

    • IT Process Owners
    • IT Infrastructure Managers
    • IT Service Managers
    • System Administrators
    • And more…

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Identify, prioritize, and document SOPs for critical business processes.
    • Discover opportunities for overall process optimization by documenting SOPs.
    • Develop documentation best practices that support ongoing maintenance and review.

    This Research Will Also Assist:

    • CTOs
    • Business unit leaders

    This Research Will Help Them:

    • Understand the need for and value of documenting SOPs in a usable format.
    • Help set expectations around documentation best practices.
    • Extend IT best practices to other parts of the business.

    Executive summary

    Situation

    • Most organizations know it is good practice to have SOPs as it improves consistency, facilitates process improvement, and contributes to efficient operations.
    • Though the benefits are understood, many organizations don't have SOPs and those that do don't maintain them.

    Complication

    • Writing SOPs is the last thing most people want to do, so the work gets pushed down the priority list and the documents become dated.
    • Promoting the use of SOPs can also face staff resistance as the documentation is seen as time consuming to develop and maintain, too convoluted to be useful, and generally out of date.

    Resolution

    • Overcome staff resistance while implementing a sustainable SOP documentation approach by doing the following:
      • Create visual documents that can be scanned. Flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams are quicker to create, take less time to update, and are ultimately more usable than a dense manual.
      • Use simple, but effective document management practices.
      • Make SOPs part of your project deliverables rather than an afterthought. That includes checking documentation status as part of your change management process.
    • Extend these principles to other areas of IT and business processes. The survey data and examples in this report include application development and business processes as well as IT operations.

    Info-Tech Insight

    1. Create visual documents, not dense SOP manuals.
    2. Start with high-impact SOPs. Identify the most critical undocumented SOPs and document them first.
    3. Integrate SOP creation into project requirements and create SOP approval steps to ensure documentation is reviewed and completed in a timely fashion.

    Most organizations struggle to create and maintain SOP documents, especially in North America, despite the benefits

    North American companies are traditionally more technology focused than process focused, and that is reflected in the approach to documenting SOPs.

    • An ad hoc approach to SOPs almost certainly means documents will be out of date and ineffective. The same is also true when updating SOPs as part of periodic concerted efforts to prepare for an audit, annual review, or certification process, and this makes the task more imposing.
    • Incorporating SOP updates as part of regular change management processes ensures documents are up to date and usable. This can also make reviews and audits much more manageable.

    'It isn’t unusual for us to see infrastructure or operations documentation that is wildly out of date. We’re talking months, even years. Often it was produced as one big effort and then not reliably maintained.'

    – Gary Patterson, Consultant, Quorum Resources

    Organizations are most likely to update documents on an ad hoc basis or via periodic formal reviews. Less than 25% keep SOPs updated as needed.

    Graph depicting North America versus Asia and Europe practices of document updates

    Source: Info-Tech Research Group; N=104

    Document SOPs to improve knowledge transfer, optimize processes, and ultimately save money

    Benefits of documented SOPs Impact of undocumented/undefined SOPs
    Improved training and knowledge transfer: Routine tasks can be delegated to junior staff (freeing senior staff to work on higher priority tasks). Without documented SOPs: Tasks will be difficult to delegate, key staff become a bottleneck, knowledge transfer is inconsistent, and there is a longer onboarding process for new staff.
    IT automation, process optimization, and consistent operations: Defining, documenting, and then optimizing processes enables IT automation to be built on sound processes, so consistent positive results can be achieved. Without documented SOPs: IT automation built on poorly defined, unoptimized processes leads to inconsistent results.
    Compliance: Compliance audits are more manageable because the documentation is already in place. Without documented SOPs: Documenting SOPs to prepare for an audit becomes a major time-intensive project.
    Transparency: Visually documented processes answer the common business question of “why does that take so long?” Without documented SOPs: Other areas of the organization may not understand how IT operates, which can lead to confusion and unrealistic expectations.
    Cost savings: Work can be assigned to the lowest level of support cost, IT operations achieve greater efficiency, and expensive breakdowns are avoided. Without documented SOPs: Work may be distributed uneconomically, money may be wasted through inefficient processes, and the organization is vulnerable to costly disruptions.

    COBIT, ISO, and ITIL aren’t a complete solution

    "Being ITIL and ISO compliant hasn’t solved our documentation problem. We’re still struggling."

    – Vendor Relationship Manager, Financial Services Industry

    • Adopting a framework such as ITIL, COBIT, or ISO doesn’t always mean that SOP documents are accurate, effective, or up to date.
    • Although these frameworks emphasize the importance of documenting processes, they tend to focus more on process development and requirements than on actual documentation. In other words, they deal more with what needs to be done than with how to do it.
    • This research will focus more on the documentation process itself – so how to go about creating, updating, optimizing, managing, and distributing SOP documents.

    Inadequate SOPs lead to major data loss and over $99,000 in recovery costs

    CASE STUDY 1

    Company A mid-sized US organization with over 1,000 employees

    Source Info-Tech Interview

    Situation

    • IT supports storage nodes replicated across two data centers. SOPs for backup procedures did not include an escalation procedure for failed backups or a step to communicate successful backups. Management was not aware of the issue and therefore could not address it before a failure occurred.

    Incident

    • Primary storage had a catastrophic failure, and that put pressure on the secondary storage, which then also failed. All active storage failed and the data corrupted. Daily backups were failing due to lack of disk space on the backup device. The organization had to resort to monthly tape backups.

    Impact

    • Lost 1 month of data (had to go back to the last tape backup).
    • Recovery also took much longer because recovery procedures were also not documented.
    • Key steps such as notifying impacted customers were overlooked. Customers were left unhappy not only with the outage and data loss but also the lack of communication.
    Hard dollar recovery costs
    Backup specialist (vendor) to assist with restoring data from tape $12,000
    Temps to re-enter 1 month of data $5,000
    Weekend OT for 4 people (approximately 24 hours per person) $5,538
    Productivity cost for affected employees for 1 day of downtime $76,923
    Total $99,462

    Intangible costs

    High “goodwill” impact for internal staff and customers.

    "The data loss pointed out a glaring hole in our processes – the lack of an escalation procedure. If I knew backups weren’t being completed, I would have done something about that immediately."

    – Senior Division Manager, Information Technology Division

    IT services company optimizes its SOPs using “Lean” approach

    CASE STUDY 2

    Company Atrion

    SourceInfo-Tech Interview

    Lean and SOPs

    • Standardized work is important to Lean’s philosophy of continuous improvement. SOPs allow for replication of the current best practices and become the baseline standard for member collaboration toward further improvements.
    • For more on Lean’s approach to SOPs, see “Lean Six Sigma Quality Transformation Toolkit (LSSQTT) Tool #17.”

    Atrion’s approach

    • Atrion is focused on documenting high-level processes that improve the client and employee experience or which can be used for training.
    • Cross-functional teams collaborate to document a process and find ways to optimize that SOP.
    • Atrion leverages visual documentation as much as possible: flowcharts, illustrations, video screen captures, etc.

    Outcomes

    • Large increase in usable, up-to-date documentation.
    • Process and efficiency improvements realized and made repeatable.
    • Success has been so significant that Atrion is planning to offer SOP optimization training and support as a service for its clients in the future.

    Atrion

    • Atrion provides IT services, solutions, and leadership to clients in the 250+ user range.
    • After adopting the Lean framework for its organization, it has deliberately focussed on optimizing its documentation.

    When we initiated a formal process efficiency program a little over a year ago and began striving towards a culture of continuous improvement, documenting our SOPs became key. We capture how we do things today and how to make that process more efficient. We call it current state and future state mapping of any process.

    – Michelle Pope, COO, Atrion Networking Corp.

    Strategies to overcome common documentation challenges

    Use Info-Tech’s methodology to streamline the SOP documentation process.

    Common documentation challenges Info-Tech’s methodology
    Where to start. For organizations with very few (if any) documented SOPs, the challenge is where to start. Apply a client focus to prioritize SOPs. Start with mission-critical operations, service management, and disaster recovery.
    Lack of time. Writing SOPs is viewed as an onerous task, and IT staff typically do not like to write documentation or lack the time. Use flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams over traditional dense manuals. Flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams take less time to create and maintain, and the output is far more usable than traditional manuals.
    Inconsistent document management. Documents are unorganized, e.g. hard to find documents, or you don’t know if you have the correct, latest version. Keep it simple. You don’t need a full-time SOP librarian if you stick to a simple, but consistent approach to documentation management. Simple is easier to follow (therefore, be consistent).
    Documentation is not maintained. More urgent tasks displace documentation efforts. There is little real motivation for staff to keep documents current. Ensure accountability at the individual and project level. Incorporate documentation requirements into performance evaluations, project planning, and change control procedures.

    Use this blueprint as a building block to complete these other Info-Tech projects

    Improve IT-Business Alignment Through an Internal SLA

    Understand business requirements, clarify capabilities, and close gaps.

    Standardize the Service Desk – Module 2 & 3

    Improve reporting and management of incidents and build service request workflows.

    Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan

    Define appropriate objectives for DR, build a roadmap to close gaps, and document your incident response plan.

    Extend the Service Desk to the Enterprise

    Position IT as an innovator.

    Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

    DIY Toolkit

    “Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.”

    Guided Implementation

    “Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.”

    Workshop

    “We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.”

    Consulting

    “Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Create Visual SOP Documents – project overview

    1. Prioritize, optimize, and document critical SOPs 2. Establish a sustainable documentation process 3. Identify a content management solution
    Best-Practice Toolkit

    1.1 Identify and prioritize undocumented/outdated critical processes

    1.2 Reduce effort and improve usability with visual documentation

    1.3 Optimize and document critical processes

    2.1 Establish guidelines for identifying and organizing SOPs

    2.2 Write an SOP for creating and maintaining SOPs

    2.3 Plan SOP working sessions to put a dent into your documentation backlog

    3.1 Understand the options when it comes to content management solutions

    3.2 Use Info-Tech’s evaluation tool to determine the right approach for you

    Guided Implementations
    • Identify undocumented critical SOPs.
    • Understand the benefits of a visual approach.
    • Work through a tabletop exercise to document two visual SOP documents.
    • Establish documentation information guidelines.
    • Identify opportunities to create a culture that fosters SOP creation.
    • Address outstanding undocumented SOPs by working through process issues together.
    • Review your current approach to content management and discuss possible alternatives.
    • Evaluate options for a content management strategy, in the context of your own environment.
    Onsite Workshop Module 1:

    Identify undocumented critical processes and review the SOP mapping process.

    Module 2:

    Review and improve your documentation process and address your documentation backlog.

    Module 3:

    Evaluate strategies for publishing and managing SOP documentation.

    Phase 1 Outcome:
      Review and implement the process for creating usable SOPs.
    Phase 2 Outcome:
      Optimize your SOP maintenance processes.
    Phase 3 Outcome:
      Choose a content management solution that meets your needs.

    Workshop overview

    Contact your account representative or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

    Workshop Prep Workshop Day 1 Workshop Day 2 Workshop Day 3 Workshop Day 4
    Activities Scope the SOP pilot and secure resources
    • Identify the scope of the pilot project.
    • Develop a list of processes to document.
    • Ensure required resources are available.
    Prioritize SOPs and review methodology

    1.1 Prioritize undocumented SOPs.

    1.2 Review the visual approach to SOP planning.

    1.3 Conduct a tabletop planning exercise.

    Review SOPs and identify process gaps

    2.1 Continue the tabletop planning exercise with other critical processes.

    2.2 Conduct a gap analysis to identify solutions to issues discovered during SOP mapping.

    Identify projects to meet process gaps

    3.1 Develop a prioritized project roadmap to address gaps.

    3.2 Define a process for documenting and maintaining SOPs.

    3.3 Identify and assign actions to improve SOP management and maintenance.

    Set next steps and put a dent in your backlog

    4.1 Run an SOP working session with experts and process owners to put a dent in the documentation backlog.

    4.2 Identify an appropriate content management solution.

    Deliverables
    1. Defined scope for the workshop.
    2. A longlist of key processes.
    1. Undocumented SOPs prioritized according to business criticality and current state.
    2. One or more documented SOPs.
    1. One or more documented SOPs.
    2. Gap analysis.
    1. SOP Project Roadmap.
    2. Publishing and Document Management Solution Evaluation Tool.
    1. Multiple documented SOPs.
    2. Action steps to improve SOP management and maintenance.

    Measured value for Guided Implementations (GIs)

    Engaging in GIs doesn’t just offer valuable project advice, it also results in significant cost savings.

    GI Measured Value
    Phase 1: Prioritize, optimize, and document critical SOPs
    • Time, value, and resources saved using Info-Tech’s methodology to prioritize and document SOPs in the ideal visual format.
    • For example, 4 FTEs*4 days*$80,000/year = $5,120
    Phase 2: Establish a sustainable documentation process
    • Time, value, and resources saved using our tools and methodology to implement a process to ensure SOPs are maintained, accessible, and up to date.
    • For example: 4 FTEs*5 days*$80,000/year = $6,400
    Phase 3: Identify a content management solution
    • Time, value, and resources saved using our best-practice guidance and tools to select an approach and solution to manage your organization’s SOPs.
    • For example: 2 FTEs*5 days*$80,000/year = $3,200
    Total Savings $14,720

    Note: Documenting SOPs provides additional benefits that are more difficult to quantify: reducing the time spent by staff to find or execute processes, improving transparency and accountability, presenting opportunities for automation, etc.

    Phase 1

    Prioritize, Optimize, and Document Critical SOPs

    Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind

    Phase 1 outline

    Call 1-888-670-8889 or email GuidedImplementations@InfoTech.com for more information.

    Complete these steps on your own, or call us to complete a guided implementation. A guided implementation is a series of 2-3 advisory calls that help you execute each phase of a project. They are included in most advisory memberships.

    Guided Implementation 1: Prioritize, optimize, and document critical SOPs

    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 2 weeks

    Step 1.1: Prioritize SOPs

    Start with an analyst kick off call:

    • Apply a client focus to critical IT services.
    • Identify undocumented, critical SOPs.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Rank and prioritize your SOP documentation needs.

    With this template:

    Standard Operating Procedures Workbook

    Step 1.2: Develop visual documentation

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Understand the benefits of a visual approach.
    • Review possibilities for visual documentation.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Identify formats that can improve your SOP documentation.

    With these templates:

    • Example DRP Process Flows
    • Example App Dev Process And more…

    Step 1.3: Optimize and document critical processes

    Finalize phase deliverable:

    • Two visual SOP documents, mapped using a tabletop exercise.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Create the visual SOP.
    • Review and optimize the process.

    With this tool:

    SOP Project Roadmap Tool

    Phase 1 Results & Insights:

    Identify opportunities to deploy visual documentation, and follow Info-Tech’s process to capture steps, gaps, and opportunities to improve IT processes.

    Focus first on client-facing and high-impact SOPs

    IT’s number one obligation to internal and external customers is to keep critical services running – that points to mission-critical operations, service management, and disaster recovery.

    Topic Description
    Mission-critical operations
    • Maintenance processes for mission-critical systems (e.g. upgrade procedures, batch processing, etc.).
    • Client-facing services with either formal or informal SLAs.
    • Change management – especially for mission-critical systems, change management is more about minimizing risk of downtime than expediting change.
    Service management
    • Service desk procedures (e.g. ticket assignment and issue response).
    • Escalation procedures for critical outages.
    • System monitoring.
    Disaster recovery procedures
    • Management-level incident response plans, notification procedures, and high-level failover procedures (e.g. which systems must come up first, second, third).
    • Recovery or failover procedures for individual systems.
    • Backup and restore procedures – to ensure backups are available if needed.

    Understand what makes an application or service mission critical

    When email or a shared drive goes down, it may impact productivity, but may not be a significant impact to the business. Ask these questions when assessing whether an application or service is mission critical.

    Criteria Description
    Is there a hard-dollar impact from downtime?
    • For example, when an online catalog system goes down, it impacts sales and therefore revenue. Without determining the actual financial impact, you can make an immediate assessment that this is a Gold system.
    • By contrast, loss of email may impact productivity but may not affect revenue streams, depending on your business. A classification of Silver is most likely appropriate.
    Impact on goodwill/customer trust?
    • If downtime means delays in service delivery or otherwise impacts goodwill, there is an intangible impact on revenue that may make the associated systems Gold status.
    Is regulatory compliance a factor?
    • If a system requires redundancy and/or high availability due to legal or regulatory compliance requirements, it may need to be classified as a Gold system.
    Is there a health or safety risk?
    • For example, police and medical organizations have systems that are mission critical due to their impact on health and safety rather than revenue or cost, and therefore are classified as Gold systems. Are there similar considerations in your organization?

    "Email and other Windows-based applications are important for our day-to-day operations, but they aren’t critical. We can still manufacture and ship clothing without them. However, our manufacturing systems, those are absolutely critical"

    – Bob James, Technical Architect, Carhartt, Inc.

    Create a high-level risk and benefit scale

    1.1a

    15 minutes

    Define criteria for high, medium, and low risks and benefits, as shown in the example below. These criteria will be used in the upcoming exercises to rank SOPs.

    Note: The goal in this section is to provide high-level indicators of which SOPs should be documented first, so a high-level set of criteria is used. To conduct a detailed business impact analysis, see Info-Tech’s Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan.

    Materials

    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • Process Owners
    • SMEs
    Risk to the business Score
    Low: Affects ad hoc activities or non-critical data. 1
    Moderate: Impacts productivity and internal goodwill. 2
    High: Impacts revenue, safety, and external goodwill. 3
    Benefit (e.g. productivity improvement) Score
    Low: Minimal impact. 1
    Moderate: Items with short-term or occasional applicability, so limited benefit. 2
    High: Save time for common or ongoing processes, and extensive improvement to training/knowledge transfer. 3

    Identify and prioritize undocumented mission-critical operations

    1.1b

    15 minutes

    1. To navigate to this exercise, open Info-Tech’s Standard Operating Procedures Workbook.
    2. List your top three–five mission critical applications or services.
    3. Identify relevant SOPs that support those applications or services.
    4. Indicate SOP status: Green = up to date and complete, Yellow = out-of-date or incomplete, Red = undocumented.
    5. Assign risk and benefit scores (3=high, 1=low) to Yellow and Red SOPs based on potential impact if those processes failed (risk) and opportunity for process improvement (benefit).

    OUTPUT

    • Analysis of SOPs supporting mission-critical operations

    Materials

    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • Process Owners
    • SMEs
    Application SOPs Status Risk Benefit
    Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
    • System administration (user administration, adding projects, etc.).
    Red 1 2
    • System upgrades (including OS upgrades and patches).
    Red 2 2
    • Report generation.
    Green n/a n/a
    Network services
    • Network monitoring (including fault detection).
    Yellow 3 2
    • Network upgrades.
    Red 2 1
    • Backup procedures.
    Yellow 3 1

    Identify and prioritize undocumented service management procedures

    1.1c

    15 minutes

    1. To navigate to this exercise, open Info-Tech’s Standard Operating Procedures Workbook.
    2. Identify service management SOPs.
    3. Indicate SOP status: Green = up to date and complete, Yellow = out-of-date or incomplete, Red = undocumented.
    4. Assign risk and benefit scores (3=high, 1=low) to Yellow and Red SOPs based on potential impact if those processes failed (risk) and opportunity for process improvement (benefit).

    OUTPUT

    • Analysis of SOPs supporting service management

    Materials

    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • Process Owners
    • SMEs
    Service Type SOPs Status Risk Benefit
    Service Request
    • Software install
    Red 3 1
    • Software update
    Yellow 3 1
    • New hardware
    Green n/a n/a
    Incident Management
    • Ticket entry and triage
    Yellow 3 2
    • Ticket escalation
    Red 2 1
    • Notification for critical issues
    Yellow 3 1

    Identify and prioritize undocumented DR procedures

    1.1d

    20 minutes

    1. To navigate to this exercise, open Info-Tech’s Standard Operating Procedures Workbook.
    2. Identify DR SOPs.
    3. Indicate SOP status: Green = up to date and complete, Yellow = out-of-date or incomplete, Red = undocumented.
    4. Assign risk and benefit scores (3=high, 1=low) to Yellow and Red SOPs based on potential impact if those processes failed (risk) and opportunity for process improvement (benefit).

    OUTPUT

    • Analysis of SOPs supporting DR

    Materials

    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • Process Owners
    • SMEs
    DR Phase SOPs Status Risk Benefit
    Discovery and Declaration
    • Initial detection and escalation
    Red 3 1
    • Notification procedures to Emergency Response Team (ERT)
    Yellow 3 1
    • Notification procedures to staff
    Green n/a n/a
    Recover Gold Systems
    • ERP recovery procedures
    Red 2 2
    • Corporate website recovery procedures
    Yellow 3 2
    Recover Silver Systems
    • MS Exchange recovery procedures
    Red 2 1

    Select the SOPs to focus on for the first round of documentation

    1.1e

    20 minutes

    1. Identify two significantly different priority 1 SOPs to document during this workshop. It’s important to get a sense of how the Info-Tech templates and methodology can be applied to different types of SOPs.
    2. Rank the remaining SOPs that you still need to address post-workshop by priority level within each topic area.

    INPUT

    • SOP analysis from activities 1.1 and 1.2

    OUTPUT

    • A shortlist of critical, undocumented SOPs to review later in this phase

    Materials

    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • Process Owners
    • SMEs
    Category Area SOPs Status Risk Benefit
    Disaster Recovery Procedures Discovery and Declaration
    • Initial detection and escalation
    Red 3 1
    • Notification procedures to ERT
    Yellow 3 1
    Mission-Critical Operations Network Services
    • Network monitoring (including fault detection)
    Yellow 3 2
    Service Management Procedures Incident Management
    • Ticket entry and triage
    Yellow 3 2

    Change the format of your documentation

    Which document is more effective? Which is more likely to be used?

    "The end result for most SOPs is a 100-page document that makes anyone but the author want to stab themselves rather than read it. Even worse is when you finally decide to waste an hour of your life reading it only to be told afterwards that it might not be quite right because Bob or Stan needed to make some changes last year but never got around to it."

    – Peter Church, Solutions Architect

    Create visual-based documentation to improve usability and effectiveness

    "Without question, 300-page DRPs are not effective. I mean, auditors love them because of the detail, but give me a 10-page DRP with contact lists, process flows, diagrams, and recovery checklists that are easy to follow."

    – Bernard Jones, MBCI, CBCP, CORP, Manager Disaster Recovery/BCP, ActiveHealth Management

    SOPs, including those that support your disaster recovery plan (DRP), are often created to meet certification requirements. However, this often leads to lengthy overly detailed documentation that is geared to auditors and business leaders, not IT staff trying to execute a procedure in a high-pressure, time-sensitive scenario.

    Staff don’t have time to flip through a 300-page manual, let alone read lengthy instructions, so organizations are transforming monster manuals into shorter, visual-based documentation. Benefits include:

    • Quicker to create than lengthy manuals.
    • Easier to be absorb, so they are more usable.
    • More likely to stay up to date because they are easier to maintain.

    Example: DRPs that include visual SOPs are easier to use — that leads to shorter recovery times and fewer mistakes.

    Chart is depicted showing the success rates of traditional manuals versus visual documentation.

    Use flowcharts for process flows or a high-level view of more detailed procedures

    • Flowcharts depict who does what and when; they provide an at-a-glance view that is easy to follow and makes task ownership clear.
    • Use swim lanes, as in this example, to indicate process stages and task ownership.
    • For experienced staff, a high-level reminder of process flows or key steps is sufficient.
    • Where more detail is required, include links to supporting documentation (which could include checklists, vendor documentation, other flowcharts, etc.).

    See Info-Tech’s Incident and Service Management Procedures – Service Desk Example.

    "Flowcharts are more effective when you have to explain status and next steps to upper management."

    – Assistant Director-IT Operations, Healthcare Industry

    Example: SOP in flowchart format

    A flowchart is depicted as an example flowchart. This one is an SOP flowchart labelled 'Triage Process - Incidents'

    Review your options for diagramming software

    Many organizations look for an option that easily integrates with the MS Office suite. The default option is often Microsoft Visio.

    Pros:

    • Easy to learn and use.
    • Has a wide range of features and capabilities.
    • Comes equipped with a large collection of stencils and templates.
    • Offers the convenience of fluid integration with the MS Office Suite.

    Cons:

    • Isn’t included in any version of the MS Office Suite and can be quite expensive to license.
    • Not available for Mac or Linux environments.

    Consider the options below if you’re looking for an alternative to Microsoft Visio:

    Desktop Solutions

    • Dia Diagram Editor
    • Diagram Designer
    • LibreOffice Draw
    • Pencil Project
    • yEd Graph Editor

    • Draw.io
    • Creately
    • Gliffy
    • LucidChart

    Note: No preference or recommendation is implied from the ordering of the options above.

    This list is not intended to be comprehensive.

    Evaluate different solutions to identify one that works for you

    Use the criteria below to identify a flowchart software that fits your needs.

    Criteria Description
    Platform What platform(s) can run the software?
    Description What use cases are identified by the vendor – and do these cover your needs for documenting your SOPs? Is the software open source?
    Features What are the noteworthy features and characteristics?
    Usability How easy is the program to use? What’s the learning curve like? How intuitive is the design?
    Templates and Stencils Availability of templates and stencils.
    Portability Can the solution integrate with other pieces of software? Consider whether other tools can view, open, and/or edit documents; what file formats can be published, etc.
    Cost Cost of the software to purchase or license.

    Use checklists to streamline step-by-step procedures

    • Checklists are ideal when staff just need a reminder of what to do, not how to do it.
    • Remember your audience. You aren’t pulling in a novice to run a complex procedure, so all you really need here are a series of reminders.
    • Where more detail is required, include links to supporting documentation.
    • Note that a flowchart can often be used instead of a checklist, depending on preference.

    For two different examples of a checklist template, see:

    Image depicting an example checklist. This checklist depicts an employee termination checklist

    Use topology diagrams to capture network layout, integrations, and system information

    • Organizations commonly have network topology diagrams for reference purposes, so this is just a re-use of existing resources.
    • Physically label real world equipment to correspond to topology diagrams. While these labels will be redundant for most IT employees, they help give clarity and confidence when changes are being made.
    • If your topology diagrams are housed in a tool such as a systems management product, then export the diagrams so they can be included in your SOP documentation suite.

    "Our network engineers came to me and said our standard SOP template didn't work for them. They're now using a lot of diagrams and flowcharts, and that has worked out better for them."

    The image shows a topology organization diagram as an example network layout

    Use screen captures and tutorials to facilitate training for applications and SOPs

    • Screen capture tutorials or videos are effective for training staff on applications. For example, create a screen capture tutorial to train staff on the use of a help desk application and your company’s specific process for using that tool.
    • Similarly, create tutorials to train end users on straightforward “technical” tasks (e.g. setting up their VPN connection) to reduce the demand on IT staff.
    • Tutorials can be created quickly and easily with affordable software such as Snag-It, ScreenHunter Pro, HyperSnap, PicPick, FastStone, Ashampoo Snap 6, and many others.

    "When contractors come onboard, they usually don't have a lot of time to learn about the organization, and we have a lot of unique requirements. Creating SOP documents with screenshots has made the process quicker and more accurate."

    – Susan Bellamore, Business Analyst, Public Guardian and Trustee of British Columbia

    The image is an example of a screen caption tutorial, depicting desktop icons and a password login

    Example: Disaster recovery notification and declaration procedure

    1. Swim lanes indicate task ownership and process stages.
    2. Links to supporting documentation (which could include checklists, vendor documentation, other flowcharts, etc.) are included where necessary.
    3. Additional DR SOPs are captured within the same spreadsheet for convenient, centralized access.

    Review Info-Tech’s Incident Response and Recovery Process Flows – DRP Example.

    Example: DRP flowchart with links to supporting documents

    The image is an example of an DRP flowchart labelled 'Initial Discovery/Notification and Declaration Procedures'

    Establish flowcharting standards

    If you don’t have existing flowchart standards, then keep it simple and stick to basic flowcharting conventions as described below.

    Start, End, and Connector. Traditional flowcharting standards reserve this shape for connectors to other flowcharts or other points in the existing flowchart. Unified Modeling Language (UML) also uses the circle for start and end points.

    Start, End. Traditional flowcharting standards use this for start and end. However, Info-Tech recommends using the circle shape to reduce the number of shapes and avoid confusion with other similar shapes.

    Process Step. Individual process steps or activities (e.g. create ticket or escalate ticket). If it’s a series of steps, then use the sub-process symbol and flowchart the sub-process separately.

    Sub-Process. A series of steps. For example, a critical incident SOP might reference a recovery process as one of the possible actions. Marking it as a sub-process, rather than listing each step within the critical incident SOP, streamlines the flowchart and avoids overlap with other flowcharts (e.g. the recovery process).

    Decision. Represents decision points, typically with Yes/No branches, but you could have other branches depending on the question (e.g. a “Priority?” question could branch into separate streams for Priority 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 issues).

    Document/Report Output. For example, the output from a backup process might include an error log.

    Conduct a tabletop planning exercise to build an SOP

    1.3a

    20 minutes

    Tabletop planning is a paper-based exercise where your team walks through a particular process and maps out what happens at each stage.

    1. For this exercise, choose one particular process to document.
    2. Document each step of the process using cue cards, which can be arranged on the table in sequence.
    3. Be sure to include task ownership in your steps.
    4. Map out the process as it currently happens – we’ll think about how to improve it later.
    5. Keep focused. Stay on task and on time.

    OUTPUT

    • Steps in the current process for one SOP

    Materials

    • Tabletop, pen, and cue cards

    Participants

    • Process Owners
    • SMEs

    Info-Tech Insight

    Don’t get weighed down by tools. Relying on software or other technological tools can detract from the exercise. Use simple tools such as cue cards to record steps so that you can easily rearrange steps or insert steps based on input from the group.

    The image depicts three cue cards labelled steps 3 to 5. The cue cards are examples of the tabletop planning exercise.

    Collaborate to optimize the SOP

    1.3b

    20 minutes

    Review the tabletop exercise. What gaps exist in current processes?

    How can the process be made better? What are the outputs and checkpoints?

    The image depicts five cue cards, two of which are examples on how to improve the process. This is an example of the tabletop exercise.

    OUTPUT

    • Identify steps to optimize the SOP

    Materials

    • Tabletop, pen, and cue cards

    Participants

    • Process Owners
    • SMEs

    A note on colors: Use white cards to record steps. Record gaps on yellow cards (e.g. a process step not documented) and risks on red cards (e.g. only one person knows how to execute a step) to highlight your gaps/to-dos and risks to be mitigated or accepted.

    If it’s necessary to clarify complex process flows during the exercise, also use green cards for decision diamonds, purple for document/report outputs, and blue for sub-processes.

    Capture opportunities to improve processes in the Standard Operating Procedures Project Roadmap Tool

    1.3

    Rank and track projects to close gaps you discover in your processes.

    1. As a group, identify potential solutions to close the gaps in your processes that you’ve uncovered through the tabletop mapping exercise.
    2. Add these project names to the Standard Operating Procedures Project Roadmap Tool on the “Project Scoring” tab.
    3. Review and adjust the criteria for evaluating the benefits and costs of different projects on the “Scoring Criteria” tab.
    4. Return to the “Project Scoring” tab, and assign weights at the top of each scoring column. Use the drop-down menus to adjust the scores for each project category. The tool will automatically rank the projects based on your input, but you can adjust the ranks as needed.
    5. Assign dates and descriptions to the projects on the “Implementation Schedule” tab, below.
    The image depicts a graph showing an example of ranked and tracked projects.

    Identify gaps to improve process performance and make SOP documentation a priority

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Government (700+ FTEs)
    Source Info-Tech Workshop

    Challenge

    • Tabletop planning revealed a 77-hour gap between current and desired RTO for critical systems.
    • Similarly, the current achievable RPO gap was up to one week, but the desired RPO was one hour.
    • A DR site was available but not yet set up with the necessary equipment.
    • Lack of documented standard operating procedures (SOPs) was identified as a risk since that increased the dependence on two or three key SMEs.

    Solution

    • Potential projects to close RTO/RPO gaps were identified, including:
      • Deploy servers that were decommissioned (as a result of a server refresh) to the DR site as warm standby servers.
      • Implement site-to-site data replication.
      • Document SOPs to enable tasks to be delegated and minimize resourcing risks.

    Results

    • A DR project implementation schedule was defined.
    • Many of the projects required no further investment, but rather deployment of existing equipment that could function as standby equipment at the DR site.
    • The DR risk from a lack of SOPs enabled SOPs to be made a priority. An expected side benefit is the ability to review and optimize processes and improve consistency in IT operations.

    Document the SOPs from the tabletop exercise

    1.3c

    20 minutes

    Document the results from the tabletop exercise in the appropriate format.

    1. Identify an appropriate visual format for the high-level SOP as well as for any sub-processes or supporting documentation.
    2. Break into groups of two or three.
    3. Each group will be responsible for creating part of the SOP. Include both the high-level SOP itself and any supporting documentation such as checklists, sign-off forms, sub-processes, etc.
    4. Once your document is complete, exchange it with that of another group. Review each other’s documents to check for clarity and completeness.

    OUTPUT

    • Output from activities 1.4 and 1.5

    Materials

    • Flowcharting software, laptops

    Participants

    • Process Owners
    • SMEs

    This image has four cue cards, and an arrow pointing to a flowchart, depicting the transfer of the information on the cue cards into a flowchart software

    Repeat the tabletop exercise for the second process

    Come back together as a large group. Choose a process that is significantly different from the one you’ve just documented, and repeat the tabletop exercise.

    As a reminder, the steps are:

    1. Use the tabletop exercise to map out a current SOP.
    2. Collaborate to optimize the SOP.
    3. Decide on appropriate formats for the SOP and its supporting documents.
    4. Divide into small groups to create the SOP and its supporting documents.
    5. Repeat the steps above as needed for your initial review of critical processes.

    Info-Tech Insight

    If you plan to document more than two or three SOPs at once, consider making it an SOP “party” to add momentum and levity to an otherwise dry process. Review section 2.3 to find out how.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    • To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    • Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

    The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:

    1.1a-e

    Get started by prioritizing SOPs

    Ensure the SOP project remains business focused, and kick off the project by analyzing critical business services. Identify key IT services that support the relevant business services. Conduct a benefit/risk analysis to prioritize which SOPs should become the focus of the workshop.

    1.3a-c

    Document the SOPs from the tabletop exercise

    Leverage a tabletop planning exercise to walk the team through the SOP. During the exercise, focus on identifying timelines, current gaps, and potential risks. Document the steps via que cards first and transpose the hard copies to an electronic version.

    Phase 2

    Establish a Sustainable Documentation Process

    Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind

    Phase 2 outline

    Call 1-888-670-8889 or email GuidedImplementations@InfoTech.com for more information.

    Complete these steps on your own, or call us to complete a guided implementation. A guided implementation is a series of 2-3 advisory calls that help you execute each phase of a project. They are included in most advisory memberships.

    Guided Implementation 2: Establish a sustainable SOP documentation process

    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 4 weeks

    Step 2.1: Establish guidelines for identifying and organizing SOPs

    Start with an analyst call:

    • Establish documentation information guidelines.
    • Review version control best practices.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Implement best practices to identify and organize your SOPs.

    With these tools & templates:

    • SOP Workbook

    Step 2.2: Define a process to document and maintain SOPs

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Identify opportunities to create a culture that fosters SOP creation.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Create a plan to address SOP documentation gaps.

    With these tools & templates:

    • Document Management Checklist

    Step 2.3: Plan time with experts to put a dent in your documentation backlog

    Finalize phase deliverable:

    • Address outstanding undocumented SOPs by working through process issues together.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Organize and run a working session to document and optimize processes.

    With these tools & templates:

    • SOP Workbook
    • SOP Project Roadmap Tool

    Phase 2 Results & Insights:

    Improve the process for documenting and maintaining your SOPs, while putting a dent in your documentation backlog and gaining buy-in with staff.

    Identify current content management practices and opportunities for improvement

    DISCUSS

    What is the current state of your content management practices?

    Are you using a content management system? If not, where are documents kept?

    Are your organizational or departmental SOPs easy to find?

    Is version control a problem? What about file naming standards?

    Get everyone on the same page on the current state of your SOP document management system, using the questions above as the starting point.

    Keep document management simple for better adoption and consistency

    If there is too much complexity and staff can’t easily find what they need, you won’t get buy-in and you won’t get consistency.

    Whether you store SOPs in a sophisticated content management system (CMS) or on a shared network drive, keep it simple and focus on these primary goals:

    • Enable staff to find the right document.
    • Know if a document is the latest, approved version.
    • Minimize document management effort to encourage buy-in and consistency.

    If users can’t easily find what they need, it leads to bad practices. For example:

    • Users maintain their own local copies of commonly used documents to avoid searching for them. The risk is that local copies will not be automatically updated when the SOP changes.
    • Separate teams will implement their own document management system and repository. Now you have duplication of effort and company resources, multiple copies of documents (where each group needs their own version), and no centralized control over potentially sensitive documents.
    • Users will ignore documented SOPs or ask a colleague who might also be following the above bad practices.

    Insert a document information block on the first page of every document to identify key attributes

    Include a document information block on the first page of every document to identify key attributes. This strategy is as much about minimizing resistance as it is ensuring key attributes are captured.

    • A consistent document information block saves time (e.g. vs. customized approaches per document). If some fields don’t apply, enter “n/a.”
    • It provides key information about the document without having to check soft copy metadata, especially if you work with hard copies.
    • It’s a built-in reminder of what to capture and easier than updating document properties or header/footer information or entering metadata into a CMS.

    Note: The Info-Tech templates in this blueprint include a copy of the document information block shown in this example. Add more fields if necessary for your organization’s needs.

    For an example of a completed document information block, see Network Backup for Atlanta Data Center – Backups Example

    Info-Tech Insight

    For organizations with more advanced document management requirements, consider more sophisticated strategies (e.g. using metadata) as described in Info-Tech’s Use SharePoint for Enterprise Content Management and Reintroduce the Information Lifecycle to the Content Management Strategy. However, the basic concepts above still apply: establish standard attributes you need to capture and do so in a consistent manner.

    Modify the Info-Tech document information block to meet your requirements

    2.1a

    15 minutes

    1. Review “Guidelines and Template for the Document Information Block” in the Standard Operating Procedures Workbook. Determine if any changes are required, such as additional fields.
    2. Identify which fields you want to standardize and then establish standard terms. Balance the needs for simplicity and consistency – don’t force consistency where it isn’t a good fit.
    3. Pre-fill the document information block with standard terms and examples and add it to an SOP template that’s stored in your content management system.

    Educate staff by pre-filling the document

    • Providing examples built into the templates provides in-context, just-in-time training which is far more effective and easier than formal education efforts.
    • Focus your training on communicating when the template or standard terms change so that staff know to obtain the new version. Otherwise, the tendency for many staff will be to use one of their existing documents as their template.

    OUTPUT

    • Completed document information block

    Materials

    • Laptop
    • Projector

    Participants

    • Process Owners
    • SMEs

    Leverage the document information block to create consistent filenames that facilitate searching

    Use the following filename format to create consistent, searchable, and descriptive filenames:

    Topic – Document Title – Document Type – Version Date

    Filename Component Purpose
    Topic
    • Functions as a filename prefix to group related documents but is also a probable search term. For project work, use a project name/number.
    Document Title
    • The title should be fairly descriptive of the content (if it isn’t, it’s not a good title) so it will help make the file easily identifiable and will include more probable search terms.
    Document Type Further distinguishes similar files (e.g. Maintenance SOP vs. a Maintenance Checklist).
    Version Date (for local files or if not using a CMS)
    • If it’s necessary to work on a file locally, include the version date at the end of the filename. The date is a more recognizable indicator of whether it’s the latest version or an old copy.
    • Establish a standard date format. Although MM-DD-YY is common in the US, the format YYYY-MM-DD reduces confusion between the month and day.

    For example:

    • ERP – System Administration Monthly Maintenance Tasks – Checklist – 2016-01-15.docx
    • ERP – System Administration Monthly Maintenance Tasks – SOP – 2017-01-10.docx
    • Backups – Network Backup Procedure for Atlanta Data Center – SOP – 2017-03-06.docx
    • PROJ437 – CRM Business Requirements – BRD – 2017-02-01.xlsx
    • DRP – Notification Procedures – SOP – 2016-09-14.docx
    • DRP – Emergency Response Team Roles and Responsibilities – Reference – 2018-03-10.xlsx

    Apply filename and document information block guidelines to existing SOPs

    2.1b

    15 minutes

    1. Review the SOPs created during the earlier exercises.
    2. Update the filenames and document information block based on guidelines in this section.
    3. Apply these guidelines to other select existing SOPs to see if additional modifications are required (e.g. additional standard terms).

    INPUT

    • Document Information Block

    OUTPUT

    • Updated filenames and document information blocks

    Materials

    • Laptop and projector

    Participants

    • Process Owners
    • SMEs

    Implement version control policies for local files as well as those in your content management system (CMS)

    1. Version Control in Your CMS

    2. Always keep one master version of a document:

    • When uploading a new copy of an existing SOP (or any other document), ensure the filenames are identical so that you are just adding a new version rather than a separate new file.
    • Do not include version information in the filename (which would create a new separate file in your CMS). Allow your CMS to handle version numbering.
  • Version Control for Local Files

  • Ideally, staff would never keep local copies of files. However, there are times when it is practical or preferable to work from a local copy: for example, when creating or updating an SOP, or when working remotely if the CMS is not easily accessible.

    Implement the following policies to govern these circumstances:

    • Add the version date to the end of the filename while the document is local, as shown in the slide on filenames.
    • Remove the date when uploading it to a CMS that tracks date and version. If you leave the date in the filename, you will end up with multiple copies in your CMS.
    • When distributing copies for review, upload a copy to the CMS and send the link. Do not attach a physical file.
  • Minimize the Need for Version Updates

  • Reduce the need for version updates by isolating volatile information in a separate, linked document. For example:

    • Use Policy documents to establish high-level expectations and goals, and use SOPs to capture workflow, but put volatile details in a separate reference document. For example, for Backup procedures, put offsite storage vendor details such as contact information, pick up times, and approved couriers in a separate document.
    • Similarly, for DRP Notification procedures, reference a separate contacts list.

    Modify the Info-Tech Document Management Checklist to meet your requirements

    2.1c

    15 minutes

    1. Review the Info-Tech Document Management Checklist.
    2. Add or remove checklist items.
    3. Update the document information block.

    OUTPUT

    • Completed document management checklist

    Materials

    • Laptop, projector

    Participants

    • Process Owners
    • SMEs

    See Info-Tech’s Document Management Checklist.

    If you aren’t going to keep your SOPs current, then you’re potentially doing more harm than good

    An outdated SOP can be just as dangerous as having no SOP at all. When a process is documented, it’s trusted to be accurate.

    • Disaster recovery depends as much on supporting SOPs – such as backup and restore procedures – as it does on a master incident response plan.
    • For disaster scenarios, the ability to meet recovery point objectives (i.e. minimize data loss) and recovery time objectives (i.e. minimize downtime) depends on smoothly executed recovery procedures and on having well-defined and up-to-date DR documentation and supporting SOPs. For example:
      • Recovery point (data loss) objectives are directly impacted by your backup procedures.
      • Recovery time is minimized by a well-defined restore procedure that reduces the risk of human error during recovery which could lead to data loss or a delay in the recovery.
      • Similarly, a clearly documented configuration procedure will reduce the time to bring a standby system online.
    A graph depicting the much faster recovery time of up-to-date SOPs versus out-of-date SOPs.

    Follow Info-Tech best practices to keep SOPs current and drive consistent, efficient IT operations

    The following best practices were measured in this chart, and will be discussed further in this section:

    1. Identify documentation requirements as part of project planning.
    2. Require a manager or supervisor to review and approve SOPs.
    3. Check documentation status as part of change management.
    4. Hold staff accountable.
    Higher adoption of Info-Tech best practices leads to more effective SOPs and greater benefits in areas such as training and process improvement.

    Graph depicting the efficiency of adopting Info-Tech practices regarding SOPs. Four categories of 'Training', 'process improvement', 'IT automation', and 'consistent IT operations' are shown increasing in efficiency with a high adoption of Info-Tech strategies.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Audits for compliance requirements have little impact on getting SOPs done in a timely manner or the actual usefulness of those SOPs, because the focus is on passing the audit instead of creating SOPs that improve operations. The frantic annual push to complete SOPs in time for an audit is also typically a much greater effort than maintaining documents as part of ongoing change management.

    Identify documentation requirements as part of project planning

    DISCUSS

    When are documentation requirements captured, including required changes to SOPs?

    Make documentation requirements a clearly defined deliverable. As with any other task, this should include:

    • Owner: The person ultimately responsible for the documentation.
    • Assigned resource: The person who will actually put pen to paper. This could be the same person as the owner, or the owner could be a reviewer.
    • Deadlines: Include documentation deliverables in project milestones.
    • Verification process: Validate completion and accuracy. This could be a peer review or management review.
    Example: Implement a new service desk application.
    • Service desk SOP documentation requirements: SOP for monitoring and managing tickets will require changes to leverage new automation features.
    • Owner: Service Desk Lead.
    • Assigned resource: John Smith (service desk technician).
    • Deadline: Align with “ready for QA testing.”
    • Verification process: Service Desk Lead document review and signoff.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Realistically, documentation will typically be a far less urgent task than the actual application or system changes. However, if you want the necessary documentation to be ultimately completed, even if it’s done after more urgent tasks, it must be tracked.

    Implement document approval steps at the individual and project level

    DISCUSS

    How do you currently review and validate SOP documents?

    Require a manager or supervisor to review and approve SOPs.

    • Avoid a bureaucratic review process involving multiple parties. The goal is to ensure accuracy and not just provide administrative protection.
    • A review by the immediate supervisor or manager is often sufficient. Their feedback and the implied accountability improve the quality and usefulness of the SOPs.

    Check documentation status as part of change management.

    • Including a documentation status check holds the project leaders and management accountable.
    • If SOPs are not critical to the project deliverable, then realistically the deliverable is not held back. However, keep the project open until relevant documents are updated so those tasks can’t be swept under the rug until the next audit.

    SOP reviews, change management, and identifying requirements led to benefits such as training and process improvement.

    A chart depicting the impact and benefits of SOP reviews, change management and identifying requirements. The chart is accompanied by a key for the grey to blue colours depicted

    "Our directors and our CIO have tied SOP work to performance evaluations and SOP status is reviewed during management meetings. People have now found time to get this work done."

    – Assistant Director-IT Operations, Healthcare Industry

    Review SOPs regularly and assign a process owner to avoid reinforcing silos

    CASE STUDY

    Industry

    Public service organization

    Source

    Info-Tech client engagement

    Situation

    • The organization’s IT department consists of five heavily siloed units.
    • Without communication or workflow accountability across units, each had developed incompatible workflows, making estimates of “time to resolution” for service requests difficult.
    • The IT service manager purchases a new service desk tool, attempting to standardize requests across IT to improve efficiency, accountability, and transparency.

    Complication

    • The IT service manager implements the tool and creates standardized workflows without consulting stakeholders in the different service units.
    • The separate units immediately rebel against the service manager and try to undermine the implementation of the new tool.

    Results

    • Info-Tech analysts helped to facilitate a solution between experts in the different units.
    • In order to develop a common workflow and ticket categorization scheme, Info-Tech recommended that each service process should have a single approver.

    The bottom line: ensure that there’s one approver per process to drive process efficiency and accountability and avoid problems down the road.

    Hold staff accountable to encourage SOP work to be completed in a timely manner

    DISCUSS

    Are SOP updates treated as optional or “when I have time” work?

    Hold staff directly accountable for SOP work.

    Holding staff accountable is really about emphasizing the importance of ensuring SOPs stay current. If management doesn’t treat SOPs as a priority, then neither will your staff. Strategies include:

    • Include SOP work in performance appraisals.
    • Keep relevant tickets open until documentation is completed.
    • Ensure documents are reviewed, as discussed earlier.
    • Identify and assign documentation tasks as part of project planning efforts, as discussed earlier.

    Holding staff accountable minimizes procrastination and therefore maintenance effort.

    Chart depicting the impact on reducing SOP maintenance effort followed by a key defining the colours on the chart

    Info-Tech Insight

    Holding staff accountable does not by itself make a significant impact on SOP quality (and therefore the typical benefits of SOPs), but it minimizes procrastination, so the work is ultimately done in a more timely manner. This ensures SOPs are current and usable, so they can drive benefits such as consistent operations, improved training, and so on.

    Assign action items to address SOP documentation process challenges

    2.2

    1. Discuss the challenges mentioned at the start of this section, and other challenges highlighted by the strategies discussed in this section. For example:
    • Are documentation requirements included in project planning?
    • Are SOPs and other documentation deliverables reviewed?
    • Are staff held accountable for documentation?
  • Document the challenges in your copy of the Standard Operating Procedures Workbook and assign action items to address those challenges.
  • Challenge Action Items Action Item Owner
    Documentation requirements are identified at the end of a project.
    • Modify project planning templates and checklists to include “identify documentation requirements.”
    Bob Ryan
    SOPs are not reviewed.
    • When assigning documentation tasks, also assign an owner who will be responsible for reviewing and approving the deliverable.
    • Create a mechanism for officially signing off on the document (e.g. email approval or create a signoff form).
    Susan Jones

    An “SOP party” fosters a collaborative approach and can add some levity to an otherwise dry exercise

    What is an SOP party?

    • An SOP party is a working session, bringing together process owners and key staff to define current SOPs and collaborate to identify optimization opportunities.
    • The party aspect is really just about how you market the event. Order in food or build in a cooking contest (e.g. a chilli cook-off or dessert bake-off) to add some fun to what can be a dry activity.

    Why does this work?

    • Process owners become so familiar with their tasks that many of the steps essentially live in their heads. Questions from colleagues draw out those unwritten steps and get them down on paper so another sufficiently qualified employee could carry out the same steps.
    • Once the processes are defined (e.g. via a tabletop exercise), input from colleagues can help identify risks and optimization opportunities, and process questions can be quickly answered because the key people are all present.
    • The group approach also promotes consistency and enables you to set expectations (e.g. visual-based approach, standards, level of detail, etc.).

    When is collaboration necessary (e.g. via tabletop planning)?

    • Tabletop planning is ideal for complex processes as well as processes that span multiple tasks, people, and/or systems.
    • For processes with a narrow focus (e.g. recovery steps for a specific server), assign these to the SME to document. Then ensure the SOP is reviewed to draw out the unwritten steps as described above.
    • For example, if you use tabletop planning to document a high-level DR plan, sub-processes might include recovery procedures for individual systems; those SOPs can then be assigned to individual SMEs.

    Schedule SOP working sessions until critical processes are documented

    Ultimately, it’s more efficient to create and update SOPs as needed but dedicated working sessions will help address immediate critical needs.

    Organize the working session:
    1. Book a full-day meeting in an out of the way meeting room, invite key staff (system and process owners who ultimately need to be SOP owners), and order in lunch so no one has to leave.
    2. Prioritize SOPs (see Phase 1) and set goals (e.g. complete the top 6 SOPs during this session).
    3. Alternate between collaborative efforts and documenting the SOPs. For example:
      1. Tabletop or flowchart the current SOP. Take a picture of the current state for reference purposes.
      2. Look for process improvements. If you have the authority in the room to enable process changes, then modify the tabletop/flowchart accordingly and capture this desired future state (e.g. take a picture). Otherwise, identify action items to follow up on proposed changes.
      3. Identify all related documentation deliverables (e.g. sub-processes, checklists, approval forms, etc.).
      4. Create the identified documentation deliverables (divide the work among the team). Then repeat the above.
    4. Repeat these working sessions on a monthly or quarterly basis, depending on your requirements, until critical SOPs are completed.
    5. When the SOP backlog is cleared, conduct quarterly or semi-annual refreshers for ongoing review and optimization of key processes.

    Assign action items to capture next steps after SOP working sessions

    2.3

    1. Review the SOPs documented during this workshop. Identify action items to complete and validate those SOPs and related documents. For example, do the SOPs require further approval or testing?
    2. Similarly, review the document management checklist and identify action items to complete, expand, and/or validate proposed standards.
    3. For SOP working sessions, decide on a date, time, and who should be there based on the guidelines in this section. If the SOP party approach does not meet your requirements, then at the very least assign owners for the identified critical SOPs and set deadlines for completing those SOPs. Document these extra action items in your copy of the Standard Operating Procedures Workbook.
    SOP or Task Action Items Action Item Owner
    Ticket escalation SOP
    • Debrief the rest of the Service Desk team on the new process.
    • Modify the SOP further based on feedback, if warranted.
    • Implement the new SOP. This includes communicating visible changes to business users and other IT staff.
    Jeff Sutter
    SOP party
    • Contact prospective attendees to communicate the purpose of the SOP party.
    • Schedule the SOP party.
    Bob Smith

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with out Info-Tech analysts:

    • To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    • Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

    The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:

    2.1

    Identify current content management practices

    As a group, identify current pain points and opportunities for improvement in your current content management practices.

    2.2

    Assign action items to address documentation process challenges

    Develop a list of action items to address gaps in the SOP documentation and maintenance process.

    Phase 3

    Identify a Content Management Solution

    Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind

    Phase 3 outline

    Call 1-888-670-8889 or email GuidedImplementations@InfoTech.com for more information.

    Complete these steps on your own, or call us to complete a guided implementation. A guided implementation is a series of 2-3 advisory calls that help you execute each phase of a project. They are included in most advisory memberships.

    Guided Implementation 3: Decide on a content management solution for your SOPs

    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 1 week

    Step 3.1: Understand the options for CM solutions

    Start with an analyst kick off call:

    • Review your current approach to content management and discuss possible alternatives.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Evaluate the pros and cons of different approaches to content management.
    • Discuss approaches for fit with your team.

    Step 3.2: Identify the right solution for you

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Identify 2–3 possible options for a content management strategy.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Identify the best solution based on portability, maintainability, cost, and implementation effort.

    With these tools & templates:

    • Publishing and Document Management Solution Evaluation Tool
    • SOP Project Roadmap
    • SOP Workbook

    Phase 3 Results & Insights:

    Choose an approach to content management that will best support your organization’s SOP documentation and maintenance process.

    Decide on an appropriate publishing and document management strategy for your organization

    Publishing and document management considerations:

    • Portability/External Access: At the best of times, portability is nice because it enables flexibility, but at the worst of times (such as in a disaster recovery situation) it is absolutely essential. If your primary site is down, can you still access your documentation? As shown in this chart, traditional storage strategies still dominate DRP documentation, but these aren’t necessarily the best options.
    • Maintainability/Usability: How easy is it to create, update, and use the documentation? Is it easy to link to other documents? Is there version control? The easier the system is to use, the easier it is to get employees to use it.
    • Cost/Effort: Is the cost and effort appropriate? For example, a large enterprise may need a formal solution like SharePoint or a Content Management System. For smaller organizations, the cost of these tools might be harder to justify.

    Consider these approaches:

    This section reviews the following approaches, their pros and cons, and how they meet publishing and document management requirements:

    • SOP tools.
    • Cloud-based content management software.
    • In-house solutions combining SharePoint and MS Office (or equivalent).
    • Wiki site.
    • “Manual” approaches such as storing documents on a USB drive.
    Chart depicting the portable strategy popularity, followed by a key defining the colours on the graph

    Source: Info-Tech Research Group; N=118

    Note: Percentages total more than 100% due to respondents using more than one portability strategy.

    Develop a content management strategy and process to reduce organizational risk

    CASE STUDY

    Segment

    Mid-market company

    Source

    Info-Tech Interview

    Situation

    • A mid-sized company hired a technical consultancy to manage its network.
    • As part of this move, the company’s network administrator was fired.
    • Over time, this administrator had become a “go-to” person for several other IT functions.

    Complication

    • The consulting team realizes that the network administrator kept critical documentation on his local hard drive.
    • This includes configs, IP addresses, passwords, logins to vendor accounts, and more.
    • It becomes clear the administrator was able to delete some of this information before leaving, which the consultants are required to retrieve and re-document.

    Result

    • Failing to implement effective SOPs for document management and terminating key IT staff exposed the organization to unnecessary risk and additional costs.
    • Allowing a local content management system to develop created a serious security risk.
    • The bottom line: create a secure, centralized, and backed-up location and establish SOPs around using it to help keep the company’s data safe.

    Info-Tech offers a web-based policy management solution with process management capabilities

    Role How myPolicies helps you
    Policy Sponsors
    • CEO
    • Board of Directors

    Reduced Corporate Risk

    Avoid being issued a regulatory fine or sanction that could jeopardize operations or hurt brand image.

    Policy Reviewers
    • Internal Audit
    • Compliance
    • Risk
    • Legal

    A Culture of Compliance

    Adherence with regulatory requirements as well as documented audit trail of all critical policy activities.

    Policy Owners
    • HR
    • IT
    • Finance
    • Operations

    Less Administrative Burden

    Automation and simplification of policy creation, distribution, and tracking.

    Policy Users
    • Employees
    • Vendors
    • Contractors

    Policy Clarity

    Well-written policies are stored in one reliable, easy to navigate location.

    About this Approach:

    myPolicies is a web-based solution to create, distribute, and manage corporate policies, procedures, and forms, built around best practices identified by our research.

    Contact your Account Manager today to find out if myPolicies is right for you.

    SOP software and DR planning tools can help, but they aren’t a silver bullet

    Portability/External Access:
    • Pros: Typically have a SaaS option, providing built-in external access with appropriate security and user administration to vary access rights.
    • Cons: Dependent on the vendor to ensure external access, but this is typically not an issue.
    Maintainability/Usability:
    • Pros: Built-in templates encourage consistency as well as guide initial content development by indicating what details need to be captured.
    • Pros: Built-in document management (e.g. version control, metadata support, etc.), centralized access/navigation to required documents, and some automation (e.g. update contacts throughout the system).
    • Cons: Not a silver bullet. You still have to do the work to define and capture your processes.
    • Cons: Requires end-user and administrator training.
    • Cons: Often modules of larger software suites. If you use the entire suite, it may make sense to use the SOP tool, but otherwise probably not.
    Cost/Effort:
    • Pros: For large enterprises, the convenience of built-in document management and templates can outweigh the cost.
    • Cons: SOP tools can be costly. Expect to pay at least $3,000-7,000 for software licensing, plus additional per user and hosting fees.
    About this Approach:

    SOP tools such as Princeton Center’s SOP ExpressTM and SOP Tracks or MasterControl’s SOP Management and eSOP allow organizations to create, manage, and access SOPs. These programs typically offer a range of SOP templates and formats, electronic signatures, version control, and review options and training features such as quizzes and monitoring.

    Similarly, DR planning solutions (e.g. eBRP, Recovery Planner, LDRPS, etc.) provide templates, tools, and document management to create DR documentation including SOPs.

    Consider leveraging SharePoint to provide document management capabilities

    Portability/External Access:
    • Pros: SharePoint is commonly web-enabled and supports external access with appropriate security and user administration.
    • Cons: Must be installed at redundant sites or be cloud-based to be effective in the event of a worst-case scenario disaster recovery situation in which the primary data center is down.
    Maintainability/Usability:
    • Pros: Built-in document management (e.g. version control, metadata support, etc.) as well as centralized access to required documents.
    • Pros: No tool learning curve – SharePoint and MS Office would be existing solutions already used on a daily basis.
    • Cons: No built-in automated updates (e.g. automated updates to contacts throughout the system).
    • Cons: Consistency depends on creating templates and implementing processes for document updates, review, and approval.
    Cost/Effort:
    • Pros: Using existing tools, so this is a sunk cost in terms of capex.
    • Cons: Additional effort required to create templates and manage the documentation library.

    For more information on SharePoint as a content management solution, see Info-Tech’s Use SharePoint for Enterprise Content Management.

    About this Approach:

    Most SOP documents start as MS Office documents, even if there is an SOP tool available (some SOP tools actually run within MS Office on the desktop). For organizations that decide to bypass a formal SOP tool, the biggest gap they have to overcome is document management.

    Many organizations are turning to SharePoint to meet this need. For those that already have SharePoint in place, it makes sense to further leverage SharePoint for SOP documentation.

    For SharePoint to be a practical solution, the documentation must still be accessible if the primary data center is down, e.g. by having redundant SharePoint instance at multiple in-house locations or using a cloud-based SharePoint solution.

    As an alternative to SharePoint, SaaS tools such as Power DMS, NetDocuments, Xythos on Demand, Knowledge Tree, Spring CM, and Zoho Docs offer cloud-based document management, authoring, and distribution services that can work well for SOPs. Some of these, such as Power DMS and Spring CM, are geared specifically toward workflows.

    A wiki may be all you need

    Portability/External Access:
    • Pros: Wiki sites can support external access as with any web solution.
    • Cons: May lack more sophisticated content management features.
    Maintainability/Usability:
    • Pros: Built-in document management (e.g. version control, metadata support, etc.) as well as centralized access to required information.
    • Pros: Authorized users can make updates dynamically, depending on how much restriction you have on the site.
    • Cons: No built-in automation (e.g. automated updates to contacts throughout the system).
    • Cons: Consistency depends on creating templates and implementing processes for document updates, review, and approval.
    Cost/Effort:
    • Pros: An inexpensive option compared to traditional content management solutions such as SharePoint.
    • Cons: Learning curve if wikis are new to your organization.
    About this Approach:

    Wiki sites are websites where users collaborate to create and edit the content. Wikipedia is an example.

    While wiki sites are typically used for collaboration and dynamic content development, the traditional collaborative authoring model can be restricted to provide structure and an approval process.

    Several tools are available to create and manage wiki sites (and other collaboration solutions), as outlined in the following research:

    An approach that I’ve seen work well is to consult the wiki for any task, activity, job, etc. Is it documented? If not, then document it there and then. Sure, this led to 6-8 weeks of huge effort, but the documentation grew in terms of volume and quality at an alarming but pleasantly surprising rate. Providing an environment to create the documentation is important and a wiki is ideal. Fast, lightweight, in-browser editing leads to little resistance in creating documents.

    - Lee Blackwell, Global IT Operation Services Manager, Avid Technology

    Managing SOPs on a shared network drive involves major challenges and limitations

    Portability/External Access:
    • Cons: Must be hosted at redundant sites in order to be effective in a worst-case scenario that takes down your data center.
    Maintainability/Usability:
    • Pros: Easy to implement and no learning curve.
    • Pros: Access can be easily managed.
    • Cons: Version control, standardization, and document management can be significant challenges.
    Cost/Effort:
    • Pros: Little to no cost and no tool management required.
    • Cons: Managing documents on a shared network drive requires strict attention to process for version control, updates, approvals, and distribution.
    About this Approach:

    With this strategy, SOP documents are stored and managed locally on a shared network drive. Only process owners and administrators have read-write permissions on documents on the shared drive.

    The administrator grants access and manages security permissions.

    Info-Tech Insight

    For small organizations, the shared network drive approach can work, but this is ultimately a short-term solution. Move to an online library by creating a wiki site. Start slow by beginning with a particular department or project, then evaluate how well your staff adapt to this technology as well as its potential effectiveness in your organization. Refer to the Info-Tech collaboration strategy research cited on the previous slide for additional guidance.

    Avoid extensive use of paper copies of SOP documentation

    SOP documents need to be easy to update, accessible from anywhere, and searchable. Paper doesn’t meet these needs.

    Portability/External Access:
    • Pros: Does not rely on technology or power.
    • Cons: Not adequate for disaster recovery situations; would require all staff to have a copy and to have it with them at all times.
    Maintainability/Usability:
    • Pros: In terms of usability, again there is no dependence on technology.
    • Cons: Updates need to be printed and distributed to all relevant staff every time there is a change to ensure staff have access to the latest most accurate documentation.
    • Cons: Navigation to other information is manual – flipping through pages etc. No searching or hyperlinks.
    Cost/Effort:
    • Pros: No technology system to maintain, aside from what you use for printing.
    • Cons: Printing expenses are actually among the highest incurred by organizations and this adds to it.
    • Cons: Labor-intensive due to need to print and physically distribute documentation updates.
    About this Approach

    Traditionally, SOPs were printed and kept somewhere in a large binder (or several large binders). This isn’t adequate to the needs of most organizations and typically results in documents that aren’t up to date or effective.

    Use Info-Tech’s solution evaluation tool to decide on a publishing and document management strategy

    All organizations have existing document management methodologies, even if it’s simply storing documents on a network drive.

    Use Info-Tech’s solution evaluation tool to decide whether your existing solution meets the portability/external access, maintainability/usability, and cost/effort criteria, or whether you need to explore a different option.

    Note: This tool was originally built to evaluate DRP publishing options, so the tool name and terminology refers to DR. However, the same tool can be used to evaluate general SOP publishing and document management solutions.

    The image is a screenshot of Info-Tech's evaluation tool
    Consider using Info-Tech’s DRP Publishing and Document Management Solution Evaluation Tool.

    Info-Tech Insight

    There is no absolute ranking for possible solutions. The right choice will depend on factors such as current in-house tools, maturity around document management, the size of your IT department, and so on. For example, a small shop may do very well with the USB drive strategy, whereas a multi-national company will need a more formal strategy to ensure consistent application of corporate guidelines.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    • To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    • Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

    The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:

    3.1

    Decide on a publishing and document management strategy

    Review the pros and cons of different strategies for publishing and document management. Identify needs, priorities, and limitations of your environment. Create a shortlist of options that can meet your organization’s needs and priorities.

    3.2

    Complete the solution evaluation tool

    Evaluate solutions on the shortlist to identify the strongest option for your organization, based on the criteria of maintainability, affordability, effort to implement, and accessibility/portability.

    Insight breakdown

    Create visual documents, not dense SOP manuals.

    • Visual documents that can be scanned are more usable and easier to update.
    • Flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams all have their place in visual documentation.

    Start with high-impact SOPs.

    • It can be difficult to decide where to start when faced with a major documentation backlog.
    • Focus first on client facing and high-impact SOPs, i.e. mission-critical operations, service management, and disaster recovery procedures.

    Integrate SOP creation into project requirements and hold staff accountable.

    • Holding staff accountable does not provide all the benefits of a well documented and maintained SOP, but it minimizes procrastination, so the work is ultimately done in a more timely manner.

    Summary of accomplishment

    Knowledge Gained

    SOPs may not be exciting, but they’re very important to organizational consistency, efficiency, and improvement.

    This blueprint outlined how to:

    • Prioritize and execute SOP documentation work.
    • Establish a sustainable process for creating and maintaining SOP documentation.
    • Choose a content management solution for best fit.

    Processes Optimized

    • Multiple processes supporting mission-critical operations, service management, and disaster recovery were documented. Gaps in those processes were uncovered and addressed.
    • In addition, your process for maintaining process documents was improved, including adding documentation requirements and steps requiring documentation approval.

    Deliverables Completed

    As part of completing this project, the following deliverables were completed:

    • Standard Operating Procedures Workbook
    • Standard Operating Procedures Project Roadmap Tool
    • Document Management Checklist
    • Publishing and Document Management Solution Evaluation Tool

    Project step summary

    Client Project: Create and maintain visual SOP documentation.

    1. Prioritize undocumented SOPs.
    2. Develop visual SOP documentation.
    3. Optimize and document critical processes.
    4. Establish guidelines for identifying and organizing SOPs.
    5. Define a process for documenting and maintaining SOPs.
    6. Plan time with experts to put a dent in your documentation backlog.
    7. Understand the options for content management solutions.
    8. Identify the right content management solution for your organization.

    Info-Tech Insight

    This project has the ability to fit the following formats:

    • Onsite workshop by Info-Tech Research Group consulting analysts.
    • Do-it-yourself with your team.
    • Remote delivery (Info-Tech Guided Implementation).

    Bibliography

    Anderson, Chris. “What is a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)?” Bizmanualz, Inc. No date. Web. 25 Jan. 2016. https://www.bizmanualz.com/save-time-writing-procedures/what-are-policies-and-procedures-sop.html

    Grusenmeyer, David. “Developing Effective Standard Operating Procedures.” Dairy Business Management. 1 Feb. 2003. Web. 25 Jan. 2016. https://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/36910

    Mosaic. “The Value of Standard Operating Procedures.” 22 Oct. 2012. Web. 25 Jan. 2016. ttp://www.mosaicprojects.com.au/WhitePapers/WP1086_Standard_Operating_Procedures.pdf

    Sinn, John W. “Lean, Six Sigma, Quality Transformation Toolkit (LSSQTT) Tool #17 Courseware Content – Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) For Lean and Six Sigma: Infrastructure for Understanding Process.” Summer 2006. Web. 25 Jan. 2016. https://www.bgsu.edu/content/dam/BGSU/college-of-technology/documents/LSSQTT/LSSQTT%20Toolkit/toolkit3/LSSQTT-Tool-17.pdf

    United States Environmental Protection Agency. “Guidance for Preparing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).” April 2007. Web. 25 Jan. 2016. http://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-06/documents/g6-final.pdf

    Improve IT-Business Alignment Through an Internal SLA

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    • Parent Category Name: Operations Management
    • Parent Category Link: /i-and-o-process-management
    • The business is rarely satisfied with IT service levels, yet there is no clear definition of what is acceptable.
    • Dissatisfaction with service levels is often based on perception. Your uptime might be four 9s, but the business only remembers the outages.
    • IT is left trying to hit a moving target with a limited budget and no agreement on where services levels need to improve.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Business leaders have service level expectations regardless of whether there is a formal agreement. The SLA process enables IT to manage those expectations.
    • Track current service levels and report them in plain language (e.g. hours and minutes of downtime, not “how many 9s” which then need to be translated) to gain a clearer mutual understanding of current versus desired service levels.
    • Use past incidents to provide context (how much that hour of downtime actually impacted the business) in addition to a business impact analysis to define appropriate target service levels based on actual business need.

    Impact and Result

    Create an effective internal SLA by following a structured process to report current service levels and set realistic expectations with the business. This includes:

    • Defining the current achievable service level by establishing a metrics tracking and monitoring process.
    • Determining appropriate (not ideal) business needs.
    • Creating an SLA that clarifies expectations to reduce IT-business friction.

    Improve IT-Business Alignment Through an Internal SLA Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should create an internal SLA, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Scope the pilot project

    Establish the SLA pilot project and clearly document the problems and challenges that it will address.

    • Improve IT-Business Alignment Through an Internal SLA – Phase 1: Scope the Pilot Project
    • Internal SLA Process Flowcharts (PDF)
    • Internal SLA Process Flowcharts (Visio)
    • Build an Internal SLA Project Charter Template
    • Internal SLA Maturity Scorecard Tool

    2. Establish current service levels

    Expedite the SLA process by thoroughly, carefully, and clearly defining the current achievable service levels.

    • Improve IT-Business Alignment Through an Internal SLA – Phase 2: Determine Current Service Levels
    • Availability and Reliability SLA Metrics Tracking Template
    • Service Desk SLA Metrics Tracking Template
    • Service Catalog SLA Metrics Tracking Template

    3. Identify target service levels and create the SLA

    Create a living document that aligns business needs with IT targets by discovering the impact of your current service level offerings through a conversation with business peers.

    • Improve IT-Business Alignment Through an Internal SLA – Phase 3: Set Target Service Levels and Create the SLA
    • SLA Project Roadmap Tool
    • Availability Internal Service Level Agreement Template
    • Service Catalog Internal Service Level Agreement Template
    • Service Desk Internal Service Level Agreement Template
    • Internal SLA Executive Summary Presentation Template
    [infographic]

    Data Architecture

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    • Parent Category Name: Data and Business Intelligence
    • Parent Category Link: /data-and-business-intelligence
    Enable the business to achieve operational excellence, client intimacy, and product leadership with an innovative, agile, and fit-for-purpose data architecture practice

    Select and Implement a Web Experience Management Solution

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    • Parent Category Name: Marketing Solutions
    • Parent Category Link: /marketing-solutions
    • A company’s web presence is its front face to the world. Ensuring you have the right suite of tools for web content management, experience design, and web analytics is critical to putting your best foot forward: failing to do so will result in customer attrition and lost revenue.
    • Web Experience Management (WEM) suites are a rapidly maturing and dynamic market, with a landscape full of vendors with cutting edge solutions and diverse offerings. As a result, finding a solution that is the best fit for your organization can be a complex process.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • WEM products are not a one-size-fits-all investment: unique evaluations and customization are required in order to deploy a solution that fits your organization.
    • WEM technology often complements core CRM and marketing management products – it does not supplant it, and must augment the rest of your customer experience management portfolio.
    • Phase your WEM implementation: Start with core capabilities such as content management, then add additional capabilities for site analytics and dynamic experience.

    Impact and Result

    • Align marketing needs with identified functional requirements.
    • Implement a best-fit WEM that increases customer acquisition and retention, and provides in-depth capabilities for site analysis.
    • Optimize procurement and operations costs for the WEM platform.

    Select and Implement a Web Experience Management Solution Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should select and implement a WEM solution, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Launch the WEM project and collect requirements

    Conduct a market overview, structure the project, and gather requirements.

    • Select and Implement a Web Experience Management Solution – Phase 1: Launch the WEM Project and Collect Requirements
    • WEM Project Charter Template
    • WEM Use-Case Fit Assessment Tool

    2. Select a WEM solution

    Analyze and shortlist vendors in the space and select a WEM solution.

    • Select and Implement a Web Experience Management Solution – Phase 2: Select a WEM Solution
    • WEM Vendor Shortlist & Detailed Feature Analysis Tool
    • WEM Vendor Demo Script Template
    • WEM RFP Template

    3. Plan the WEM implementation

    Plan the implementation and evaluate project metrics.

    • Select and Implement a Web Experience Management Solution – Phase 3: Plan the WEM Implementation
    • WEM Work Breakdown Structure Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Select and Implement a Web Experience Management Solution

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Launch of the WEM Selection Project

    The Purpose

    Discuss the general project overview for the WEM selection.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Launch of your WEM selection project.

    Development of your organization’s WEM requirements.

    Activities

    1.1 Facilitation of activities from the Launch the WEM Project and Collect Requirements phase, including project scoping and resource planning.

    1.2 Conduct overview of the WEM market landscape, trends, and vendors.

    1.3 Conduct process mapping for selected marketing processes.

    1.4 Interview business stakeholders.

    1.5 Prioritize WEM functional requirements.

    Outputs

    WEM Procurement Project Charter

    WEM Use-Case Fit Assessment

    2 Plan the Procurement and Implementation Process

    The Purpose

    Plan the procurement and the implementation of the WEM solution.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Selection of a WEM solution.

    A plan for implementing the selected WEM solution.

    Activities

    2.1 Complete marketing process mapping with business stakeholders.

    2.2 Interview IT staff and project team, identify technical requirements for the WEM suite, and document high-level solution requirements.

    2.3 Perform a use-case scenario assessment, review use-case scenario results, identify use-case alignment, and review the WEM Vendor Landscape vendor profiles and performance.

    2.4 Create a custom vendor shortlist and investigate additional vendors for exploration in the marketplace.

    2.5 Meet with project manager to discuss results and action items.

    Outputs

    Vendor Shortlist

    WEM RFP

    Vendor Evaluations

    Selection of a WEM Solution

    WEM projected work break-down

    Implementation plan

    Framework for WEM deployment and CRM/Marketing Management Suite Integration

    Optimize Social Media Strategy by Service

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    • Parent Category Name: Marketing Solutions
    • Parent Category Link: /marketing-solutions
    • Many organizations are jumping the gun on service selection and missing valuable opportunities to tap into conversations their consumers are having about them.
    • Companies are struggling to harness real benefits from social media because they dive into content and engagement strategy without spending the appropriate amount of time on social media service selection.
    • After organizations have selected the appropriate social media services, clients fail to understand best practices for participating in conversations and therefore are unable to optimize their success on each service.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Conventional wisdom dictates that you should pick the social network where you have the greatest subscriber base to reach, but this is irrelevant. Organizations need to consider all the social media services available when selecting services, to ensure they are optimizing their social media strategy and interacting with the right people.
    • In today’s social media landscape there is a wide variety of social media services to choose from. Services range from hot micro-blogging services, like Twitter, to more niche social multimedia services, like Flickr or Vimeo.
    • Each department should manage its set of relevant services regardless of platform. For example a marketing manager should manage all social media services in marketing, rather than have one person manage all Twitter feeds, one person manage all Facebook pages, etc.
    • The services your organization selects shouldn’t operate as islands. Consider not only how the services will fit with each other, but also how they will fit with existing channels. Use a market coverage model to ensure the services you select are complementing each other.
    • The landscape for social media services changes rapidly. It is essential to conduct an audit of services to maintain an optimal mix of services. Conduct the audit semi-annually for best effect.

    Impact and Result

    • Learn about the importance of choosing the correct services to ensure you are reaching your consumers and not wasting time playing with the wrong people.
    • Understand the business use cases for each service and best practices for using them.
    • Leverage different social media services to create a market coverage model that balances social media services with your products/services and business objectives.
    • Identify the risks associated with specific platforms and ensure IT works to mitigate them.
    • Create a plan for conducting a Social Media Service Audit to stay on top of changing trends.

    Optimize Social Media Strategy by Service Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Create the right social media service mix

    Understand the different social media services, their unique value propositions for customer interaction, and the content and timing best practices for each.

    • Storyboard: Optimize Social Media Strategy by Service
    • Social Media Service Selection Tool

    2. Execute a plan for social service selection and management

    Leverage different social media services to create a market coverage model and assign responsibilities.

    3. Perform a semi-annual social media service audit

    Conduct an audit to stay on top of changing trends.

    • Social Media Services Audit Template
    [infographic]

    Prepare for the Upgrade to Windows 11

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    • Parent Category Name: End-User Computing Devices
    • Parent Category Link: /end-user-computing-devices
    • Windows 10 is going EOL in 2025.That is closer than you think.
    • Many of your endpoints are not eligible for the Windows 11 upgrade. You can’t afford to replace all your endpoints this year. How do you manage this Microsoft initiated catastrophe?
    • You want to stay close to the leading edge of technology and services, but how do you do that while keeping your spending in check and within budget?

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Windows 11 is a step forward in security, which is one of the primary reasons for the release of the new operating system. Windows 11 comes with a list of hardware requirements that enable the use of tools and features that, when combined, will reduce malware infections.

    Impact and Result

    Windows 11 hardware requirements will result in devices that are not eligible for the upgrade. Companies will be left to spend money on replacement devices. Following the Info-Tech guidance will help clients properly budget for hardware replacements before Windows 10 is no longer supported by Microsoft. Eligible devices can be upgraded, but Info-Tech guidance can help clients properly plan the upgrade using the upgrade ring approach.

    Prepare for the Upgrade to Windows 11 Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Prepare for the Upgrade to Windows 11 Deck – A look into some of the pros and cons of Microsoft’s latest desktop operating system, along with guidance on moving forward with this inevitable upgrade.

    Discover the reason for the release of Windows 11, what you require to be eligible for the upgrade, what features were added or updated, and what features were removed. Our guidance will assist you with a planned and controlled rollout of the Windows 11 upgrade. We also provide guidance on how to approach a device refresh plan if some devices are not eligible for Windows 11. The upgrade is inevitable, but you have time, and you have options.

    • Prepare for the Upgrade to Windows 11 Storyboard

    2. What Are My Options If My Devices Cannot Upgrade to Windows 11? – Build a Windows 11 Device Replacement budget with our Hardware Asset Management Budgeting Tool.

    This tool will help you budget for a hardware asset refresh and to adjust the budget as necessary to accommodate any unexpected changes. The tool can easily be modified to assist in developing and justifying the budget for hardware assets for a Windows 11 project. Follow the instructions on each tab and feel free to play with the HAM budgeting tool to fit your needs.

    • HAM Budgeting Tool
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Prepare for the Upgrade to Windows 11

    The upgrade is inevitable, but you have time, and you have options.

    Analyst Perspective

    Upgrading to Windows 11 is easy, and while it should be properly investigated and planned, it should absolutely be an activity you undertake.

    “You hear that Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability.” ("The Matrix Quotes" )

    The fictitious Agent Smith uttered those words to Keanu Reeves’ character, Neo, in The Matrix in 1999, and while Agent Smith was using them in a very sinister and figurative context, the words could just as easily be applied to the concept of upgrading to the Windows 11 operating system from Microsoft in 2022.

    There have been two common, recurring themes in the media since late 2019. One is the global pandemic and the other is cyber-related crime. Microsoft is not in a position to make an impact on a novel coronavirus, but it does have the global market reach to influence end-user technology and it appears that it has done just that. Windows 11 is a step forward in endpoint security and functionality. It also solidifies the foundation for future innovations in end-user operating systems and how they are delivered. Windows-as-a-Service (WAAS) is the way forward for Microsoft. Windows 10 is living on borrowed time, with a defined end of support date of October 14, 2025. Upgrading to Windows 11 is easy, and while it should be properly investigated and planned, it should absolutely be an activity you undertake.

    It is inevitable!

    P.J. Ryan

    Research Director, Infrastructure & Operations

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    • Windows 10 is going EOL in 2025. That is closer than you think.
    • Many of your endpoints are not eligible for the Windows 11 upgrade. You can’t afford to replace all your endpoints this year. How do you manage this Microsoft-initiated catastrophe?
    • You want to stay close to the leading edge of technology and services, but how do you do that while keeping your spending in check and within budget?

    Common Obstacles

    • The difference between Windows 10 and Windows 11 is not clear. Windows 11 looks like Windows 10 with some minor changes, mostly cosmetic. Many online users don’t see the need. Why upgrade? What are the benefits?
    • The cost of upgrading devices just to be eligible for Windows 11 is high.
    • Your end users don’t like change. This is not going to go over well!

    Info-Tech's Approach

    • Spend wisely. Space out your endpoint replacements and upgrades over several years. You do not have to upgrade everything right away.
    • Be patient. Windows 11 contained some bugs when it was initially released. Microsoft fixed most of the issues through monthly quality updates, but you should ensure that you are comfortable with the current level of functionality before you upgrade.
    • Use the upgrade ring approach. Test your applications with a small group first, and then stage the rollout to increasingly larger groups over time.

    Info-Tech Insight

    There is a lot of talk about Windows 11, but this is only an operating system upgrade, and it is not a major one. Understand what is new, what is added, and what is missing. Check your devices to determine how many are eligible and ineligible. Many organizations will have to spend capital on endpoint upgrades. Solid asset management practices will help.

    Insight summary

    Windows 11 is a step forward in security, which is one of the primary reasons for the release of the new operating system.

    Windows 11 comes with a list of hardware requirements that enable the use of tools and features that, when combined, will reduce malware infections.

    The hardware requirements for Windows 11 enable security features such as password-less logon, disk encryption, increased startup protection with secure boot, and virtualization-based security.

    Many organizations will have to spend capital on endpoint upgrades.

    Microsoft now insists that modern hardware is required for Windows 11 for not only security but also for improved stability. That same hardware requirement will mean that many devices that are only three or four years old (as well as older ones) may not be eligible for Windows 11.

    Windows 11 is a virtualization challenge for some providers.

    The hardware requirements for physical devices are also required for virtual devices. The TPM module appears to be the biggest challenge. Oracle VirtualBox and Citrix Hypervisor as well as AWS and Google are unable to support Windows 11 virtual devices as of the time of writing.

    Windows 10 will be supported by Microsoft until October 2025.

    That will remove some of the pressure felt due to the ineligibility of many devices and the need to refresh them. Take your time and plan it out, keeping within budget constraints. Use the upgrade ring approach for systems that are eligible for the Windows 11 upgrade.

    New look and feel, and a center screen taskbar.

    Corners are rounded, some controls look a little different, but overall Windows 11 is not a dramatic shift from Windows 10. It is easier to navigate and find features. Oh, and yes, the taskbar (and start button) is shifted to the center of the screen, but you can move them back to the left if desired.

    The education industry gets extra attention with the release of Windows 11.

    Windows 11 comes with multiple subscription-based education offerings, but it also now includes a new lightweight SE edition that is intended for the K-8 age group. Microsoft also released a Windows 11 Education SE specific laptop, at a very attractive price point. Other manufacturers also offer Windows 11 SE focused devices.

    Why Windows 11?

    Windows 10 was supposed to be the final desktop OS from Microsoft, wasn’t it?

    Maybe. It depends who you ask.

    Jerry Nixon, a Microsoft developer evangelist, gained notoriety when he uttered these words while at a Microsoft presentation as part of Microsoft Ignite in 2015: “Right now we’re releasing Windows 10, and because Windows 10 is the last version of Windows, we’re all still working on Windows 10,” (Hachman). Microsoft never officially made that statement. Interestingly enough, it never denied the comments made by Jerry Nixon either.

    Perhaps Microsoft released a new operating system as a financial grab, a way to make significant revenue?

    Nope.

    Windows 11 is a free upgrade or is included with any new computer purchase.

    Market share challenges?

    Doubtful.

    It’s true that Microsoft's market share of desktop operating systems is dropping while Apple OS X and Google Chrome OS are rising.

    In fact, Microsoft has relinquished over 13% of the market share since 2012 and Apple has almost doubled its market share. BUT:

    Microsoft is still holding 75.12% of the market while Apple is in the number 2 spot with 14.93% (gs.statcounter.com).

    The market share is worth noting for Microsoft but it hardly warrants a new operating system.

    New look and feel?

    Unlikely

    New start button and taskbar orientation, new search window, rounded corners, new visual look on some controls like the volume bar, new startup sound, new Windows logo, – all minor changes. Updates could achieve the same result.

    Security?

    Likely the main reason.

    Windows 11 comes with a list of hardware requirements that enable the use of tools and features that, when combined, will reduce malware infections.

    The hardware requirements for Windows 11 enable security features such as password-less logon, disk encryption, increased startup protection with secure boot, and virtualization-based security.

    The features are available on all Windows 11 physical devices, due to the common hardware requirements.

    Windows 11 hardware-based security

    These hardware options and features were available in Windows 10 but not enforced. With Windows 11, they are no longer optional. Below is a description and explanation of the main features.

    Feature What it is How it works
    TPM 2.0 (Trusted Platform Module) Chip TPM is a chip on the motherboard of the computer. It is used to store encryption keys, certificates, and passwords. TPM does this securely with tamper-proof prevention. It can also generate encryption keys and it includes its own unique encryption key that cannot be altered (helpdeskgeek.com). You do not need to enter your password once you setup Windows Hello, so the password is no longer easy to capture and steal. It is set up on a device per device basis, meaning if you go to a different device to sign in, your Windows Hello authentication will not follow you and you must set up your Hello pin or facial recognition again on that particular device. TPM (Trusted Platform Module) can store the credentials used by Windows Hello and encrypt them on the module.
    Windows Hello Windows Hello is an alternative to using a password for authentication. Users can use a pin, a fingerprint, or facial recognition to authenticate.
    Device Encryption Device encryption is only on when your device is off. It scrambles the data on your disk to make it unreadable unless you have the key to unscramble it. If your endpoint is stolen, the contents of the hard drive will remain encrypted and cannot be accessed by anyone unless they can properly authenticate on the device and allow the system to unscramble the encrypted data.
    UEFI Secure Boot Capable UEFI is an acronym for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface. It is an interface between the operating system and the computer firmware. Secure Boot, as part of the firmware interface, ensures that only unchangeable and approved software and drivers are loaded at startup and not any malware that may have infiltrated the system (Lumunge). UEFI, with Secure Boot, references a database containing keys and signatures of drivers and runtime code that is approved as well as forbidden. It will not let the system boot up unless the signature of the driver or run-time code that is trying to execute is approved. This UEFI Secure boot recognition process continues until control is handed over to the operating system.
    Virtualization Based Security (VBS) and Hypervisor-Protected Code Integrity (HVCI) VBS is security based on virtualization capabilities. It uses the virtualization features of the Windows operating system, specifically the Hyper-V hypervisor, to create and isolate a small chunk of memory that is isolated from the operating system. HVCI checks the integrity of code for violations. The Code Integrity check happens in the isolated virtual area of memory protected by the hypervisor, hence the acronym HVCI (Hypervisor Protected Code Integrity) (Murtaza). In the secure, isolated region of memory created by VBS with the hypervisor, Windows will run checks on the integrity of the code that runs various processes. The isolation protects the stored item from tampering by malware and similar threats. If they run incident free, they are released to the operating system and can run in the standard memory space. If issues are detected, the code will not be released, nor will it run in the standard memory space of the operating system, and damage or compromise will be prevented.

    How do all the hardware-based security features work?

    This scenario explains how a standard boot up and login should happen.

    You turn on your computer. Secure Boot authorizes the processes and UEFI hands over control to the operating system. Windows Hello works with TPM and uses a pin to authenticate the user and the operating systems gives you access to the Windows environment.

    Now imagine the same process with various compromised scenarios.

    You turn on your computer. Secure Boot does not recognize the signature presented to it by the second process in the boot sequence. You will be presented with a “Secure Boot Violation” message and an option to reboot. Your computer remains protected.

    You boot up and get past the secure boot process and UEFI passes control over to the Windows 11 operating system. Windows Hello asks for your pin, but you cannot remember the pin and incorrectly enter it three times before admitting temporary defeat. Windows Hello did not find a matching pin on the TPM and will not let you proceed. You cannot log in but in the eyes of the operating system, it has prevented an unauthorized login attempt.

    You power up your computer, log in without issue, and go about your morning routine of checking email, etc. You are not aware that malware has infiltrated your system and modified a page in system memory to run code and access the operating system kernel. VBS and HVCI check the integrity of that code and detect that it is malicious. The code remains isolated and prevented from running, protecting your system.

    TPM, Hello, UEFI with Secure Boot, VBS and HVCI all work together like a well-oiled machine.

    “Microsoft's rationale for Windows 11's strict official support requirements – including Secure Boot, a TPM 2.0 module, and virtualization support – has always been centered on security rather than raw performance.” – Andrew Cunningham, arstechnica.com

    “Windows 11 raises the bar for security by requiring hardware that can enable protections like Windows Hello, Device Encryption, virtualization-based security (VBS), hypervisor-protected code integrity (HVCI), and Secure Boot. These features in combination have been shown to reduce malware by 60% on tested devices.” – Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, Computerworld

    Can any device upgrade to Windows 11?

    In addition to the security-related hardware requirements listed previously, which may exclude some devices from Windows 11 eligibility, Windows 11 also has a minimum requirement for other hardware components.

    Windows 7 and Windows 10 were publicized as being backward compatible and almost any hardware would be able to run those operating systems. That changed with Windows 11. Microsoft now insists that modern hardware is required for Windows 11 for not only security but also improved stability.

    Software Requirement

    You must be running Windows 10 version 2004 or greater to be eligible for a Windows 11 upgrade (“Windows 11 Requirements”).

    Complete hardware requirements for Windows 11

    • 1 GHz (or faster) compatible 64-bit processor with two or more cores
    • 4 GB RAM
    • 64 GB or more of storage space
    • Compatible with DirectX 12 or later with WDDM 2.0 driver
      • DirectX connects the hardware in your computer with Windows. It allows software to display graphics using the video card or play audio, as long as that software is DirectX compatible. Windows 11 requires version 12 (“What are DirectX 12 compatible graphics”).
      • WDDM is an acronym for Windows Display Driver Model. WDDM is the architecture for the graphics driver for Windows (“Windows Display Driver Model”).
      • Version 2.0 of WDDM is required for Windows 11.
    • 720p display greater than 9" diagonally with 8 bits per color channel
    • UEFI Secure Boot capable
    • TPM 2.0 chip
    • (“Windows 11 Requirements”)

    Windows 11 may challenge your virtual environment

    When Windows 11 was initially released, some IT administrators experienced issues when trying to install or upgrade to Windows 11 in the virtual world.

    The Challenge

    The issues appeared to be centered around the Windows 11 hardware requirements, which must be detected by the Windows 11 pre-install check before the operating system will install.

    The TPM 2.0 chip requirement was indeed a challenge and not offered as a configuration option with Citrix Hypervisor, the free VMware Workstation Player or Oracle VM VirtualBox when Windows 11 was released in October 2021, although it is on the roadmap for Oracle and Citrix Hypervisor. VMware provides alternative products to the free Workstation Player that do support a virtual TPM. Oracle and Citrix reported that the feature would be available in the future and Windows 11 would work on their platforms.

    Short-Term Solutions

    VMware and Microsoft users can add a vTPM hardware type when configuring a virtual Windows 11 machine. Microsoft Azure does offer Windows 11 as an option as a virtual desktop. Citrix Desktop-As-A-Service (DAAS) will connect to Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud and is only limited by the features of the hosting cloud service provider.

    Additional Insight

    According to Microsoft, any VM running Windows 11 must meet the following requirements (“Virtual Machine Support”):

    • It must be a generation 2 VM, and upgrading a generation 1 VM to Windows 11 (in-place) is not possible
    • 64 GB of storage or greater
    • Secure Boot capable with the virtual TPM enabled
    • 4 GB of memory or greater
    • 2 or more virtual processors
    • The CPU of the physical computer that is hosting the VM must meet the Windows 11 (“Windows Processor Requirements”)

    What’s new or updated in Windows 11?

    The following two slides highlight some of the new and updated features in Windows 11.

    Security

    The most important change with Windows 11 is what you cannot see – the security. Windows 11 adds requirements and controls to make the user and device more secure, as described in previous slides.

    Taskbar

    The most prominent change in relation to the look and feel of Windows 11 is the shifting of the taskbar (and Start button) to the center of the screen. Some users may find this more convenient but if you do not and prefer the taskbar and start button back on the left of your screen, you can change it in taskbar settings.

    Updated Apps

    Paint, Photos, Notepad, Media Player, Mail, and other standard Windows apps have been updated with a new look and in some cases minor enhancements.

    User Interface

    The first change users will notice after logging in to Windows 11 is the new user interface – the look and feel. You may not notice the additional colors added to the Windows palette, but you may have thought that the startup sound was different, and the logo also looks different. You would be correct. Other look-and-feel items that changed include the rounded corners on windows, slightly different icons, new wallpapers, and controls for volume and brightness are now a slide bar. File explorer and the settings app also have a new look.

    Microsoft Teams

    Microsoft Teams is now installed on the taskbar by default. Note that this is for a personal Microsoft account only. Teams for Work or School will have to be installed separately if you are using a work or school account.

    What’s new or updated in Windows 11?

    Snap Layouts

    Snap layouts have been enhanced and snap group functionality has been added. This will allow you to quickly snap one window to the side of the screen and open other Windows in the other side. This feature can be accessed by dragging the window you wish to snap to the left or right edge of the screen. The window should then automatically resize to occupy that half of the screen and allow you to select other Windows that are already open to occupy the remaining space on the screen. You can also hover your mouse over the maximize button in the upper right-hand corner of the window. A small screen with multiple snap layouts will appear for your selection. Multiple snapped Windows can be saved as a “Snap Group” that will open together if one of the group windows are snapped in the future.

    Widgets

    Widgets are expanding. Microsoft started the re-introduction of widgets in Windows 10, specifically focusing on the weather. Widgets now include other services such as news, sports, stock prices, and others.

    Android Apps

    Android apps can now run in Windows 11. You will have to use the Amazon store to access and install Android apps, but if it is available in the Amazon store, you can install it on Windows 11.

    Docking

    Docking has improved with Windows 11. Windows knows when you are docked and will minimize apps when you undock so they are not lost. They will appear automatically when you dock again.

    This is not intended to be an inclusive list but does cover some of the more prominent features.

    What’s missing from Windows 11?

    The following features are no longer found in Windows 11:

    • Backward compatibility
      • The introduction of the hardware requirements for Windows 11 removed the backward compatibility (from a hardware perspective) that made the transition from previous versions of Windows to their successor less of a hardware concern. If a computer could run Windows 7, then it could also run Windows 10. That does not automatically mean it can also run Windows 11.
    • Internet Explorer
      • Internet Explorer is no longer installed by default in Windows 11. Microsoft Edge is now the default browser for Windows. Other browsers can also be installed if preferred.
    • Tablet mode
      • Windows 11 does not have a "tablet" mode, but the operating system will maximize the active window and add more space between icons to make selecting them easier if the 2-in-1 hardware detects that you wish to use the device as a tablet (keyboard detached or device opened up beyond 180 degrees, etc.).
    • Semi-annual updates
      • It may take six months or more to realize that semi-annual feature updates are missing. Microsoft moved to an annual feature update schema but continued with monthly quality updates with Windows 11.
    • Specific apps
      • Several applications have been removed (but can be manually added from the Microsoft Store by the user). They include:
        • OneNote for Windows 10
        • 3D Viewer
        • Paint 3D
        • Skype
    • Cortana (by default)
      • Cortana is missing from Windows 11. It is installed but not enabled by default. Users can turn it on if desired.

    Microsoft included a complete list of features that have been removed or deprecated with Windows 11, which can be found here Windows 11 Specs and System Requirements.

    Windows 11 editions

    • Windows 11 is offered in several editions:
      • Windows 11 Home
      • Windows 11 Pro
      • Windows 11 Pro for Workstations
      • Windows 11 Enterprise Windows 11 for Education
      • Windows 11 SE for Education
    • Windows 11 hardware requirements and security features are common throughout all editions.
    • The new look and feel along with all the features mentioned previously are common to all editions as well.
    • Windows Home
      • Standard offering for home users
    • Pro versus Pro for Workstations
      • Windows 11 Pro and Pro for Workstations are both well suited for the business environment with available features such as support for Active Directory or Azure Active Directory, Windows Autopilot, OneDrive for Business, etc.
      • Windows Pro for Workstations is designed for increased demands on the hardware with the higher memory limits (2 TB vs. 6 TB) and processor count (2 CPU vs. 4 CPU).
      • Windows Pro for Workstations also features Resilient File System, Persistent Memory, and SMB Direct. Neither of these features are available in the Windows 11 Pro edition.
      • Windows 11 Pro and Pro for Workstations are both very business focused, although Pro may also be a common choice for non-business users (Home and Education).
    • Enterprise Offerings
      • Enterprise licenses are subscription based and are part of the Microsoft 365 suite of offerings.
      • Windows 11 Enterprise is Windows 11 Pro with some additional addons and functionality in areas such as device management, collaboration, and security services.
      • The level of the Microsoft 365 Enterprise subscription (E3 or E5) would dictate the additional features and functionality, such as the complete Microsoft Defender for Endpoint suite or the Microsoft phone system and Audio Conferencing, which are only available with the E5 subscription.

    Windows 11 Education Editions

    With the release of a laptop targeted specifically at the education market, Microsoft must be taking notice of the Google Chrome educational market penetration, especially with headlines like these.

    “40 Million Chromebooks in Use in Education” (Thurrott)

    “The Unprecedented Growth of the Chromebook Education Market Share” (Carklin)

    “Chromebooks Gain Market Share as Education Goes Online” (Hruska)

    “Chromebooks Gain Share of Education Market Despite Shortages” (Mandaro)

    “Chromebook sales skyrocketed in Q3 2020 with online education fueling demand” (Duke)

    • Education licenses are subscription based and are part of the Microsoft 365 suite of offerings. Educational pricing is one benefit of the Microsoft 365 Education model.
    • Windows 11 Education is Windows 11 Pro with some additional addons and functionality similar to the Enterprise offerings for Windows 11 in areas such as device management, collaboration, and security services. Windows 11 Education also adds some education specific settings such as Classroom Tools, which allow institutions to add new students and their devices to their own environment with fewer issues, and includes OneNote Class Notebook, Set Up School PCs app, and Take a Test app.
    • The level of the Microsoft 365 Education subscription (A3 or A5) would dictate the additional features and functionality, such as the complete Microsoft Defender for Endpoint suite or the Microsoft phone system and Audio Conferencing, which are only available with the A5 subscription.
    • Windows 11 SE for Education:
      • A cloud-first edition of Windows 11 specifically designed for the K-8 education market.
      • Windows 11 SE is a light version of Windows 11 that is designed to run on entry-level devices with better performance and security on that hardware.
      • Windows 11 SE requires Intune for Education and only IT admins can install applications.
    • Microsoft and others have come out with Windows SE specific devices at a low price point.
      • The Microsoft Surface Laptop SE comes pre-loaded with Windows 11 SE and can be purchased for US$249.00.
      • Dell, Asus, Acer, Lenovo, and others also offer Windows 11 SE specific devices (“Devices for Education”).

    Initial Reactions

    Below you can find some actual initial reactions to Windows 11.

    Initial reactions are mixed, as is to be expected with any new release of an operating system. The look and feel is new, but it is not a huge departure from the Windows 10 look and feel. Some new features are well received such as the snap feature.

    The shift of the taskbar (and start button) is the most popular topic of discussion online when it comes to Windows 11 reactions. Some love it and some do not. The best part about the shift of the taskbar is that you can adjust it in settings and move it back to its original location.

    The best thing about reactions is that they garner attention, and thanks in part to all the online reactions and comments, Microsoft is continually improving Windows 11 through quality updates and annual feature releases.

    “My 91-year-old Mum has found it easy!” Binns, Paul ITRG

    “It mostly looks quite nice and runs well.” Jmbpiano, Reddit user

    “It makes me feel more like a Mac user.” Chang, Ben Info-Tech

    “At its core, Windows 11 appears to be just Windows 10 with a fresh coat of paint splashed all over it.” Rouse, Rick RicksDailyTips.com

    “Love that I can snap between different page orientations.” Roberts, Jeremy Info-Tech

    “I finally feel like Microsoft is back on track again.” Jawed, Usama Neowin

    “A few of the things that seemed like issues at first have either turned out not to be or have been fixed with patches.” Jmbpiano, Reddit user

    “The new interface is genuinely intuitive, well-designed, and colorful.” House, Brett AnandTech

    “No issues. Have it out on about 50 stations.” Sandrews1313, Reddit User

    “The most striking change is to the Start menu.” Grabham, Dan pocket-lint.com

    How do I upgrade to Windows 11?

    The process is very similar to applying updates in Windows 10.

    • Windows 11 is offered as an upgrade through the standard Windows 10 update procedure. Windows Update will notify you when the Windows 11 upgrade is ready (assuming your device is eligible for Windows 11).
      • Allow the update (upgrade in this case) to proceed, reboot, and your endpoint will come back to life with Windows 11 installed and ready for you.
    • A fresh install can be delivered by downloading the required Windows 11 installation media from the Microsoft Software Download site for Windows 11.
    • Business users can control the timing and schedule of the Windows 11 rollout to corporate endpoints using Microsoft solutions such as WSUS, Configuration Manager, Intune and Endpoint Manager, or by using other endpoint management solutions.
    • WSUS and Configuration Manager will have to sync the product category for Windows 11 to manage the deployment.
    • Windows Update for Business policies will have to use the target version capability rather than using the feature update referrals alone.
    • Organizations using Intune and a Microsoft 365 E3 license will be able to use the Feature Update Deployments page to select Windows 11.
    • Other modern endpoint management solutions may also allow for a controlled deployment.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The upgrade itself may be a simple process but be prepared for the end-user reactions that will follow. Some will love it but others will despise it. It is not an optional upgrade in the long run, so everyone will have to learn to accept it.

    When can I upgrade to Windows 11?

    You can upgrade right now BUT there is no need to rush. Windows 11 was released in October 2021 but that doesn’t mean you have to upgrade everyone right away. Plan this out.

    • Build deployment rings into your Windows 11 upgrade approach: This approach, also referred to as Canary Releases or deployment rings, allows you to ensure that IT can support users if there's a major problem with the upgrade. Instead of disrupting all end users, you are only disrupting a portion of end users.
      • Deploy the initial update to your test environment.
      • After testing is successful or changes have been made, deploy Windows 11 to your pilot group of users.
      • After the pilot group gives you the thumbs up, deploy to the rest of production in phases. Phases are sometimes by office/location, sometimes by department, sometimes by persona (i.e. defer people that don't handle updates well), and usually by a combination of these factors.
      • Increase the size of each ring as you progress.
    • Always back up your data before any upgrade.

    Deployment Ring Example

    Pilot Ring - Individuals from all departments - 10 users

    Ring #1 - Dev, Finance - 20 Users

    Ring #2 - Research - 100 Users

    Ring #3 - Sales, IT, Marketing - 500 Users

    Upgrade your eligible devices and users to Windows 11

    Build Windows 11 Deployment Rings

    Instructions:

    1. Identify who will be in the pilot group. Use individuals instead of user groups.
    2. Identify how many standard rings you need. This number will be based on the total number of employees per office.
    3. Map groups to rings. Define which user groups will be in each ring.
    4. Allow some time to elapse between upgrades. Allow the first group to work with Windows 11 and identify any potential issues that may arise before upgrading the next group.
    5. Track and communicate. Record all information into a spreadsheet like the one on the right. This will aid in communication and tracking.
    Ring Department or Group Total Users Delay Time Before Next Group
    Pilot Ring Individuals from all departments 10 Three weeks
    Ring 1 Dev Finance 20 Two weeks
    Ring 2 Research 100 One week
    Ring 3 Sales, IT Marketing 500 N/A

    What are my options if my devices cannot upgrade to Windows 11?

    Don’t rush out to replace all the ineligible endpoint devices. You have some time to plan this out. Windows 10 will be available and supported by Microsoft until October 2025.

    Use asset management strategies and budget techniques in your Windows 11 upgrade approach:

    • Start with current inventory and determine which devices will not be eligible for upgrade to Windows 11.
    • Prioritize the devices for replacement, taking device age, the role of the user the device supports, and delivery times for remote users into consideration.
    • Take this opportunity to review overall device offerings and end-user compute strategy. This will help decide which devices to offer going forward while improving end-user satisfaction.
    • Determine the cost for replacement devices:
      • Compare vendor offerings using an RFP process.
    • Use the hardware asset management planning spreadsheet on the next slide to budget for the replacements over the coming months leading up to October 2025.

    Leverage Info-Tech research to improve your end-user computing strategy and hardware asset management processes:

    New to End User Computing Strategies? Start with Modernize and Transform Your End-User Computing Strategy.

    New to IT asset management? Use Info-Tech’s Implement Hardware Asset Management blueprint.

    Use Info-Tech’s HAM Budgeting Tool to plan your hardware asset budget

    Build a Windows 11 Device Replacement Budget

    The link below will open up a hardware asset management (HAM) budgeting tool. This tool can easily be modified to assist in developing and justifying the budget for hardware assets for the Windows 11 project. The tool will allow you to budget for hardware asset refresh and to adjust the budget as needed to accommodate any changes. Follow the instructions on each tab to complete the tool.

    A sample of a possible Windows 11 budgeting spreadsheet is shown on the right, but feel free to play with the HAM budgeting tool to fit your needs.

    HAM Budgeting Tool

    Windows 11 Replacement Schedule
    2022 2023 2024 2025
    Department Total to replace Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Left to allocate
    Finance 120 20 20 20 10 10 20 20 0
    HR 28 15 13 0
    IT 30 15 15 0
    Research 58 8 15 5 20 5 5 0
    Planning 80 10 15 15 10 15 15 0
    Other 160 5 30 5 15 15 30 30 30 0
    Totals 476 35 38 35 35 35 35 38 35 50 35 35 35 35 0

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Modernize and Transform Your End-User Computing Strategy

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    Implement Hardware Asset Management

    This project will help you analyze the current state of your HAM program, define assets that will need to be managed, and build and involve the ITAM team from the beginning to help embed the change. It will also help you define standard policies, processes, and procedures for each stage of the hardware asset lifecycle, from procurement through to disposal.

    Bibliography

    aczechowski, et al. “Windows 11 Requirements.” Microsoft, 3 June 2022. Accessed 13 June 2022.

    Binns, Paul. Personal interview. 07 June 2022.

    Butler, Sydney. “What Is Trusted Platform Module (TPM) and How Does It Work?” Help Desk Geek, 5 August 2021. Accessed 18 May 2022.

    Carklin, Nicolette. “The Unprecedented Growth of the Chromebook Education Market Share.” Parallels International GmbH, 26 October 2021. Accessed 19 May 2022.

    Chang, Ben. Personal interview. 26 May 2022.

    Cunningham, Andrew. “Why Windows 11 has such strict hardware requirements, according to Microsoft.” Ars Technica, 27 August 2021. Accessed 19 May 2022.

    Dealnd-Han, et al. “Windows Processor Requirements.” Microsoft, 9 May 2022. Accessed 18 May 2022.

    “Desktop Operating Systems Market Share Worldwide.” Statcounter Globalstats, June 2021–June 2022. Accessed 17 May 2022.

    “Devices for education.” Microsoft, 2022. Accessed 13 June 2022.

    Duke, Kent. “Chromebook sales skyrocketed in Q3 2020 with online education fueling demand.” Android Police, 16 November 2020. Accessed 18 May 2022.

    Grabham, Dan. “Windows 11 first impressions: Our initial thoughts on using Microsoft's new OS.” Pocket-Lint, 24 June 2021. Accessed 3 June 2022.

    Hachman, Mark. “Why is there a Windows 11 if Windows 10 is the last Windows?” PCWorld, 18 June 2021. Accessed 17 May 2022.

    Howse, Brett. “What to Expect with Windows 11: A Day One Hands-On.” Anandtech, 16 November 2020. Accessed 3 June 2022.

    Hruska, Joel. “Chromebooks Gain Market Share as Education Goes Online.” Extremetech, 26 October 2020. Accessed 19 May 2022.

    Jawed, Usama. “I am finally excited about Windows 11 again.” Neowin, 26 February 2022. Accessed 3 June 2022.

    Jmbpiano. “Windows 11 - What are our initial thoughts and feelings?” Reddit, 22 November 2021. Accessed 3 June 2022.

    Lumunge, Erick. “UEFI and Legacy boot.” OpenGenus, n.d. Accessed 18 May 2022.

    Bibliography

    Mandaro, Laura. “Chromebooks Gain Share of Education Market Despite Shortages.” The Information, 9 September 2020. Accessed 19 May 2022.

    Murtaza, Fawad. “What Is Virtualization Based Security in Windows?” Valnet Inc, 24 October 2021. Accessed 17 May 2022.

    Roberts, Jeremy. Personal interview. 27 May 2022.

    Rouse, Rick. “My initial thoughts about Windows 11 (likes and dislikes).” RicksDailyTips.com, 5 September 2021. Accessed 3 June 2022.

    Sandrews1313. “Windows 11 - What are our initial thoughts and feelings?” Reddit, 22 November 2021. Accessed 3 June 2022.

    “The Matrix Quotes." Quotes.net, n.d. Accessed 18 May 2022.

    Thurrott, Paul.” Google: 40 Million Chromebooks in Use in Education.” Thurrott, 21 January 2020. Accessed 18 May 2022.

    Vaughan-Nichols, Steven J. “The real reason for Windows 11.” Computerworld, 6 July 2021, Accessed 19 May 2022.

    “Virtual Machine Support.” Microsoft,3 June 2022. Accessed 13 June 2022.

    “What are DirectX 12 compatible graphics and WDDM 2.x.” Wisecleaner, 20 August 2021. Accessed 19 May 2022.

    “Windows 11 Specs and System Requirements.” Microsoft, 2022. Accessed 13 June 2022.

    “Windows Display Driver Model.” MiniTool, n.d. Accessed 13 June 2022.

    Assess the Viability of M365-O365 Security Add-Ons

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    • Parent Category Name: Security Strategy & Budgeting
    • Parent Category Link: /security-strategy-and-budgeting

    The technical side of IT security demands the best security possible, but the business side of running IT demands that you determine what is cost-effective and can still do the job. You likely shrugged off the early iterations of Microsoft’s security efforts, but you may have heard that things have changed. Where do you start in evaluating Microsoft’s security products in terms of effectiveness? The value proposition sounds tremendous to the CFO, “free” security as part of your corporate license, but how does it truly measure up and how do you articulate your findings to the business?

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Microsoft’s security products have improved to the point where they are often ranked competitively with mainstream security products. Depending on your organization’s licensing of Office 365/Microsoft 365, some of these products are included in what you’re already paying for. That value proposition is hard to deny.

    Impact and Result

    Determine what is important to the business, and in what order of priority.

    Take a close look at your current solution and determine what are table stakes, what features you would like to have in its replacement, and what your current solution is missing.

    Consider Microsoft’s security solutions using an objective methodology. Sentiment will still be a factor, but it shouldn’t dictate the decision you make for the good of the business.

    Assess the Viability of M365/O365 Security Add-Ons Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to assess the viability of M365/O365 security add-ons. Review Info-Tech’s methodology and understand the four key steps to completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Review your current state

    Examine what you are licensed for, what you are paying, what you need, and what your constraints are.

    • Microsoft 365/Office 365 Security Add-Ons Assessment Tool

    2. Assess your needs

    Determine what is “good enough” security and assess the needs of your organization.

    3. Select your path

    Decide what you will go with and start planning your next steps.

    [infographic]

    Integrate Threat Intelligence Into Your Security Operations

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    • Parent Category Name: Threat Intelligence & Incident Response
    • Parent Category Link: /threat-intelligence-incident-response
    • Organizations have limited visibility into their threat landscape, and as such are vulnerable to the latest attacks, hindering business practices, workflow, revenue generation, and damaging their public image.
    • Organizations are developing ad hoc intelligence capabilities that result in operational inefficiencies, the misalignment of resources, and the misuse of their security technology investments.
    • It is difficult to communicate the value of a threat intelligence solution when trying to secure organizational buy-in and the appropriate resourcing.
    • There is a vast array of “intelligence” in varying formats, often resulting in information overload.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    1. Information alone is not actionable. A successful threat intelligence program contextualizes threat data, aligns intelligence with business objectives, and then builds processes to satisfy those objectives.
    2. Your security controls are diminishing in value (if they haven’t already). As technology in the industry evolves, threat actors will inevitably adopt new tools, tactics, and procedures; a threat intelligence program can provide relevant situational awareness to stay on top of the rapidly-evolving threat landscape.
    3. Your organization might not be the final target, but it could be a primary path for attackers. If you exist as a third-party partner to another organization, your responsibility in your technology ecosystem extends beyond your own product/service offerings. Threat intelligence provides visibility into the latest threats, which can help you avoid becoming a backdoor in the next big data breach.

    Impact and Result

    • Assess the needs and intelligence requirements of key stakeholders.
    • Garner organizational buy-in from senior management.
    • Identify organizational intelligence gaps and structure your efforts accordingly.
    • Understand the different collection solutions to identify which best supports your needs.
    • Optimize the analysis process by leveraging automation and industry best practices.
    • Establish a comprehensive threat knowledge portal.
    • Define critical threat escalation protocol.
    • Produce and share actionable intelligence with your constituency.
    • Create a deployment strategy to roll out the threat intelligence program.
    • Integrate threat intelligence within your security operations.

    Integrate Threat Intelligence Into Your Security Operations Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should implement a threat intelligence program, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Plan for a threat intelligence program

    Assess current capabilities and define an ideal target state.

    • Integrate Threat Intelligence Into Your Security Operations – Phase 1: Plan for a Threat Intelligence Program
    • Security Pressure Posture Analysis Tool
    • Threat Intelligence Maturity Assessment Tool
    • Threat Intelligence Project Charter Template
    • Threat Intelligence RACI Tool
    • Threat Intelligence Management Plan Template
    • Threat Intelligence Policy Template

    2. Design an intelligence collection strategy

    Understand the different collection solutions to identify which best supports needs.

    • Integrate Threat Intelligence Into Your Security Operations – Phase 2: Design an Intelligence Collection Strategy
    • Threat Intelligence Prioritization Tool
    • Threat Intelligence RFP MSSP Template

    3. Optimize the intelligence analysis process

    Begin analyzing and acting on gathered intelligence.

    • Integrate Threat Intelligence Into Your Security Operations – Phase 3: Optimize the Intelligence Analysis Process
    • Threat Intelligence Malware Runbook Template

    4. Design a collaboration and feedback program

    Stand up an intelligence dissemination program.

    • Integrate Threat Intelligence Into Your Security Operations – Phase 4: Design a Collaboration and Feedback Program
    • Threat Intelligence Alert Template
    • Threat Intelligence Alert and Briefing Cadence Schedule Template
    [infographic]

    Create a Buyer Persona and Journey

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    • Parent Category Name: Marketing Solutions
    • Parent Category Link: /marketing-solutions
    • Contacts fail to convert to leads because messaging fails to resonate with buyers.
    • Products fail to reach targets given shallow understanding of buyer needs.
    • Sellers' emails go unopened and attempts at discovery fail due to no understanding of buyer challenges, pain points, and needs.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Marketing leaders in possession of well-researched and up-to-date buyer personas and journeys dramatically improve product market fit, lead gen, and sales results.
    • Success starts with product, marketing, and sales alignment on targeted personas.
    • Speed to deploy is enabled via initial buyer persona attribute discovery internally.
    • However, ultimate success requires buyer interviews, especially for the buyer journey.
    • Leading marketers update journey maps every six months as disruptive events such as COVID-19 and new media and tech platform advancements require continual innovation.

    Impact and Result

    • Reduce time and treasure wasted chasing the wrong prospects.
    • Improve product-market fit.
    • Increase open and click-through rates in your lead gen engine.
    • Perform more effective sales discovery and increase eventual win rates.

    Create a Buyer Persona and Journey Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Our Executive Brief summarizes the challenges faced when buyer persona and journeys are ill-defined. It describes the attributes of, and the benefits that accrue from, a well-defined persona and journey and the key steps to take to achieve success.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Drive an aligned initial draft of buyer persona

    Define and align your team on target persona, outline steps to capture and document a robust buyer persona and journey, and capture current team buyer knowledge.

    • Buyer Persona Creation Template
    • Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    2. Interview buyers and validate persona and journey

    Hold initial buyer interviews, test initial results, and continue with interviews.

    3. Prepare communications and educate stakeholders

    Consolidate interview findings, present to product, marketing, and sales teams. Work with them to apply to product design, marketing launch/campaigning, and sales and customer success enablement.

    • Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Create a Buyer Persona and Journey

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Align Team, Identify Persona, and Document Current Knowledge

    The Purpose

    Organize, drive alignment on target persona, and capture initial views.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Steering committee and project team roles and responsibilities clarified.

    Product, marketing, and sales aligned on target persona.

    Build initial team understanding of persona.

    Activities

    1.1 Outline a vision for buyer persona and journey creation and identify stakeholders.

    1.2 Identify buyer persona choices and settle on an initial target.

    1.3 Document team knowledge about buyer persona (and journey where possible).

    Outputs

    Documented steering committee and working team

    Executive Brief on personas and journey

    Personas and initial targets

    Documented team knowledge

    2 Validate Initial Work and Identify Buyer Interviewees

    The Purpose

    Build list of buyer interviewees, finalize interview guide, and validate current findings with analyst input.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Interview efficiently using 75-question interview guide.

    Gain analyst help in persona validation, reducing workload.

    Activities

    2.1 Share initial insights with covering industry analyst.

    2.2 Hear from industry analyst their perspectives on the buyer persona attributes.

    2.3 Reconcile differences; update “current understanding.”

    2.4 Identify interviewee types by segment, region, etc.

    Outputs

    Analyst-validated initial findings

    Target interviewee types

    3 Schedule and Hold Buyer Interviews

    The Purpose

    Validate current persona hypothesis and flush out those attributes only derived from interviews.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Get to a critical mass of persona and journey understanding quickly.

    Activities

    3.1 Identify actual list of 15-20 interviewees.

    3.2 Hold interviews and use interview guides over the course of weeks.

    3.3 Hold review session after initial 3-4 interviews to make adjustments.

    3.4 Complete interviews.

    Outputs

    List of interviewees; calls scheduled

    Initial review – “are you going in the right direction?”

    Completed interviews

    4 Summarize Findings and Provide Actionable Guidance to Colleagues

    The Purpose

    Summarize persona and journey attributes and provide activation guidance to team.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of product market fit requirements, messaging, and marketing, and sales asset content.

    Activities

    4.1 Summarize findings.

    4.2 Create action items for supporting team, e.g. messaging, touch points, media spend, assets.

    4.3 Convene steering committee/executives and working team for final review.

    4.4 Schedule meetings with colleagues to action results.

    Outputs

    Complete findings

    Action items for team members

    Plan for activation

    5 Measure Impact and Results

    The Purpose

    Measure results, adjust, and improve.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Activation of outcomes; measured results.

    Activities

    5.1 Review final copy, assets, launch/campaign plans, etc.

    5.2 Develop/review implementation plan.

    5.3 Reconvene team to review results.

    Outputs

    Activation review

    List of suggested next steps

    Further reading

    Create a Buyer Persona and Journey

    Make it easier to market, sell, and achieve product-market fit with deeper buyer understanding.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    B2B marketers without documented personas and journeys often experience the following:

    • Contacts fail to convert to leads because messaging fails to resonate with buyers.
    • Products fail to reach targets given shallow understanding of buyer needs.
    • Sellers’ emails go unopened, and attempts at discovery fail due to no understanding of buyer challenges, pain points, and needs.

    Without a deeper understanding of buyer needs and how they buy, B2B marketers will waste time and precious resources targeting the incorrect personas.

    Common Obstacles

    Despite being critical elements, organizations struggle to build personas due to:

    • A lack of alignment and collaboration among marketing, product, and sales.
    • An internal focus; or a lack of true customer centricity.
    • A lack of tools and techniques for building personas and buyer journeys.

    In today’s Agile development environment, combined with the pressure to generate revenues quickly, high tech marketers often skip the steps necessary to go deeper to build buyer understanding.

    SoftwareReviews’ Approach

    With a common framework and target output, clients will:

    • Align marketing, sales, and product, and collaborate together to share current knowledge on buyer personas and journeys.
    • Target 12-15 customers and prospects to interview and validate insights. Share that with customer-facing staff.
    • Activate the insights for more customer-centric lead generation, product development, and selling.

    Clients who activate findings from buyer personas and journeys will see a 50% results improvement.

    SoftwareReviews Insight:
    Buyer personas and buyer journeys are essential ingredients in go-to-market success, as they inform for product, marketing, sales, and customer success who we are targeting and how to engage with them successfully.

    Buyer personas and journeys: A go-to-market critical success factor

    Marketers – large and small – will fail to optimize product-market fit, lead generation, and sales effectiveness without well-defined buyer personas and a buyer journey.

    Critical Success Factors of a Successful G2M Strategy:

    • Opportunity size and business case
    • Buyer personas and journey
    • Competitively differentiated product hypothesis
    • Buyer-validated commercial concept
    • Sales revenue plan and program cost budget
    • Consolidated communications to steering committee

    Jeff Golterman, Managing Director, SoftwareReviews Advisory

    “44% of B2B marketers have already discovered the power of Personas.”
    – Hasse Jansen, Boardview.io!, 2016

    Documenting buyer personas enables success beyond marketing

    Documenting buyer personas has several essential benefits to marketing, sales, and product teams:

    • Achieve a better understanding of your target buyer – by building a detailed buyer persona for each type of buyer and keeping it fresh, you take a giant step toward becoming a customer-centric organization.
    • Team alignment on a common definition – will happen when you build buyer personas collaboratively and among those teams that touch the customer.
    • Improved lead generation – increases dramatically when messaging and marketing assets across your lead generation engine better resonate with buyers because you have taken the time to understand them deeply.
    • More effective selling – is possible when sellers apply persona development output to their interactions with prospects and customers.
    • Better product-market fit – increases when product teams more deeply understand for whom they are designing products. Documenting buyer challenges, pain points, and unmet needs gives product teams what they need to optimize product adoption.

    “It’s easier buying gifts for your best friend or partner than it is for a stranger, right? You know their likes and dislikes, you know the kind of gifts they’ll have use for, or the kinds of gifts they’ll get a kick out of. Customer personas work the same way, by knowing what your customer wants and needs, you can present them with content targeted specifically to their wants and needs.”
    – Emma Bilardi, Product Marketing Alliance, 2020

    Buyer understanding activates just about everything

    Without the deep buyer insights that persona and journey capture enables, marketers are suboptimized.

    Buyer Persona and Journey

    • Product design
    • Customer targeting
    • Personalization
    • Messaging
    • Content marketing
    • Lead gen & scoring
    • Sales Effectiveness
    • Customer retention

    “Marketing eutopia is striking the all-critical sweet spot that adds real value and makes customers feel recognized and appreciated, while not going so far as to appear ‘big brother’. To do this, you need a deep understanding of your audience coming from a range of different data sets and the capability to extract meaning.”
    – Plexure, 2020

    Does your organization need buyer persona and journey updating?

    “Yes,” if experiencing one or more key challenges:

    • Sales time is wasted on unqualified leads
    • Website abandon rates are high
    • Lead gen engine click-through rates are low
    • Ideal customer profile is ill defined
    • Marketing asset downloads are low
    • Seller discovery with prospects is ineffective
    • Sales win/loss rates drop due to poor product-market fit
    • Higher than desired customer churn

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:
    Marketers developing buyer personas and journeys that lack agreement among Marketing, Sales, and Product of personas to target will squander precious time and resources throughout the customer targeting and acquisition process.

    Outcomes and benefits

    Building your buyer persona and journey using our methodology will enable:

    • Greater stakeholder alignment – when marketing, product, and sales agree on personas, less time is wasted on targeting alternate personas.
    • Improved product-market fit – when buyers see both pain-relieving features and value-based pricing, “because you asked vs. guessed,” win rates increase.
    • Greater open and click-through rates – because you understood buyer pain points and motivations for solution seeking, you’ll see higher visits and engagement with your lead gen engine, and because you asked “what asset types do you find most helpful” your CTAs become ”lead-gen magnets” because you’ve offered the right asset types in your content marketing strategy.
    • More qualified leads – because you defined a more accurate ideal customer profile (ICP) and your lead scoring algorithm has improved, sellers see more qualified leads.
    • Increased sales cycle velocity – since you learned from personas their content and engagement preferences and what collateral types they need during the down-funnel sales discussions, sales calls are more productive and sales cycles shrink.

    Our methodology for buyer persona and journey creation

    1. Document Team Knowledge of Buyer Persona and Drive Alignment 2. Interview Target Buyer Prospects and Customers 3. Create Outputs and Apply to Marketing, Sales, and Product
    Phase Steps
    1. Outline a vision for buyer persona and journey creation and identify stakeholders.
    2. Pull stakeholders together, identify initial buyer persona, and begin to document team knowledge about buyer persona (and journey where possible).
    3. Validate with industry and marketing analyst’s initial buyer persona, and identify list of buyer interviewees.
    1. Hold interviews and document and share findings.
    2. Validate initial drafts of buyer persona and create initial documented buyer journey. Review findings among key stakeholders, steering committee, and supporting analysts.
    3. Complete remaining interviews.
    1. Summarize findings.
    2. Convene steering committee/exec. and working team for final review.
    3. Communicate to key stakeholders in product, marketing, sales, and customer success for activation.
    Phase Outcomes
    1. Steering committee and team selection
    2. Team insights about buyer persona documented
    3. Buyer persona validation with industry and marketing analysts
    4. Sales, marketing, and product alignment
    1. Interview guide
    2. Target interviewee list
    3. Buyer-validated buyer persona
    4. Buyer journey documented with asset types, channels, and “how buyers buy” fully documented
    1. Education deck on buyer persona and journey ready for use with all stakeholders: product, field marketing, sales, executives, customer success, partners
    2. Activation will update product-market fit, optimize lead gen, and improve sales effectiveness

    Our approach provides interview guides and templates to help rebuild buyer persona

    Our methodology will enable you to align your team on why it’s important to capture the most important attributes of buyer persona including:

    • Functional – helps you find and locate your target personas
    • Emotive – deepens team understanding of buyer initiatives, motivations for seeking alternatives, challenges they face, pain points for your offerings to address, and terminology that describes the “space”
    • Solution – enables greater product market fit
    • Behavioral – clarifies how to communicate with personas and understand their content preferences
    Functional – “to find them”
    Job Role Title Org. Chart Dynamics Buying Center Firmographics
    Emotive – “what they do and jobs to be done”
    Initiatives: What programs/projects the persona is tasked with and their feelings and aspirations about these initiatives. Motivations? Build credibility? Get promoted? Challenges: Identify the business issues, problems, and pain points that impede attainment of objectives. What are their fears, uncertainties, and doubts about these challenges? Buyer Need: They may have multiple needs; which need is most likely met with the offering? Terminology: What are the keywords/phrases they organically use to discuss the buyer need or business issue?
    Decision Criteria – “how they decide”
    Buyer Role: List decision-making criteria and power level. The five common buyer roles are champion, influencer, decision maker, user, and ratifier (purchaser/negotiator). Evaluation and Decision Criteria: Which lens – strategic, financial, or operational – does the persona evaluate the impact of purchase through?
    Solution Attributes – “what does the ideal solution look like”
    Steps in “Jobs to Be Done” Elements of the “Ideal Solution” Business outcomes from ideal solution Opportunity scope; other potential users Acceptable price for value delivered Alternatives that see consideration Solution sourcing: channel, where to buy
    Behavioral Attributes – “how to approach them successfully”
    Content Preferences: List the persona’s content preferences – blog, infographic, demo, video – vs. long-form assets (e.g. white paper, presentation, analyst report). Interaction Preferences: Which are preferred among in-person meetings, phone calls, emails, videoconferencing, conducting research via Web, mobile, and social? Watering Holes: Which physical or virtual places do they go to network or exchange info with peers (e.g. LinkedIn)?

    Buyer journeys are constantly shifting

    If you didn’t remap buyer journeys in 2021, you may be losing to competitors that did. Leaders remap buyer journey frequently.

    • The multi-channel buyer journey is constantly changing. Today’s B2B buyer uses industry research sites, vendor content marketing assets, software reviews sites, contacts with vendor salespeople, events participation, peer networking, consultants, emails, social media sites, and electronic media to research purchasing decisions.
    • COVID-19 has dramatically decreased face-to-face interaction. We estimate a B2B buyer spent 20-25% more time online in 2021 than pre-COVID-19 researching software buying decisions. This has diminished the importance of face-to-face selling and given dramatic rise to digital selling and outbound marketing.
    • Content marketing has exploded, but without mapping the buyer journey and knowing where – by channel –and when – by buyer journey step – to offer content marketing assets, we will fail to convert prospects into buyers.

    “~2/3 of [B2B] buyers prefer remote human interactions or digital self-service.” And during Aug. ‘20 to Feb. ‘21, use of digital self-service to interact with sales reps leapt by more than 10% for both researching and evaluating new suppliers.”
    – Liz Harrison, Dennis Spillecke, Jennifer Stanley, and Jenny Tsai McKinsey & Company, 2021

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:
    Marketers are advised to update their buyer journey annually and with greater frequency when the human vs. digital mix is affected due to events such as COVID-19 and as emerging media such as AR shifts asset-type usage and engagement options.

    Our approach helps you define the buyer journey

    Because marketing leaders need to reach buyers through the right channel with the right message at the right time during their decision cycle, you’ll benefit by using questionnaires that enable you to build the below easily and quickly.

    You’ll be more successful by following our overall guidance

    Overarching insight

    Buyer personas and buyer journeys are essential ingredients in go-to-market success, as they inform for product, marketing, sales, and customer success who we are targeting and how to engage with them successfully.

    Align Your Team

    Marketers developing buyer personas and journeys that lack agreement among Marketing, Sales, and Product of personas to target will squander precious time and resources throughout the customer targeting and acquisition process.

    Jump-Start Persona Development

    Marketing leaders leverage the buyer persona knowledge not only from in-house experts in areas such as sales and executives but from analysts that speak with their buyers each and every day.

    Buyer Interviews Are a Must

    While leaders will get a fast start by interviewing sellers, executives, and analysts, you will fail to craft the right messages, build the right marketing assets, and design the best buyer journey if you skip buyer interviews.

    Watch for Disruption

    Leaders will update their buyer journey annually and with greater frequency when the human vs. digital mix is effected due to events such as COVID-19 and as emerging media such as AR and VR shifts the way buyers engage.

    Advanced Buyer Journey Discovery

    Digital marketers that ramp up lead gen engine capabilities to capture “wins” and measure engagement back through the lead gen and nurturing engines will build a more data-driven view of the buyer journey. Target to build this advanced capability in your initial design.

    Tools and templates to speed your success

    This blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you gather team insights, interview customers and prospects, and summarize results for ease in communications.

    To support your buyer persona and journey creation, we’ve created the enclosed tools

    Buyer Persona Creation Template

    A PowerPoint template to aid the capture and summarizing of your team’s insights on the buyer persona.

    Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    For interviewing customers and prospects, this tool is designed to help you interview personas and summarize results for up to 15 interviewees.

    Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

    A PowerPoint template into which you can drop your buyer persona and journey interviewees list and summary findings.

    SoftwareReviews offers two levels of support to best suit your needs

    DIY Toolkit

    "Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful."

    The "do-it-yourself" step-by-step instructions begin with Phase 1.

    Guided Implementation

    "Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track."

    A Guided Implementation is a series of analysts inquiries with you and your team.

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout each option.

    Guided Implementation

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is series of calls with a SoftwareReviews Advisory analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

    For guidance on marketing applications, we can arrange a discussion with an Info-Tech analyst.

    Your engagement managers will work with you to schedule analyst calls.

    What does our GI on buyer persona and journey mapping look like?

    Drive an Aligned Initial Draft of Buyer Persona

    • Call #1: Collaborate on vision for buyer persona and the buyer journey. Review templates and sample outputs. Identify your team.
    • Call #2: Review work in progress on capturing working team knowledge of buyer persona elements.
    • Call #3: (Optional) Review Info-Tech’s research-sourced persona insights.
    • Call #4: Validate the persona WIP with Info-Tech analysts. Review buyer interview approach and target list.

    Interview Buyers and Validate Persona and Journey

    • Call #5: Revise/review interview guide and final interviewee list; schedule interviews.
    • Call #6: Review interim interview finds; adjust interview guide.
    • Call #7: Use interview findings to validate/update persona and build journey map.
    • Call #8: Add supporting analysts to final stakeholder review.

    Prepare Communications and Educate Stakeholders

    • Call #9: Review output templates completed with final persona and journey findings.
    • Call #10: Add supporting analysts to stakeholder education meetings for support and help with addressing questions/issues.

    Workshop overview

    Contact your account representative for more information. workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

    Day1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
    Align Team, Identify Persona, and Document Current Knowledge Validate Initial Work and Identify Buyer Interviewees Schedule and Hold Buyer interviews Summarize Findings and Provide Actionable Guidance to Colleagues Measure Impact and Results
    Activities

    1.1 Outline a vision for buyer persona and journey creation and identify stakeholders.

    1.2 Identify buyer persona choices and settle on an initial target.

    1.3 Document team knowledge about buyer persona (and journey where possible).

    2.1 Share initial insights with covering industry analyst.

    2.2 Hear from industry analyst their perspectives on the buyer persona attributes.

    2.3 Reconcile differences; update “current understanding.”

    2.4 Identify interviewee types by segment, region, etc.

    3.1 Identify actual list of 15-20 interviewees.

    A gap of up to a week for scheduling of interviews.

    3.2 Hold interviews and use interview guides (over the course of weeks).

    3.3 Hold review session after initial 3-4 interviews to make adjustments.

    3.4 Complete interviews.

    4.1 Summarize findings.

    4.2 Create action items for supporting team, e.g. messaging, touch points, media spend, assets.

    4.3 Convene steering committee/exec. and working team for final review.

    4.4 Schedule meetings with colleagues to action results.

    5.1 Review final copy, assets, launch/campaign plans, etc.

    5.2 Develop/review implementation plan.

    A period of weeks will likely intervene to execute and gather results.

    5.3 Reconvene team to review results.

    Deliverables
    1. Documented steering committee and working team
    2. Executive Brief on personas and journey
    3. Personas and initial targets
    4. Documented team knowledge
    1. Analyst-validated initial findings
    2. Target interviewee types
    1. List of interviewees; calls scheduled
    2. Initial review – “are we going in the right direction?”
    3. Completed interviews
    1. Complete findings
    2. Action items for team members
    3. Plan for activation
    1. Activation review
    2. List of suggested next steps

    Phase 1
    Drive an Aligned Initial Draft of Buyer Persona

    This Phase walks you through the following activities:

    • Develop an understanding of what comprises a buyer persona and journey, including their importance to overall go-to-market strategy and execution.
    • Sample outputs.

    This Phase involves the following stakeholders:

    • Program leadership
    • Product Marketing
    • Product Management
    • Representative(s) from Sales
    • Executive Leadership

    1.1 Establish the team and align on shared vision

    Input

    • Typically a joint recognition that buyer personas have not been fully documented.
    • Identify working team members/participants (see below), and an executive sponsor.

    Output

    • Communication of team members involved and the make-up of steering committee and working team
    • Alignment of team members on a shared vision of “Why Build Buyer Personas and Journey” and what key attributes define both.

    Materials

    • N/A

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • CMO/Sponsoring Executive Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales
    • SoftwareReviews marketing analyst

    60 minutes

    1. Schedule inquiry with working team members and walk the team through the Buyer Persona and Journey Executive Brief PowerPoint presentation.
    2. Optional: Have the (SoftwareReviews Advisory) SRA analyst walk the team through the Buyer Persona and Journey Executive Brief PowerPoint presentation as part of your session.

    Review the Create a Buyer Persona Executive Brief (Slides 3-14)

    1.2 Document team knowledge of buyer persona

    Input

    • Working team member knowledge

    Output

    • Initial draft of your buyer persona

    Materials

    • Buyer Persona Creation Template

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • CMO/Sponsoring Executive (optional)
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales

    2-3 sessions of 60 minutes each

    1. Schedule meeting with working team members and, using the Buyer Persona Template, lead the team in a discussion that documents current team knowledge of the target buyer persona.
    2. Lead the team to prioritize an initial, single, most important persona and to collaborate to complete the template (and later, the buyer journey). Once the team learns the process for working on the initial persona, the development of additional personas will become more efficient.
    3. Place the PowerPoint template in a shared drive for team collaboration. Expect to schedule several 60-minute meets. Quicken collaboration by encouraging team to “do their homework” by sharing persona knowledge within the shared drive version of the template. Your goal is to get to an initial agreed upon version that can be shared for additional validation with industry analyst(s) in the next step.

    Download the Buyer Persona Creation Template

    1.3 Validate with industry analysts

    Input

    • Identify gaps in persona from previous steps

    Output

    • Further validated buyer persona

    Materials

    • Bring your Buyer Persona Creation Template to the meeting to share with analysts

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • CMO/Sponsoring Executive (Optional)
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales
    • Info-Tech analyst covering your product category and SoftwareReviews marketing analyst

    30 minutes

    1. Schedule meeting with working team members and discuss which persona areas require further validation from an Info-Tech analyst who has worked closely with those buyers within your persona.

    60 minutes

    1. Schedule an inquiry with the appropriate Info-Tech analyst and SoftwareReviews Advisory analyst to share current findings and see:
      1. Info-Tech analyst provide content feedback given what they know about your target persona and product category.
      2. SoftwareReviews Advisory analyst provide feedback on persona approach and to coach any gaps or important omissions.
    2. Tabulate results and update your persona summary. At this point you will likely require additional validation through interviews with customers and prospects.

    1.4 Identify interviewees and prepare for interviews

    Input

    • Identify segments within which you require persona knowledge
    • Understand your persona insight gaps

    Output

    • List of interviewees

    Materials

    • Interviewee recording template on following slide
    • Interview guide questions found within the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and data Capture Tool

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales

    1-2 weeks

    1. Identify the types of customers and prospects that will best represent your target persona. Choose interviewees that when interviewed will inform key differences among key segments (geographies, company size, mix of customers and prospects, etc.).
    2. Recruit interviewees and schedule interviews for 45 minutes.
    3. Keep track of Interviewees using the slide following this one.
    4. In preparation for interviews, review the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool. Review the two sets of questions:
      1. Buyer Persona-Related – use to validate areas where you still have gaps in your persona, OR if you are starting with a blank persona and wish to build your personas entirely based on customer and prospect interviews.
      2. Buyer-Journey Related, which we will focus on in the next phase.

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    The image shows a table titled ‘Interviewee List.’ A note next to the title indicates: Here you will document your interviewee list and outreach plan. A note in the Segment column indicates: Ensure you are interviewing personas across segments that will give you the insights you need, e.g. by size, by region, mix of customers and prospects. A note in the Title column reads: Vary your title types up or down in the “buying center” if you are seeking to strengthen buying center dynamics understanding. A note in the Roles column reads: Vary your role types according to decision-making roles (decision maker, influencer, ratifier, coach, user) if you are seeking to strengthen decision-making dynamics understanding.

    Phase 2
    Interview Buyers and Validate Persona and Journey

    This Phase walks you through the following activities:

    • Developing final interview guide.
    • Interviewing buyers and customers.
    • Adjusting approach.
    • Validating buyer persona.
    • Crafting buyer journey
    • Gaining analyst feedback.

    This Phase involves the following stakeholders:

    • Program leadership
    • Product Marketing
    • Representative(s) from Sales

    2.1 Hold interviews

    Input

    • List of interviewees
    • Final list of questions

    Output

    • Buyer perspectives on their personas and buyer journeys

    Materials

    • Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and data Capture Tool

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales

    1-2 weeks

    1. Hold interviews and adjust your interviewing approach as you go along. Uncover where you are not getting the right answers, check with working team and analysts, and adjust.

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    2.2 Use interview findings to validate what’s needed for activation

    Input

    • List of interviewees
    • Final list of questions

    Output

    • Buyer perspectives on their personas and buyer journeys
    • Stakeholder feedback that actionable insights are resulting from interviews

    Materials

    • Buyer Persona Creation Template
    • Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales
    • SoftwareReviews marketing analyst

    2 hours

    1. Convene your team, with marketing analysts, and test early findings: It’s wise to test initial interview results to check that you are getting the right insights to understand and validate key challenges, pain points, needs, and other vital areas pertaining to the buyer persona. Are the answers you are getting enabling you to complete the Summary slides for later communications and training for Sales?
    2. Check when doing buyer journey interviews that you are getting actionable answers that drive messaging, what asset types are needed, what the marketing channel mix is, and other vital insights to activate the results. Are the answers you are getting adequate to give guidance to campaigners, content marketers, and sales enablement?
    3. See the following slides for detailed questions that need to be answered satisfactorily by your team members that need to “activate” the results.

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    2.2.1 Are you getting what you need from interviews to inform the buyer persona?

    Test that you are on the right track:

    1. Are you getting the functional answers so you can guide sellers to the right roles? Can you guide marketers/campaigners to the right “Ideal Customer Profile” for lead scoring?
    2. Are you capturing the right emotive areas that will support message crafting? Solutioning? SEM/SEO?
    3. Are you capturing insights into “how they decide” so sellers are well informed on the decision-making dynamics?
    4. Are you getting a strong understanding of content, interaction preferences, and news and information sources so sellers can outreach more effectively, you can pinpoint media spend, and content marketing can create the right assets?
    Functional – “to find them”
    Job Role Title Org. Chart Dynamics Buying Center Firmographics
    Emotive – “what they do and jobs to be done”
    Initiatives: What programs/projects the persona is tasked with and their feelings and aspirations about these initiatives. Motivations? Build credibility? Get promoted? Challenges: Identify the business issues, problems, and pain points that impede attainment of objectives. What are their fears, uncertainties, and doubts about these challenges? Buyer Need: They may have multiple needs; which need is most likely met with the offering? Terminology: What are the keywords/phrases they organically use to discuss the buyer need or business issue?
    Decision Criteria – “how they decide”
    Buyer Role: List decision-making criteria and power level. The five common buyer roles are champion, influencer, decision maker, user, and ratifier (purchaser/negotiator). Evaluation and Decision Criteria: Which lens – strategic, financial, or operational – does the persona evaluate the impact of purchase through?
    Solution Attributes – “what does the ideal solution look like”
    Steps in “Jobs to Be Done” Elements of the “Ideal Solution” Business outcomes from ideal solution Opportunity scope; other potential users Acceptable price for value delivered Alternatives that see consideration Solution sourcing: channel, where to buy
    Behavioral Attributes – “how to approach them successfully”
    Content Preferences: List the persona’s content preferences – blog, infographic, demo, video – vs. long-form assets (e.g. white paper, presentation, analyst report). Interaction Preferences: Which are preferred among in-person meetings, phone calls, emails, videoconferencing, conducting research via Web, mobile, and social? Watering Holes: Which physical or virtual places do they go to network or exchange info with peers (e.g. LinkedIn)?

    2.2.2 Are you getting what you need from interviews to support the buyer journey?

    Our approach helps you define the buyer journey

    Because marketing leaders need to reach buyers through the right channel with the right message at the right time during their decision cycle, you’ll benefit by using questionnaires that enable you to build the below easily and quickly.

    2.3 Continue interviews

    Input

    • Final adjustments to list of interview questions

    Output

    • Final buyer perspectives on their personas and buyer journeys

    Materials

    • Buyer Persona Creation Template
    • Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and data Capture Tool

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales

    1-2 weeks

    1. Continue customer and prospect interviews.
    2. Ensure you are gaining the segment perspectives needed.
    3. Complete the “Summary” columns within the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool.

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    Phase 3
    Prepare Communications and Educate Stakeholders

    This Phase walks you through the following activities:

    • Creating outputs for key stakeholders
    • Communicating final findings and supporting marketing, sales, and product activation.

    This Phase involves the following stakeholders:

    • Program leadership
    • Product Marketing
    • Product Management
    • Sales
    • Field Marketing/Campaign Management
    • Executive Leadership

    3.1 Summarize interview results and convene full working team and steering committee for final review

    Input

    • Buyer persona and journey interviews detail

    Output

    • Buyer perspectives on their personas and buyer journeys

    Materials

    • Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool
    • Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • CMO/Sponsoring Executive (Optional)
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales
    • SoftwareReviews marketing analyst

    1-2 hours

    1. Summarize interview results within the Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template.

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

    3.2 Convene executive steering committee and working team to review results

    Input

    • Buyer persona and journey interviews summary

    Output

    • Buyer perspectives on their personas and buyer journeys

    Materials

    • Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales

    1-2 hours

    1. Present final persona and journey results to the steering committee/executives and to working group using the summary slides interview results within the Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template to finalize results.

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

    3.3 Convene stakeholder meetings to activate results

    Input

    • Buyer persona and journey interviews summary

    Output

    Activation of key learnings to drive:

    • Better product –market fit
    • Lead gen
    • Sales effectiveness
    • Awareness

    Materials

    • Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales
    • Stakeholder team members (see left)

    4-5 hours

    Present final persona and journey results to each stakeholder team. Key presentations include:

    1. Product team to validate product market fit.
    2. Content marketing to provide messaging direction for the creation of awareness and lead gen assets.
    3. Campaigners/Field Marketing for campaign-related messaging and to identify asset types required to be designed and delivered to support the buyer journey.
    4. Social media strategists for social post copy, and PR for other awareness-building copy.
    5. Sales enablement/training to enable updating of sales collateral, proposals, and sales training materials. Sellers to help with their targeting, prospecting, and crafting of outbound messaging and talk tracks.

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Problem Solved

    With the help of this blueprint, you have deepened your and your colleagues’ buyer understanding at both the persona “who they are” level and the buyer journey “how do they buy” level. You are among the minority of marketing leaders that have fully documented a buyer persona and journey – congratulations!

    The benefits of having led your team through the process are significant and include the following:

    • Better alignment of customer/buyer-facing teams such as in product, marketing, sales, and customer success.
    • Messaging that can be used by marketing, sales, and social teams that will resonate with buyer initiatives, pain points, sought-after “pain relief,” and value.
    • Places in the digital and physical universe where your prospects “hang out” so you can optimize your media spend.
    • More effective use of marketing assets and sales collateral that align with the way your prospect needs to consume information throughout their buyer journey to make a decision in your solution area.

    And by capturing and documenting your buyer persona and journey even for a single buyer type, you have started to build the “institutional strength” to apply the process to other roles in the decision-making process or for when you go after new and different buyer types for new products. And finally, by bringing your team along with you in this process, you have also led your team in becoming a more customer-focused organization – a strategic shift that all organizations should pursue.

    If you would like additional support, contact us and we’ll make sure you get the professional expertise you need.

    Contact your account representative for more information.

    info@softwarereviews.com

    1-888-670-8889

    Related Software Reviews Research

    Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring

    • Save time and money and improve your sales win rates when you apply our methodology to score contacts with your lead gen engine more accurately and pass better qualified leads over to your sellers.
    • Our methodology teaches marketers to develop your own lead scoring approach based upon lead/contact profile vs. your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and scores contact engagement. Applying the methodology to arrive at your own approach to scoring will mean reduced lead gen costs, higher conversion rates, and increased marketing-influenced wins.

    Bibliography

    Bilardi, Emma. “How to Create Buyer Personas.” Product Marketing Alliance, July 2020. Accessed Dec. 2021.

    Harrison, Liz, Dennis Spillecke, Jennifer Stanley, and Jenny Tsai. “Omnichannel in B2B sales: The new normal in a year that has been anything but.” McKinsey & Company, 15 March 2021. Accessed Dec. 2021.

    Jansen, Hasse. “Buyer Personas – 33 Mind Blowing Stats.” Boardview.io!, 19 Feb. 2016. Accessed Jan. 2022.

    Raynor, Lilah. “Understanding The Changing B2B Buyer Journey.” Forbes Agency Council, 18 July 2021. Accessed Dec. 2021.

    Simpson, Jon. “Finding Your Audience: The Importance of Developing a Buyer Persona.” Forbes Agency Council, 16 May 2017. Accessed Dec. 2021.

    “Successfully Executing Personalized Marketing Campaigns at Scale.” Plexure, 6 Jan. 2020. Accessed Dec 2020.

    Ulwick, Anthony W. JOBS TO BE DONE: Theory to Practice. E-book, Strategyn, 1 Jan. 2017. Accessed Jan. 2022.

    Drive Business Value With Off-the-Shelf AI

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}205|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): N/A
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    • Parent Category Name: Business Intelligence Strategy
    • Parent Category Link: /business-intelligence-strategy
    • Understanding the impact of the machine learning/AI component that is built into most of the enterprise products and tools and its role in the implementation of the solution.
    • Understanding the most important aspects that the organization needs to consider while planning the implementation of the AI-powered product.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Organizations are faced with multiple challenges trying to adopt AI solutions. Challenges include data issues, ethics and compliance considerations, business process challenges, and misaligned leadership goals.
    • When choosing the right product to meet business needs, organizations need to know what questions to ask vendors to ensure they fully understand the implications of buying an AI/ML product.
    • To guarantee the success of your off-the-shelf AI implementation and ensure it delivers value, you must start with a clear definition of the business case and an understanding of your data.

    Impact and Result

    To guarantee success of the off-the-shelf AI implementation and deliver value, in addition to formulating a clear definition of the business case and understanding of data, organizations should also:

    • Know what questions to ask vendors while evaluating AI-powered products.
    • Measure the impact of the project on business and IT processes.

    Drive Business Value With Off-the-Shelf AI Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Drive Business Value With Off-the-Shelf AI Deck – A step-by-step approach that will help guarantee the success of your Off-the-Shelf AI implementation and ensure it delivers business value

    Use this practical and actionable framework that will guide you through the planning of your Off-the-Shelf AI product implementation.

    • Drive Business Value With Off-the-Shelf AI Storyboard

    2. Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis – A tool that will guide the analysis and planning of the implementation

    Use this analysis tool to ensure the success of the implementation.

    • Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis

    Infographic

    Further reading

    Drive Business Value With Off-the-Shelf AI

    A practical guide to ensure return on your Off-the-Shelf AI investment

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge
    • Understanding the impact of the machine learning/AI component that is built into most of the enterprise products and tools and its role in the implementation of the solution.
    • What are the most important aspects that organizations needs to consider while planning the implementation of the AI-powered product?
    Common Obstacles
    • Organizations are faced with multiple challenges trying to adopt an AI solution. Challenges include data issues, ethics and compliance considerations, business process challenges, and misaligned leadership goals.
    • When choosing the right product to meet business needs, organizations need to know what questions to ask vendors to ensure they fully understand the implications of buying an AI/ML product.
    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Info-Tech’s approach includes a framework that will guide organizations through the process of the Off-the-Shelf AI product selection.

    To guarantee success of the Off-the-Shelf AI implementation and deliver value, organization should start with clear definition of the business case and an understanding of data.

    Other steps include:

    • Knowing what questions to ask vendors to evaluate AI-powered products.
    • Measuring the impact of the project on your business and IT processes.
    • Assessing impact on the organization and ensure team readiness.

    Info-Tech Insight

    To guarantee the success of your Off-the-Shelf AI implementation and ensure it delivers value, you must start with a clear definition of the business case and an understanding of your data.

    Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

    DIY Toolkit

    Guided Implementation

    Workshop

    Consulting

    "Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful." "Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track." "We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place." "Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Getting value out of AI and machine learning investments

    92.1%

    of companies say they are achieving returns on their data and AI investments

    91.7%

    said they were increasing investments in data and AI

    26.0%

    of companies have AI systems in widespread production
    However, CIO Magazine identified nine main hurdles to AI adoption based on the survey results:
    • Data issues
    • Business process challenges
    • Implementation challenges and skill shortages
    • Costs of tools and development
    • Misaligned leadership goals
    • Measuring and proving business value
    • Legal and regulatory risks
    • Cybersecurity
    • Ethics
    • (Source: CIO, 2019)
    “Data and AI initiatives are becoming well established, investments are paying off, and companies are getting more economic value from AI.” (Source: NewVantage, 2022.)

    67% of companies are currently using machine learning, and 97% are using or planning to use it in the next year.” (Source: Deloitte, 2020)

    AI vs. ML

    Machine learning systems learn from experience and without explicit instructions. They learn patterns from data then analyze and make predictions based on past behavior and the patterns learned.

    Artificial intelligence is a combination of technologies and can include machine learning. AI systems perform tasks mimicking human intelligence such as learning from experience and problem solving. Most importantly, AI is making its own decisions without human intervention.

    The AI system can make assumptions, test these assumptions, and learn from the results.

    (Level of decision making required increases from left to right)
    Statistical Reasoning
    Infer relationships between variables

    Statistical models are designed to find relationships between variables and the significance of those relationships.

    Machine Learning:
    Making accurate predictions

    Machine learning is a subset of AI that discovers patterns from data without being explicitly programmed to do so.

    Artificial Intelligence
    Dynamic adaptation to novelty

    AI systems choose the optimal combination of methods to solve a problem. They make assumptions, reassess the model, and reevaluate the data.

    “Machine learning is the study of computer algorithms that improve automatically through experience.” (Tom Mitchell, 1997)

    “At its simplest form, artificial intelligence is a field, which combines computer science and robust datasets, to enable problem-solving.” (IBM, “What is artificial intelligence?”)

    Types of Off-the-Shelf AI products and solutions

    ML/AI-Powered Products Off-the-Shelf Pre-built and Pre-trained AI/ML Models
    • AI/ML capabilities built into the product and might require training as part of the implementation.
    • Off-the-Shelf ML/AI Models, pre-built, pre-trained, and pre-optimized for a particular task. For example, language models or image recognition models that can be used to speed up and simplify ML/AI systems development.
    Examples of OTS tools/products: Examples of OTS models:

    The data inputs for these models are defined, the developer has to conform to the provided schema, and the data outputs are usually fixed due to the particular task the OTS model is built to solve.

    Insight summary

    Overarching insight:

    To guarantee the success of your Off-the-Shelf AI implementation and ensure it delivers value, you must start with a clear definition of the business case and an understanding of your data.

    Business Goals

    Question the value that AI adds to the tool you are evaluating. Don’t go after the tool simply because it has an AI label attached to it. AI/ML capabilities might add little value but increase implementation complexity. Define the problem you are solving and document business requirements for the tool or a model.

    Data

    Know your data. Determine data requirements to:

    • Train the model during the implementation and development.
    • Run the model in production.

    People/Skills

    Define the skills required for the implementation and assemble the team that will support the project from requirements to deployment and support, through its entire lifecycle. Don’t forget about production support and maintenance.

    Choosing an AI-Powered Tool

    No need to reinvent the wheel and build a product you can buy, but be prepared to work around tool limitations, and make sure you understand the data and the model the tool is built on.

    Choosing an AI/ML Model

    Using Off-the-Shelf-AI models enables an agile approach to system development. Faster POC and validation of ideas and approaches, but the model might not be customizable for your requirements.

    Guaranteeing Off-the-Shelf AI Implementation Success

    Info-Tech Insight

    To guarantee the success of your Off-the-Shelf AI implementation and ensure it delivers value, you must start with a clear definition of the business case and an understanding of your data.

    Why do you need AI in your toolset?
    Business Goals

    Clearly defined problem statement and business requirements for the tool or a model will help you select the right solution that will deliver business value even if it does not have all the latest bells and whistles.

    Small chevron pointing right.
    Do you know the data required for implementation?
    Data

    Expected business outcome defines data requirements for implementation. Do you have the right data required to train and run the model?

    Large chevron pointing right.
    Is your organization ready for AI?
    People/Team/ Skills

    New skills and expertise are required through all phases of the implementation: design, build, deployment, support, and maintenance, as well as post-production support, scaling, and adoption.

    Data Architecture/ Infrastructure

    New tool or model will impact your cloud and integration strategy. It will have to integrate with the existing infrastructure, in the cloud or on prem.

    Large chevron pointing right.
    What questions do you need to ask when choosing the solution?
    Product/ Tool or Model Selection

    Do you know what model powers the AI tool? What data was used to train the tool and what data is required to run it? Ask the right questions.

    Small chevron pointing right.
    Are you measuring impact on your processes?
    Business and IT Processes

    Business processes need to be defined or updated to incorporate the output of the tool back into the business processes to deliver value.

    IT governance and support processes need to accommodate the new AI-powered tool.

    Small chevron pointing right.
    Realize and measure business value of your AI investment
    Value

    Do you have a clear understanding of the value that AI will bring to your organization?Optimization?Increased revenue?Operational efficiency?

    Introduction of Off-the-Shelf AI Requires a Strategic Approach

    Business Goals and Value Data People/Team/ Skills Infrastructure Business and IT Processes
    AI/ML–powered tools
    • Define a business problem that can be solved with either an AI-powered tool or an AI/ML pre-built model that will become part of the solution.
    • Define expectations and assumptions around the value that AI can bring.
    • Document business requirements for the tool or model.
    • Define the scope for a prototype or POC.
    • Define data requirements.
    • Define data required for implementation.
    • Determine if the required data can be acquired or captured/generated.
    • Document internal and external sources of data.
    • Validate data quality (define requirements and criteria for data quality).
    • Define where and how the data is stored and will be stored. Does it have to be moved or consolidated?
    • Define all stakeholders involved in the implementation and support.
    • Define skills and expertise required through all phases of the implementation: design, build, deployment, support, and maintenance.
    • Define skills and expertise required to grow AI practice and achieve the next level of adoption, scaling, and development of the tool or model POC.
    • Define infrastructure requirements for either Cloud, Software-as-a-Service, or on-prem deployment of a tool or model.
    • Define how the tool is integrated with existing systems and into existing infrastructure.
    • Determine the cost to deploy and run the tool/model.
    • Define processes that need to be updated to accommodate new functionality.
    • Define how the outcome of the tool or a model (e.g. predictions) are incorporated back into the business processes.
    • Define new business and IT processes that need to be defined around the tool (e.g. chatbot maintenance; analysis of the data generated by the tool).
    Off-the-shelf AI/ML pre-built models
    • Define the business metrics and KPIs to measure success of the implementation against.
    • Determine if there are requirements for a specific data format required for the tool or a model.
    • Determine if there is a need to classify/label the data (supervised learning).
    • Define privacy and security requirements.
    • Define requirements for employee training. This can be vendor training for a tool or platform training in the case of a pre-built model or service.
    • Define if ML/AI expertise is required.
    • Is the organization ready for ML/AI? Conduct an AI literacy survey and understand team’s concerns, fears, and misconceptions and address them.
    • Define requirements for:
      • Data migration.
      • Security.
      • AI/ML pipeline deployment and maintenance.
    • Define requirements for operation and maintenance of the tool or model.
    • Confirm infrastructure readiness.
    • How AI and its output will be used across the organization.

    Define Business Goals and Objectives

    Why do you need AI in your toolset? What value will AI deliver? Have a clear understanding of business benefits and the value AI delivers through the tool.

    • Define a business problem that can be solved with either an AI-powered tool or AI/ML pre-built model.
    • Define expectations and assumptions around the value that AI can bring.
    • Document business requirements for a tool or model.
    • Start with the POC or a prototype to test assumptions, architecture, and components of the solution.
    • Define business metrics and KPIs to measure success of the implementation.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Question the value that AI adds to the tool you are evaluating. Don’t go after the tool simply because it has an AI label attached to it. AI/ML capabilities might add little value but increase implementation complexity. Define the problem you are solving and document business requirements for the tool or a model.

    Venn diagram of 'Applied Artificial Intelligence (AAI)' with a larger circle at the top, 'Machine Learning (ML)', and three smaller ovals intersecting, 'Computer Vision', 'Natural Language Processing (NLP)', and 'Robotic Process Automation (RPA)'.

    AAI solutions and technologies are helping organizations make faster decisions and predict future outcomes such as:

    • Business process automation
    • Intelligent integration
    • Intelligent insights
    • Operational efficiency improvement
    • Increase revenue
    • Improvement of existing products and services
    • Product and process innovation

    1. Use Info-Tech’s Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool to define business drivers and document business requirements

    2-3 hours
    Screenshot of the Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool's Business Drivers tab, a table with columns 'AI/ML Tool or Model', 'Use Case', 'Business problem / goal for AI/ML use case', 'Description', 'Business Owner (Primary Stakeholder)', 'Priority', 'Stakeholder Groups Impacted', 'Requirements Defined? Yes/No', 'Related Data Domains', and 'KPIs'. Use the Business Drivers tab to document:
    • Business objectives of the initiative that might drive the AI/ML use case.
    • The business owner or primary stakeholder who will help to define business value and requirements.
    • All stakeholders who will be involved or impacted.
    • KPIs that will be used to assess the success of the POC.
    • Data required for the implementation.
    • Use the Business Requirements tab to document high-level requirements for a tool or model.
    • These requirements will be used while defining criteria for a tool selection and to validate if the tool or model meets your business goals.
    • You can use either traditional BRD format or a user story to document requirements.
    Screenshot of the Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool's Business Requirements tab, a table with columns 'Requirement ID', 'Requirement Description / user story', 'Requirement Category', 'Stakeholder / User Role', 'Requirement Priority', and 'Complexity (point estimates)'.

    Download the Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool

    1. Define business drivers and document business requirements

    Input

    • Strategic plan of the organization
    • Data strategy that defines target data capabilities required to support enterprise strategic goals
    • Roadmap of business and data initiatives to support target state of data capabilities

    Output

    • Prioritized list of business use cases where an AI-powered tool or AI/ML can deliver business value
    • List of high-level requirements for the selected use case

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • Off-the-Shelf-AI Analysis Tool, “Business Drivers” and “Business Requirements” tabs

    Participants

    • CIO
    • Senior business and IT stakeholders
    • Data owner(s)
    • Data steward(s)
    • Enterprise Architect
    • Data Architect
    • Data scientist/Data analyst

    Understand data required for implementation

    Do you have the right data to implement and run the AI-powered tool or AI/ML model?

    Info-Tech Insight

    Know your data. Determine data requirements to:

    • Train the model during the implementation and development, and
    • Run the model in production
    AvailabilityArrow pointing rightQualityArrow pointing rightPreparationArrow pointing rightBias, Privacy, SecurityArrow pointing rightData Architecture
    • Define what data is required for implementation, e.g. customer data, financial data, product sentiment.
    • If the data is not available, can it be acquired, gathered, or generated?
    • Define the volume of data required for implementation and production.
    • If the model has to be trained, do you have the data required for training (e.g. dictionary of terms)? Can it be created, gathered, or acquired?
    • Document internal and external sources of data.
    • Evaluate data quality for all data sources based on the requirements and criteria defined in the previous step.
    • For datasets with data quality issues, determine if the data issues can be resolved (e.g. missing values are inferred). If not, can this issue be resolved by using other data sources?
    • Engage a Data Governance organization to address any data quality concerns.
    • Determine if there are requirements for a specific data format required for the tool or model.
    • Determine if there is a need to classify/label or tag the data. What are the metadata requirements?
    • Define whether or not the implementation team needs to aggregate or transform the data before it can be used.
    • Define privacy requirements, as these might affect the availability of the data for ML/AI.
    • Define data bias concerns and considerations. Do you have datasheets for datasets that will be used in this project? What datasets cannot be used to prevent bias?
    • What are the security requirements and how will they affect data storage, product selection, and infrastructure requirements for the tool and overall solution?
    • Define where and how the data is currently stored and will be stored.
    • Does it have to be migrated or consolidated? Does it have to be moved to the cloud or between systems?
    • Is a data lake or data warehouse a requirement for this implementation as defined by the solution architecture?

    2. Use Info-Tech’s Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool to document data requirements

    2-3 hours

    Use the Data tab to document the following for each data source or dataset:
    • Data Domain – e.g. Customer data
    • Data Concept – e.g. Customer
    • Data Internally Accessible – Identify datasets that are required for the implementation even if the data might not be available internally. Work on determining if the data ca be acquired externally or collected internally.
    • Source System – define the primary source system for the data, e.g. Salesforce
    • Target System (if applicable) – Define if the data needs to be migrated/transferred. For example, you might use a datalake or data warehouse for the AI/ML solution or migrate data to the cloud.
    • Classification/Taxonomy/Ontology
    • Data Steward
    • Data Owner
    • Data Quality – Data quality indicator
    • Refresh Rate – Frequency of data refresh. Indicate if the data can be accessed in real time or near-real time

    Screenshot of the Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool's Data tab, a spreadsheet table with the columns listed to the left and below.
    • Retention – Retention policy requirements
    • Compliance Requirements – Define if data has to comply with any of the regulatory requirements, e.g. GDPR
    • Privacy, Bias, and Ethics Considerations – Privacy Act, PIPEDA, etc. Identify if the dataset contains sensitive information that should be excluded from the model, such as gender, age, race etc. Indicate fairness metrics, if applicable.

    Download the Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool

    2. Document data requirements

    Input

    • Documented business use cases from Step 1.
    • High-level business requirements from Step 1.
    • Data catalog, data dictionaries, business glossary
    • Data flows and data architecture

    Output

    • High-level data requirements
    • List of data sources and datasets that can be used for the implementation
    • Datasets that need to be collected or acquired externally

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool, “Data” tab

    Participants

    • CIO
    • Business and IT stakeholders
    • Data owner(s)
    • Data steward(s)
    • Enterprise Architect
    • Data Architect
    • Data scientist/Data analyst

    Is Your Organization Ready for AI?

    Assess organizational readiness and define stakeholders impacted by the implementation. Build the team with the right skillset to drive the solution.

    • Implementation of the AI/ML-powered Off-the-Shelf Tool or an AI/ML model will require a team with a combination of skills through all phases of the project, from design of the solution to build, production, deployment, and support.
    • Document the skillsets required and determine the skills gap. Before you start hiring, depending on the role, you might find talent within the organization to join the implementation team with little to no training.
    • AI/ML resources that may be needed on your team driving AI implementation (you might consider bringing part-time resources to fill the gaps or use vendor developers) are:
      • Data Scientist
      • Machine Learning Engineer
      • Data Engineer
      • Data Architect
      • AI/ML Ops engineer
    • Define training requirements. Consider vendor training for a tool or platform.
    • Plan for future scaling and the growing of the solution and AI practice. Assess the need to apply AI in other business areas. Work with the team to analyze use cases and prioritize AI initiatives. As the practice grows, grow your team expertise.
    • Identify the stakeholders who will be affected by the AI implementation.
    • Work with them to understand and address any concerns, fears, or misconceptions around the role of AI and the consequences of bringing AI into the organization.
    • Develop a communication and change management plan to educate everyone within the organization on the application and benefits of using AI and machine learning.

    Info-Tech Insight:

    Define the skills required for the implementation and assemble the team that will support the project through its entire lifecycle. Don’t forget about production, support, and maintenance.

    3. Build your implementation team

    1-2 hours

    Input: Solution conceptual design, Current resource availability

    Output: Roles required for the implementation of the solution, Resources gap analysis, Training and hiring plan

    Materials: Whiteboard/Flip charts, Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool, “People and Team” tab

    Participants: Project lead, HR, Enterprise Architect

    1. Review your solution conceptual design and define implementation team roles.
    2. Document requirements for each role.
    3. Review current org chart and job descriptions and identify skillset gaps. Draft an action plan to fill in the roles.
    4. Use Info-Tech’s Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool's People and Team tab to document team roles for the entire implementation, including design, build/implement, deployment, support and maintenance, and future development.

    Screenshot of the Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool's People and Team tab, a table with columns 'Design', 'Implement', 'Deployment', 'Support and Maintenance', and 'Future Development'.

    Download the Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool

    Cloud, SaaS or On Prem – what are my options and what is the impact?

    Depending on the architecture of the solution, define the impact on the current infrastructure, including system integration, AI/ML pipeline deployment, maintenance, and data storage

    • Data Architecture: use the current data architecture to design the architecture for an AI-powered solution. Assess changes to the data architecture with the introduction of a new tool to make sure it is scalable enough to support the change.
    • Define infrastructure requirements for either Cloud, Software-as-a-Service, or on-prem deployment of a tool or model.
    • Define how the tool will be integrated with existing systems and into existing infrastructure.
    • Define requirements for:
      • Data migration and data storage
      • Security
      • AI/ML pipeline deployment, production monitoring, and maintenance
    • Define requirements for operation and maintenance of the tool or model.
    • Work with your infrastructure architect and vendor to determine the cost of deploying and running the tool/model.
    • Make a decision on the preferred architecture of the system and confirm infrastructure readiness.

    Download the Create an Architecture for AI blueprint

    4. Use Info-Tech’s Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool to document infrastructure decisions

    2-3 hours

    Input: Solution conceptual design

    Output: Infrastructure requirements, Infrastructure readiness assessment

    Materials: Whiteboard/Flip charts, Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool, “Infrastructure” tab

    Participants: Infrastructure Architect, Solution Architect, Enterprise Architect, Data Architect, ML/AI Ops Engineer

    1. Work with Infrastructure, Data, Solution, and Enterprise Architects to define your conceptual solution architecture.
    2. Define integration and storage requirements.
    3. Document security requirements for the solution in general and the data specifically.
    4. Define MLOps requirements and tools required for ML/AI pipeline deployment and production monitoring.
    5. Use Info-Tech’s Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool's Infrastructure tab to document requirements and decisions around Data and Infrastructure Architecture.

    Screenshot of the Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool's Infrastructure tab, a table with columns 'Cloud, SaaS or On-Prem', 'Data Migration Requirements', 'Data Storage Requirements', 'Security Requirements', 'Integrations Required', and 'AI/ML Pipeline Deployment and Maintenance Requirements'.

    Download the Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool

    What questions do you need to ask vendors when choosing the solution?

    Take advantage of Info-Tech’s Rapid Application Selection Framework (RASF) to guide tool selection, but ask vendors the right questions to understand implications of having AI/ML built into the tool or a model

    Data Model Implementation and Integration Deployment Security and Compliance
    • What data (attributes) were used to train the model?
    • Do you have datasheets for the data used?
    • How was data bias mitigated?
    • What are the data labeling/classification requirements for training the model?
    • What data is required for production? E.g. volume; type of data, etc.
    • Were there any open-source libraries used in the model? If yes, how were vulnerabilities and security concerns addressed?
    • What algorithms are implemented in the tool/model?
    • Can model parameters be configured?
    • What is model accuracy?
    • Level of customization required for the implementation to meet our requirements.
    • Does the model require training? If yes, can you provide details? Can you estimate the effort required?
    • Integration capabilities and requirements.
    • Data migration requirements for tool operation and development.
    • Administrator console – is this functionality available?
    • Implementation timeframe.
    • Is the model or tool deployable on premises or in the cloud? Do you support hybrid cloud and multi-cloud deployment?
    • What cloud platforms are your product/model integrated with (AWS, Azure, GCP)?
    • What are the infrastructure requirements?
    • Is the model containerized/ scalable?
    • What product support and product updates are available?
    • Regulatory compliance (GDPR, PIPEDA, HIPAA, PCI DSS, CCPA, SOX, etc.)?
    • How are data security risks addressed?

    Use Info-Tech’s Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool, “Vendor Questionnaire” tab to track vendor responses to these questions.

    Are you measuring impact on your processes?

    Make sure that you understand the impact of the new technology on the existing business and IT processes.

    And make sure your business processes are ready to take advantage of the benefits and new capabilities enabled by AI/ML.

    Process automation, optimization, and improvement enabled by the technology and AI/ML-powered tools allow organizations to reduce manual work, streamline existing business processes, improve customer satisfaction, and get critical insights to assist decision making.

    To take full advantage of the benefits and new capabilities enabled by the technology, make sure that business and IT processes reflect these changes:

    • Processes that need to be updated.
    • How the outcome of the tool or a model (e.g. predictions) is incorporated into the existing business processes and the processes that will monitor the accuracy of the outcome and monitor performance of the tool or model.
    • New business and IT processes that need to be defined for the tool (e.g. chatbot maintenance, analysis of the data generated by the tool, etc.).

    5. Document the Impact on Business and IT Processes

    2-3 hours

    Input: Solution design, Existing business and IT processes

    Output: Documented updates to the existing processes, Documented new business and IT processes

    Materials: Whiteboard/Flip charts, Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool, “Business and IT Processes” tab

    Participants: Project lead, Business stakeholders, Business analyst

    1. Review current business processes affected by the implementation of the AI/ML- powered tool or model. Define the changes that need to be made. The changes might include simplification of the process due to automation of some of the steps. Some processes will need to be redesigned and some processes might become obsolete.
    2. Document high-level steps for any new processes that need to be defined around the AI/ML-powered tool. An example of such a process would be defining new IT and business processes to support a new chatbot.
    3. Use Info-Tech’s Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool's Business and IT Processes tab, to document process changes.

    Screenshot of the Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool's Business and IT Processes tab, a table with columns 'Existing business process affected', 'New business process', 'Stakeholders involved', 'Changes to be made', and 'New Process High-Level Steps'.

    Download the Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool

    AI-powered Tools – Considerations

    PROS:
    • Enhanced functionality, allows the power of AI without specialized skills (e.g., Mathematica – recognizing patterns in data).
    • Might be a cheaper option compared to building a solution in-house (chatbot, for ex.).

    Info-Tech Insight:

    No need to reinvent the wheel and build the product you can buy, but be prepared to work around tool limitations, and make sure you understand the data and the model the tool is built on.

    CONS:
    • Dependency on the service provider.
    • The tool might not meet all the business requirements without customization.
    • Bias can be built into the tool:
      • Work with the vendor to understand what data was used to train the model.
      • From the perspective of ethics and bias, learn what model is implemented in the tool and what data attributes the model uses.

    Pre-built/pre-trained models – what to keep in mind when choosing

    PROS:
    • Lower cost and less time to development compared to creating and training models from scratch (e.g. using image recognition models or pre-trained language models like BERT).
    • If the pre-trained and optimized model perfectly fits your needs, the model accuracy might be high and sufficient for your scenario.
    • Off-the-Shelf AI models are useful for creating prototypes or POCs, for testing a hypothesis, and for validating ideas and requirements.
    • Usage of Off-the-Shelf models shortens the development cycle and reduces investment risks.
    • Language models are particularly useful if you don’t have data to train your own model (a “small data” scenario).
    • Infrastructure and model training cost reduction.
    CONS:
    • Might be a challenge to deploy and maintain the system in production.
    • Lack of flexibility: you might not be able to configure input or output parameters to your requirements. For example, a pre-built sentiment analysis model might return four values (“positive,” “negative,” “neutral,” and “mixed”), but your solution will require only two or three values.
    • Might be a challenge to comply with security and privacy requirements.
    • Compliance with privacy and fairness requirements and considerations: what data was used to pretrain the model?
    • If open-source libraries were used to create the model, how will vulnerabilities, risks, and security concerns be addressed?

    Info-Tech Insight:

    Using Off-the-Shelf AI models enables an agile approach to system development – faster POC and validation of ideas and approaches, but the model might not be customizable for your requirements.

    Metrics

    Metrics and KPIs for this project will depend on the business goals and objectives that you will identify in Step 1 of the tool selection process.

    Metrics might include:

    • Reduction of time spent on a specific business process. If the tool is used to automate certain steps of a business process, this metric will measure how much time was saved, in minutes/hours, compared to the process time before the introduction of the tool.
    • Accuracy of prediction. This metric would measure the accuracy of estimations or predictions compared to the same estimations done before the implementation of the tool. It can be measured by generating the same prediction or estimation using the AI-powered tool or using any methods used before the introduction of the tool and comparing the results.
    • Accuracy of the search results. If the AI-powered tool is a search engine, compare a) how much time it would take a user to find an article or a piece of content they were searching for using new tool vs. previous techniques, b) how many steps it took the user to locate the required article in the search results, and c) the location of the correct piece of content in the search result list (at the top of the search result list or on the tenth page).
    • Time spent on manual tasks and activities. This metric will measure how much time, in minutes/hours, is spent by the employees or users on manual tasks if the tool automates some of these tasks.
    • Reduction of business process steps (if the steps are being automated). To derive this metric, create a map of the business process before the introduction of the AI-powered tool and after, and determine if the tool helped to simplify the process by reducing the number of process steps.

    Bibliography

    Adryan, Boris. “Is it all machine learning?” Badryan, Oct. 20, 2015. Accessed Feb. 2022.

    “AI-Powered Data Management Platform.” Informatica, N.d. Accessed Feb 2022.

    Amazon Rekognition. “Automate your image and video analysis with machine learning.” AWS. N.d. Accessed Feb 2022.

    “Artificial Intelligence (AI).” IBM Cloud Education, 3 June 2020. Accessed Feb 2022.

    “Artificial intelligence (AI) vs machine learning (ML).” Microsoft Azure Documentation. Accessed Feb. 2022.

    “Avante Garde in the Realm of AI” SearchUnify Cognitive Platform. Accessed Feb 2022.

    “Azure Cognitive Services.” Microsoft. N.d. Accessed Feb 2022.

    “Becoming an AI-fueled organization. State of AI in the enterprise, 4th edition,” Deloitte, 2020. Accessed Feb. 2022.

    “Coveo Predictive Search.” Coveo, N.d. Accessed Feb 2022.

    ”Data and AI Leadership. Executive Survey 2022. Executive Summary of Findings.” NewVantage Partners. Accessed Feb 2022.

    “Einstein Discovery in Tableau.” Tableau, N.d. Accessed Feb 2022.

    Korolov, Maria. “9 biggest hurdles to AI adoption.” CIO, Feb 26, 2019. Accessed Feb 2022.

    Meel, Vidushi. “What Is Deep Learning? An Easy to Understand Guide.” visio.ai. Accessed Feb. 2022.

    Mitchell, Tom. “Machine Learning,” McGraw Hill, 1997.

    Stewart, Matthew. “The Actual Difference Between Statistics and Machine Learning.” Towards Data Science, Mar 24, 2019. Accessed Feb 2022.

    “Sentiment analysis with Cognitive Services.” Microsoft Azure Documentation. Accessed February 2022.

    “Three Principles for Designing ML-Powered Products.” Spotify Blog. Oct 2019, Accessed Feb 2022.

    “Video Intelligence API.” Google Cloud Platform. N.d. Accessed Feb 2022

    Assess Your Readiness to Implement UCaaS

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}305|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): N/A
    • member rating average dollars saved: N/A
    • member rating average days saved: N/A
    • Parent Category Name: Voice & Video Management
    • Parent Category Link: /voice-video-management
    • Employees no longer work in the office all the time and have adopted a hybrid or remote policy.
    • Security is on your mind when it comes to the risks associated with data and voice across the internet.
    • You are unaware of the technology used by other departments, such as sales and marketing.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • The importance of doing your due diligence and building out requirements is paramount to deciding on what UCaaS solution works for you. Even if you decide not to pursue this cloud-based service, at least you have done your homework.
    • There are five reasons you should migrate to UCaaS: flexibility & scalability, productivity, enhanced security, business continuity, and cost savings. Challenge your selection with these criteria at your foundation and you cannot go wrong.

    Impact and Result

    With features such as messaging, collaboration tools, and video conferencing, UCaaS enables users to be more effective regardless of location and device. This can lead to quicker decision making and reduce communication delays.

    Assess Your Readiness to Implement UCaaS Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Assess Your Readiness to Implement UCaaS Storyboard – Research that reviews the business drivers to move to a UCaaS solution.

    In addition to examining the benefits of UCaaS, this deck covers how to drive toward an RFP and convince the C-suite to champion your UCaaS strategy.

    • Assess Your Readiness to Implement UCaaS Storyboard

    2. UCaaS Readiness Questionnaire – Three sets of questions to help determine your organization's readiness to move to a UCaaS platform.

    This questionnaire is a starting point. Sections include: 1) Current State Questionnaire, 2) IT Infrastructure Readiness Questionnaire, and 3) UCaaS Vendor Questionnaire. These questions can also be added to an RFP for UCaaS vendors you may want to work with.

    • UCaaS Readiness Questionnaire
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Assess Your Readiness to Implement UCaaS

    Unified communication as a service (UCaaS) is already here. Find the right solution for your organization, whether it is Teams Phone or another solution.

    Analyst Perspective

    UCaaS is the solution to the hybrid and remote working world

    Hybrid/remote work is a reality and there is little evidence to prove otherwise despite efforts to return employees to the office. A 2023 survey from Zippia says 74% of US companies are planning to or have implemented hybrid work policies. Given the reality of the new ways people work, there’s a genuine need for a UCaaS solution.

    The days of on-premises private branch exchange (PBX) and legacy voice over internet protocol (VoIP) solutions are numbered, and organizations are examining alternative solutions to redundant desk phones. The stalwarts of voice solutions, Cisco and Avaya, have seen the writing on the wall for some time: the new norm must be a cloud-based solution that integrates via API with content resource management (CRM), email, chat, and collaboration tools.

    Besides remaining agile when accommodating different work locations, it’s advantageous to be able to quickly scale and meet the needs of organizations and their employees. New technology is moving at such a pace that utilizing a UCaaS service is truly beneficial, especially given its AI, analytics, and mobile capabilities. Being held back by an on-premises solution that is capitalized over several years is not a wise option.

    Photo of John Donovan
    John Donovan
    Principle Research Director, I&O Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Insight Summary

    Improved integration and communication in a hybrid world
    Unified communication as a service (UCaaS) integrates several tools into one platform to provide seamless voice, video, chat, collaboration, sharing and much more. The ability to work from anywhere and the ability to use application programming interfaces (APIs) to integrate content resource management (CRM) and other productivity tools into a unified environment is a key component of employee productivity, whether at the office or remote, or even on mobile devices.

    Simplify your maintenance, management, and support
    Communication and voice using a cloud provisioner has many benefits and makes life easier for your IT staff. No more ongoing maintenance, upgrades, patching and managing servers or private branch exchanges (PBXs). UCaaS is easy to deploy, and due to its scalability and flexibility, users can easily be added or removed. Now businesses can retire their legacy technical debt of voice hardware and old desk phones that clutter the office.

    Oversight on security
    The utilization of a software as a service (SaaS) platform in UCaaS form does by design risk data breaches, phishing, and third-party malware. Fortunately, you can safeguard your organization’s security by ensuring the vendor you choose features SOC2 certification, taking care of encryption, firewalls, two-factor authentication and security incident handling, and disaster recovery. The big players in the UCaaS world have these features.

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    So, your legacy PBX is ready to be replaced. It has no support or maintenance contract, and you face a critical decision. You could face these challenges:

    • Employees no longer work in the office all the time and have adopted a hybrid or remote policy
    • Security risks associated with data and voice across the internet
    • Limited awareness of the technology used by some departments, such as sales and marketing

    Common Obstacles

    Businesses may worry about several obstacles when it’s time to choose a voice and collaboration solution. For example:

    • Concern over internet connectivity or disruptions
    • Uncertainty integrating systems with the platform
    • Unsure whether employees will embrace new tools/workflows that completely change how they work, collaborate, and communicate
    • Failure to perform due diligence when trying to choose the right solution for an organization

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    It’s critically important to perform due diligence and build out requirements when deciding what UCaaS solution works for you. Even if you decide not to pursue this cloud-based service, at least you will:

    • Determine your business case
    • Evaluate your roadmap for unified communication
    • Ask all the right questions to determine suitability

    In this advisory deck, you will see a set of questions you must ask including whether Teams is suitable for your business.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Determine your communication and collaboration needs. Evaluate your current use of voice, video, chat, collaboration, sharing, and mobility whether for the office or remote work. Evaluate your security and regulatory requirements and needs. Determine the integration requirements when evaluating top vendors.

    The evolution of unified communication

    How we moved from fax machines and desk phones to an integrated set of tools on one platform in the cloud

    A diagram that shows the evolution of unified communication from 1980s to 2020s.

    Business drivers for moving to UCaaS

    What organizations look to gain or save by moving to UCaaS solutions

    Flexibility and scalability
    Ability to add/remove users and services as appropriate for changing business needs, allowing for quick adaptation to changing markets.

    Productivity
    Offering features like messaging, collaboration tools, and video conferencing enables users to be more effective regardless of location and device. May lead to quicker decision making and reduced communication delays.

    Cost savings
    Eliminating the need for on-premises hardware and software, reducing maintenance and support costs. Predictable monthly billing.

    Business continuity
    Reducing risks of disruption or disaster. Allowing users to work from anywhere when the physical office is unavailable. Additional features can include disaster recovery and backup services.

    Enhanced security
    UCaaS providers usually offer advanced security and compliance features including encryption, firewall, intrusion detection, and certifications like HIPAA and SOC 2.

    KPIs to demonstrate success

    What key metrics should businesses measure to demonstrate a successful UCaaS project?
    What improvements are needed?
    What can be optimized?

    KPI Measurement
    User adoption rate
    • % of employees utilizing UCaaS solutions
    • # of users who completed UCaaS training/onboarding
    • # of calls or messages sent per user
    Call quality and reliability
    • % of calls with good to excellent quality
    • # of dropped calls or call disruption
    • Mean opinion score (MOS) for video and voice quality
    Cost savings
    • TCO for UCaaS compared to previous solution
    • Cost per month for UCaaS
    • Reduced hardware/maintenance and communication costs
    Improved productivity
    • Time saved with streamlined comms workflows
    • # of successful collaborative projects or meetings
    • Improved speed and quality for customer service or support
    Customer satisfaction
    • Net promoter score or CSAT
    • Positive customer reviews
    • Time-to-resolution of customer issues
    Scalability
    • Ability to add/remove/change user features as needed
    • Time to deploy new UCaaS features
    • Scalability of network to support increased UCaaS usage

    What are the surveys telling us?

    Different organizations adopt UCaaS solutions for different reasons

    95%

    Collaboration: No Jitter’s study on team collaboration found that 95% of survey respondents think collaborative communication apps are a necessary component of a successful communications strategy.
    Source: No Jitter, 2018.

    95%

    Security: When deploying remote communication solutions, 95% of businesses say they want to use VPN connections to keep data private.
    Source: Mitel, 2018.

    31%

    Flexibility: While there are numerous advantages to cloud-based communications, 31% of companies intend to use UCaaS to eliminate technical debt from legacy systems and processes.
    Source: Freshworks, 2019.

    UCaaS adoption

    While many organizations are widely adopting UCaaS, they still have data security concerns

    UCaaS deployments are growing

    UCaaS is growing at a rate that shows the market for UC is moving toward cloud-based voice and collaboration solutions at a rate of 29% year over year.

    Source: Synergy Research Group, 2017.

    Security is still a big concern

    While it’s increasingly popular to adopt cloud-based unified communication solutions, 70% of those companies are still concerned about their data security.

    Source: Masergy, 2022.


    Concerns around security range from encrypting conversations to controlling who has access to what data in the organization’s network to how video is managed on emerging video communications platforms.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Ensure you maintain a robust security posture with your data regardless of where it is being stored. Security breaches can happen at any location.

    UCaaS vs. on-premises UC

    A diagram that shows UCaaS benefits

    Main benefits of UCaaS

    • Rapid deployment: Cloud hosting provides the ability to deploy quickly.
    • Ease of management: It’s no longer necessary for companies to manage communications across multiple platforms and devices.
    • Better connection: The communication flow across teams and with customers is faster and easier with phone, messaging, audio and video conferencing available in one place.
    • Scalability: Since UCaaS is an on-demand service, companies can scale their communication needs to what’s immediately required at an affordable price.

    Info-Tech Insight

    There are five reasons you should migrate to UCaaS. They are advanced technology, easily scalable, cost efficiencies, highly available, and security. There are always outliers, but these five criteria are a reliable foundation when assessing a vendor/product.

    UCaaS architecture

    The 6 primary elements of UCaaS

    Unified communications as a service (UCaaS) is a cloud-based subscription service primarily for communication tools such as voice, video, messaging, collaboration, content sharing, and other cloud services over the internet. It uses VoIP to process calls.

    The popularity of UCaaS is increasing with the recent trend of users working remotely full or part-time and requiring collaboration tools for their work.

    • The main benefit to businesses is the ability to remove on-premises hardware and reduce technical debt.
    • Additionally, it removes the need for expensive up-front capital costs and reduces communications costs.
    • From a productivity perspective, delivering these services under one platform/service increases effective collaboration and allows instant communication regardless of device or location.

    A diagram that shows protocols

    Features available to UCaaS/UC

    Must-haves vs. nice-to-haves

    A diagram that shows Must-haves vs. nice-to-haves UC features

    Info-Tech Insight

    Decide what matters most to the organization when choosing the UC platform and applications. Divide criteria into must-have vs. nice-to-have categories.

    Security and UCaaS

    • Maintain company integrity
    • Enhance data security
    • Regulatory compliance
    • Reduce risk of fraud
    • Protect data for multiple devices

    What are the concerns? What is at risk?

    • DDoS attacks: Enterprise transactions are paralyzed by flooding of data across the network preventing access
    • Phishing: Users are tricked into clicking a URL and sharing an organization’s sensitive data
    • Ransomware: Malicious attack preventing the business from accessing data and demanding a ransom for access
    • Third-party malware: Software infected with a virus, trojan horse, worms, spyware, or even ransomware with malicious intent

    Security solutions in UCaaS

    End-to-end encryption is critical

    SRTP

    • Secure real-time protocol is a cryptographic protocol used to secure voice & video calls over IP networks
    • SRTP provides encryption, message authentication, and integrity protection for voice and data packets. Using advanced encryption standard (AES) reduces chance of DDoS attacks

    TLS

    • Transport layer security (TLS) is a cryptographic protocol that secures data in transit over the internet, protecting from interception and tampering

    VPNs and firewalls

    • Virtual private networks (VPNs) are used to secure and encrypt connections between remote devices and the network. UCaaS providers can use VPN to secure access from remote locations
    • Firewalls are your primary line of defense against unauthorized traffic entering or leaving the network

    SIP

    • Session initiated protocol (SIP) over TLS is used to initiate and terminate video and voice calls over the internet. UCaaS providers often use SIP over TLS to encrypt and secure SIP messages

    SSH

    • Secure shell (SSH) is a cryptographic network protocol used to secure remote access and communications over the network. SSH is often used by UCaaS providers to secure remote management and configuration of systems

    Info-Tech Insight

    Encryption is a must for securing data and voice packets across the internet. These packets can be vulnerable to eavesdropping techniques and local area network (LAN) breaches. This risk must be mitigated from end to end.

    UCaaS

    Seven vendors competing with Microsoft’s integrated suite of collaboration tools

    Zoom

    A logo of Zoom
    Best for large meetings and webinars

    Key features:

    • Virtual meetings up to 300 users, up to 1,000 with enterprise version
    • Team chat
    • Digital whiteboard
    • Phone

    RingCentral

    A logo of RingCentral
    Best for project management collaboration tools

    Key features:

    • Video conferencing up to 200 users
    • Chat
    • Voice calls
    • Video polls and captioning
    • Digital whiteboard

    Nextiva

    A logo of Nextiva
    Best for CRM support, best-in-class functionality and features

    Key features:

    • Single dashboard
    • Chat
    • Cospace collaboration tool
    • Templates
    • Voice and call pop

    GoTo Connect

    A logo of GoTo Connect
    Best for integration with other business apps

    Key features:

    • Video conferencing up to 250 participants
    • Meeting transcripts
    • Dial plan

    Dialpad

    A logo of Dialpad
    Best for small companies under 15 users

    Key features:

    • Video meetings up to 15 participants
    • AI transcripts with call summary
    • Call controls share screen, switch between devices
    • Channel conversations with calendar app

    WebEx

    A logo of WebEx
    Only vendor offering real-time translation & closed captioning

    Key features:

    • Video meetings up to 200 participants
    • Calling features with noise removal, call recording, and transcripts
    • Live polling and Q&A

    Google Workspace

    A logo of Google Workspace
    Best for whole team collaboration for docs and slides

    Key features:

    • Google meet video
    • Collaboration on docs, sheets, and slides
    • Google chat and spaces
    • Calendars with sync updates with Gmail and auto-reminders

    Avaya and Cisco

    The major players in the VoIP on-premises PBX world have moved to a cloud experience to compete with Microsoft and other UCaaS players

    Avaya offers the OneCloud UC platform. It is one of the last UC vendors to offer on-premises solutions. In a market which is moving to the cloud at a serious pace, Avaya retains a 14% share. It made a strategic partnership with RingCentral in 2019 and in February 2021 they formed a joint venture which is now called Avaya Cloud Office, a UCaaS solution that integrates Avaya’s communication and collaboration solution with the RingCentral cloud platform.

    With around 33% of the UC market, Cisco also has a selection of UC products and services for on-premises deployment and the cloud, including WebEx Calling, Jabber, Unity Connections for voice messaging, and Single Number Reach for extensive telephony features.

    Both vendors support on-premises and cloud-based solutions for UC.

    Services provided by Avaya and Cisco in the UCaaS space

    A logo of Avaya Cloud Office
    Avaya Cloud Office

    • Voice calling: Cloud-based phone system over the internet with call forwarding, call transfer, voice mail, and more
    • Video conferencing: Virtual meetings for real-time collaboration, screen sharing, virtual backgrounds, video layout, meeting recording, whiteboarding and annotation, and virtual waiting room
    • Messaging: A feature that allows users to send and receive instant messages and SMS text messaging on the same platform
    • Collaboration: Work together on documents and projects in real time. File sharing and task management
    • Contact center: Manage customer interactions across voice, email, chat, and social media
    • Mobile app: Allows users to access communication and collaboration features on smartphones and tablets

    A logo of Cisco WebEx
    Cisco WebEx

    • Voice calling: Cisco WebEx calling provides cloud-based phone system over the internet including call forwarding, transfer, and voice mail
    • Video conferencing: Features include virtual meeting and real-time collaboration, screen sharing, and virtual backgrounds and layouts, highly scalable to large audiences
    • Messaging: Features include chat and SMS
    • Collaboration: Allows users to work together on docs and projects in real time, including file sharing and task management
    • Contact center: Multiple contact center solutions offered for small, medium, and large enterprises
    • Mobile app: Software clients for Jabber on cellphones
    • Artificial intelligence: Business insights, automatic transcripts, notes, and highlights to capture the meeting

    Service desk and contact center cloud options

    INDUSTRY: All industries
    SOURCE: Software reviews

    What vendors offer and what they don’t

    RingCentral integrates with some popular contact centers such as Five 9, Talkdesk and Sharpen. They also have a built-in contact center solution that can be integrated with their messaging and video conferencing tools.

    GoToConnect integrates with several leading customer service providers including Zendesk and Salesforce Service Cloud They also offer a built-in contact center solution with advanced call routing and management features.

    WebEx integrates with a variety of contact center and customer service platforms including Five9, Genesys, and ServiceNow.

    Dialpad integrates with contact center platforms such as Talkdesk and ServiceNow as well as CRM tools such as Salesforce and HubSpot.

    Google Workspace integrates with third-party contact center platforms through their Google Cloud Contact Center AI offering.

    SoftwareReviews

    A diagram that shows some top cloud options in Software reviews

    UCaaS comparison table

    A diagram of a UCaaS comparison table
    * Some reported issues around sound and voice quality may be due to network
    **Limited to certain plans

    Differences between UCaaS and CPaaS

    UCaaS

    CPaaS

    Defined

    Unified communication as a service – a cloud-based platform providing a suite of tools like voice, video messaging, file sharing & contact center.

    Communication platform as a service – a cloud-based platform allowing developers to use APIs to integrate real-time communications into their own applications.

    Functionality

    Designed for end users accessing a suite of tools for communication and collaboration through a unified platform.

    Designed for developers to create and integrate comms features into their own applications.

    Use cases

    Replace aging on-premises PBX systems with consolidated voice and collaboration services.

    Embedded communications capabilities into existing applications through SDKs, Java, and .NET libraries.

    Cost

    Often has a higher cost depending on services provided which can be quite comprehensive.

    Can be more cost effective than UCaaS if the business only requires a few communication features Integrated into their apps.

    Customization

    Offers less customization as it provides a predefined suite of tools that are rarely customized.

    Highly flexible and customizable so developers can build and integrate to fit unique use cases.

    Vendors

    Zoom, MS Teams, Cisco WebEx, RingCentral 8x8, GoTo Meeting, Slack, Avaya & many more.

    Twilio, Vonage, Pivo, MessageBird, Nexmo, SignalWire, CloudTalk, Avaya OneCloud, Telnyx, Voximplant, and others.

    Microsoft Teams Phone

    UCaaS for Microsoft 365

    Consider your approach to the telephony question. Microsoft incorporates telephony functionality with their broader collaboration suite. Other providers do the opposite.

    Microsoft’s voice solution

    These options allow you to plan for an all-cloud solution, connect to your own carrier, or use a combination of all cloud with a third-party carrier. Caveat: Calling plans must be available in your country or region.

    How do you connect with the public switched telephone network (PSTN)?

    Microsoft has three options for connecting the phone system to the PSTN:

    Calling Plan

    • Uses Microsoft's phone system and adds a domestic and international calling plan, which enables worldwide calling but depends on your chosen license
    • Since PSTN Calling Plan operates out of Microsoft 365, you are not required to deploy/maintain on-premises hardware
    • Customers can connect a supported session border controller (SBC) via direct routing if it’s necessary to operate with third-party PBX analog devices or other voice solutions supported by the SBC
    • You can assign your phone numbers directly in the Teams Admin Center

    This plan will work for you if:

    • There is a calling plan available in your region
    • You don’t need to maintain your PSTN carrier
    • You want to use Microsoft's managed PSTN
    • No SBC is necessary in your organization
    • Teams provides all the features your business needs

    Operator Connect

    • Leverage existing contracts or find a new operator from a selection of participating operators
    • Operator-managed infrastructure, your operator manages PSTN calling services and SBC
    • Faster, easier deployment, quickly connect to your operator and assign phone numbers directly from Teams Admin Center
    • Enhanced support and reliability, operators provide technical support and shared service level agreements
    • Customers can connect a supported SBC via Direct Routing for interoperability with third-party PBXs, analog devices, and other third-party voice solution equipment supported by SBC

    This plan will work for you if:

    • There is no calling plan available in your region
    • Your preferred carrier participates in the Microsoft operator connect plan
    • You are looking to get a new operator that enables calling in Teams

    Direct Routing

    • Connect your own supported SBC to Microsoft Phone System directly without needing additional on-premises software
    • Use virtually any voice solution carrier with Microsoft Phone System
    • Can be configured and managed by customers or by your carrier or partner (ask if your carrier or partner provides this option)
    • Configure interoperability between your voice solution equipment (e.g., a third-party PBX and analog devices) and Microsoft Phone System
    • Assign phone numbers directly from Teams Admin Center

    This plan will work for you if:

    • You want to use Teams with Phone System
    • You need to retain your current PSTN carrier
    • You want to mix routing – some calls are going via Calling Plans, some via your carrier
    • You need to interoperate with third-party PBXs and/or equipment such as overhead pagers, analog devices
    • Teams has all the features that your organization requires


    For more information, go to Microsoft Teams call flows.

    Teams phone architecture

    Microsoft offers three options that can be deployed based on several factors and questions you must answer.

    Microsoft Teams phone considerations when connecting to a PSTN

    • Do you want to move on-premises users to the cloud?
    • Is Microsoft's PSTN Calling Plan available in your region?
    • Is your preferred operator a participant in the Microsoft Operator Connect Program?
    • Do you want or need to keep your current voice carrier (e.g., does an existing contract require you to do so)?
    • Do you have an existing on-premises legacy PBX that you want or need to keep?
    • Does your current legacy PBX offer unique business-critical features?
    • Do all/any of your users require features not currently offered in Phone System?

    1. Phone System with Calling Plan

    All in the cloud for Teams users
    A diagram that shows Phone System with Calling Plan.

    Infrastructure requirements:

    Requires uninterrupted connection with Microsoft 365 Yes
    Available worldwide* No
    Requires deploying and maintaining a supported session border controller (SBC) No
    Requires contract with third-party carrier No

    *List of countries where calling plans are available: aka.ms/callingplans

    2. Phone System with own carrier via operator connect

    Phone system in the cloud; connectivity to on-premises voice network for Teams users
    A diagram that shows Phone System with own carrier via operator connect

    Infrastructure requirements:

    Requires uninterrupted connection with Microsoft 365 Yes
    Available worldwide* No
    Requires deploying and maintaining a supported session border controller (SBC) No
    Requires contract with third-party carrier Yes

    *List of countries where Operator Connect is available: aka.ms/operatorconnect

    3. Phone System with own carrier via Direct Routing

    Phone system in the cloud; connectivity to on-premises voice network for Teams users
    A diagram that shows Phone System with own carrier via Direct Routing

    Infrastructure requirements:

    Requires uninterrupted connection with Microsoft 365 Yes
    Available worldwide Yes
    Requires deploying and maintaining a supported session border controller (SBC) Yes
    Requires contract with third-party carrier* Yes

    *Unless deployed as an option to provide connection to third-party PBX, analog devices, or other voice equipment for users who are on Phone System with Calling Plans


    A Metrigy study found that 70% of organizations adopting MS Teams are using direct routing to connect to the PSTN
    Note: Complex organizations with varying needs can adopt all three options simultaneously.

    Avoid overpurchasing Microsoft telephony

    Microsoft telephony products on a page

    A diagram that shows Microsoft telephony products

    Pros:

    • The complete package: sole-sourcing your environment for simpler management
    • Users familiar with Microsoft will only have one place to go for telephony
    • You can bring your own provider and manage your own routing, giving you more choice
    • This can keep costs down as you do not have to pay for calling plan services
    • You can choose your own third-party solution while still taking advantage of the integrations that make Microsoft so attractive as a vendor

    Cons:

    • The most expensive option of the three
    • Less control and limited features compared to other pure-play telephony vendors
    • This service requires expertise in managing telephony infrastructure
    • Avoiding the cloud may introduce technical debt in the long term
    • You will have to manage integrations and deal with limited feature functionality (e.g. you may be able to receive inbound calls but not make outbound calls)

    Why does it matter?

    Phone System is Microsoft’s answer to the premises-based private branch exchange (PBX) functionality that has traditionally required a large capital expenditure. The cloud-based Phone System, offered with Microsoft’s highest tier of Microsoft/Office 365 licensing, allows Skype/Teams customers access to the following features (among others):

    • PSTN telephony (inbound and outbound)
    • Auto attendants (a menu system for callers to navigate your company directory)
    • Call forwarding, voice mail, and transferring
    • Caller ID
    • Shared lines
    • Common area phones

    Phone System, especially the Teams version, is a fully-featured telephony solution that integrates natively with a popular productivity solution. Phone System is worth exploring because many organizations already have Teams licenses.

    Key insights

    1. Don’t pay twice for the same service (unless you must). If you already have M/O365 E5 customer, Teams telephony can be a great way to save money and streamline your environment.
    2. Consider your approach to the telephony question. Microsoft incorporates telephony functionality into a broader collaboration suite. Other providers do the opposite. This reflects their relative strengths.
    3. Teams is a platform. You can use it as a front end for other telephone services. This might make sense if you have a preferred cloud PBX provider.

    Sources

    “Plan your Teams voice solution,” Microsoft, 2022.

    “Microsoft Calling Plans for Teams,” Microsoft, 2023.

    “Plan Direct Routing,” Microsoft, 2023.

    “Cisco vs. Microsoft Cloud Calling—Discussing the Options,” UC Today, 2022.

    “Microsoft Teams Phone Systems: 5 Deployment Options in 2020,” AeroCom, 2020.

    Contact Center and Teams integration

    Three Teams integration options

    If you want to use a certified and direct routing solution for Teams Phone, use the Connect model.

    If you want to use Azure bots and the Microsoft Graph Communication APIs that enable solution providers to create the Teams app, use the Extend model.

    If you want to use the SDK that enables solution providers to embed native Teams experiences in their App, use the Power model (under development).

    The Connect model features

    The Extend model features

    The Power model features (TBD)

    Office 365 authN for agents to connect to their MS tenant from their integrated CCaaS client

    Team graph APIs and Cloud Communication APIs for integration with Teams

    Goal: One app, one screen contact center experience

    Use Teams to see when agents are available

    Teams-based app for agent experience Chat and collaboration experience integrated with the Teams Client

    Goal: Adapt using software development kits (SDKs)

    Transfers and groups call support for Teams

    Teams as the primary calling endpoint for the agent

    Goal: One dashboard experience

    Teams Graph APIs and Cloud communication APIs for integration with Teams

    Teams' client calling for the all the call controls. Preserve performance & quality of Teams client experience

    Multi-tenant SIP trunking to support several customers on solution provider’s SBC

    Agent experience apps for both Teams web and mobile client

    Solution providers to use Microsoft certified session border controller (SBC)

    Analytics workflow management role-based experience for agents in the CaaS app in Teams

    Teams phone network assessment

    Useful tools for Microsoft network testing and Microsoft Teams site assessment

    Plan network basics

    • Does your network infrastructure have enough capacity? Consider switch ports, wireless access points, and other coverage.
    • If you use VLANs and DHCP, are your scopes sized accordingly?
    • Evaluate and test network paths from where devices are deployed to Microsoft 365.
    • Open the required firewall ports and URLs for Microsoft 365 as per guidance.
    • Review and test E911 requirements and configuration for location accuracy and compliance.
    • Avoid using a proxy server and optimize media paths for reliability and quality.

    What internet speed do I need for Teams calls?

    • Microsoft Teams uses about 1.2 Mbps for HD video calling (720p), 1.5 Mbps for 1080p, 500 kbps for standard quality video (360p). Group video requires about 1 Mbps, HD group video uses about 2 Mbps.

    Key physical considerations

    • Power: Do you have enough electrical outlets? If the device needs an external power source, how close can you position it to an outlet?
    • Device placement: Where will your device be located? Review desk stands, wall mounts, and other accessories from the original equipment manufacturer (OEM).
    • Security: Does your device need to be locked in certain spaces?
    • Accessibility: Does the device meet the accessibility requirements of its primary user? Consider where it's placed, wire length, and handset or headset usability.

    Prepare your organization's network for Microsoft Teams

    Plan your Teams voice solution

    Check your internet connection for Teams Phone System

    Teams Phone Mobile

    UCaaS Activity

    Questions that must be addressed by your business and the vendor. Site surveys and questionnaires for your assessment

    Activity: Questionnaire

    Input: Evaluate your current state, Network readiness
    Output: Decisions on readiness, Gaps in infrastructure readiness, Develop a project plan
    Materials: UCaaS Readiness Questionnaire
    Participants: Infrastructure Manager, Project Manager, Network Engineer, Voice Engineer

    As a group, read through the questions on Tabs 1 and 2 of the UCaaS Readiness Questionnaire workbook. The answers to the questions will determine if you have gaps to fill when determining your readiness to move forward on a UCaaS solution.

    You may produce additional questions during the session that pertain to your specific business and situation. Please add them to the questionnaire as needed.

    Record your answers to determine next steps and readiness.

    When assessing potential vendors, use Tab 3 to determine suitability for your organization and requirements. This section may be left to a later date when building a request for proposal (RFP).

    Call #1: Review client advisory deck and next steps.

    Call #2: Assess readiness from answers to the Tab 1 questions.

    Download the UCaaS Readiness Questionnaire here

    Critical Path – Teams with Phone System Deployment

    A diagram that shows Critical Path – Teams with Phone System Deployment

    Example Ltd.’s Communications Guide

    A diagram that shows Example Ltd.’s Communications Guide

    [Insert Organization Name]’s Communications Guide

    A diagram that shows [Insert Organization Name]’s Communications Guide

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Photo of Modernize Communications and Collaboration Infrastructure

    Modernize Communications and Collaboration Infrastructure

    Organizations are losing productivity from managing the limitations of yesterday’s technology. The business is changing and the current communications solution no longer adequately connects end users. A new communications and collaboration infrastructure is due to replace or update the legacy infrastructure in place today.

    Photo of Establish a Communication and Collaboration System Strategy

    Establish a Communication and Collaboration System Strategy

    Communication and collaboration portfolios are overburdened with redundant and overlapping services. Between Office 365, Slack, Jabber, and WebEx, IT is supporting a collection of redundant apps. This redundancy takes a toll on IT, and on the user.

    Photo of Implement a Transformative IVR Experience That Empowers Your Customers

    Implement a Transformative IVR Experience That Empowers Your Customers

    Learn the strategies that will allow you to develop an effective interactive voice response (IVR) framework that supports self-service and improves the customer experience.

    Bibliography

    “8 Security Considerations for UCaaS.” Tech Guidance, Feb. 2022. Accessed March 2023.

    “2022 UCaaS & CCaaS market trends snapshot.” Masergy, 2022. Web.

    “All-in-one cloud communications.” Avaya, 2023. Accessed April 2023. Web.

    Carter, Rebekah. “UC Case Study in Focus: Microsoft Teams and GroupM.” UC Today, 9 May 2022. Accessed Feb. 2023.

    “Cisco Unified Communications Manager Cloud (Cisco UCM Cloud) Data Sheet.” Cisco, 15 Sept. 2021. Accessed Jan. 2023.

    “Cloud Adoption as Viewed by European Companies: Assessing the Impact on Public, Hybrid and Private Cloud Communications.” Mitel, 2018. Web.

    De Guzman, Marianne. “Unified Communications Security: The Importance of UCaaS Encryption.” Fit Small Business, 13 Dec. 2022. Accessed March 2023.

    “Evolution of Unified Communications.” TrueConf, n.d. Accessed March 2023. Web.

    Froehlich, Andrew. “Choose between Microsoft Teams vs. Zoom for conference needs.” TechTarget, 7 May 2021. Accessed March 2023.

    Gerwig, Kate. “UCaaS explained: Guide to unified communications as a service.” TechTarget, 29 March 2022. Accessed Jan. 2023.

    Irei, Alissa. “Emerging UCaaS trends include workflow integrations and AI.” TechTarget, 21 Feb 2020. Accessed Feb. 2023.

    Kuch, Mike. “What Is Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS)?” Avaya, 27 Dec. 2022. Accessed Jan. 2023.

    Lazar, Irwin. “UC vendors extend mobile telephony capabilities.” TechTarget, 10 Feb. 2023. Accessed Mar 2023.

    McCain, Abby. "30 Essential Hybrid Work Statistics [2023]: The Future of Work." Zippia, 20 Feb. 2023. Accessed Mar 2023.

    “Meet the modern CIO: What CEOs expect from their IT leaders.” Freshworks, 2019. Web.

    “A New Era of Workplace Communications: Will You Lead or Be Left Behind.” No Jitter, 2018. Web.

    Plumley, Mike, et al. “Microsoft Teams IT architecture and voice solutions posters.’” Microsoft Teams, Microsoft, 14 Feb. 2023. Accessed March 2023.

    Rowe, Carolyn, et al. “Plan your Teams voice solution” Microsoft Learn, Microsoft, 1 Oct. 2022.

    Rowe, Carolyn, et al. “Microsoft Calling Plans for Teams.” Microsoft Learn, Microsoft, 23 May 2023.

    Rowe, Carolyn, et al. “Plan Direct Routing.” Microsoft Learn, Microsoft, 20 Feb. 2023.

    Scott, Rob. “Cisco vs. Microsoft Cloud Calling—Discussing the Options,” UC Today, 21 April 2022.

    Smith, Mike. “Microsoft Teams Phone Systems: 5 Deployment Options in 2020.” YouTube, uploaded by AeroCom Inc, 23 Oct. 2020.

    “UCaaS - Getting Started With Unified Communications As A Service.” Cloudscape, 10 Nov. 2022. Accessed March 2023.

    “UCaaS Market Accelerating 29% per year; RingCentral, 8x8, Mitel, BroadSoft and Vonage Lead.” Synergy Research Group, 16 Oct. 2017. Web.

    “UCaaS Statistics – The Future of Remote Work.” UC Today, 21 April 2022. Accessed Feb. 2023.

    “Workplace Collaboration: 2021-22.” Metrigy, 27 Jan. 2021. Web.

    Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}211|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.4/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $137,332 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 31 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: Vendor Management
    • Parent Category Link: /vendor-management
    • Each year, IT organizations spend more money “outsourcing” tasks, activities, applications, functions, and other items.
    • The increased spend and associated outsourcing leads to less control, and more risk for IT organizations. Managing this becomes a higher priority for IT, but many IT organizations are ill-equipped to do this proactively.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Vendor management is not “plug and play” – each organization’s vendor management initiative (VMI) needs to fit its culture, environment, and goals. There are commonalites among vendor management initiatives, but the key is to adapt vendor management principles to fit your needs, not the other way around.
    • All vendors are not of equal importance to an organization. Internal resources are a scarce commodity and should be deployed so that they provide the best return on the organization’s investment. Classifying or segmenting your vendors allows you to focus your efforts on the most important vendors first, allowing your VMI to have the greatest impact possible.
    • Having a solid foundation is critical to the VMI’s ongoing success. Whether you will be creating a formal vendor management office or using vendor management techniques, tools, and templates “informally,” starting with the basics is essential. Make sure you understand why the VMI exists and what it hopes to achieve, what is in and out of scope for the VMI, what strengths the VMI can leverage and the obstacles it will have to address, and how it will work with other areas within your organization.

    Impact and Result

    • Build and implement a vendor management initiative tailored to your environment.
    • Create a solid foundation to sustain your vendor management initiative as it evolves and matures.
    • Leverage vendor management-specific tools and templates to manage vendors more proactively and improve communication.
    • Concentrate your vendor management resources on the right vendors.
    • Build a roadmap and project plan for your vendor management journey to ensure you reach your destination.
    • Build collaborative relationships with critical vendors.

    Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should jump start a vendor management initiative, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Plan

    Organize your VMI and document internal processes, relationships, roles, and responsibilities. The main outcomes from this phase are organizational documents, a baseline VMI maturity level, and a desired future state for the VMI.

    • Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative – Phase 1: Plan
    • Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

    2. Build

    Configure and create the tools and templates that will help you run the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are a clear understanding of which vendors are important to you, the tools to manage the vendor relationships, and an implementation plan.

    • Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative – Phase 2: Build
    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium
    • Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool
    • Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Risk Assessment Tool

    3. Run

    Begin operating the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are guidance and the steps required to implement your VMI.

    • Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative – Phase 3: Run

    4. Review

    Identify what the VMI should stop doing, start doing, and continue doing as it improves and matures. The main outcomes from this phase are ways to advance the VMI and maintain internal alignment.

    • Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative – Phase 4: Review

    Infographic

    Workshop: Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Plan

    The Purpose

    Getting Organized

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Defined Roles and Goals for the VMI

    Activities

    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals

    1.2 Scope

    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles

    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities – OIC Chart

    1.5 Process Mapping

    1.6 Vendor Inventory Tool (Overview)

    Outputs

    Completed Mission Statement and Goals

    List of Items In Scope and Out of Scope for the VMI

    List of Strengths and Obstacles for the VMI

    Completed OIC Chart

    Sample Process Map for One Process

    Begun Using Vendor Inventory Tool

    2 Plan/Build/Run

    The Purpose

    Build VMI Tools and Templates

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Configured Tools and Templates for the VMI Based on Its Roles and Goals

    Activities

    2.1 Maturity Assessment

    2.2 Structure and Job Descriptions

    2.3 Attributes of a Valuable Vendor

    2.4 Classification Model

    2.5 Risk Assessment Tool

    2.6 Scorecards and Feedback

    2.7 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda

    Outputs

    Completed Maturity Assessment.

    Sample Job Descriptions and Phrases.

    List of Attributes of a Valuable Vendor.

    Configured Classification Model.

    Configured Risk Assessment Tool.

    Configured Scorecard and Feedback Questions.

    Configured Business Alignment Meeting Agenda.

    3 Build/Run

    The Purpose

    Continue Building VMI Tools and Templates

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Configured Tools and Templates for the VMI Based on Its Roles and Goals

    Activities

    3.1 Relationship Alignment Document

    3.2 Vendor Orientation

    3.3 Policies and Procedures

    3.4 3-Year Roadmap

    3.5 90-Day Plan

    3.6 Quick Wins

    3.7 Reports

    3.8 Kickoff Meeting

    Outputs

    Relationship Alignment Document Sample and Checklist

    Vendor Orientation Checklist

    Policies and Procedures Checklist

    Completed 3-Year Roadmap

    Completed 90-Day Plan

    List of Quick Wins

    List of Reports

    4 Review

    The Purpose

    Review the Past 12 Months of VMI Operations and Improve

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Keeping the VMI Aligned With the Organization’s Goals and Ensuring the VMI Is Leveraging Leading Practices

    Activities

    4.1 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships.

    4.2 Assess Compliance.

    4.3 Incorporate Leading Practices.

    4.4 Leverage Lessons Learned.

    4.5 Maintain Internal Alignment.

    4.6 Update Governances.

    Outputs

    Further reading

    Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

    Create and implement a vendor management framework to begin obtaining measurable results in 90 days.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    What is vendor management?

    When you read the phrase “vendor management,” what comes to mind? This isn’t a rhetorical question. Take your time … I’ll wait.

    Unfortunately, those words conjure up a lot of different meanings, and much of that depends on whom you ask. Those who work in the vendor management field will provide a variety of answers. To complicate matters, those who are vendor management “outsiders” will have a totally different view of what vendor management is. Why is this important? Because we need a common definition to communicate more effectively, even if the definition is broad.

    Let’s start creating a working definition that is not circular. Vendor management is not simply managing vendors. That expression basically reorders the words and does nothing to advance our cause; it only adds to the existing confusion surrounding the concept.

    Vendor management is best thought of as a spectrum or continuum with many points rather than a specific discipline like accounting or finance. There are many functions and activities that fall under the umbrella term of vendor management: some of them will be part of your vendor management initiative (VMI), some will not, and some will exist in your organization but be outside the VMI. This is the unique part of vendor management – the part that makes it fun, but also the part that leads to the confusion. For example, accounts payable sits within the accounting department almost exclusively, but contract management can sit within or outside the VMI. The beauty of vendor management is its flexibility; your VMI can be created to meet your specific needs and goals while leveraging common vendor management principles.

    Every conversation around vendor management needs to begin with “What do you mean by that?” Only then can we home in on the scope and nature of what people are discussing. “Managing vendors” is too narrow because it often ignores many of the reasons organizations create VMIs in the first place: to reduce costs, to improve performance, to improve processes, to improve relationships, to improve communication, and to manage risk better.

    Vendor management is a strategic initiative that takes the big picture into account … navigating the cradle to grave lifecycle to get the most out of your interactions and relationships with your vendors. It is flexible and customizable; it is not plug and play or overly prescriptive. Tools, principles, templates, and concepts are adapted rather than adopted as is. Ultimately, you define what vendor management is for your organization.

    We look forward to helping you on your vendor management journey no matter what it looks like. But first, let’s have a conversation about how you want to define vendor management in your environment.

    This is a picture of Phil Bode, Principal  Research Director, Vendor Management at Info-Tech Research Group.

    Phil Bode
    Principal Research Director, Vendor Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Each year, IT organizations “outsource” tasks, activities, functions, and other items. During 2021:

    • Spend on as-a-service providers increased 38% over 2020.*
    • Spend on managed service providers increased 16% over 2020.*
    • IT service providers increased their merger and acquisition numbers by 47% over 2020.*

    *Source: Information Services Group, Inc., 2022.

    This leads to more spend, less control, and more risk for IT organizations. Managing this becomes a higher priority for IT, but many IT organizations are ill-equipped to do this proactively.

    Common Obstacles

    As new contracts are negotiated and existing contracts are renegotiated or renewed, there is a perception that the contracts will yield certain results, output, performance, solutions, or outcomes. The hope is that these will provide a measurable expected value to IT and the organization. Oftentimes, much of the expected value is never realized. Many organizations don’t have a VMI to help:

    • Ensure at least the expected value is achieved.
    • Improve on the expected value through performance management.
    • Significantly increase the expected value through a proactive VMI.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Vendor management is a proactive, cross-functional lifecycle. It can be broken down into four phases:

    • Plan
    • Build
    • Run
    • Review

    The Info-Tech process addresses all four phases and provides a step-by-step approach to configure and operate your VMI. The content in this blueprint helps you quickly establish your VMI and set a solid foundation for its growth and maturity.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Vendor management is not a one-size-fits-all initiative. It must be configured:

    • For your environment, culture, and goals.
    • To leverage the strengths of your organization and personnel.
    • To focus your energy and resources on your critical vendors.

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Spend on managed service providers and as-a-service providers continues to increase. In addition, IT services vendors continue to be active in the mergers and acquisitions arena. This increases the need for a VMI to help with the changing IT vendor landscape. In 2021, there was increases of:

    38%

    Spend on As-a-Service Providers

    16%

    Spend on Managed Services Providers

    47%

    IT Services Merger & Acquisition Growth (Transactions)

    Source: Information Services Group, Inc., 2022.

    Executive Summary

    Common Obstacles

    When organizations execute, renew, or renegotiate a contract, there is an “expected value” associated with that contract. Without a robust VMI, most of the expected value will never be realized. With a robust VMI, the realized value significantly exceeds the expected value during the contract term.

    A contract’s realized value with and without a vendor management initiative

    Two bars are depicted, showing that vendor collaboration and vendor performance management exceed expected value with a VMI, but without VMI, 75% of a contract's expected value can disappear within 18 months.

    Source: Based on findings from Geller & Company, 2003.

    Executive Summary

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    A sound, cyclical approach to vendor management will help you create a VMI that meets your needs and stays in alignment with your organization as they both change (i.e. mature and grow).

    This is an image of Info-Tech's approach to VMI.  It includes the following four steps: 01 - Plan; 02 - Build; 03 - Run; 04 - Review

    Info-Tech’s Methodology for Creating and Operating Your VMI

    Phase 1: Plan Phase 2: Build Phase 3: Run Phase 4: Review

    Phase Steps

    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals
    1.2 Scope
    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles
    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities
    1.5 Process Mapping
    1.6 Charter
    1.7 Vendor Inventory
    1.8 Maturity Assessment
    1.9 Structure

    2.1 Classification Model
    2.2 Risk Assessment Tool
    2.3 Scorecards and Feedback
    2.4 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda
    2.5 Relationship Alignment Document
    2.6 Vendor Orientation
    2.7 Job Descriptions
    2.8 Policies and Procedures
    2.9 3-Year Roadmap
    2.10 90-Day Plan
    2.11 Quick Wins
    2.12 Reports

    3.1 Classify Vendors
    3.2 Conduct Internal “Kickoff” Meeting
    3.3 Conduct Vendor Orientation
    3.4 Compile Scorecards
    3.5 Conduct Business Alignment Meetings
    3.6 Work the 90-Day Plan
    3.7 Manage the 3-Year Roadmap
    3.8 Measure and Monitor Risk
    3.9 Issue Reports
    3.10 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships
    3.11 Contribute to Other Processes

    4.1 Assess Compliance
    4.2 Incorporate Leading Practices
    4.3 Leverage Lessons Learned
    4.4 Maintain Internal Alignment
    4.5 Update Governances

    Phase Outcomes

    This phase helps you organize your VMI and document internal processes, relationships, roles, and responsibilities. The main outcomes from this phase are organizational documents, a baseline VMI maturity level, and a desired future state for the VMI. This phase helps you configure and create the tools and templates that will help you run the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are a clear understanding of which vendors are important to you, the tools to manage the vendor relationships, and an implementation plan. This phase helps you begin operating the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are guidance and the steps required to implement your VMI. This phase helps the VMI identify what it should stop doing, start doing, and continue doing as it improves and matures. The main outcomes from this phase are ways to advance the VMI and maintain internal alignment.

    Insight Summary

    Insight 1

    Vendor management is not “plug and play” – each organization’s vendor management initiative (VMI) needs to fit its culture, environment, and goals. While there are commonalities and leading practices associated with vendor management, your initiative won’t look exactly like another organization’s. The key is to adapt vendor management principles to fit your needs.

    Insight 2

    All vendors are not of equal importance to your organization. Internal resources are a scarce commodity and should be deployed so that they provide the best return on the organization’s investment. Classifying or segmenting your vendors allows you to focus your efforts on the most important vendors first, allowing your VMI to have the greatest impact possible.

    Insight 3

    Having a solid foundation is critical to the VMI’s ongoing success. Whether you will be creating a formal vendor management office or using vendor management techniques, tools, and templates “informally,” starting with the basics is essential. Make sure you understand why the VMI exists and what it hopes to achieve, what is in and out of scope for the VMI, what strengths the VMI can leverage and the obstacles it will have to address, and how it will work with other areas within your organization.

    Blueprint Deliverables

    The four phases of creating and running a vendor management initiative are supported with configurable tools, templates, and checklists to help you stay aligned internally and achieve your goals.

    VMI Tools and Templates

    This image contains two screenshots of Info-Tech's VMI Tools and Templates

    Build a solid foundation for your VMI and configure tools and templates to help you manage your vendor relationships.

    Key Deliverables:

    1. Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium
    2. Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium
    3. Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool
    4. Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Risk Assessment Tool

    A suite of tools and templates to help you create and implement your vendor management initiative.

    Blueprint benefits

    IT Benefits

    • Identify and manage risk proactively.
    • Reduce costs and maximize value.
    • Increase visibility with your critical vendors.
    • Improve vendor performance.
    • Create a collaborative environment with key vendors.
    • Segment vendors to allocate resources more effectively and more efficiently.

    Business Benefits

    • Improve vendor accountability.
    • Increase collaboration between departments.
    • Improve working relationships with your vendors.
    • Create a feedback loop to address vendor or customer issues before they get out of hand or are more costly to resolve.
    • Increase access to meaningful data and information regarding important vendors.

    Establish Baseline Metrics

    Baseline metrics will be improved through:

    Using the Maturity Assessment and 90-Day Plan tools, track how well you are able to achieve your goals and objectives:

    • Did you meet the targeted maturity level for each maturity category as determined by the point system?
    • Did you finish each activity in the 90-Day Plan completely and on time?
    1-Year Maturity Roadmap(by Category) Target Maturity (Total Points) Actual Maturity (Total Points)
    Contracts 12 12
    Risk 8 7
    Vendor Selection 9 9
    Vendor Relationships 21 21
    VMI Operations 24 16
    90-Day Plan (by Activity) Activity Completed
    Finalize mission and goals; gain executive approval Yes
    Finalize OIC chart; gain buy-in from other departments Yes
    Classify top 40 vendors by spend Yes
    Create initial scorecard Yes
    Develop the business alignment meeting agenda Yes
    Conduct two business alignment meetings No
    Update job descriptions Yes
    Map two VMI processes No

    Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

    DIY Toolkit

    “Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.”

    Guided Implementation

    “Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.”

    Workshop

    “We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.”

    Consulting

    “Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1 Phases 2 & 3 Phase 4

    Call #1: Mission statement and goals, scope, and strengths and obstacles.

    Call #5: Classification model.

    Call #9: Policies and procedures and reports.

    Call #12: Assess compliance, incorporate leading practices, leverage lessons learned, maintain internal alignment, and update governances.

    Call #2: Roles and responsibilities and process mapping.

    Call #6: Risk assessment.

    Call #10: 3-year roadmap.

    Call #3: Charter and vendor inventory.

    Call #7: Scorecards and feedback and business alignment meetings.

    Call #11: 90-day plan and quick wins.

    Call #4: Maturity assessment and VMI structure.

    Call #8: Relationship alignment document, vendor orientation, and job descriptions.

    Workshop Overview

    Contact your account representative for more information.
    workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

    Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4
    Plan Plan/Build/Run Build/Run Review

    Activities

    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals
    1.2 Scope
    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles
    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities
    1.5 Process Mapping
    1.6 Charter
    1.7 Vendor Inventory
    1.8 Maturity Assessment
    1.9 Structure

    2.1 Classification Model
    2.2 Risk Assessment Tool
    2.3 Scorecards and Feedback
    2.4 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda
    2.5 Relationship Alignment Document
    2.6 Vendor Orientation
    2.7 Job Descriptions
    2.8 Policies and Procedures
    2.9 3-Year Roadmap
    2.10 90-Day Plan
    2.11 Quick Wins
    2.12 Reports

    3.1 Classify Vendors
    3.2 Conduct Internal “Kickoff” Meeting
    3.3 Conduct Vendor Orientation
    3.4 Compile Scorecards
    3.5 Conduct Business Alignment Meetings
    3.6 Work the 90-Day Plan
    3.7 Manage the 3-Year Roadmap
    3.8 Measure and Monitor Risk
    3.9 Issue Reports
    3.10 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships
    3.11 Contribute to Other Processes

    4.1 Assess Compliance
    4.2 Incorporate Leading Practices
    4.3 Leverage Lessons Learned
    4.4 Maintain Internal Alignment
    4.5 Update Governances

    Deliverables

    1. Completed Mission Statement and Goals
    2. List of Items In Scope and Out of Scope for the VMI
    3. List of Strengths and Obstacles for the VMI
    4. Completed OIC Chart
    5. Sample Process Map for One Process
    6. Vendor Inventory tab
    1. Completed Maturity Assessment
    2. Sample Job Descriptions and Phrases
    3. List of Attributes of a Valuable Vendor
    4. Configured Classification Model
    5. Configured Risk Assessment Tool
    6. Configured Scorecard and Feedback Questions
    7. Configured Business Alignment Meeting Agenda
    1. Relationship Alignment Document Sample and Checklist
    2. Vendor Orientation Checklist
    3. Policies and Procedures Checklist
    4. Completed 3-Year Roadmap
    5. Completed 90-Day Plan
    6. List of Quick Wins
    7. List of Reports

    Phase 1: Plan

    Get Organized

    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals
    1.2 Scope
    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles
    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities
    1.5 Process Mapping
    1.6 Charter
    1.7 Vendor Inventory
    1.8 Maturity Assessment
    1.9 Structure

    Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4
    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals
    1.2 Scope
    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles
    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities
    1.5 Process Mapping
    1.6 Charter
    1.7 Vendor Inventory
    1.8 Maturity Assessment
    1.9 Structure

    2.1 Classification Model
    2.2 Risk Assessment Tool
    2.3 Scorecards and Feedback
    2.4 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda
    2.5 Relationship Alignment Document
    2.6 Vendor Orientation
    2.7 Job Descriptions
    2.8 Policies and Procedures
    2.9 3-Year Roadmap
    2.10 90-Day Plan
    2.11 Quick Wins
    2.12 Reports

    3.1 Classify Vendors
    3.2 Conduct Internal “Kickoff” Meeting
    3.3 Conduct Vendor Orientation
    3.4 Compile Scorecards
    3.5 Conduct Business Alignment Meetings
    3.6 Work the 90-Day Plan
    3.7 Manage the 3-Year Roadmap
    3.8 Measure and Monitor Risk
    3.9 Issue Reports
    3.10 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships
    3.11 Contribute to Other Processes

    4.1 Assess Compliance
    4.2 Incorporate Leading Practices
    4.3 Leverage Lessons Learned
    4.4 Maintain Internal Alignment
    4.5 Update Governances

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    Organize your VMI and document internal processes, relationships, roles, and responsibilities. The main outcomes from this phase are organizational documents, a baseline VMI maturity level, and a desired future state for the VMI.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives
    • Procurement/Sourcing
    • IT
    • Others as needed

    Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

    Phase 1: Plan

    Get organized.

    Phase 1: Plan focuses on getting organized. Foundational elements (mission statement, goals, scope, strengths and obstacles, roles and responsibilities, and process mapping) will help you define your VMI. These and the other elements of this Phase will follow you throughout the process of standing up your VMI and running it.

    Spending time up front to ensure that everyone is on the same page will help avoid headaches down the road. The tendency is to skimp (or even skip) on these steps to get to “the good stuff.” To a certain extent, the process provided here is like building a house. You wouldn’t start building your dream home without having a solid blueprint. The same is true with vendor management. Leveraging vendor management tools and techniques without the proper foundation may provide some benefit in the short term, but in the long term it will ultimately be a house of cards waiting to collapse.

    Step 1.1: Mission statement and goals

    Identify why the VMI exists and what it will achieve.

    Whether you are starting your vendor management journey or are already down the path, it is important to know why the vendor management initiative exists and what it hopes to achieve. The easiest way to document this is with a written declaration in the form of a mission statement and goals. Although this is the easiest way to proceed, it is far from easy.

    The mission statement should identify at a high level the nature of the services provided by the VMI, who it will serve, and some of the expected outcomes or achievements. The mission statement should be no longer than one or two sentences.

    The complement to the mission statement is the list of goals for the VMI. Your goals should not be a reassertion of your mission statement in bullet format. At this stage it may not be possible to make them SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound/Time-Based), but consider making them as SMART as possible. Without some of the SMART parameters attached, your goals are more like dreams and wishes. At a minimum, you should be able to determine the level of success achieved for each of the VMI goals.

    Although the VMI’s mission statement will stay static over time (other than for significant changes to the VMI or organization as a whole), the goals should be re-evaluated periodically using a SMART filter and adjusted as needed.

    1.1.1: Mission statement and goals

    20-40 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and use a brainstorming activity to list on a whiteboard or flip chart the reasons why the VMI will exist.
    2. Review external mission statements for inspiration.
    3. Review internal mission statements from other areas to ensure consistency.
    4. Draft and document your mission statement in the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.1 Mission Statement and Goals.
    5. Continue brainstorming and identify the high-level goals for the VMI.
    6. Review the list of goals and make them as SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound/Time-Based) as possible.
    7. Document your goals in the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.1 Mission Statement and Goals.
    8. Obtain sign-off on the mission statement and goals from stakeholders and executives as required.

    Input

    • Brainstorming results
    • Mission statements from other internal and external sources

    Output

    • Completed mission statement and goals

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.1 Mission Statement and Goals

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 1.2: Scope

    Determine what is in scope and out of scope for the VMI

    Regardless of where your VMI resides or how it operates, it will be working with other areas within your organization. Some of the activities performed by the VMI will be new and not currently handled by other groups or individuals internally; at the same time, some of the activities performed by the VMI may be currently handled by other groups or individuals internally. In addition, executives, stakeholders, and other internal personnel may have expectations or make assumptions about the VMI. As a result, there can be a lot of confusion about what the VMI does and doesn’t do, and the answers cannot always be found in the VMI’s mission statement and goals.

    One component of helping others understand the VMI landscape is formalizing the VMI scope. The scope will define boundaries for the VMI. The intent is not to fence itself off and keep others out but provide guidance on where the VMI’s territory begins and ends. Ultimately, this will help clarify the VMI’s roles and responsibilities, improve workflow, and reduce errant assumptions.

    When drafting your VMI scoping document, make sure you look at both sides of the equation (similar to what you would do when following best practices for a statement of work): Identify what is in scope and what is out of scope. Be specific when describing the individual components of the VMI scope, and make sure executives and stakeholders are on board with the final version.

    1.2.1: Scope

    20-40 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and use a brainstorming activity to list on a whiteboard or flip chart the activities and functions in scope and out of scope for the VMI.
      1. Be specific to avoid ambiguity and improve clarity.
      2. Go back and forth between in scope and out of scope as needed; it is not necessary to list all of the in-scope items and then turn your attention to the out-of-scope items.
    2. Review the lists to make sure there is enough specificity. An item may be in scope or out of scope but not both.
    3. Use the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.2 Scope, to document the results.
    4. Obtain sign-off on the scope from stakeholders and executives as required.

    Input

    • Brainstorming
    • Mission statement and goals

    Output

    • Completed list of items in and out of scope for the VMI

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.2 Scope

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 1.3: Strengths and obstacles

    Pinpoint the VMI’s strengths and obstacles.

    A SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) is a valuable tool, but it is overkill for your VMI at this point. However, using a modified and simplified form of this tool (strengths and obstacles) will yield significant results and benefit the VMI as it grows and matures.

    Your output will be two lists: the strengths associated with the VMI and the obstacles facing the VMI. For example, strengths could include items such as smart people working within the VMI and executive support. Obstacles could include items such as limited headcount and training required for VMI staff.

    The goals are 1) to harness the strengths to help the VMI be successful and 2) to understand the impact of the obstacles and plan accordingly. The output can also be used to enlighten executives and stakeholders about the challenges associated with their directives or requests (e.g. human bandwidth may not be sufficient to accomplish some of the vendor management activities and there is a moratorium on hiring until the next budget year).

    For each strength identified, determine how you will or can leverage it when things are going well or when the VMI is in a bind. For each obstacle, list the potential impact on the VMI (e.g. scope, growth rate, and number of vendors that can actively be part of the VMI).

    As you do your brainstorming, be as specific as possible and validate your lists with stakeholders and executives as needed.

    1.3.1: Strengths and obstacles

    20-40 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and use a brainstorming activity to list on a whiteboard or flip chart the VMI’s strengths and obstacles.
      1. Be specific to avoid ambiguity and improve clarity.
      2. Go back and forth between strengths and obstacles as needed; it is not necessary to list all of the strengths and then turn your attention to the obstacles.
      3. It is possible for an item to be a strength and an obstacle; when this happens, add details to distinguish the situations.
    2. Review the lists to make sure there is enough specificity.
    3. Determine how you will leverage each strength and how you will manage each obstacle.
    4. Use the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.3 Strengths and Obstacles, to document the results.
    5. Obtain sign-off on the strengths and obstacles from stakeholders and executives as required.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Brainstorming
    • Mission statement and goals
    • Scope

    Output

    • Completed list of items impacting the VMI’s ability to be successful: strengths the VMI can leverage and obstacles the VMI must manage

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.3 Strengths and Obstacles

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 1.4: Roles and responsibilities

    Obtain consensus on who is responsible for what.

    One crucial success factor for VMIs is gaining and maintaining internal alignment. There are many moving parts to an organization, and a VMI must be clear on the various roles and responsibilities related to the relevant processes. Some of this information can be found in the VMI’s scope, referenced in Step 1.2, but additional information is required to avoid stepping on each other’s toes since many of the processes require internal departments to work together. (For example, obtaining requirements for a request for proposal takes more than one person or one department to complete this process.) While it is not necessary to get too granular, it is imperative that you have a clear understanding of how the VMI activities will fit within the larger vendor management lifecycle (which is comprised of many sub processes) and who will be doing what.

    As we have learned through our workshops and guided implementations, a traditional RACI* or RASCI* chart does not work well for this purpose. These charts are not intuitive, and they lack the specificity required to be effective. For vendor management purposes, a higher-level view and a slightly different approach provide much better results.

    This step will lead your through the creation of an OIC* chart to determine vendor management lifecycle roles and responsibilities. Afterward, you’ll be able to say, “Oh, I see clearly who is involved in each part of the process and what their role is.”

    *RACI – Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed
    *RASCI – Responsible, Accountable, Support, Consulted, Informed
    *OIC – Owner, Informed, Contributor

    This is an image of a table which shows an example of which role would be responsible for which step

    Step 1.4: Roles and responsibilities (cont.)

    Obtain consensus on who is responsible for what.

    To start, define the vendor management lifecycle steps or process applicable to your VMI. Next, determine who participates in the vendor management lifecycle. There is no need to get too granular – think along the lines of departments, subdepartments, divisions, agencies, or however you categorize internal operational units. Avoid naming individuals other than by title; this typically happens when a person oversees a large group (e.g. the CIO [chief information officer] or the CPO [chief procurement officer]). Be thorough, but the chart can get out of hand quickly. For each role and step of the lifecycle, ask whether the entry is necessary – does it add value to the clarity of understanding the responsibilities associated with the vendor management lifecycle? Consider two examples, one for roles and one for lifecycle steps: 1) Is IT sufficient or do you need IT Operations and IT Development? 2) Is “negotiate contract documents” sufficient or do you need “negotiate the contract” and “negotiate the renewal”? The answer will always depend on your culture and environment, but be wary of creating a spreadsheet that requires an 85-inch monitor to view it in its entirety.

    After defining the roles (departments, divisions, agencies) and the vendor management lifecycle steps or process, assign one of three letters to each box in your chart:

    • O – Owner – who owns the process; they may also contribute to it.
    • I – Informed – who is informed about the progress or results of the process.
    • C – Contributor – who contributes or works on the process; it can be tangible or intangible contributions.

    This activity can be started by the VMI or done as a group with representatives from each of the named roles. If the VMI starts the activity, the resulting chart should be validated by the each of the named roles.

    1.4.1: Roles and responsibilities

    1-6 hours

    1. Meet with the participants and configure the OIC Chart in the Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.4 OIC Chart.
      1. Review the steps or activities across the top of the chart and modify as needed.
      2. Review the roles listed along the left side of the chart and modify as needed.
    2. For each activity or step across the top of the chart, assign each role a letter – O for owner of that activity or step; I for informed; or C for contributor. Use only one letter per cell.
    3. Work your way across the chart. Every cell should have an entry or be left blank if it is not applicable.
    4. Review the results and validate that every activity or step has an O assigned to it; there must be an owner for every activity or step.
    5. Obtain sign-off on the OIC chart from stakeholders and executives as required.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • A list of activities or steps to complete a project, starting with requirements gathering and ending with ongoing risk management
    • A list of internal areas (departments, divisions, agencies, etc.) and stakeholders that contribute to completing a project

    Output

    • Completed OCI chart indicating roles and responsibilities for the VMI and other internal areas

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.4 OIC Chart

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Procurement/Sourcing
    • IT
    • Representatives from other areas as needed
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives as needed

    Step 1.5: Process mapping

    Diagram the workflow.

    Although policies and procedures are important, their nature can make it difficult to grasp how things work at a high level (or even at the detail level). To help bridge the gap, map the applicable processes (determined by how deep and wide you want to go) involving the VMI. To start, look at the OIC chart from Step 1.4. You can expand the breadth and depth of your mapping to include the VMI scope, the 3-year roadmap (see Step 2.9), and the processes driven by the day-to-day work within the VMI.

    Various mapping tools can be used. Three common approaches that can be mixed and matched are:

    • Traditional flowcharts.
    • Swimlane diagrams.
    • Work breakdown structures.
    This is an example of a Workflow Process Map

    Step 1.5: Process mapping (cont.)

    Diagram the workflow.

    Your goal is not to create an in-depth diagram for every step of the vendor management lifecycle. However, for steps owned by the VMI, the process map should include sufficient details for the owner and the contributors (see Step 1.4) to understand what is required of them to support that step in the lifecycle.

    For VMI processes that don’t interact with other departments, follow the same pattern as outlined above for steps owned by the VMI.

    Whatever methodology you use to create your process map, make sure it includes enough details so that readers and users can identify the following elements:

    • Input:
      • What are the inputs?
      • Where do the inputs originate or come from?
    • Process:
      • Who is involved/required for this step?
      • What happens to the inputs in this step?
      • What additional materials, tools, or resources are used or required during this step?
    • Output:
      • What are the outputs?
      • Where do the outputs go next?

    1.5.1: Process Mapping

    1-8 hours (or more)

    1. Meet with the participants and determine which processes you want to map.
      1. For processes owned by the VMI, map the entire process.
      2. For processes contributed to by the VMI, map the entire process at a high level and map the VMI portion of the process in greater detail.
    2. Select the right charts/diagrams for your output.
      1. Flowchart
      2. Swimlane diagram
      3. Modified SIPOC (Supplier, Input, Process, Output, Customer)
      4. WBS (work breakdown structure)
    3. Begin mapping the processes either in a tool or using sticky notes. You want to be able to move the steps and associated information easily; most people don’t map the entire process accurately or with sufficient detail the first time through. An iterative approach works best.
    4. Obtain signoff on the process maps from stakeholders and executives as required. A copy of the final output can be kept in the Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.5 Process Mapping, if desired.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Existing processes (formal, informal, documented, and undocumented)
    • OIC chart

    Output

    • Process maps for processes contributed to or owned by the VMI

    Materials

    • Sticky Notes
    • Flowchart/process mapping software or something similar
    • (Optional) Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.5 Process Mapping

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Procurement/Sourcing
    • IT
    • Representatives from other areas as needed
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 1.6: Charter

    Document how the VMI will operate.

    As you continue getting organized by working through steps 1.1-1.5, you may want to document your progress in a charter and add some elements. Basically, a charter is a written document laying out how the VMI will operate within the organization. It clearly states the VMI’s mission, goals, scope, roles and responsibilities, and vendor governance model. In addition, it can include a list of team members and sponsors.

    Whether you create a VMI charter will largely depend on:

    • Your organization’s culture.
    • Your organization’s formality.
    • The perceived value of creating a charter.

    If you decide to create a VMI charter, this is a good place in the process to create an initial draft. As you continue working through the blueprint and your VMI matures, update the VMI charter as needed.

    VMI Charter:

    • Purpose
    • Sponsors
    • Roles
    • Responsibilities
    • Governance

    1.6.1: Charter

    1-4 hours

    1. Meet with the participants and review the template in Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.6 Charter.
    2. Determine whether the participants will use this template or add materials to your standard charter template.
    3. Complete as much of the charter as possible, knowing that some information may not be available until later.
    4. Return to the charter as needed until it is completed.
    5. Obtain sign-off on the charter from stakeholders and executives as required.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Mission statement and goals
    • Scope
    • Strengths and obstacles
    • OIC chart
    • List of stakeholders and executives and their VMI roles and responsibilities

    Output

    • Completed VMI charter

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.6 Charter
    • Your organization’s standard charter document

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 1.7: Vendor inventory

    Compile a list of vendors and relevant vendor information.

    As you prepare your VMI for being operational, it’s critical to identify all of your current vendors providing IT products or services to the organization. This can be tricky and may depend on how you view things internally. For example, you may have traditional IT vendors that are managed by IT, and you may have IT vendors that are managed by other internal departments (shadow IT or out-in-the-open IT). If it wasn’t determined with the help of stakeholders and executives before now, make sure you establish the purview of the VMI at this point. What types of vendors are included and excluded from the VMI?

    You may find that a vendor can be included and excluded based on the product or service they provide. A vendor may provide a service that is managed by IT and a service that is managed/controlled by another department. In this instance, a good working relationship and clearly defined roles and responsibilities between the VMI and the other department will be required. But, it all starts with compiling a list of vendors and validating the VMI’s purview (and any limitations) for the vendors with stakeholders and executives.

    Step 1.7: Vendor inventory (cont.)

    Compile a list of vendors and relevant vendor information.

    At a minimum, the VMI should be able to quickly retrieve key information about each of “its” vendors:

    • Vendor Name
    • Classification (see Steps 2.1 and 3.1)
    • Categories of Service
    • Names of Products and Services Provided
    • Brief Descriptions of Products and Services Provided
    • Annualized Vendor Spend
    • Vendor Contacts
    • Internal Vendor Relationship Owner

    Not all of this information will be available at this point, but you can begin designing or configuring your tool to meet your needs. As your VMI enters Phase 3: Run and continues to mature, you will return to this tool and update the information. For example, the vendor classification category won’t be known until Phase 3, and it can change over time.

    1.7.1: Vendor inventory

    1-10 hours

    Meet with the participants and review the Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.7 Vendor Inventory. Determine whether the VMI wants to collect and/or monitor additional information and make any necessary modifications to the tool.

    Enter the “Annual IT Vendor Spend” amount in the appropriate cell toward the top of the spreadsheet. This is for IT spend for vendor-related activities within the VMI’s scope; include shadow IT spend and “non-shadow” IT spend if those vendors will be included in the VMI’s scope.

    Populate the data fields for your top 50 vendors by annual spend; you may need multiple entries for the same vendor depending on the nature of the products and services they provide.

    Ignore the “Classification” column for now; you will return to this later when classification information is available.

    Ignore the “Percentage of IT Budget” column as well; it uses a formula to calculate this information.

    Input

    • Data from various internal and external sources such as accounts payable, contracts, and vendor websites

    Output

    • List of vendors with critical information required to manage relationships with key vendors

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.7 Vendor Inventory

    Participants

    • VMI team (directly)
    • Other internal and external personnel (indirectly)

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 1.8: Maturity assessment

    Establish a VMI maturity baseline and set an ideal future state.

    Knowing where you are and where you want to go are essential elements for any journey in the physical world, and the same holds true for your VMI journey. Start by assessing your current-state VMI maturity. This will provide you with a baseline to measure progress against. Next, using the same criteria, determine the level of VMI maturity you would like to achieve one year in the future. This will be your future-state VMI maturity. Lastly, identify the gaps and plot your course.

    The maturity assessment provides three main benefits:

    1. Focus – you’ll know what is important to you moving forward.
    2. 3-Year Roadmap (discussed more fully in Step 2.9) – you’ll have additional input for your short-term and long-term roadmap (1, 2, and 3 years out).
    3. Quantifiable Improvement – you’ll be able to measure your progress and make midcourse corrections when necessary.

    Step 1.8: Maturity assessment (cont.)

    Establish a VMI maturity baseline and set an ideal future state.

    The Info-Tech VMI Maturity Assessment tool evaluates your maturity across several criteria across multiple categories. Once completed, the assessment will specify:

    • A current-state score by category and overall.
    • A target-state score by category and overall.
    • A quantifiable gap for each criterion.
    • A priority assignment for each criterion.
    • A level of effort required by criterion to get from the current state to the target state.
    • A target due date by criterion for achieving the target state.
    • A rank order for each criterion (note: limit your ranking to your top 7 or 9).

    Many organizations will be tempted to mature too quickly. Resource constraints and other items from Step 1.3 (Strengths and Obstacles) will impact how quickly you can mature. Being aggressive is fine, but it must be tempered with a dose of reality. Otherwise, morale, perception, and results can suffer.

    1.8.1: Maturity assessment

    45-90 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and use Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.8 Maturity Assessment Input, to complete the first part of this activity. Provide the required information indicated below.
      1. Review each statement in column B and enter a value in the “Current” column using the drop-down menus based on how much you disagree or agree (0-4) with the statement. This establishes a baseline maturity.
      2. Repeat this process for the “Future” column using a target date of one year from now to achieve this level. This is your desired maturity.
      3. Enter information regarding priority, level of effort, and target due date in the applicable columns using the drop-down menus. (Priority levels are critical, high, medium, low, and maintain; Levels of Effort are high, medium, and low; Target Due Dates are broken into timelines: 1-3 months, 4-6 months, 7-9 months, and 10-12 months.)
    2. Review the information on Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.8 Maturity Assessment Output; use the Distribution Tables to help you rank your top priorities. Enter a unique number into the Priority (Rank) column. Limit your ranking to the top 7 to 9 activities to provide focus.

    Input

    • Knowledge of current VMI practices and desired future states

    Output

    • VMI maturity baseline
    • Desired VMI target maturity state (in one year)
    • Prioritized areas to improve and due dates
    • Graphs and tables to identify maturity deltas and track progress

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.8 Maturity Assessment Input
    • Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.8 Maturity Assessment Output

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 1.9: Structure

    Determine the VMI’s organizational and reporting structure.

    There are two parts to the VMI structure:

    1. Organization Structure. Who owns the VMI – where does it fit on the organization chart?
    2. Reporting Structure. What is the reporting structure within the VMI – what are the job functions, titles, and solid and dotted lines of accountability?

    VMI Organization Structure

    The decision regarding who owns the VMI can follow one of two paths:

    1. The decision has already been made by the board of directors, executives, senior leadership, or stakeholders; OR
    2. The decision has not been made, and options will be reviewed and evaluated before it is implemented.

    Many organizations overlook the importance of this decision. The VMI’s position on the organization chart can aid or hinder its success. Whether the decision has already been made or not, this is the perfect time to evaluate the decision or options based on the following question: Why is the VMI being created and how will it operate? Review the documents you created during Steps 1.1-1.8 and other factors to answer this question.

    Step 1.9: Structure (cont.)

    Determine the VMI’s organizational and reporting structure.

    Based on your work product from Steps 1.1-1.8 and other factors, select where the VMI will be best located from the following areas/offices or their equivalent:

    • Chief Compliance Officer (CCO)
    • Chief Information Officer (CIO)
    • Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
    • Chief Procurement Officer (CPO)
    • Chief Operating Officer (COO)
    • Other area

    Without the proper support and placement in the organization chart, the VMI can fail. It is important for the VMI to find a suitable home with a direct connection to one of the sponsors identified above and for the VMI lead to have significant stature (aka title) within the organization. For example, if the VMI lead is a “manager” level who is four reporting layers away from the chief officer/sponsor, the VMI will have an image issue within and outside of the sponsor’s organization (as well as within the vendor community). While this is not to say that the VMI lead should be a vice president* or senior director, our experience and research indicate that the VMI and the VMI lead will be taken more seriously when the VMI lead is at least a director level reporting directly to a CXO.

    *For purposes of the example above, the reporting structure hierarchy used is manager, senior manager, director, senior director, vice president, CXO.

    Step 1.9: Structure (cont.)

    Determine the VMI’s organizational and reporting structure.

    VMI Reporting Structure

    As previously mentioned, the VMI reporting structure describes and identifies the job functions, titles, and lines of accountability. Whether you have a formal vendor management office or you are leveraging the principles of vendor management informally, your VMI reporting structure design will involve some solid lines and some dotted lines. In this instance, the dotted lines represent part-time participation or people/areas that will assist the VMI in some capacity. For example, if the VMI sits within IT, a dotted line to Procurement will show that a good working relationship is required for both parties to succeed; or a dotted line to Christina in Legal will indicate that Christina will be helping the VMI with legal issues.

    There is no one-size-fits-all reporting structure for VMIs, and your approach must leverage the materials from Steps 1.1-1.8, your culture, and your needs. By way of example, your VMI may include some or all of the following functions:

    • Contract Management
    • Relationship Management
    • Financial Management
    • Asset Management
    • Performance Management
    • Sourcing/Procurement
    • Risk Management

    Step 1.9: Structure (cont.)

    Determine the VMI’s organizational and reporting structure.

    Once you’ve identified the functional groups, you can assign titles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships. A good diagram goes a long way to helping others understand your organization. Traditional organization charts work well with VMIs, but a target diagram allows for rapid absorption of the dotted-line relationships. Review the two examples below and determine an approach that works best for you.

    An organizational Chart is depicted.  At the top of the chart is: Office of the CIO.  Below that is: VMI: Legal; Accounting & Finance; Corporate Procurement; below that are the following: Vendor Risk Management; Vendor Reporting and Analysis; Asset Management; Performance Management; Contract Management; IT Procurement Three concentric circles are depicted.  In the inner circle is the term: VMI.  In the middle circle are the terms: Reporting & Analysis; Asset Mgmt; Contract Mgmt; Performance Mgmt; It Proc; Vendor Risk.  In the outer circle are the following terms: Compliance; Finance; HR; Accounting; Procurement; Business Units; Legal; IT

    1.9.1: Structure

    15-60 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and review decisions that have been made or options that are available regarding the VMI’s placement in the organization chart.
      1. Common options include the Chief Information Officer (CIO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO), or Chief Procurement Officer (CPO).
      2. Less common but viable options include the Chief Compliance Officer (CCO), Chief Operating Officer (COO), or another area.
    2. Brainstorm and determine the job functions and titles
    3. Define the reporting structure within the VMI.
    4. Identify the “dotted line” relationships between the VMI and other internal areas.
    5. Using flowchart, org. chart, or other similar software, reduce your results to a graphic representation that indicates where the VMI resides, its reporting structure, and its dotted-line relationships.
    6. Obtain sign-off on the structure from stakeholders and executives as required. A copy of the final output can be kept in the Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.9 Structure, if desired.

    Input

    • Mission statement and goals
    • Scope
    • Maturity assessment results (current and target state)
    • Existing org. charts
    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • Completed org. chart with job titles and reporting structure

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/flip chart
    • Sticky notes
    • Flowchart/org. chart software or something similar
    • (Optional) Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.9 Structure

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • VMI sponsor
    • Stakeholders and executives

    Phase 2: Build

    Create and Configure Tools, Templates, and Processes

    Phase 1Phase 2Phase 3Phase 4
    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals


    1.2 Scope

    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles

    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities

    1.5 Process Mapping

    1.6 Charter

    1.7 Vendor Inventory

    1.8 Maturity Assessment

    1.9 Structure

    2.1 Classification Model
    2.2 Risk Assessment Tool
    2.3 Scorecards and Feedback
    2.4 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda
    2.5 Relationship Alignment Document
    2.6 Vendor Orientation
    2.7 Job Descriptions
    2.8 Policies and Procedures
    2.9 3-Year Roadmap
    2.10 90-Day Plan
    2.11 Quick Wins
    2.12 Reports

    3.1 Classify Vendors
    3.2 Conduct Internal “Kickoff” Meeting
    3.3 Conduct Vendor Orientation
    3.4 Compile Scorecards
    3.5 Conduct Business Alignment Meetings
    3.6 Work the 90-Day Plan
    3.7 Manage the 3-Year Roadmap
    3.8 Measure and Monitor Risk
    3.9 Issue Reports
    3.10 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships
    3.11 Contribute to Other Processes

    4.1 Assess Compliance
    4.2 Incorporate Leading Practices
    4.3 Leverage Lessons Learned
    4.4 Maintain Internal Alignment
    4.5 Update Governances

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    Configure and create the tools and templates that will help you run the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are a clear understanding of which vendors are important to you, the tools to manage the vendor relationships, and an implementation plan.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives
    • Human Resources
    • Legal
    • Others as needed

    Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

    Phase 2: Build

    Create and configure tools, templates, and processes.

    Phase 2: Build focuses on creating and configuring the tools and templates that will help you run your VMI. Vendor management is not a plug-and-play environment, and unless noted otherwise, the tools and templates included with this blueprint require your input and thought. The tools and templates must work in concert with your culture, values, and goals. That will require teamwork, insights, contemplation, and deliberation.

    During this Phase, you’ll leverage the various templates and tools included with this blueprint and adapt them for your specific needs and use. In some instances, you’ll be starting with mostly a blank slate; while in others, only a small modification may be required to make it fit your circumstances. However, it is possible that a document or spreadsheet may need heavy customization to fit your situation. As you create your VMI, use the included materials for inspiration and guidance purposes rather than as absolute dictates.

    Step 2.1: Classification model

    Configure the COST Vendor Classification Tool.

    One of the functions of a VMI is to allocate the appropriate level of vendor management resources to each vendor since not all vendors are of equal importance to your organization. While some people may be able intuitively to sort their vendors into vendor management categories, a more objective, consistent, and reliable model works best. Info-Tech’s COST model helps you assign your vendors to the appropriate vendor management category so that you can focus your vendor management resources where they will do the most good.

    COST is an acronym for Commodity, Operational, Strategic, and Tactical. Your vendors will occupy one of these vendor management categories, and each category helps you determine the nature of the resources allocated to that vendor, the characteristics of the relationship desired by the VMI, and the governance level used.

    The easiest way to think of the COST model is as a 2x2 matrix or graph. The model should be configured for your environment so that the criteria used for determining a vendor’s classification align with what is important to you and your organization. However, at this point in your VMI’s maturation, a simple approach works best. The Classification Model included with this blueprint requires minimal configuration to get you started and that is discussed on the activity slide associated with this Step 2.1.


    Speed
    Operational Strategic
    Commodity Tactical
    →→→
    Criticality and Risk to the Organization

    Step 2.1: Classification model (cont.)

    Configure the COST Vendor Classification Tool.

    Common Characteristics by Vendor Management Category

    Operational Strategic
    • Low to moderate risk and criticality; moderate to high spend and switching costs
    • Product or service used by more than one area
    • Price is a key negotiation point
    • Product or service is valued by the organization
    • Quality or the perception of quality is a differentiator (i.e. brand awareness)
    • Moderate to high risk and criticality; moderate to high spend and switching costs
    • Few competitors and differentiated products and services
    • Product or service significantly advances the organization’s vision, mission, and success
    • Well-established in their core industry
    Commodity Tactical
    • Low risk and criticality; low spend and switching costs
    • Product or service is readily available from many sources
    • Market has many competitors and options
    • Relationship is transactional
    • Price is the main differentiator
    • Moderate to high risk and criticality; low to moderate spend and switching costs
    • Vendor offerings align with or support one or more strategic objectives
    • Often IT vendors “outside” of IT (i.e. controlled and paid for by other areas)
    • Often niche or new vendors

    Source: Compiled in part from Stephen Guth, “Vendor Relationship Management Getting What You Paid for (And More)”

    2.1.1: Classification Model

    15-30 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants to configure the spend ranges in Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool, Tab 1. Configuration, for your environment.
    2. Sort the data from Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.7 Vendor Inventory, by spend; if you used multiple line items for a vendor in the Vendor Inventory tab, you will have to aggregate the spend data for this activity.
    3. Update cells F14-J14 in the Classification Model based on your actual data.
      1. Cell F14 – set the boundary at a point between the spend for your 10th and 11th ranked vendors. For example, if the 10th vendor by spend is $1,009,850 and the 11th vendor by spend is $980,763, the range for F14 would be $1,000,00+.
      2. Cell G14 – set the bottom of the range at a point between the spend for your 30th and 31st ranked vendors; the top of the range will be $1 less than the bottom of the range specified in F14.
      3. Cell H14 – set the bottom of the range slightly below the spend for your 50th ranked vendor; the top of the range will be $1 less than the bottom of the range specified in G14.
      4. Cells I14 and J14 – divide the remaining range in half and split it between the two cells; for J14 the range will be $0 to $1 less than the bottom range in I14.
    4. Ignore the other variables at this time.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Risk Assessment Tool

    Input

    • Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.7 Vendor Inventory

    Output

    • Configured Vendor Classification Tool

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool, Tab 1. Configuration

    Participants

    • VMI team

    Step 2.2: Risk assessment tool

    Identify risks to measure, monitor, and report on.

    One of the typical drivers of a VMI is risk management. Organizations want to get a better handle on the various risks their vendors pose. Vendor risks originate from many areas: financial, performance, security, legal, and many others. However, security risk is the high-profile risk and the one organizations often focus on almost exclusively, which leaves the organization vulnerable in other areas.

    Risk management is a program, not a project – there is no completion date. A proactive approach works best and requires continual monitoring, identification, and assessment. Reacting to risks after they occur can be costly and can have other detrimental effects on the organization. Any risk that adversely affects IT will adversely affect the entire organization.

    While the VMI won’t necessarily be quantifying or calculating the risk directly, it generally is the aggregator of risk information across the risk categories, which it then includes in its reporting function. (See Steps 2.12 and 3.8.)

    At a minimum, your risk management strategy should involve:

    • Identifying the risks you want to measure and monitor.
    • Identifying your risk appetite (the amount of risk you are willing to live with).
    • Measuring, monitoring, and reporting on the applicable risks.
    • Developing and deploying a risk management plan to minimize potential risk impact.

    Vendor risk is a fact of life, but you do have options for how you handle it. Be proactive and thoughtful in your approach, and focus your resources on what is important.

    2.2.1: Risk assessment tool

    30-90 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants to configure the risk indicators in Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Risk Assessment Tool, Tab 1. Set Parameters, for your environment.
    2. Review the risk categories and determine which ones you will be measuring and monitoring.
    3. Review the risk indicators under each risk category and determine whether the indicator is acceptable as written, is acceptable with modifications, should be replaced, or should be deleted.
    4. Make the necessary changes to the risk indicators; these changes will cascade to each of the vendor tabs. Limit the number of risk indicators to no more than seven per risk category.
    5. Gain input and approval as needed from sponsors, stakeholders, and executives as required.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Risk Assessment Tool

    Input

    • Scope
    • OIC Chart
    • Process Maps
    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • Configured Vendor Classification Tool

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool, Tab 1. Configuration

    Participants

    • VMI team

    Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

    A vendor management scorecard is a great tool for measuring, monitoring, and improving relationship alignment. In addition, it is perfect for improving communication between you and the vendor.

    Conceptually, a scorecard is similar to a report card you received when you were in school. At the end of a learning cycle, you received feedback on how well you did in each of your classes. For vendor management, the scorecard is also used to provide periodic feedback, but there are some different nuances and some additional benefits and objectives when compared to a report card.

    Although scorecards can be used in a variety of ways, the main focus here will be on vendor management scorecards – contract management, project management, and other types of scorecards will not be included in the materials covered in this Step 2.3 or in Step 3.4.

    Category 1 Score
    Vendor Objective A 4
    Objective B 3
    Objective C 5
    Objective D 4 !

    Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback (cont.)

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

    Anatomy

    The Info-Tech Scorecard includes five areas:

    • Measurement Categories. Measurement categories help organize the scorecard. Limit the number of measurement categories to three to five; this allows the parties to stay focused on what’s important. Too many measurement categories make it difficult for the vendor to understand the expectations.
    • Criteria. The criteria describe what is being measured. Create criteria with sufficient detail to allow the reviewers to fully understand what is being measured and to evaluate it. Criteria can be objective or subjective. Use three to five criteria per measurement category.
    • Measurement Category Weights. Not all of your measurement categories may be of equal importance to you; this area allows you to give greater weight to a measurement category when compiling the overall score.
    • Rating. Reviewers will be asked to assign a score to each criteria using a 1 to 5 scale.
    • Comments. A good scorecard will include a place for reviewers to provide additional information regarding the rating or other items that are relevant to the scorecard.

    An overall score is calculated based on the rating for each criteria and the measurement category weights.

    Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback (cont.)

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

    Goals and Objectives

    Scorecards can be used for a variety of reasons. Some of the common ones are listed below:

    • Improve vendor performance.
    • Convey expectations to the vendor.
    • Identify and recognize top vendors.
    • Increase alignment between the parties.
    • Improve communication with the vendor.
    • Compare vendors across the same criteria.
    • Measure items not included in contract metrics.
    • Identify vendors for “strategic alliance” consideration.
    • Help the organization achieve specific goals and objectives.
    • Identify and resolve issues before they impact performance or the relationship.

    Identifying your scorecard drivers first will help you craft a suitable scorecard.

    Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback (cont.)

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

    Info-Tech recommends starting with simple scorecards to allow you and the vendors to acclimate to the new process and information. As you build your scorecards, keep in mind that internal personnel will be scoring the vendors and the vendors will be reviewing the scorecard. Make your scorecard easy for your personnel to fill out and composed of meaningful content to drive the vendor in the right direction. You can always make the scorecard more complex in the future.

    Our recommendation of five categories is provided below. Choose three to five categories to help you accomplish your scorecard goals and objectives:

    1. Timeliness – responses, resolutions, fixes, submissions, completions, milestones, deliverables, invoices, etc.
    2. Cost – total cost of ownership, value, price stability, price increases/decreases, pricing models, etc.
    3. Quality – accuracy, completeness, mean time to failure, bugs, number of failures, etc.
    4. Personnel – skilled, experienced, knowledgeable, certified, friendly, trustworthy, flexible, accommodating, etc.
    5. Risk – adequate contractual protections, security breaches, lawsuits, finances, audit findings, etc.

    Some criteria may be applicable in more than one category. The categories above should cover at least 80% of the items that are important to your organization. The general criteria listed for each category is not an exhaustive list, but most things break down into time, money, quality, people, and risk issues.

    Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback (cont.)

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

    Additional Considerations

    • Even a good rating system can be confusing. Make sure you provide some examples or a way for reviewers to discern the differences between 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Don’t assume your “Rating Key” will be intuitive.
    • When assigning weights, don’t go lower than 10% for any measurement category. If the weight is too low, it won’t be relevant enough to have an impact on the total score. If it doesn’t “move the needle,” don’t include it.
    • Final sign-off on the scorecard template should occur outside of the VMI. The heavy lifting can be done by the VMI to create it, but the scorecard is for the benefit of the organization overall and those impacted by the vendors specifically. You may end up playing arbiter or referee, but the scorecard is not the exclusive property of the VMI. Try to reach consensus on your final template whenever possible.
    • You should notice improved ratings and total scores over time for your vendors. One explanation for this is the Pygmalion Effect: “The Pygmalion [E]ffect describes situations where someone’s high expectations improves our behavior and therefore our performance in a given area. It suggests that we do better when more is expected of us.”* Convey your expectations and let the vendors’ competitive juices take over.
    • While you’re creating your scorecard and materials to explain the process to internal personnel, identify those pieces that will help you explain it to your vendors as part of your vendor orientation (see steps 2.6 and 3.4). Leveraging pre-existing materials is a great shortcut.

    *Source: The Decision Lab, 2020

    Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback (cont.)

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

    Vendor Feedback

    After you’ve built your scorecard, turn your attention to the second half of the equation – feedback from the vendor. A communication loop cannot be successful without the dialogue flowing both ways. While this can happen with just a scorecard, a mechanism specifically geared toward the vendor providing you with feedback improves communication, alignment, and satisfaction.

    You may be tempted to create a formal scorecard for the vendor to use. Our recommendation is to avoid that temptation until later in your maturity or development of the VMI. You’ll be implementing a lot of new processes, deploying new tools and templates, and getting people to work together in new ways. Work on those things first.

    For now, implement an informal process for obtaining information from the vendor. Start by identifying information that you will find useful, information that will allow you to improve overall, to reduce waste or time, to improve processes, to identify gaps in skills. Incorporate these items into your business alignment meetings (see Steps 2.4 and 3.5). Create three to five good questions to ask the vendor and include these in the business alignment meeting agenda. The goal is to get meaningful feedback, and that starts with asking good questions.

    Keep it simple at first. When the time is right, you can build a more formal feedback form or scorecard. Don’t be in a rush though. So long as the informal method works, keep using it.

    2.3.1: Scorecards and feedback

    30-60 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and brainstorm ideas for your scorecard measurement categories:
      1. What makes a vendor valuable to your organization?
      2. What differentiates a “good” vendor from a “bad” vendor?
      3. What items would you like to measure and provide feedback to the vendor to improve performance, the relationship, risk, and other areas?
    2. Select three, but no more than five, of the following measure categories: timeliness, cost, quality, personnel, and risk.
    3. Within each measurement category, list two or three criteria that you want to measure and track for your vendors; choose items that are as universal as possible rather than being applicable to one vendor or one vendor type.
    4. Assign a weight to each measurement category, ensuring that the total weight is 100% for all measurement categories.
    5. Document your results as you go in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Scorecard.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • Configured scorecard template

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Scorecard

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    2.3.2: Scorecards and feedback

    15-30 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and brainstorm ideas for feedback to seek from your vendors during your business alignment meetings. During the brainstorming, identify questions to ask the vendor about your organization that will:
      1. Help you improve the relationship.
      2. Help you improve your processes or performance.
      3. Help you improve ongoing communication.
      4. Help you evaluate your personnel.
    2. Identify the top five questions you want to include in your business alignment meeting agenda. (Note: you may need to refine the actual questions from the brainstorming activity before they are ready to include in your business alignment meeting agenda.)
    3. Document both your brainstorming activity and your final results in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Feedback. The brainstorming questions can be used in the future as your VMI matures and your feedback transforms from informal to formal. The final results will be used in Steps 2.4 and 3.5.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • Feedback questions to include with the business alignment meeting agenda

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Feedback

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 2.4: Business alignment meeting agenda

    Craft an agenda that meets the needs of the VMI.

    A business alignment meeting (BAM) is a great, multi-faceted tool to ensure the customer and the vendor stay focused on what is important to the customer at a high level. BAMs are not traditional “operational” meetings where the parties get into the details of the contracts, deal with installation problems, address project management issues, or discuss specific cost overruns. The main focus of the BAM is the scorecard (see Step 2.3), but other topics are discussed and other purposes are served. For example, you can use the BAM to develop the relationship with the vendor’s leadership team so that if escalation is ever needed, your organization is more than just a name on a spreadsheet or customer list; you can learn about innovations the vendor is working on (without the meeting turning into a sales call); you can address high-level performance trends and request corrective action as needed; you can clarify your expectations; you can educate the vendor about your industry, culture, and organization; and you can learn more about the vendor.

    As you build your BAM agenda, someone in your organization may say, “Oh, that’s just a quarterly business review (QBR) or top-to-top meeting.” However, in most instances, an existing QBR or top-to-top meeting is not the same as a BAM. Using the term QBR or top-to-top meeting instead of BAM can lead to confusion internally. The VMI may say to the business unit, Procurement, or another department, “We’re going to start running some QBRs for our strategic vendors.” The typical response is, “There’s no need to do that. We already run QBRs/top-to-top meetings with our important vendors.” This may be accompanied by an invitation to join their meeting, where you may be an afterthought, have no influence, and get five minutes at the end to talk about your agenda items. Keep your BAM separate so that it meets your needs.

    Step 2.4: Business alignment meeting agenda (cont.)

    Craft an agenda that meets the needs of the VMI.

    As previously noted, using the term BAM more accurately depicts the nature of the VMI meeting and prevents confusion internally with other meetings already occurring. In addition, hosting the BAM yourself rather than piggybacking onto another meeting ensures that the VMI’s needs are met. The VMI will set and control the BAM agenda and determine the invite list for internal personnel and vendor personnel. As you may have figured out by now, having the right customer and vendor personnel attend will be essential.

    BAMs are conducted at the vendor level … not the contract level. As a result, the frequency of the BAMs will depend on the vendor’s classification category (see Steps 2.1 and 3.1). General frequency guidelines are provided below, but they can be modified to meet your goals:

    • Commodity Vendors – Not applicable
    • Operational Vendors – Biannually or annually
    • Strategic Vendors – Quarterly
    • Tactical Vendors – Quarterly or biannually

    BAMs can help you achieve some additional benefits not previously mentioned:

    • Foster a collaborative relationship with the vendor.
    • Avoid erroneous assumptions by the parties.
    • Capture and provide a record of the relationship (and other items) over time.

    Step 2.4: Business alignment meeting agenda (cont.)

    Craft an agenda that meets the needs of the VMI.

    As with any meeting, building the proper agenda will be one of the keys to an effective and efficient meeting. A high-level BAM agenda with sample topics is set out below:

    BAM Agenda

    • Opening Remarks
      • Welcome and introductions
      • Review of previous minutes
    • Active Discussion
      • Review of open issues
      • Scorecard and feedback
      • Current status of projects to ensure situational awareness by the vendor
      • Roadmap/strategy/future projects
      • Accomplishments
    • Closing Remarks
      • Reinforce positives (good behavior, results, and performance, value added, and expectations exceeded)
      • Recap
    • Adjourn

    2.4.1: Business alignment meeting agenda

    20-45 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and review the sample agenda in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.4 BAM Agenda.
    2. Using the sample agenda as inspiration and brainstorming activities as needed, create a BAM agenda tailored to your needs.
      1. Select the items from the sample agenda applicable to your situation.
      2. Add any items required based on your brainstorming.
      3. Add the feedback questions identified during Activity 2.3.2 and documented in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Feedback.
    3. Gain input and approval from sponsors, stakeholders, and executives as required or appropriate.
    4. Document the final BAM agenda in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.4 BAM Agenda.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Brainstorming
    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Feedback

    Output

    • Configured BAM agenda

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.4 BAM Agenda

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 2.5: Relationship alignment document

    Draft a document to convey important VMI information to your vendors.

    Throughout this blueprint, alignment is mentioned directly (e.g. business alignment meetings [Steps 2.4 and 3.5]) or indirectly implied. Ensuring you and your vendors are on the same page, have clear and transparent communication, and understand each other’s expectations is critical to fostering strong relationships. One component of gaining and maintaining alignment with your vendors is the relationship alignment document (RAD). Depending upon the scope of your VMI and what your organization already has in place, your RAD will fill in the gaps on various topics.

    Early in the VMI’s maturation, the easiest approach is to develop a short document (i.e. 1 page) or a pamphlet (i.e. the classic trifold) describing the rules of engagement when doing business with your organization. The RAD can convey expectations, policies, guidelines, and other items. The scope of the document will depend on 1) what you believe is important for the vendors to understand, and 2) any other similar information already provided to the vendors.

    The first step to drafting a RAD is to identify what information vendors need to know to stay on your good side. For example, you may want vendors to know about your gift policy (e.g. employees may not accept gifts from vendors above a nominal value such as a pen or mousepad). Next, compare your list of what vendors need to know and determine if the content is covered in other vendor-facing documents such as a vendor code of conduct or your website’s vendor portal. Lastly, create your RAD to bridge the gap between what you want and what is already in place. In some instances, you may want to include items from other documents to reemphasize them with the vendor community.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The RAD can be used with all vendors regardless of classification category. It can be sent directly to the vendors or given to them during vendor orientation (see Step 3.3)

    2.5.1: Relationship alignment document

    1-4 hours

    1. Meet with the participants and review the RAD sample and checklist in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.5 Relationship Alignment Doc.
    2. Determine:
      1. Whether you will create one RAD for all vendors or one RAD for strategic vendors and another RAD for tactical and operational vendors; whether you will create a RAD for commodity vendors.
      2. The concepts you want to include in your RAD(s).
      3. The format for your RAD(s) – traditional, pamphlet, or other.
      4. Whether signoff or acknowledgement will be required by the vendors.
    3. Draft your RAD(s) and work with other internal areas such as Marketing to create a consistent brand for the RADS and Legal to ensure consistent use and preservation of trademarks or other intellectual property rights and other legal issues.
    4. Review other vendor-facing documents (e.g. supplier code of conduct, onsite safety and security protocols) for consistencies between them and the RAD(s).
    5. Obtain signoff on the RAD(s) from stakeholders, sponsors, executives, Legal, Marketing, and others as needed.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Brainstorming
    • Vendor-facing documents, policies, and procedures

    Output

    • Completed relationship alignment document(s)

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.5 Relationship Alignment Doc

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Marketing, as needed
    • Legal, as needed

    Step 2.6: Vendor orientation

    Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors.

    Vendor Orientation: 01 - Orientation; 02 - Reorientation; 03 - Debrief

    Your organization is unique. It may have many similarities with other organizations, but your culture, risk tolerance, mission, vision, and goals, finances, employees, and “customers” (those that depend on you) make it different. The same is true of your VMI. It may have similar principles, objectives, and processes to other organizations’ VMIs, but yours is still unique. As a result, your vendors may not fully understand your organization and what vendor management means to you.

    Vendor orientation is another means to helping you gain and maintain alignment with your important vendors, educate them on what is important to you, and provide closure when/if the relationship with the vendor ends. Vendor orientation is comprised of three components, each with a different function:

    • Orientation
    • Reorientation
    • Debrief

    Vendor orientation focuses on the vendor management pieces of the puzzle (e.g. the scorecard process) rather than the operational pieces (e.g. setting up a new vendor in the system to ensure invoices are processed smoothly).

    Step 2.6: Vendor orientation (cont.)

    Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors.

    Vendor Orientation: 01 - Orientation

    Orientation

    Orientation is conceptually similar to new hire orientation for employees at your organization. Generally conducted as a meeting, orientation provides your vendors with the information they need to be successful when working with your organization. Sadly, this is often overlooked by customers; it can take months or years for vendors to figure it out by themselves. By controlling the narrative and condensing the timeline, vendor relationships and performance improve more rapidly.

    A partial list of topics for orientation is set out below:

    • Your organization’s structure
    • Your organization’s culture
    • Your relationship expectations
    • Your governances (VMI and other)
    • Their vendor classification designation (commodity, operational, strategic, or tactical)
    • The scorecard process
    • Business alignment meetings
    • Relationship alignment documents

    In short, this is the first step toward building (or continuing to build) a robust, collaborative, mutually beneficial relationship with your important vendors.

    Step 2.6: Vendor orientation (cont.)

    Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors.

    Vendor Orientation: 02 - Reorientation

    Reorientation

    Reorientation is either identical or similar to orientation, depending upon the circumstances. Reorientation occurs for a number of reasons, and each reason will impact the nature and detail of the reorientation content. Reorientation occurs whenever:

    • There is a significant change in the vendor’s products or services.
    • The vendor has been through a merger, acquisition, or divestiture.
    • A significant contract renewal/renegotiation has recently occurred.
    • Sufficient time has passed from orientation; commonly 2 to 3 years.
    • The vendor has been placed in a “performance improvement plan” or “relationship improvement plan” protocol.
    • Significant turnover has occurred within your organization (executives, key stakeholders, and/or VMI personnel).
    • Substantial turnover has occurred at the vendor at the executive or account management level.
    • The vendor has changed vendor classification categories after the most current classification.

    As the name implies, the goal is to refamiliarize the vendor with your current VMI situation, governances, protocols, and expectations. The drivers for reorientation will help you determine its scope, scale, and frequency.

    Step 2.6: Vendor orientation (cont.)

    Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors.

    Vendor Orientation: 03 - Debrief

    Debrief

    To continue the analogy from orientation, debrief is similar to an exit interview for an employee when their employment is terminated. In this case, debrief occurs when the vendor is no longer an active vendor with your organization – all contracts have terminated or expired, and no new business with the vendor is anticipated within the next three months.

    Similar to orientation and reorientation, debrief activities will be based on the vendor’s classification category within the COST model. Strategic vendors don’t go away very often; usually, they transition to operational or tactical vendors first. However, if a strategic vendor is no longer providing products or services to you, dig a little deeper into their experiences and allocate extra time for the debrief meeting.

    The debrief should provide you with feedback on the vendor’s experience with your organization and their participation in your VMI. In addition, it can provide closure for both parties since the relationship is ending. Be careful that the debrief does not turn into a finger-pointing meeting or therapy session for the vendor. It should be professional and productive; if it is going off the rails, terminate the meeting before more damage can occur.

    End the debrief on a high note if possible. Thank the vendor, highlight its key contributions, and single out any personnel who went above and beyond. You never know when you will be doing business with this vendor again – don’t burn bridges!

    Step 2.6: Vendor orientation (cont.)

    Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors.

    • As you create your vendor orientation materials, focus on the message you want to convey.
    • For orientation and reorientation:
      • What is important to you that vendors need to know?
      • What will help the vendors understand more about your organization … your VMI?
      • What and how are you different from other organizations overall … in your “industry”?
      • What will help them understand your expectations?
      • What will help them be more successful?
      • What will help you build the relationship?
    • For debrief:
      • What information or feedback do you want to obtain?
      • What information or feedback to you want to give?
    • The level of detail you provide strategic vendors during orientation and reorientation may be different from the information you provide tactical and operational vendors. Commodity vendors are not typically involved in the vendor orientation process. The orientation meetings can be conducted on a one-to-one basis for strategic vendors and a one-to-many basis for operational and tactical vendors; reorientation and debrief are best conducted on a one-to-one basis. Lastly, face-to-face or video meetings work best for vendor orientation; voice-only meetings, recorded videos, or distributing only written materials seldom hit their mark or achieve the desired results.

    2.6.1: Vendor orientation

    1 to several hours

    1. Meet with the participants and review the Phase Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.6 Vendor Orientation.
      1. Use the orientation checklist to identify the materials you want to create for your orientation meetings.
      2. Use the reorientation checklist to identify the materials you want to create for your reorientation meetings.
    2. The selections can be made by classification category (i.e. different items can apply to strategic, operational, and tactical vendors).
    3. Create the materials and seek input and/or approval from sponsors, stakeholders, and executives as needed.
    4. Use the debrief section of the tool to create an agenda, list the questions you want to ask vendors, and list information you want to provide to vendors. The agenda, questions, and information can be segregated by classification category.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • Agendas and materials for orientation, reorientation, and debrief

    Materials

    • Phase Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.6 Vendor Orientation

    Participants

    • VMI team

    Step 2.7: Job descriptions

    Ensure new and existing job descriptions are up to date.

    Based on your work product from Steps 1.1-1.9, it’s time to start drafting new or modifying existing job descriptions applicable to the VMI team members. Some of the VMI personnel may be dedicated full-time to the VMI, while others may be supporting the VMI on a part-time basis. At a minimum, create or modify your job descriptions based on the categories set out below. Remember to get the internal experts involved so that you stay true to your environment and culture.

    01 Title

    This should align overall with what the person will be doing and what the person will be responsible for. Your hands may be tied with respect to titles, but try to make them intuitively descriptive if possible.

    02 Duties

    This is the main portion of the job description. List the duties, responsibilities, tasks, activities, and results expected. Again, there may be some limitations imposed by your organization, but be as thorough as possible.

    03 Qualifications

    This tends to be a gray area for many organizations, with the qualifications, certifications, and experience desired expressed in “ranges” so that good candidates are not eliminated from consideration unnecessarily.

    2.7.1: Job descriptions

    1 to several hours

    1. Meet with the participants and review the VMI structure from Step 1.9.
      1. List the positions that require new job descriptions.
      2. List the positions that require updated job descriptions.
    2. Review the other Phase 1 work product and list the responsibilities, tasks, and functions that need to be incorporated into the new and updated job descriptions.
    3. Review the sample VMI job descriptions and sample VMI job description language in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.7 Job Descriptions, and identify language and concepts you want to include in the new and revised job descriptions.
    4. Using your template, draft the new job descriptions and modify the existing job descriptions to synchronize with the VMI structure. Work with other internal areas such as Human Resources to ensure cultural fit and compliance.
    5. Obtain input and signoff on the job descriptions from stakeholders, sponsors, executives, Human Resources, and others as needed.
    6. Document your final job descriptions in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.7 Job Descriptions.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Brainstorming
    • Existing job descriptions
    • Work product from Phase 1

    Output

    • Job descriptions for new positions
    • Updated job descriptions for existing positions

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.7 Job Descriptions

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Human Resources (as needed)
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 2.8: Policies and procedures

    Prepare policies and procedures for VMI functions.

    Policies and procedures are often thought of as boring documents that are 1) tedious to create, 2) seldom read after creation, and 3) only used to punish people when they do something “wrong.” However, when done well, these documents:

    • Communicate expectations.
    • Capture institutional knowledge.
    • Provide guidance for decision making.
    • Help workers avoid errors and minimize risk.
    • Ensure regulatory and organizational compliance.
    • List the steps required to achieve consistent results.

    Definitions of Policies and Procedures

    Policies and procedures are essential, but they are often confused with each other. A policy is a rule, guideline, or framework for making decisions. For example, in the vendor management space, you may want a policy indicating your organization’s view on gifts from vendors. A procedure is a set of instructions for completing a task or activity. For example, staying in the vendor management space, you may want a procedure to outline the process for classifying vendors.

    Step 2.8: Policies and procedures (cont.)

    Prepare policies and procedures for VMI functions.

    Start With Your Policy/Procedure Template or Create One for Consistency

    When creating policies and procedures, follow your template. If you don’t have one (or want to see if anything is missing from your template) the following list of potential components for your governance documents is provided.* Not every concept is required. Use your judgment and err on the side of caution when drafting; balance readability and helpfulness against over documenting and over complicating.

    • Descriptive Title
    • Policy Number
    • Brief Overview
    • Purpose
    • Scope
    • The Policy or Procedure
    • Definitions
    • Revision Date
    • History
    • Related Documents
    • Keywords

    Step 2.8: Policies and procedures (cont.)

    Prepare policies and procedures for VMI functions.

    Although they are not ever going to be compared to page-turning novels, policies and procedures can be improved by following a few basic principles. By following the guidelines set out below, your VMI policies and procedures will contribute to the effectiveness of your initiative.*

    • Use short sentences.
    • Organize topics logically.
    • Use white space liberally.
    • Use mandatory language.
    • Use gender-neutral terms.
    • Write with an active voice.
    • Avoid jargon when possible.
    • Use a consistent “voice” and tone.
    • Use pictures or diagrams when they will help.
    • Write in the same tense throughout the document.
    • Use icons and colors to designate specific elements.
    • Make sure links to other policies and procedures work.
    • Define all acronyms and jargon (when it must be used).
    • Avoid a numbering scheme with more than three levels.

    *Adapted in part from smartsheet.com

    Info-Tech Insight

    Drafting policies and procedures is an iterative process that requires feedback from the organization’s leadership team.

    2.8.1: Policies and procedures

    Several hours

    1. Meet with the participants and review the sample policies and procedures topics in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.8 Policies and Procedures.
    2. Determine:
      1. The concepts you want to include in your policies and procedures; brainstorm for any additional concepts you want to include.
      2. The format/template for your policies and procedures.
    3. Draft your policies and procedures based on the sample topics and your brainstorming activity. Work with other internal areas such as Legal and Human Resources to ensure cultural and environmental fit within your organization.
    4. Obtain input and signoff on the policies and procedures from stakeholders, sponsors, executives, Legal, Human Resources, and others as needed.
    5. Document your final policies and procedures in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.8 Policies and Procedures.
    6. Publish your policies and procedures and conduct training sessions or awareness sessions as needed.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Existing policies and procedures (if any)
    • Existing policies and procedures template (if any)
    • Scope
    • OIC chart
    • Process maps
    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • VMI policies and procedures

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.8 Policies and Procedures

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Legal and Human Resources (as needed)
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 2.9: 3-year roadmap

    Plot your path at a high level.

    The VMI exists in many planes concurrently: 1) it operates both tactically and strategically, and 2) it focuses on different timelines or horizons (e.g. the past, the present, and the future). Creating a 3-year roadmap facilitates the VMI’s ability to function effectively across these multiple landscapes.

    The VMI roadmap will be influenced by many factors. The work product from Phase 1: Plan, input from executives, stakeholders, and internal clients, and the direction of the organization as a whole are great sources of information as you begin to build your roadmap.

    To start, identify what you would like to accomplish in Year 1. This is arguably the easiest year to complete: budgets are set (or you have a good idea what the budget will look like), personnel decisions have been made, resources have been allocated, and other issues impacting the VMI are known with a higher degree of certainty than any other year. This does not mean things won’t change during the first year of the VMI, but expectations are usually lower and the short event horizon makes things more predictable during the Year-1 ramp-up period.

    Years 2 and 3 are more tenuous, but the process is the same: identify what you would like to accomplish or roll out in each year. Typically, the VMI maintains the Year 1 plan into subsequent years and adds to the scope or maturity. For example, you may start Year 1 with BAMs and scorecards for three of your strategic vendors; during Year 2, you may increase that to five vendors; and during Year 3, you may increase that to nine vendors. Or, you may not conduct any market research during Year 1, waiting to add it to your roadmap in Year 2 or 3 as you mature.

    Breaking things down by year helps you identify what is important and the timing associated with your priorities. A conservative approach is recommended. It is easy to overcommit, but the results can be disastrous and painful.

    2.9.1: 3-year roadmap

    45-90 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and decide how to coordinate Year 1 of your 3-year roadmap with your existing fiscal year or reporting year. Year 1 may be shorter or longer than a calendar year.
    2. Review the VMI activities listed in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.9 3-Year Roadmap. Use brainstorming and your prior work product from Phase 1 and Phase 2 to identify additional items for the roadmap and add them at the bottom of the spreadsheet.
    3. Starting with the first activity, determine when that activity will begin and put an X in the corresponding column; if the activity is not applicable, leave it blank or insert N/A.
    4. Go back to the top of the list and add information as needed.
      1. For any Year-1 or Year-2 activities, add an X in the corresponding columns if the activity will be expanded/continued in subsequent periods (e.g. if a Year 2 activity will continue in Year 3, put an X in Year 3 as well).
      2. Use the comments column to provide clarifying remarks or additional insights related to your plans or “X’s.” For example, “Scorecards begin in Year 1 with three vendors and will roll out to five vendors in Year 2 and nine vendors in Year 3.”
    5. Obtain signoff from stakeholders, sponsors, and executives as needed.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Phase 1 work product
    • Steps 2.1-2.8 work product
    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • High level 3-year roadmap for the VMI

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.9 3-Year Roadmap

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 2.10: 90-day plan

    Pave your short-term path with a series of detailed quarterly plans.

    Now that you have prepared a 3-year roadmap, it’s time to take the most significant elements from the first year and create action plans for each three-month period. Your first 90-day plan may be longer or shorter if you want to sync to your fiscal or calendar quarters. Aligning with your fiscal year can make it easier for tracking and reporting purposes; however, the more critical item is to make sure you have a rolling series of four 90-day plans to keep you focused on the important activities and tasks throughout the year.

    The 90-day plan is a simple project plan that will help you measure, monitor, and report your progress. Use the Info-Tech tool to help you track:

    • Activities
    • Tasks comprising each activity
    • Who will be performing the tasks
    • An estimate of the time required per person per task
    • An estimate of the total time to achieve the activity
    • A due date for the activity
    • A priority of the activity

    The first 90-day plan will have the greatest level of detail and should be as thorough as possible; the remaining three 90-day plans will each have less detail for now. As you approach the middle of the first 90-day plan, start adding details to the next 90-day plan; toward the end of the first quarter add a high-level 90-day plan to the end of the chain. Continue repeating this cycle each quarter and consult the 3-year roadmap and the leadership team as necessary.

    90 Days

    2.10.1: 90-day plan

    45-90 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and decide how to coordinate the first 90-day plan with your existing fiscal year or reporting cycles. Your first plan may be shorter or longer than 90 days.
    2. Looking at the Year 1 section of the 3-year roadmap, identify the activities that will be started during the next 90 days.
    3. Using the Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.10 90-Day Plan, enter the following information into the spreadsheet for each activity to be accomplished during the next 90 days:
      1. Activity description
      2. Tasks required to complete the activity (be specific and descriptive)
      3. The people who will be performing each task
      4. The estimated number of hours required to complete each task
      5. The start date and due date for each task or the activity
    4. Validate the tasks are a complete list for each activity and the people performing the tasks have adequate time to complete the tasks by the due date(s).
    5. Assign a priority to each activity.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • 3-year roadmap
    • Phase 1 work product
    • Steps 2.1-2.9 work product
    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • Detailed plan for the VMI for the next quarter or 90 days

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.10 90-Day Plan

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 2.11: Quick wins

    Identify potential short-term successes to gain momentum and show value immediately.

    As the final step in the timeline trilogy, you are ready to identify some quick wins for the VMI. Using the first 90-day plan and a brainstorming activity, create a list of things you can do in 15 to 30 days that add value to your initiative and build momentum.

    As you evaluate your list of potential candidates, look for things that:

    • Are achievable within the stated timeline.
    • Don’t require a lot of effort.
    • Involve stopping a certain process, activity, or task; this is sometimes known as a “stop doing stupid stuff” approach.
    • Will reduce or eliminate inefficiencies; this is sometimes known as the war on waste.
    • Have a moderate to high impact or bolster the VMI’s reputation.

    As you look for quick wins, you may find that everything you identify does not meet the criteria. That’s ok … don’t force the issue. Return your focus to the 90-day plan and 3-year roadmap, and update those documents if the brainstorming activity associated with this Step 2.11 identified anything new.

    2.11.1: Quick wins

    15-30 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and review the 3-year roadmap and 90-day plan. Determine if any item on either document can be completed:
      1. Quickly (30 days or less)
      2. With minimal effort
      3. To provide or show moderate to high levels of value or provide the VMI with momentum
    2. Brainstorm to identify any other items that meet the criteria in step 1 above.
    3. Compile a comprehensive list of these items and select up to five to pursue.
    4. Document the list in the Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.11 Quick Wins.
    5. Manage the quick wins list and share the results with the VMI team and applicable stakeholders and executives.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • 3-year roadmap
    • 90-day plan
    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • A list of activities that require low levels of effort to achieve moderate to high levels of value in a short period

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.11 Quick Wins

    Participants

    • VMI team

    Step 2.12: Reports

    Construct your reports to resonate with your audience.

    Issuing reports is a critical piece of the VMI since the VMI is a conduit of information for the organization. It may be aggregating risk data from internal areas, conducting vendor research, compiling performance data, reviewing market intelligence, or obtaining relevant statistics, feedback, comments, facts, and figures from other sources. Holding onto this information minimizes the impact a VMI can have on the organization; however, the VMI’s internal clients, stakeholders, and executives can drown in raw data and ignore it completely if it is not transformed into meaningful, easily-digested information.

    Before building a report, think about your intended audience:

    • What information are they looking for … what will help them understand the big picture?
    • What level of detail is appropriate, keeping in mind the audience may not be like-minded?
    • What items are universal to all of the readers and what items are of interest to one or two readers?
    • How easy or hard will it be to collect the data … who will be providing it, how time consuming will it be?
    • How accurate, valid, and timely will the data be?
    • How frequently will each report need to be issued?

    Step 2.12: Reports (cont.)

    Construct your reports to resonate with your audience.

    Use the following guidelines to create reports that will resonate with your audience:

    • Value information over data, but sometimes data does have a place in your report.
    • Use pictures, graphics, and other representations more than words, but words are often necessary in small, concise doses.
    • Segregate your report by user; for example, general information up top, CIO information below that on the right, CFO information to the left of CIO information, etc.
    • Send a draft report to the internal audience and seek feedback, keeping in mind you won’t be able to cater to or please everyone.

    Step 2.12: Reports (cont.)

    Construct your reports to resonate with your audience.

    The report’s formatting and content display can make or break your reports.*

    • Make the report look inviting and easy to read. Use:
      • Short paragraphs and bullet points.
      • A simple layout and uncluttered, wide margins.
      • Minimal boldface, underline, or italics to attract the readers’ attention.
      • High contrast between text and background.
    • Charts, graphs, and infographics should be intuitive and tell the story on their own.
    • Make it easy to peruse the report for topics of interest.
      • Maintain consistent design features.
      • Use impactful, meaningful headings and subheadings.
      • Include callouts to draw attention to important high-level information.
    • Demonstrate the impact of the accomplishments or success stories when appropriate.
    • Finish with a simple concise summary when appropriate. Consider adding:
      • Key points for the reader to takeaway.
      • Action items or requests.
      • Plans for next reporting period.

    *Sources: Adapted and compiled in part from: designeclectic.com, ahrq.gov, and 60secondmarketer.com.

    2.12.1: Reports

    15-45 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and review the applicable work product from Phases 1 and 2; identify qualitative and quantitative items the VMI measures, monitors, tracks, or aggregates.
    2. Determine which items will be reported and to whom (by category):
      1. Internally to personnel within the VMI
      2. Internally to personnel outside the VMI
      3. Externally to vendors
    3. Within each category above, determine your intended audiences/recipients. For example, you may have a different list of recipients for a risk report than you do a scorecard summary report. This will help you identify the number of reports required.
    4. Create a draft structure for each report based on the audience and the information being conveyed. Determine the frequency of each report and person responsible for creating for each report.
    5. Document your final choices in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.12 Reports.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Brainstorming
    • Phase 1 work product
    • Steps 2.1-2.11 work product

    Output

    • A list of reports used by the VMI
    • For each report:
    • The conceptual content
    • A list of who will receive or have access
    • A creation/distribution frequency

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.12 Reports

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Phase 3: Run

    Implement Your Processes and Leverage Your Tools and Templates

    Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4
    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals
    1.2 Scope
    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles
    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities
    1.5 Process Mapping
    1.6 Charter
    1.7 Vendor Inventory
    1.8 Maturity Assessment
    1.9 Structure

    2.1 Classification Model
    2.2 Risk Assessment Tool
    2.3 Scorecards and Feedback
    2.4 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda
    2.5 Relationship Alignment Document
    2.6 Vendor Orientation
    2.7 Job Descriptions
    2.8 Policies and Procedures
    2.9 3-Year Roadmap
    2.10 90-Day Plan
    2.11 Quick Wins
    2.12 Reports

    3.1 Classify Vendors
    3.2 Conduct Internal “Kickoff” Meeting
    3.3 Conduct Vendor Orientation
    3.4 Compile Scorecards
    3.5 Conduct Business Alignment Meetings
    3.6 Work the 90-Day Plan
    3.7 Manage the 3-Year Roadmap
    3.8 Measure and Monitor Risk
    3.9 Issue Reports
    3.10 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships
    3.11 Contribute to Other Processes

    4.1 Assess Compliance
    4.2 Incorporate Leading Practices
    4.3 Leverage Lessons Learned
    4.4 Maintain Internal Alignment
    4.5 Update Governances

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    Begin operating the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are guidance and the steps required to implement your VMI.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives
    • Others as needed

    Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

    Phase 3: Run

    Implement your processes and leverage your tools and templates.

    All of the hard work invested in Phase 1: Plan and Phase 2: Build begins to pay off in Phase 3: Run. It’s time to stand up your VMI and ensure that the proper level of resources is devoted to your vendors and the VMI itself. There’s more hard work ahead, but the foundational elements are in place. This doesn’t mean there won’t be adjustments and modifications along the way, but you are ready to use the tools and templates in the real world; you are ready to begin reaping the fruits of your labor.

    Phase 3: Run guides you through the process of collecting data, monitoring trends, issuing reports, and conducting effective meetings to:

    • Manage risk better.
    • Improve vendor performance.
    • Improve vendor relationships.
    • Identify areas where the parties can improve.
    • Improve communication between the parties.
    • Increase the value proposition with your vendors.

    Step 3.1: Classify vendors

    Begin classifying your top 25 vendors by spend.

    Step 3.1 sets the table for many of the subsequent steps in Phase 3: Run. The results of your classification process will determine: which vendors go through the scorecarding process (Step 3.4); which vendors participate in BAMs (Step 3.5); the nature and content of the vendor orientation activities (Step 3.3); which vendors will be part of the risk measurement and monitoring process (Step 3.8); which vendors will be included in the reports issued by the VMI (Step 3.9); and which vendors you will devote relationship-building resources to (Step 3.10).

    As you begin classifying your vendors, Info-Tech recommends using an iterative approach initially to validate the results from the classification model you configured in Step 2.1.

    1. Using the information from the Vendor Inventory tab (Step 1.7), identify your top 25 vendors by spend.
    2. Run your top 10 vendors by spend through the classification model and review the results.
      1. If the results are what you expected and do not contain any significant surprises, go to next page.
      2. If the results are not what you expected or contain significant surprises, look at the configuration page of the tool (Tab 1) and adjust the weights or the spend categories slightly. Be cautious in your evaluation of the results before modifying the configuration page – some legitimate results are unexpected or surprising based on bias. If you modify the weighting, review the new results and repeat your evaluation. If you modify the spend categories, review the answers on the vendor tabs to ensure that the answers are still accurate; review the new results and repeat your evaluation.

    Step 3.1: Classify vendors (cont.)

    Review your results and adjust the classification tool as needed.

    1. Run your top 11 through 25 vendors by spend through the classification model and review the results. Identify any unexpected results or surprises. Determine if further configuration makes sense and repeat the process outlined in 2.b, previous page, as necessary. If no further modifications are required, continue to 4, below.
    2. Share the preliminary results with the leadership team, executives, and stakeholders to obtain their approval or adjustments to the results.
      1. They may have questions and want to understand the process before approving the results.
      2. They may request that you move a vendor from one quadrant to another based on your organization’s roadmap, the vendor’s roadmap, or other information not available to you.
    3. Identify the vendors that will be part of the VMI at this stage – how many and which ones. Based on this number and the VMI’s scope (Step 1.2), make sure you have the resources necessary to accommodate the number of vendors participating in the VMI. Proceed cautiously and gradually increase the number of vendors participating in the VMI.

    Step 3.1: Classify vendors (cont.)

    Finalize the results and update VMI tools and templates.

    1. Update the Vendor Inventory tab (Step 1.7) to indicate the current classification status for the top 25 vendors by spend. Once your vendors have been classified, you can sort the Vendor Inventory tab by classification status to see all the vendors in that category at once.
    2. Review your 3-year roadmap (Step 2.9) and 90-day plans (Step 2.10) to determine if any modifications are needed to the activities and timelines.

    Additional classification considerations:

    • You should only have a few vendors that fit in the strategic category. As a rough guideline, no more than 5% to 10% of your IT vendors should end up in the strategic category. If you have a large number of vendors, even 5% may be too many. The classification model is an objective start to the classification process, but common sense must prevail over the “math” at the end of the day.
    • At this point, there is no need to go beyond the top 25 by spend. Most VMIs starting out can’t handle more than three to five strategic vendors initially. Allow the VMI to run a pilot program with a small sample size, work out any bugs, make adjustments, and then ramp up the VMI’s rollout in waves. Vendors can be added quarterly, biannually, or annually, depending upon the desired goals and available resources.

    Step 3.1: Classify vendors (cont.)

    Align your vendor strategy to your classification results.

    As your VMI matures, additional vendors will be part of the VMI. Review the table below and incorporate the applicable strategies into your deployment of vendor management principles over time. Stay true to your mission, goals, and scope, and remember that not all of your vendors are of equal importance.

    Operational Strategic
    • Focus on spend containment
    • Concentrate on lowering total cost of ownership
    • Invest moderately in cultivating the relationship
    • Conduct BAMs biannually or annually
    • Compile scorecards quarterly or biannually
    • Identify areas for performance and cost improvement
    • Focus on value, collaboration, and alignment
    • Review market intelligence for the vendor’s industry
    • Invest significantly in cultivating the relationship
    • Initiate executive-to-executive relationships
    • Conduct BAMs quarterly
    • Compile scorecards quarterly
    • Understand how the vendors view your organization

    Commodity

    Tactical

    • Investigate vendor rationalization and consolidation
    • Negotiate for the best-possible price
    • Leverage competition during negotiations
    • Streamline the purchasing and payment process
    • Allocate minimal VMI resources
    • Assign the lowest priority for vendor management metrics
    • Conduct risk assessments biannually or annually
    • Cultivate a collaborative relationship based on future growth plans or potential with the vendor
    • Conduct BAMs quarterly or biannually
    • Compile scorecards quarterly
    • Identify areas of performance improvement
    • Leverage innovation and creative problem solving

    Step 3.1: Classify vendors (cont.)

    Be careful when using the word “partner” with your strategic and other vendors.

    For decades, vendors have used the term “partner” to refer to the relationship they have with their clients and customers. In many regards, this is often an emotional ploy used by the vendors to get the upper hand. To fully understand the terms “partner” and “partnership” let’s evaluate them through two more-objective, less-cynical lenses.

    If you were to talk to your in-house or outside legal counsel, you may be told that partners share in profits and losses, and they have a fiduciary obligation to each other. Unless there is a joint venture between the parties, you are unlikely to have a partnership with a vendor from this perspective.

    What about a “business” partnership … one that doesn’t involve sharing profits and losses? What would that look like? Here are some indicators of a business partnership (or preferably a strategic alliance):

    • Trust and transparent communication exist.
    • You have input into the vendor’s roadmap for products and services.
    • The vendor is aligned with your desired outcomes and helps you achieve success.
    • You and the vendor are accountable for actions and inactions, with both parties being at risk.
    • There is parity in the peer-to-peer relationships between the organizations (e.g. C-Level to C-Level).
    • The vendor provides transparency in pricing models and proactively suggests ways for you to reduce costs.
    • You and the vendor work together to make each party better, providing constructive feedback on a regular basis.
    • The vendor provides innovative suggestions for you to improve your processes, performance, the bottom line, etc.
    • Negotiations are not one-sided; they are meaningful and productive, resulting in an equitable distribution of money and risk.

    Step 3.1: Classify vendors (cont.)

    Understand the implications and how to leverage the words “partner” and “partnership.”

    By now you might be thinking, “What’s all the fuss? Why does it matter?” At Info-Tech, we’ve seen firsthand how referring to the vendor as a partner can have the following impact:

    • Confidences are disclosed unnecessarily.
    • Negotiation opportunities and leverage are lost.
    • Vendors no longer have to earn the customer’s business.
    • Vendor accountability is missing due to shared responsibilities.
    • Competent skilled vendor resources are assigned to other accounts.
    • Value erodes over time since contracts are renewed without being competitively sourced.
    • One-sided relationships are established, and false assurances are provided at the highest levels within the customer organization.

    Proceed with caution when using partner or partnership with your vendors. Understand how your organization benefits from using these terms and mitigate the negatives outlined above by raising awareness internally to ensure people understand the psychology behind the terms. Finally, use the term to your advantage when warranted by referring to the vendor as a partner when you want or need something that the vendor is reluctant to provide. Bottom line: Be strategic in how you refer to vendors and know the risks.

    Step 3.2: Conduct internal “kickoff” meeting

    Raise awareness about the VMI and its mission, vision, and goals.

    To be effective, your VMI needs executive support, a clear vision, appropriate governances and tools, personnel with the right skills, and other items discussed in this blueprint. However, the VMI doesn’t exist in a vacuum … it can’t sit back and be reactive. As part of being proactive, the VMI must be aware of its brand and “market” its services. An effective way to market the VMI is to conduct an internal kickoff meeting. There are at least a couple of ways to do this:

    • Host a meeting for stakeholders, executives, and others who will be contributing to the VMI processes (but are not part of the VMI). The meeting can be part of a townhall or standalone meeting; it can be done live or via a recorded video.
    • Attend appropriate staff meetings and make your presentation.

    With either approach above or one of your choosing, keep in mind the following objectives for your kickoff meeting:

    • Make sure you provide a way for those in attendance to ask questions at that time and later. You want to create and foster a communication loop with the people who will be impacted by the VMI or participating with it.
    • Raise awareness of your existence and personnel. Tell the VMI’s story by sharing your mission statement, goals, and scope; this will help dispel (or confirm) rumors about the VMI that often lead to confusion and faulty assumptions.
    • As you share the VMI’s vision, connect the story to how the VMI will impact the organization and individuals and to how they can help. The VMI tends to be the least autonomous area within an organization; it needs the assistance of others to be successful. Convey an atmosphere of collaboration and appreciation for their help.

    Host a kickoff meeting annually to kickoff the new year. Remind people of your story, announce successes from the past year, and indicate what the future year holds. Keep it brief, make it personal for the audience, and help them connect the names of VMI personnel to faces.

    Step 3.3: Conduct vendor orientation

    Introduce your VMI to your top vendors.

    Based on the results from your vendor classification (Step 3.1) and your VMI deployment timeline, identify the vendors who will participate in the initial orientation meetings. Treat the orientation as a formal, required meeting for the vendors to attend. Determine the attendee list for your organization and the vendors, and send out invites. Ideally, you will want the account manager, a sales director or vice president, the “delivery” director or vice president, and an executive from the vendor in the meeting. From the customer side, you may need more than one or two people from the VMI to entice the vendor’s leadership team to attend; you may need attendance from your own leadership team to add weight or credibility to the meeting (unfortunately).

    Before going into the meeting, make sure everyone on your side knows their roles and responsibilities, and review the agenda. Control the agenda or the meeting is likely to get out of hand and turn into a sales call.

    Conduct orientation meetings even if the participating vendors have been doing business with you for several years. Don’t assume they know all about your organization and your VMI (even if their other clients have a VMI).

    Run two or three orientation meetings and then review the “results.” What needs to be modified? What lessons have you learned? Make any necessary adjustments and continue rolling out the orientation meetings.

    Early in the VMI’s deployment, reorientation and debrief may not be in play. As time passes, it is important to remember them! Use them when warranted to help with vendor alignment.

    Step 3.4: Compile scorecards

    Begin scoring your top vendors.

    The scorecard process typically is owned and operated by the VMI, but the actual rating of the criteria within the measurement categories is conducted by those with day-to-day interactions with the vendors, those using or impacted by the services and products provided by the vendors, and those with the skills to research other information on the scorecard (e.g. risk). Chances are one person will not be able to complete an entire scorecard by themselves. As a result, the scorecard process is a team sport comprising sub-teams where necessary.

    The VMI will compile the scores, calculate the final results, and aggregate all of the comments into one scorecard. There are two common ways to approach this task:

    1. Send out the scorecard template to those who will be scoring the vendor and ask them to return it when completed, providing them with a due date a few days before you actually need it; you’ll need time to compile, calculate, and aggregate.
    2. Invite those who will be scoring the vendor to a meeting and let the contributors use that time to score the vendors; make VMI team members available to answer questions and facilitate the process.

    Step 3.4: Compile scorecards (cont.)

    Gather input from stakeholders and others impacted by the vendors.

    Since multiple people will be involved in the scorecarding process or have information to contribute, the VMI will have to work with the reviewers to ensure that the right mix of data is provided. For example:

    • If you are tracking lawsuits filed by or against the vendor, one person from Legal may be able to provide that, but they may not be able to evaluate any other criteria on the scorecard.
    • If you are tracking salesperson competencies, multiple people from multiple areas may have valuable insights.
    • If you are tracking deliverable timeliness, several project managers may want to contribute across several projects.

    Where one person is contributing exclusively to limited criteria, make it easy for the person to identify the criteria they are to evaluate. When multiple people from the same functional area will provide insights, they can contribute individually (and the VMI will average their responses) or they can respond collectively after reaching consensus among themselves.

    After the VMI has compiled, calculated, and aggregated, share the results with executives, impacted stakeholders, and others who will be attending the BAM for that vendor. Depending upon the comments provided by internal personnel, you may need to create a sanitized version of the scorecard for the vendor.

    Make sure your process timeline has a buffer built in. You’ll be sending the final scorecard to the vendor three to five days before the BAM, and you’ll need some time to assemble the results. The scorecarding process can be perceived as a low-priority activity for people outside of the VMI, and other “priorities” will arise for them. Without a timeline buffer, the VMI may find itself behind schedule and unprepared due to things beyond its control.

    Step 3.5: Conduct business alignment meetings

    Determine which vendors will participate and how long the meetings will last.

    At their core, BAMs aren’t that different from any other meeting. The basics of running a meeting still apply, but there are a few nuances that apply to BAMs Set out below are leading practices for conducing your BAMs; adapt them to meet your needs and suit your environment.

    Who

    Initially, BAMs are conducted with the strategic vendors in your pilot program. Over time, you’ll add vendors until all of your strategic vendors are meeting with you quarterly. After that, roll out the BAMs to those tactical and operational vendors located close to the strategic quadrant in the classification model (Steps 2.1 and 3.1) and as VMI resources allow. It may take several years before you are holding regular BAMs with all of your strategic, tactical, and operational vendors.

    Duration

    Keep the length of your meetings reasonable. The first few with a vendor may need to be 60 to 90 minutes long. After that, you should be able to trim them to 45 to 60 minutes. The BAM does not have to fill the entire time. When you are done, you are done.

    Step 3.5: Conduct business alignment meetings (cont.)

    Identify who will be invited and send out invitations.

    Invitations

    Set up a recurring meeting whenever possible. Changes will be inevitable, but keeping the timeline regular works to your advantage. Also, the vendors included in your initial BAMs won’t change for twelve months. For the first BAM with a vendor, provide adequate notice; four weeks is sufficient in most instances, but calendars will fill up quickly for the main attendees from the vendor. Treat the meeting as significant and make sure your invitation reflects this. A simple meeting request will often be rejected, treated as optional, or ignored completely by the vendor’s leadership team (and maybe yours as well!).

    Invitees

    Internal invitees should include those with a vested interest in the vendor’s performance and the relationship. In addition, other functional areas may be invited based on need or interest. Be careful the attendee list doesn’t get too big. Based on this, internal BAM attendees often include representatives from IT, Sourcing/Procurement, and the applicable business units. At times, Finance and Legal are included.

    From the vendor’s side, strive to have decision makers and key leaders attend. The salesperson/account manager is often included for continuity, but a director or vice president of sales will have more insights and influence. The project manager is not needed at this meeting due to the nature of the meeting and its agenda; however, a director or vice president from the “product or service delivery” area is a good choice. Bottom line: get as high into the vendor’s organization as possible whenever possible; look at the types of contracts you have with that vendor to provide guidance on the type of people to invite.

    Step 3.5: Conduct business alignment meetings (cont.)

    Prepare for the meetings and maintain control.

    Preparation

    Send the scorecard and agenda to the vendor five days prior to the BAM. The vendor should provide you with any information you require for the meeting five days prior as well.

    Decide who will run the meeting. Some customers like to lead and others let the vendor present. How you craft the agenda and your preferences will dictate who runs the show.

    Make sure the vendor knows what materials it should bring to the meeting or have access to. This will relate to the agenda and any specific requests listed under the discussion points. You don’t want the vendor to be caught off guard and unable to discuss a matter of importance to you.

    Running the BAM

    Regardless of which party leads, make sure you manage the agenda to stay on topic. This is your meeting – not the vendor’s, not IT’s, not Procurement’s or Sourcing’s. Don’t let anyone hijack it.

    Make sure someone is taking notes. If you are running this virtually, consider recording the meeting. Check with your legal department first for any concerns, notices, or prohibitions that may impact your recording the session.

    As a reminder, this is not a sales call, and this is not a social activity. Innovation discussions are allowed and encouraged, but that can quickly devolve into a sales presentation. People can be friendly toward one another, but the relationship building should not overwhelm the other purposes.

    Step 3.5: Conduct business alignment meetings (cont.)

    Follow these additional guidelines to maximize your meetings.

    More Leading Practices

    • Remind everyone that the conversation may include items covered by various confidentiality provisions or agreements.
    • Publish the meeting minutes on a timely basis (within 48 hours).
    • Focus on the bigger picture by looking at trends over time; get into the details only when warranted.
    • Meet internally immediately beforehand to prepare – don’t go in cold; review the agenda and the roles and responsibilities for the attendees.
    • Physical meetings are better than virtual meetings, but travel constraints, budgets, and pandemics may not allow for physical meetings.

    Final Thoughts

    • When performance or the relationship is suffering, be constructive in your feedback and conversations rather than trying to assign blame; lead with the carrot rather than the stick.
    • Look for collaborative solutions whenever possible and avoid referencing the contract if possible. Communicate your willingness to help resolve outstanding issues.
    • Use inclusive language and avoid language that puts the vendor on the defensive.
    • Make sure that your meetings are not focused exclusively on the negative, but don’t paint a rosy picture where one doesn’t exist.
    • A vendor that is doing well should be commended. This is an important part of relationship building.

    Step 3.6: Work the 90-day plan

    Monitor your progress and share your results.

    Having a 90-day plan is a good start, but assuming the tasks on the plan will be accomplished magically or without any oversight can lead to failure. While it won’t take a lot of time to work the plan, following a few basic guidelines will help ensure the 90-day plan gets results and wasn’t created in vain.

    90-Day Plan: Activity 1; Activity 2; Activity 3; Activity 4; Activity 5
    1. Measure and track your progress against the initial/current 90-day plan at least weekly; with a short timeline, any delay can have a huge impact.
    2. If adjustments are needed to any elements of the plan, understand the cause and the impact of those adjustments before making them.
    3. Make adjustments ONLY when warranted. The temptation will be to push activities and tasks further out on the timeline (or to the next 90-day plan!) when there is any sort of “hiccup” along the way, especially when personnel outside the VMI are involved. Hold true to the timeline whenever possible; once you start slipping, it often becomes a habit.
    4. Report on progress every week and hold people accountable for their assignments and contributions.
    5. Take the 90-day plan seriously and treat it as you would any significant project – this is part of the VMI’s branding and image.

    Step 3.7: Manage the 3-year roadmap

    Keep an eye on the future since it will feed the present.

    The 3-year roadmap is a great planning tool, but it is not 100% reliable. There are inherent flaws and challenges. Essentially, the roadmap is a set of three “crystal balls” attempting to tell you what the future holds. The vision for Year 1 may be fairly clear, but for each subsequent year, the crystal ball becomes foggier. In addition, the timeline is constantly changing; before you know it, tomorrow becomes today and Year 2 becomes Year 1.

    To help navigate through the roadmap and maximize its potential, follow these principles:

    • Manage each year of the roadmap differently.
      • Review the Year 1 map each quarter to update your 90-day plans (See steps 2.10 and 3.6).
      • Review the Year 2 map every six months to determine if any changes are necessary. As you cycle through this, your vantage point of Year 2 will be 6 months or 12 months away from the beginning of Year 2, and time moves quickly.
      • Review the Year 3 map annually, and determine what needs to be added, changed, or deleted. Each time you review Year 3, it will be a “new” Year 3 that needs to be built.
    • Analyze the impact on the proposed modifications from two perspectives: 1) What is the impact if a requested modification is made? 2) What is the impact if a requested modification is not made?
    • Validate all modifications with leadership and stakeholders before updating the 3-year roadmap to ensure internal alignment.

    Step 3.8: Measure and monitor risk

    Understand and manage risk levels.

    Using the configured Vendor Risk Assessment Tool (Step 2.2), confirm which risks you will be measuring and monitoring and identify the vendors that will be part of the initial risk management process. Generally, organizations start measuring and monitoring risk in two to five risk categories for two or three strategic vendors. Over time, additional risk categories and/or vendors can be added in waves. Resist the temptation to add risk categories or vendors into the mix too quickly. Expanding requires resources inside and outside of the VMI.

    The VMI will rely heavily on other areas to provide input or the risk data, and the VMI needs to establish good working relationships with those areas. For example, if legal risk is something being measured and monitored, the VMI will need data from Legal on the number and nature of any lawsuits filed by or against the applicable vendors; the VMI will need data from Legal, Contract Management, or Procurement/Sourcing on the number and nature of any agreed upon deviations from your organization’s preferred contract terms that increase legal risk.

    With respect to risk, the VMI’s main role is threefold: 1) take the data obtained from others (or in some instances the VMI may have the data) and turn it into useful information, 2) monitor the risk categories over time and periodically issue reports, and 3) work with other areas to manage the risk.

    Step 3.9: Issue reports

    Inform internal personnel and vendors about trends, issues, progress, and results.

    Issuing the reports created in Step 2.12 is one of the main ways the VMI 1) will communicate with internal and external personnel and 2) track trends and information over time. Even with input from the potential reviewers of the reports, you’ll still want to seek their feedback and input periodically. It may take a few iterations until the reports are hitting their mark. You may find that a metric is no longer required, that a metric is missing completely or it is missing a component, or a formatting change would improve the report’s readability. Once a report has been “finalized,” try not to change it until you are engaged in Phase 4: Review activities. It can be unsettling for the reviewers when reports change constantly.

    Whenever possible, find ways to automate the reports. While issuing reports is critical, the function should not consume more time than necessary. Automation can remove some of the manual and repetitive tasks.

    Internal reports may need to be kept confidential. An automated dashboard or reporting tool can help lock down who has access to the information. At a minimum, the internal reports should contain a “Confidential” stamp, header, watermark, or other indicator that the materials are sensitive and should not be disclosed outside of your organization without approval.

    Reports for vendors may not need to be sent as often as reports are generated or prepared for internal personnel. Establish a cadence by classification model category and stick to it. Letting each vendor choose the frequency will make it more difficult for you to manage. The vendors can choose to ignore the report if they so choose.

    This is an image of an example of a bar graph showing ROI and Benchmark for Categories 1-6

    Step 3.10: Develop/improve vendor relationships

    Drive better performance through better relationships.

    One of the key components of a VMI is relationship management. Good relationships with your vendors provide many benefits for both parties, but they don’t happen by accident. Do not assume the relationship will be good or is good merely because your organization is buying products and services from a vendor.

    In many respects, the VMI should mirror a vendor’s sales organization by establishing relationships at multiple levels within the vendor organizations – not just with the salesperson or account manager. Building and maintaining relationships is hard work, but the return on investment makes it worthwhile.

    Business relationships are comprised of many components, not all of which have to be present to have a great relationship. However, there are some essential components. Whether you are trying to develop, improve, or maintain a relationship with a vendor, make sure you are conscious of the following:*

    • Focus your energies on strategic vendors first and then tactical and operational vendors.
    • Be transparent and honest in your communications.
    • Continue building trust by being responsive and honoring commitments (timely).
    • Create a collaborative environment and build upon common ground.
    • Thank the vendor when appropriate.
    • Resolve disputes early, avoid the “blame game,” and be objective when there are disagreements.

    Step 3.11: Contribute to other processes

    Continue assisting others and managing roles and responsibilities outside of the VMI.

    The VMI has processes that it owns and processes that it contributes to. Based on the VMI scope (Step 1.2), the OIC chart (Step 1.4), and the process mapping activities (Step 1.5), ensure that the VMI is honoring its contribution commitments. This is often easier said than done though. A number of factors can make it difficult to achieve the balance required to handle VMI processes and contribute to other processes associated with the VMI’s mission and vision. Understanding the issues is half the battle. If you see signs of these common “vampires,” take action quickly to address the situation.

    • The VMI’s first focus is often internal, and the tendency is to operate in a bubble. Classifying vendors, running BAMs, coordinating the risk process, and other inward-facing processes can consume all of the VMI’s energy. As a result, there is little time, effort, or let’s be honest, desire to participate in other processes outside of the VMI.
    • It is easy for VMI personnel to get dragged into processes and situations that are outside of its scope. This often happens when personnel join the VMI from other internal areas or departments and have good relationships with their former teammates. The relationships make it hard to say “No” when out-of-scope assistance is being requested.
    • The VMI may have “part-time” personnel who have responsibilities across internal departments, divisions, agencies, or teams. When the going gets tough and time is at a premium, people gravitate toward the easiest or most comfortable work. That work may not be VMI work.

    Phase 4: Review

    Keep Your VMI Up to Date and Running Smoothly

    Phase 1Phase 2Phase 3Phase 4
    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals


    1.2 Scope

    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles

    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities

    1.5 Process Mapping

    1.6 Charter

    1.7 Vendor Inventory

    1.8 Maturity Assessment

    1.9 Structure

    2.1 Classification Model
    2.2 Risk Assessment Tool
    2.3 Scorecards and Feedback
    2.4 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda
    2.5 Relationship Alignment Document
    2.6 Vendor Orientation
    2.7 Job Descriptions
    2.8 Policies and Procedures
    2.9 3-Year Roadmap
    2.10 90-Day Plan
    2.11 Quick Wins
    2.12 Reports

    3.1 Classify Vendors
    3.2 Conduct Internal “Kickoff” Meeting
    3.3 Conduct Vendor Orientation
    3.4 Compile Scorecards
    3.5 Conduct Business Alignment Meetings
    3.6 Work the 90-Day Plan
    3.7 Manage the 3-Year Roadmap
    3.8 Measure and Monitor Risk
    3.9 Issue Reports
    3.10 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships
    3.11 Contribute to Other Processes

    4.1 Assess Compliance
    4.2 Incorporate Leading Practices
    4.3 Leverage Lessons Learned
    4.4 Maintain Internal Alignment
    4.5 Update Governances

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    Identify what the VMI should stop doing, start doing, and continue doing as it improves and matures. The main outcomes from this phase are ways to advance the VMI and maintain internal alignment.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives
    • Others as needed

    Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

    Phase 4: Review

    Keep your VMI up to date and running smoothly.

    As the old adage says, “The only thing constant in life is change.” This is particularly true for your VMI. It will continue to mature; people inside and outside of the VMI will change; resources will expand or contract from year to year; your vendor base will change. As a result, your VMI needs the equivalent of a physical every year. In place of bloodwork, x-rays, and the other paces your physician may put you through, you’ll assess compliance with your policies and procedures, incorporate leading practices, leverage lessons learned, maintain internal alignment, and update governances.

    Be thorough in your actions during this Phase to get the most out of it. It requires more than the equivalent of gauging a person’s health by taking their temperature, measuring their blood pressure, and determining their body mass index. Keeping your VMI up to date and running smoothly takes hard work.

    Some of the items presented in this Phase require an annual review; others may require quarterly review or timely review (i.e. when things are top of mind and current). For example, collecting lessons learned should happen on a timely basis rather than annually, and classifying your vendors should occur annually rather than every time a new vendor enters the fold.

    Ultimately, the goal is to improve over time and stay aligned with other areas internally. This won’t happen by accident. Being proactive in the review of your VMI further reinforces the nature of the VMI itself – proactive vendor management, NOT reactive!

    Step 4.1: Assess compliance

    Determine what is functionally going well and not going well.

    Whether you have a robust set of vendor management-related policies and procedures or they are the bare minimum, gathering data each quarter and conducting an assessment each year will provide valuable feedback. The scope of your assessment should focus on two concepts: 1) are the policies and procedures being followed and 2) are the policies and procedures accurate and relevant. This approach requires parallel thinking, but it will help you understand the complete picture and minimize the amount of time required.

    Use the steps listed below (or modify them for your culture) to conduct your assessment:

    • Determine the type of assessment – formal or informal.
    • Determine the scale of the assessment – which policies and procedures will be reviewed and how many people will be interviewed.
    • Determine the compliance levels, and seek feedback on the policies and procedures – what is going well and what can be improved?
    • Review the compliance deviations.
    • Conduct a root cause analysis for the deviations.
    • Create a list of improvements and gain approval.
    • Create a plan for minimizing noncompliance in the future.
      • Improve/increase education and awareness.
      • Clarify/modify policies and procedures.
      • Add resources, tools, and people (as necessary and as allowed).

    Step 4.2: Incorporate leading practices

    Identify and evaluate what external VMIs are doing.

    The VMI’s world is constantly shifting and evolving. Some changes will take place slowly, while others will occur quickly. Think about how quickly the cloud environment has changed over the past five years versus the 15 years before that; or think about issues that have popped up and instantly altered the landscape (we’re looking at you COVID-19 and ransomware). As a result, the VMI needs to keep pace, and one of the best ways to do that is to incorporate leading practices.

    At a high level, a leading practice is a way of doing something that is better at producing a particular outcome or result or performing a task or activity than other ways of proceeding. The leading practice can be based on methodologies, tools, processes, procedures, and other items. Leading practices change periodically due to innovation, new ways of thinking, research, and other factors. Consequently, a leading practice is to identify and evaluate leading practices each year.

    Step 4.2: Incorporate leading practices (cont.)

    Update your VMI based on your research.

    • A simple approach for incorporating leading practices into your regular review process is set out below:
    • Research:
      • What other VMIs in your industry are doing.
      • What other VMIs outside your industry are doing.
      • Vendor management in general.
    • Based on your results, list specific leading practices others are doing that would improve your VMI (be specific – e.g. other VMIs are incorporating risk into their classification process).
    • Evaluate your list to determine which of these potential changes fit or could be modified to fit your culture and environment.
    • Recommend the proposed changes to leadership (with a short business case or explanation/justification, as needed) and gain approval.

    Remember: Leading practices or best practices may not be what is best for you. In some instances, you will have to modify them to fit your culture and environment; in other instances, you will elect not to implement them at all (in any form).

    Step 4.3: Leverage lessons learned

    Tap into the collective wisdom and experience of your team members.

    There are many ways to keep your VMI running smoothly, and creating a lessons learned library is a great complement to the other ways covered in this Phase 4: Review. By tapping into the collective wisdom of the team and creating a safe feedback loop, the VMI gains the following benefits:

    • Documented institutional wisdom and knowledge normally found only in the team members’ brains.
    • The ability for one team member to gain insights and avoid mistakes without having to duplicate the events leading to the insights or mistakes.
    • Improved methodologies, tools, processes, procedures, skills, and relationships.

    Many of the processes raised in this Phase can be performed annually, but a lessons learned library works best when the information is “deposited” in a timely manner. How you choose to set up your lessons learned process will depend on the tools you select and your culture. You may want to have regular “input” meetings to share the lessons as they are being deposited, or you may require team members to deposit lessons learned on a regular basis (within a week after they happen, monthly, or quarterly). Waiting too long can lead to vague or lost memories and specifics – timeliness of the deposits is a crucial element.

    Step 4.3: Leverage lessons learned (cont.)

    Create a library to share valuable information across the team.

    Lessons learned are not confined to identifying mistakes or dissecting bad outcomes. You want to reinforce good outcomes as well. When an opportunity for a lessons-learned deposit arises, identify the following basic elements:

    • A brief description of the situation and outcome.
    • What went well (if anything) and why did it go well?
    • What didn't go well (if anything) and why didn't it go well?
    • What would/could you do differently next time?
    • A synopsis of the lesson(s) learned.

    Info-Tech Insights

    The lessons learned library needs to be maintained. Irrelevant material needs to be culled periodically, and older or duplicate material may need to be archived.

    The lessons learned process should be blameless. The goal is to share insightful information … not to reward or punish people based on outcomes or results.

    Step 4.4: Maintain internal alignment

    Review the plans of other internal areas to stay in sync.

    Maintaining internal alignment is essential for the ongoing success of the VMI. Over time, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the VMI does not operate in a vacuum; it is an integral component of a larger organization whose parts must work well together to function optimally. Focusing annually on the VMI’s alignment within the enterprise helps reduce any breakdowns that could derail the organization.

    To ensure internal alignment:

    • Review the key components of the applicable materials from Phase 1: Plan and Phase 2: Build with the appropriate members of the leadership team (e.g. executives, sponsors, and stakeholders). Not every item from those Phases and Steps needs to be reviewed, but err on the side of caution for the first set of alignment discussions, and be prepared to review each item. You can gauge the audience’s interest on each topic and move quickly when necessary or dive deeper when needed. Identify potential changes required to maintain alignment.
    • Review the strategic plans (e.g. 1-, 3-, and 5- year plans) for various portions of the organization if you have access to them or gather insights if you don’t have access.
      • If the VMI is under the IT umbrella, review the strategic plans for IT and its departments.
      • Review the strategic plans for the areas the VMI works with (e.g. Procurement, Business Units).
      • The organization itself.
    • Create and vet a list of modifications to the VMI and obtain approval.
    • Develop a plan for making the necessary changes.

    Step 4.5: Update governances

    Revise your protocols and return to the beginning of cyclical processes.

    You’re at the final Step and ready to update governances. This is comprised of two sequential paths.

    • First, use the information from Steps 4.1-4.4 to make any required modifications to the items in Phase 1: Plan, Phase 2: Build, and Phase 3: Run. For example, you may need to update your policies and procedures (Step 2.8) based on your findings in Step 4.1; or you may need to update the VMI’s scope (Step 1.2) to ensure internal alignment issues identified in Step 4.4. are accounted for.
    • Second, return to Phase 3: Run to perform the activities below; they tend to be performed annually, but use your discretion and perform them on an as-needed basis:
      • Reclassify vendors.
      • Complete a new maturity assessment.
      • Run reorientation sessions for vendors.
      • Conduct a kickoff meeting to update internal personnel.

    Other activities and tasks (e.g. scorecards and BAMs) may be impacted by the modifications made above, but the nature of their performance follows a shorter cadence. As a result, they are not specifically called out here in this Step 4.5 since they are performed on an ongoing basis. However, don’t overlook them as part of your update.

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Problem Solved

    Vendor management is a broad, often overwhelming, comprehensive spectrum that encompasses many disciplines. By now, you should have a great idea of what vendor management can or will look like in your organization. Focus on the basics first: Why does the VMI exist and what does it hope to achieve? What is its scope? What are the strengths you can leverage, and what obstacles must you manage? How will the VMI work with others? From there, the spectrum of vendor management will begin to clarify and narrow.

    Leverage the tools and templates from this blueprint and adapt them to your needs. They will help you concentrate your energies in the right areas and on the right vendors to maximize the return on your organization’s investment in the VMI of time, money, personnel, and other resources. You may have to lead by example internally and with your vendors at first, but they will eventually join you on your path if you stay true to your course.

    At the heart of a good VMI is the relationship component. Don’t overlook its value in helping you achieve your vendor management goals. The VMI does not operate in a vacuum, and relationships (internal and external) will be critical.

    Lastly, seek continual improvement from the VMI and from your vendors. Both parties should be held accountable, and both parties should work together to get better. Be proactive in your efforts, and you, the VMI, and the organization will be rewarded.

    If you would like additional support, have our analysts guide you through other phases as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Contact your account representative for more information

    workshops@infotech.com

    1-888-670-8889

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    Bibliography

    “Best Practices for Writing Corporate Policies and Procedures.” PowerDMS, 29 Dec. 2020. Accessed 11 January 2022.

    Duncan. “Top 10 Tips for Creating Compelling Reports.” Design Eclectic, 11 October 2019. Accessed 29 March 2022.

    Eby, Kate. “Master Writing Policies, Procedures, Processes, and Work Instructions.” 1 June 2018, updated 19 July 2021. Accessed 11 January 2022.

    “Enterprise Risk Management.” Protiviti, n.d. Accessed 16 Feb. 2017.

    Geller & Company. “World-Class Procurement — Increasing Profitability and Quality.” Spend Matters, 2003. Accessed 4 March 2019.

    Guth, Stephen. “Vendor Relationship Management Getting What You Paid for (And More).” Citizens, 26 Feb. 2015. Web.

    Guth, Stephen. The Vendor Management Office: Unleashing the Power of Strategic Sourcing. Lulu.com, 2007. Print.

    “ISG Index 4Q 2021.” Information Services Group, Inc., 2022. Web.

    “Six Tips for Making a Quality Report Appealing and Easy To Skim.” AHRQ, Oct. 2019. Accessed 29 March 2022.

    Tucker, Davis. “Marketing Reporting: Tips to Create Compelling Reports.” 60 Second Marketer, 28 March 2020. Accessed 29 March 2022.

    “Why Do We Perform Better When Someone Has High Expectations of Us?” The Decision Lab, 9 Sept. 2020. Accessed 31 January 2022.

    Application Development Throughput

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}27|cart{/j2store}
    • Related Products: {j2store}27|crosssells{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): N/A
    • member rating average dollars saved: N/A
    • member rating average days saved: N/A
    • Parent Category Name: Applications
    • Parent Category Link: /applications

    The challenge

    • As we work more and more using agile techniques, teams tend to optimize their areas of responsibility.
    • IT will still release lower-quality applications when there is a lack of clarity around the core SDLC processes.
    • Software development teams continue to struggle with budget and time constraints within their releases.
    • Typically each group claims to be optimized, yet the final deliverable falls short of the expected quality.

    Our advice

    Insight

    • Database administrators know this all too well: Optimizing can you perform worse. The software development lifecycle (SDLC) must be optimized holistically, not per area or team.
    • Separate how you work from your framework. You do not need "agile" or "extreme" or "agifall" or "safe" to optimize your SDLC.
    • SDLC optimization is a continuous effort. Start from your team's current capabilities and improve over time.

    Impact and results 

    • You can assume proper accountability for the implementation and avoid over-reliance on the systems integrator.
    • Leverage the collective knowledge and advice of additional IT professionals
    • Review the pitfalls and lessons learned from failed integrations.
    • Manage risk at every stage.
    • Perform a self-assessment at various stages of the integration path.

    The roadmap

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    Get started.

    Read our executive brief to understand our approach to SDLC optimization and why we advocate a holistic approach for your company.

    Document your current state

    This phase helps you understand your business goals and priorities. You will document your current SDLC process and find where the challenges are.

    • Create a Horizontally Optimized SDLC to Better Meet Business Demands – Phase 1: Document the Current State of the SDLC (ppt)
    • SDLC Optimization Playbook (xls)

    Find out the root causes, define how to move forward, and set your target state

    • Create a Horizontally Optimized SDLC to Better Meet Business Demands – Phase 2: Define Root Causes, Determine Optimization Initiatives, and Define Target State (ppt)

    Develop the roll-out strategy for SDLC optimization

    Prioritize your initiatives and formalize them in a roll-out strategy and roadmap. Communicate your plan to all your stakeholders.

    • Create a Horizontally Optimized SDLC to Better Meet Business Demands – Phase 3: Develop a Rollout Strategy for SDLC Optimization (ppt)
    • SDLC Communication Template (ppt)

     

    Determine Your Zero Trust Readiness

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    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.8/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $24,574 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 12 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: Security Strategy & Budgeting
    • Parent Category Link: /security-strategy-and-budgeting

    CISOs pushing for zero trust as their security strategy face several challenges including:

    • Understanding and clarifying the benefits of zero trust for the organization.
    • The inability to verify all business operations are maintaining security best practices.
    • Convincing business units to add more security controls that go against the grain of reducing friction in workflows while still demonstrating these controls support the business.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Zero trust must benefit the business and security. Because the road to zero trust is an iterative process, IT security will need to constantly determine how different areas of zero trust will affect core business processes.
    • Zero trust reduces reliance on perimeter security. Zero trust is a strategy that solves how to move beyond the reliance on perimeter security and move controls to where the user accesses resources.
    • Not everyone can achieve zero trust, but everyone can adopt it. Zero trust will be different for every organization and may not be applicable in every control area. This means that zero trust is not a one-size-fits-all approach to IT security. Zero trust is the goal, but some organizations can only get so close to the ideal.

    Impact and Result

    Zero trust is a journey that uses multiple capabilities and requires multiple parties to contribute to an organization’s security. Use Info-Tech’s approach to:

    • Understand zero trust as a strategic platform for building your security roadmap.
    • Assess your current state and determine the benefits of adopting zero trust to help plan your roadmap.
    • Separate vendors from the hype surrounding zero trust to adopt a vendor-agnostic approach to your zero trust planning.

    Determine Your Zero Trust Readiness Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should determine your zero trust readiness, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Understand zero trust

    Recognize the zero trust ideal and understand the different zero trust schools of thought.

    2. Assess your zero trust readiness

    Assess and determine the benefits of zero trust and identify and evaluate vendors in the zero trust market.

    • Zero Trust Security Benefit Assessment Tool
    [infographic]

    Data and Analytics Trends 2023

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}208|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.0/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve.
    • member rating average days saved: Read what our members are saying
    • Parent Category Name: Business Intelligence Strategy
    • Parent Category Link: /business-intelligence-strategy

    Data is a unique resource that keeps growing, presenting opportunities along the way. CIOs and IT leaders can use rapidly evolving technologies and capabilities to harness this data and its value for the organization.

    IT leaders must prepare their teams and operations with the right knowledge, capabilities, and strategies to make sure they remain competitive in 2023 and beyond. Nine trends that expand on the three common Vs of data – volume, velocity, and variety – can help guide the way.

    Focus on trends that align with your opportunities and challenges

    The path to becoming more competitive in a data-driven economy differs from one company to the next. IT leaders should use the data and analytics trends that align most with their organizational goals and can lead to positive business outcomes.

    1. Prioritize your investments: Conduct market analysis and prioritize the data and analytics investments that will be critical to your business.
    2. Build a robust strategy: Identify a clear path between your data vision and business outcomes to build a strategy that’s a good fit for your organization.
    3. Inspire practical innovation: Follow a pragmatic approach to implementing trends that range from data gravity and democratization to data monetization and augmented analytics.

    Data and Analytics Trends 2023 Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Data and Analytics Trends Report 2023 – A report that explores nine data use cases for emerging technologies that can improve on capabilities needed to compete in the data-driven economy.

    Data technologies are rapidly evolving. Understanding data's art of the possible is critical. However, to adapt to these upcoming data trends, a solid data management foundation is required. This report explores nine data trends based on the proven framework of data V's: Volume, Velocity, Variety, Veracity, Value, Virtue, Visualization, Virality, and Viscosity.

    • Data and Analytics Trends Report 2023
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Data and Analytics Trends Report 2023

    SOONER OR LATER, YOU WILL BE IN THE DATA BUSINESS!

    Nine Data Trends for 2023

    In this report, we explore nine data use cases for emerging technologies that can improve on capabilities needed to compete in the data-driven economy. Use cases combine emerging data trends and modernization of existing capabilities.

    1. VOLUME
      • Data Gravity
    2. VELOCITY
    • Democratizing Real-Time Data
  • VARIETY
    • Augmented Data Management
  • VERACITY
    • Identity Authenticity
  • VALUE
    • Data Monetization
  • VIRTUE
    • Adaptive Data Governance
  • VISUALIZATION
    • AI-Driven Storytelling & Augmented Analytics
  • VIRALITY
    • Data Marketplace
  • VISCOSITY
    • DevOps – DataOps – XOps

    VOLUME

    Data Gravity

    Trend 01 Demand for storage and bandwidth continues to grow

    When organizations begin to prioritize data, they first consider the sheer volume of data, which will influence data system design. Your data systems must consider the existing and growing volume of data by assessing industry initiatives such as digital transformation, Industry 4.0, IoT, consumer digital footprint, etc.

    The largest data center in the world is a citadel in Reno, Nevada, that stretches over 7.2 million square feet!

    Source: Cloudwards, 2022

    IoT devices will generate 79.4 zettabytes of data
    by 2025.

    Source: IDC, 2019

    There were about 97
    zettabytes of data generated worldwide in 2022.

    Source: “Volume of Data,” Statista, 2022

    VOLUME

    Data Gravity

    Data attracts more data and an ecosystem of applications and services

    SharePoint, OneDrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox offer APIs and integration opportunities for developers to enhance their products.

    Social media platforms thought about this early by allowing for an ecosystem of filters, apps, games, and effects that engage their users with little to no additional effort from internal resources.

    The image contains four logos. SharePoint, OneDrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox.

    VOLUME

    Data Gravity

    Focus on data gravity and avoid cloud repatriation

    Data gravity is the tendency of data to attract applications, services, and other data. A growing number of cloud migration decisions will be made based on the data gravity concept. It will become increasingly important in data strategies, with failure potentially resulting in costly cloud repatriations.

    Emerging technologies and capabilities:

    Data Lakehouse, Data Mesh, Data Fabric, Hybrid Data, Cloud Data, Edge Computing

    47%

    Centralized cloud storage going down in 2 years

    22%
    25%

    Hybrid storage (centralized + edge) going up in 2 years

    47%

    Source: CIO, 2022

    VOLUME

    Data Gravity

    What worked for terabytes is ineffective for petabytes

    When compared to on-premises infrastructure, cloud computing is less expensive and easier to implement. However, poor data replication and data gravity can significantly increase cloud costs to the point of failure. Data gravity will help organizations make better cloud migration decisions.

    It is also critical to recognize changes in the industry landscape. The goal of data processing and analytics is to generate the right data for users to act on. In most cases, the user is a human being, but in the case of autonomous driving (AD), the car takes on the role of the user (DXC Technology).

    To avoid cloud repatriation, it will become prudent for all organizations to consider data gravity and the timing of cloud migration.

    The image contains a diagram on data gravity.

    VELOCITY

    Democratizing Real-Time Data

    Trend 02 Real-time analytics presents an important differentiator

    The velocity element of data can be assessed from two standpoints: the speed at which data is being generated and how fast the organization needs to respond to the incoming information through capture, analysis, and use. Traditionally data was processed in a batch format (all at once or in incremental nightly data loads). There is a growing demand to process data continuously using streaming data-processing techniques.

    Emerging technologies and capabilities:

    Edge Computing

    Google announced it has a quantum computer that is 100 million times faster than any classical computer in its lab.

    Source: Science Alert, 2015

    The number of qubits in quantum computers has been increasing dramatically, from 2 qubits in 1998 to 128 qubits in 2019.

    Source: Statista, 2019

    IBM released a 433-qubit quantum chip named Osprey in 2022 and expects to surpass 1,000 qubits with its next chip, Condor, in 2023.

    Source: Nature, 2023

    VELOCITY

    Democratizing Real-Time Data

    Make data accessible to everyone in real time

    • 90% of an organization’s data is replicated or redundant.
    • Build API and web services that allow for live access to data.
    • Most social media platforms, like Twitter and Facebook, have APIs that offer access to incredible amounts of data and insights.

    VELOCITY

    Democratizing Real-Time Data

    Trend in Data Velocity

    Data democratization means data is widely accessible to all stakeholders without bottlenecks or barriers. Success in data democratization comes with ubiquitous real-time analytics. Google highlights a need to address democratization in two different frames:

    1. Democratizing stream analytics for all businesses to ensure real-time data at the company level.
    2. Democratizing stream analytics for all personas and the ability of all users to generate real-time insights.

    Emerging technologies and capabilities:

    Data Lakehouse, Streaming API Ecosystem, Industry 4.0, Zero-Copy Cloning

    Nearly 70% of all new vehicles globally will be connected to the internet by 2023.

    Source: “Connected light-duty vehicles,” Statista, 2022

    VELOCITY

    Democratizing Real-Time Data

    Enable real-time processing with API

    In the past, data democratization has largely translated into a free data set and open data portals. This has allowed the government to freely share data with the public. Also, the data science community has embraced the availability of large data sets such as weather data, stock data, etc. In the future, more focus will be on the combination of IoT and steaming analytics, which will provide better responsiveness and agility.

    Many researchers, media companies, and organizations now have easy access to the Twitter/Facebook API platform to study various aspects of human behavior and sentiments. Large technology companies have already democratized their data using real-time APIs.

    Thousands of sources for open data are available at your local municipalities alone.

    6G will push Wi-Fi connectivity to 1 terabyte per second! This is expected to become commercially available by 2030.

    VARIETY

    Augmented Data Management

    Trend 03 Need to manage unstructured data

    The variety of data types is increasingly diverse. Structured data often comes from relational databases, while unstructured data comes from several sources such as photos, video, text documents, cell phones, etc. The variety of data is where technology can drive business value. However, unstructured data also poses a risk, especially for external data.

    The number of IoT devices could rise to 30.9 billion by 2025.

    Source: “IoT and Non-IoT Connections Worldwide,” Statista, 2022

    The global edge computing market is expected to reach $250.6 billion by 2024.

    Source: “Edge Computing,” Statista, 2022

    Genomics research is expected to generate between 2 and 40 exabytes of data within the next decade.

    Source: NIH, 2022

    VARIETY

    Augmented Data Management

    Employ AI to automate data management

    New tools will enhance many aspects of data management:

    • Data preparation, integration, cataloging, and quality
    • Metadata management
    • Master data management

    Enabling AI-assisted decision-making tools

    The image contains logos of the AI-assisted decision-making tools. Informatica, collibra, OCTOPAI.

    VARIETY

    Augmented Data Management

    Trend in Data Variety

    Augmented data management will enhance or automate data management capabilities by leveraging AI and related advanced techniques. It is quite possible to leverage existing data management tools and techniques, but most experts have recognized that more work and advanced patterns are needed to solve many complex data problems.

    Emerging technologies and capabilities:

    Data Factory, Data Mesh, Data Fabric, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning

    VARIETY

    Augmented Data Management

    Data Fabric vs. Data Mesh: The Data Journey continues at an accelerated pace

    Data Fabric

    Data Mesh

    Data fabric is an architecture that facilitates the end-to-end integration of various data pipelines and cloud environments using intelligent and automated systems. It’s a data integration pattern to unify disparate data systems, embed governance, strengthen security and privacy measures, and provide more data accessibility to workers and particularly to business users.

    The data mesh architecture is an approach that aligns data sources by business domains, or functions, with data owners. With data ownership decentralization, data owners can create data products for their respective domains, meaning data consumers, both data scientists and business users, can use a combination of these data products for data analytics and data science.

    More Unstructured Data

    95% of businesses cite the need to manage unstructured data as a problem for their business.

    VERACITY

    Identity Authenticity

    Trend 04 Veracity of data is a true test of your data capabilities

    Data veracity is defined as the accuracy or truthfulness of a data set. More and more data is created in semi-structured and unstructured formats and originates from largely uncontrolled sources (e.g. social media platforms, external sources). The reliability and quality of the data being integrated should be a top concern. The veracity of data is imperative when looking to use data for predictive purposes. For example, energy companies rely heavily on weather patterns to optimize their service outputs, but weather patterns have an element of unpredictability.

    Data quality affects overall labor productivity by as much as 20%, and 30% of operating expenses are due to insufficient data.

    Source: Pragmatic Works, 2017

    Bad data costs up to
    15% to 25% of revenue.

    Source: MIT Sloan Management Review, 2017

    VERACITY

    Identity Authenticity

    Veracity of data is a true test of your data capabilities

    • Stop creating your own identity architectures and instead integrate a tried-and-true platform.
    • Aim for a single source of truth for digital identity.
    • Establish data governance that can withstand scrutiny.
    • Imagine a day in the future where verified accounts on social media platforms are available.
    • Zero-trust architecture should be used.

    VERACITY

    Identity Authenticity

    Trend in Data Veracity

    Veracity is a concept deeply linked to identity. As the value of the data increases, a greater degree of veracity is required: We must provide more proof to open a bank account than to make friends on Facebook. As a result, there is more trust in bank data than in Facebook data. There is also a growing need to protect marginalized communities.

    Emerging technologies and capabilities:

    Zero Trust, Blockchain, Data Governance, IoT, Cybersecurity

    The image contains a screenshot of Info-Tech's blueprint slide on Zero Trust.

    VERACITY

    Identity Authenticity

    The identity discussion is no longer limited to people or organizations. The development of new technologies, such as the IoT phenomenon, will lead to an explosion of objects, from refrigerators to shipping containers, coming online as well. If all these entities start communicating with each other, standards will be needed to establish who or what they are.

    IDENTITY
    IS

    Age

    Gender

    Address

    Fingerprint

    Face

    Voice

    Irises

    IDENTITY
    KNOWS

    Password

    Passphrase

    PIN

    Sequence

    IDENTITY
    HAS

    Access badge

    Smartcard

    Security token

    Mobile phone

    ID document

    IDENTITY
    DOES

    Motor skills

    Handwriting

    Gestures

    Keystrokes

    Applications use

    The IoT market is expected to grow 18% to 14.4 billion in 2022 and 27 billion by 2025.

    Source: IoT Analytics, 2022

    VALUE

    Data Monetization

    Trend 05 Not Many organization know the true value of their data

    Data can be valuable if used effectively or dangerous if mishandled. The rise of the data economy has created significant opportunities but also has its challenges. It has become urgent to understand the value of data, which may vary for stakeholders based on their business model and strategy. Organizations first need to understand ownership of their data by establishing a data strategy, then they must improve data maturity by developing a deeper understanding of data value.

    94% of enterprises say data is essential to business growth.

    Source: Find stack, 2021

    VALUE

    Data Monetization

    Start developing your data business

    • Blockbuster ran its business well, but Netflix transformed the video rental industry overnight!
    • Big players with data are catching up fast.
    • You don’t have to be a giant to monetize data.
    • Data monetization is probably closer than you think.
    • You simply need to find it, catalog it, and deliver it.

    The image contains logos of companies related to data monetization as described in the text above. The companies are Amazon Prime, Netflix, Disney Plus, Blockbuster, and Apple TV.

    VALUE

    Data Monetization

    Trend in Data Value

    Data monetization is the transformation of data into financial value. However, this does not imply selling data alone. Monetary value is produced by using data to improve and upgrade existing and new products and services. Data monetization demands an organization-wide strategy for value development.

    Emerging technologies and capabilities:

    Data Strategy, Data Monetization Strategy, Data Products

    Netflix uses big data to save $1 billion per year on customer retention.

    Source: Logidots, 2021

    VALUE

    Data Monetization

    Data is a strategic asset

    Data is beyond currency, assets, or commodities and needs to be a category
    of its own.

    • Data always outlives people, processes, and technology. They all come and go while data remains.
    • Oil is a limited resource. Data is not. Unlike oil, data is likely to grow over time.
    • Data is likely to outlast all other current popular financial instruments, including currency, assets, or commodities.
    • Data is used internally and externally and can easily be replicated or combined.

    Data monetization is currently in the speculative territory, which is unacceptable. It should instead be guided by sound data management theory.

    VIRTUE

    Adaptive Data Governance

    Trend 06 Five Core Virtues: Resilience, Humility, Grit, Liberal Education, Empathy (Forbes, 2020)

    We have become more and more dependent on data, analytics, and organizational protection policies. Data virtue is about leveraging data securely and ethically. This topic has become more critical with the advent of GDPR, the right to be forgotten, and related regulations. Data governance, which seeks to establish an oversight framework that manages the creation, acquisition, integrity, security, compliance, and quality of data, is essential for any organization that makes decisions about data.

    Cultural obstacles are the greatest barrier to becoming data-driven, according to 91.9% of executives.

    Source: Harvard Business Review, 2022

    Fifty million Facebook profiles were harvested for Cambridge Analytica in a major data breach.

    Source: The Guardian, 2018

    VIRTUE

    Adaptive Data Governance

    Encourage noninvasive and automated data governance

    • Data governance affects the entire organization, not just data.
    • The old model for data governance was slow and clumsy.
    • Adaptive data governance encourages faster decision making and a more collaborative approach to governance.
    • Agile data governance allows for faster and more flexible decision making.
    • Automated data governance will simplify execution across the organization.
    • It is great for compliance, quality, impact tracking, and cross-referencing and offers independence to data users.

    VIRTUE

    Adaptive Data Governance

    Trend in Data Virtue

    Adaptive data governance encourages a flexible approach that allows an organization to employ multiple data governance strategies depending on changing business situations. The other aspect of adaptive data governance is moving away from manual (and often slow) data governance and toward aggressive automation.

    Emerging technologies and capabilities:

    AI-Powered Data Catalog and Metadata Management,
    Automated Data Policy Enforcement

    “To effectively meet the needs and velocity of digital organizations and modern practices, IT governance must be embedded and automated where possible to drive success and value.”

    Source: Valence Howden, Info-Tech Research Group

    “Research reveals that the combination of AI and big data technologies can automate almost 80% of all physical work, 70% of data processing, and 64% of data collection tasks.”

    Source: Forbes, 2021

    VIRTUE

    Data Governance Automation

    Simple and easy Data Governance

    Tools are not the ultimate answer to implementing data governance. You will still need to secure stakeholders' buy-in and engagement in the data process. Data governance automation should be about simplifying the execution of roles and responsibilities.

    “When you can see where your data governance strategy can be improved, it’s time to put in place automation that help to streamline processes.”

    Source: Nintex, 2021

    VISUALIZATION

    AI-Driven Storytelling & Augmented Analytics

    Trend 07 Automated and augmented data storytelling is not that far away

    Today, data storytelling is led by the user. It’s the manual practice of combining narrative with data to deliver insights in a compelling form to assist decision makers in engaging with data and analytics. A story backed by data is more easily consumed and understood than a dashboard, which can be overwhelming. However, manual data storytelling has some major shortcomings.

    Problem # 1: Telling stories on more than just the insights noticed by people

    Problem # 2: Poor data literacy and the limitations of manual self-service

    Problem # 3: Scaling data storytelling across the business

    VISUALIZATION

    AI-Driven Storytelling & Augmented Analytics

    Use AI to enhance data storytelling

    • Tableau, Power BI, and many other applications already use
      AI-driven analytics.
    • Power BI and SharePoint can use AI to generate visuals for any SharePoint list in a matter of seconds.

    VISUALIZATION

    AI-Driven Storytelling & Augmented Analytics

    Trend in Data Visualization

    AI and natural language processing will drive future visualization and data storytelling. These tools and techniques are improving rapidly and are now designed in a streamlined way to guide people in understanding what their data means and how to act on it instead of expecting them to do self-service analysis with dashboards and charts and know what to do next. Ultimately, being able to understand how to translate emotion, tropes, personal interpretation, and experience and how to tell what’s most relevant to each user is the next frontier for augmented and automated analytics

    Emerging technologies and capabilities:

    AI-Powered Data Catalog and Metadata Management,
    Automated Data Policy Enforcement

    VISUALIZATION

    Data Storytelling

    Augmented data storytelling is not that far away

    Emotions are a cornerstone of human intelligence and decision making. Mastering the art of storytelling is not easy.

    Industry experts predict the combination of data storytelling with augmented and automated techniques; these capabilities are more than capable of generating and automating parts of a data story’s creation for end users.

    The next challenge for AI is translating emotion, tropes, personal interpretation, and experience into what is most essential to end users.

    Source: Yellowfin, 2021

    VIRALITY

    Data Marketplace

    Trend 08 Missing data marketplace

    Data virality measures data spread and popularity. However, for data virality to occur, an ecosystem comparable to that of traditional or modern digital marketplaces is required. Organizations must reevaluate their data strategies to ensure investment in appropriate data domains by understanding data virality. Data virality is the exact opposite of dark data.

    Dark data is “all the information companies collect in their regular business processes, don’t use, have no plans to use, but will never throw out.”

    Source: Forbes, 2019

    VIRALITY

    Data Marketplace

    Make data easily accessible

    • Making data accessible to a broader audience is the key to successful virality.
    • Data marketplaces provide a location for you to make your data public.
    • Why do this? Contributing to public data marketplaces builds credibility, just like contributing to public GitHub projects.
    • Big players like Microsoft, Amazon, and Snowflake already do this!
    • Snowflake introduced zero-copy cloning, which allows users to interact with source data without compromising the integrity of the original source.

    The image contains the logos of Microsoft, Amazon, and Snowflake.

    VIRALITY

    Data Marketplace

    Trend in Data Virality

    The data marketplace can be defined as a dynamic marketplace where users decide what has the most value. Companies can gauge which data is most popular based on usage and decide where to invest. Users can shop for data products within the marketplace and then join these products with other ones they’ve created to launch truly powerful data-driven projects.

    Emerging technologies and capabilities:

    AI-Powered Data Catalog and Metadata Management,
    Automated Data Policy Enforcement

    The image contains a screenshot of Info-Tech's Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) Framework.

    “Data is like garbage. You’d better know what you are going to do with it before you collect it.”

    – Mark Twain

    VIRALITY

    Data Marketplace

    Journey from siloed data platforms to dynamic data marketplaces

    Data remains a complex topic due to many missing foundational components and infrastructure. Interoperability, security, quality, discoverability, speed, and ease are some of those missing foundational components that most organizations face daily.

    Data lacks an ecosystem that is comparable to those of traditional assets or commodities. Data must be available in open or closed data marketplaces to measure its value. These data marketplaces are still in their infancy.

    “Data markets are an important component of the data economy that could unleash the full potential of data generated by the digital economy and human activity in general.”

    Source: ITU Journal, 2018

    VISCOSITY

    DevOps – DataOps – XOps

    Trend 09 Increase efficiency by removing bottlenecks

    Compared to water, a fluid with a high viscosity flows more slowly, like honey. Data viscosity measures the resistance to flow in a volume of data. The data resistance may come from other Vs (variety, velocity, etc.).

    VISCOSITY

    DevOps – DataOps – XOps

    Increase efficiency by removing bottlenecks

    Consider XOps for a second. It makes no difference what X is. What's important is matching operational requirements to enterprise capabilities.

    • For example, Operations must meet the demands of Sales – hence SalesOps
      or S&Op.
    • Development resources must meet the demands of Operations – hence DevOps.
    • Finally, Data must also meet the demand of Operations.

    These Operations guys are demanding!!

    VISCOSITY

    DevOps – DataOps – XOps

    Trend in Data Viscosity

    The merger of development (Dev) and IT Operations (Ops) started in software development with the concept of DevOps. Since then, new Ops terms have formed rapidly (AIOps, MLOps, ModelOps, PlatformOps, SalesOps, SecOps, etc.). All these methodologies come from Lean manufacturing principles, which seek to identify waste by focusing on eliminating errors, cycle time, collaboration, and measurement. Buzzwords are distractions, and the focus must be on the underlying goals and principles. XOps goals should include the elimination of errors and improving efficiencies.

    Emerging technologies and capabilities:

    Collaborative Data Management, Automation Tools

    VISCOSITY

    DataOps → Data Observability

    Data observability, a subcomponent of DataOps, is a set of technical practices, cultural norms, and architecture that enables low error rates. Data observability focuses on error rates instead of only measuring data quality at a single point in time.

    Data Quality Dimensions

    • Uniqueness
    • Timeliness
    • Validity
    • Accuracy
    • Consistency

    ERROR RATES

    Lateness: Missing Your SLA

    System Processing Issues

    Code Change That Broke Something

    Data Quality

    What’s next? Go beyond the buzzwords.

    Avoid following trends solely for the sake of following them. It is critical to comprehend the concept and apply it to your industry. Every industry has its own set of problems and opportunities.

    Highlight the data trends (or lack thereof) that have been most beneficial to you in your organizations. Follow Info-Tech’s approach to building a data practice and platform to develop your data capabilities through the establishment of data goals.

    The image contains a screenshot of Info-Tech's Build Your Data Pracrice and Platform.

    Research Authors

    Rajesh Parab Chris Dyck

    Rajesh Parab

    Director, Research & Advisory

    Data and Analytics

    Chris Dyck

    Research Lead

    Data and Analytics

    “Data technologies are rapidly evolving. Understanding what’s possible is critical. Adapting to these upcoming data trends requires a solid data management foundation.”

    – Rajesh Parab

    Contributing Experts

    Carlos Thomas John Walsh

    Carlos Thomas

    Executive Counselor

    Info-Tech Research Group

    John Walsh

    Executive Counselor

    Info-Tech Research Group

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    Strod, Eran. “Data Observability and Monitoring with DataOps.” DataKitchen, 10 May 2021. Accessed Aug. 2022.
    Sujay Vailshery, Lionel. “Edge computing market value worldwide 2019-2025.” Statista, 25 Feb. 2022. Accessed Oct 2022.
    Sujay Vailshery, Lionel. “IoT and non-IoT connections worldwide 2010-2025.” Statista, 6 Sept. 2022. Accessed Oct. 2022.
    Sumina, Vladimir. “26 Cloud Computing Statistics, Facts & Trends for 2022.” Cloudwards, 7 June 2022. Accessed Oct. 2022.
    Taulli, Tom. “What You Need To Know About Dark Data.” Forbes, 27 Oct. 2019. Accessed Oct. 2022.
    Taylor, Linnet. “What is data justice? The case for connecting digital rights and freedoms globally.“ Big Data & Society, July-Dec 2017. Accessed Aug 2022.
    “Twitter: Data Collection With API Research Paper.” IvyPanda, 28 April 2022. Accessed Aug. 2022.
    “Using governance automation to reduce data risk.” Nintex, 15 Nov. 2021. Accessed Oct. 2022
    “Volume of data/information created, captured, copied, and consumed worldwide from 2010 to 2020, with forecasts from 2021 to 2025.” Statista, 8 Sept. 2022. Accessed Oct 2022.
    Wang, R. “Monday's Musings: Beyond The Three V's of Big Data – Viscosity and Virality.” Forbes, 27 Feb. 2012. Accessed Aug 2022.
    “What is a data fabric?” IBM, n.d. Accessed Aug 2022.
    Yego, Kip. “Augmented data management: Data fabric versus data mesh.” IBM, 27 April 2022. Accessed Aug 2022.

    Identify and Manage Regulatory and Compliance Risk Impacts on Your Organization

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    More than at any other time, our world is changing. As a result, organizations – and their vendors – need to be able to adapt their plans to accommodate risk on an unprecedented level.

    It is increasingly likely that one of your vendors, or their n-party support vendors, will fall out of regulatory compliance. Therefore, organizations must protect themselves by creating better mechanisms to hold their n-party vendors accountable and validate that they comply.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Identifying and managing a vendor’s potential regulatory impact on your organization requires multiple people in the organization across several functions. Those people all need coaching on the potential changes in the market and how these changes may affect operations.
    • Organizational leadership is often taken unaware by changes, and their plans lack the flexibility to adjust to significant regulatory upheavals.

    Impact and Result

    Vendor management practices educate organizations on the different potential risks from vendors in your market and suggest creative and alternative ways to avoid and help manage them.

    • Prioritize and classify your vendors with quantifiable, standardized rankings.
    • Prioritize focus on your high-risk vendors.
    • Standardize your processes for identifying and monitoring vendor risks with our Regulatory Risk Impact Tool to manage potential impacts.

    Identify and Manage Regulatory and Compliance Risk Impacts on Your Organization Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Identify and Manage Regulatory and Compliance Risk Impacts to Your Organization Storyboard – Use the research to better understand the negative impacts of vendor actions to your brand reputation.

    Use this research to identify and quantify the potential regulatory impacts caused by vendors. Use Info-Tech's approach to look at the regulatory impact from various perspectives to better prepare for issues that may arise.

    • Identify and Manage Regulatory and Compliance Risk Impacts on Your Organization Storyboard

    2. Regulatory Risk Impact Tool – Use this tool to help identify and quantify the operational impacts of negative vendor actions.

    By playing the “what if” game and asking probing questions to draw out – or eliminate – possible negative outcomes, everyone involved adds their insight into parts of the organization to gather a comprehensive picture of potential impacts.

    • Regulatory Risk Impact Tool
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Identify and Manage Risk Impacts on Your Organization

    It is easier for prospective clients to find out what you did wrong than that you fixed the issue.

    Analyst perspective

    Organizations must understand the regulatory damage vendors may cause from lack of compliance.

    Frank Sewell.

    The sheer number of regulations on the international market is immense, ever-changing, and make it almost impossible for any organization to consistently keep up with compliance.

    As regulatory enforcement increases, organizations must hold their vendors accountable for compliance through ongoing monitoring and validation of regulatory compliance to the relevant standards in their industries, or face increasing penalties for non-compliance.

    Frank Sewell,

    Research Director, Vendor Management

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Common Obstacles

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    More than at any previous time, our world is changing rapidly. As a result, organizations – and their vendors – need to be able to adapt their plans to accommodate risk on an unprecedented level.

    It is increasingly likely that one of your vendors, or their n-party support vendors, will fall out of regulatory compliance. Organizations must protect themselves by creating better mechanisms to hold their n-party vendors accountable and validate that they comply.

    Identifying and managing a vendor’s potential regulatory impact on your organization requires multiple people in the organization across several functions. Those people all need coaching on the potential changes in the market and how these changes may affect operations.

    Organizational leadership is often taken unaware by changes, and their plans lack the flexibility to adjust to significant regulatory upheavals.

    Vendor management practices educate organizations on the different potential risks from vendors in your market and suggest creative and alternative ways to avoid and help manage them.

    Prioritize and classify your vendors with quantifiable, standardized rankings.

    Prioritize focus on your high-risk vendors.

    Standardize your processes for identifying and monitoring vendor risks with our Regulatory Risk Impact Tool to manage potential impacts.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Organizations must evolve their risk assessments to be more adaptive to respond to regulatory changes in the global market. Ongoing monitoring of the vendors who must comply with industry and governmental regulations is crucial to avoiding penalties and maintaining your regulatory compliance.

    Info-Tech’s multi-blueprint series on vendor risk assessment

    There are many individual components of vendor risk beyond cybersecurity.

    The image contains a cube that is divided into 6 asymmetrical to highlight the six components of vendor risk. Strategic, Security, Regulatory & Compliance, Financial, Reputational, Operational.

    This series will focus on the individual components of vendor risk and how vendor management practices can facilitate organizations’ understanding of those risks.

    Out of Scope:

    This series will not tackle risk governance, determining overall risk tolerance and appetite, or quantifying inherent risk.

    Regulatory and Compliance risk impacts

    Potential losses to the organization due regulatory and compliance incidents.

    • In this blueprint we’ll:
      • Explore regulatory and compliance risks and their impacts.
      • Identify potentially disruptive events to assess the overall impact on organizations and implement adaptive measures to identify, manage, and monitor vendor performance.

    The image contains a cube that is divided into 6 asymmetrical to highlight the six components of vendor risk. Strategic, Security, Regulatory & Compliance, Financial, Reputational, Operational. Regulatory & Compliance is highlighted on the cube.

    The world is constantly changing

    The IT market is constantly reacting to global influences. By anticipating changes, leaders can set expectations and work with their vendors to accommodate them and avoid penalties.

    When the unexpected happens, being able to adapt quickly to new priorities and regulations ensures continued long-term business success.

    Below are some things no one expected to happen in the last few years:

    45%

    Have no visibility into their upstream supply chain, or they can only see as far as their first-tier suppliers.

    2022 McKinsey

    61%

    Of compliance officers expect to increase investment in their compliance function over the next two years.

    2022 Accenture

    $770k+

    Breaches involving third-party vendors cost more on average.

    2022 HIT Consultant.net

    Regulatory Compliance

    Consider implementing vendor management initiatives and practices in your organization to help gain compliance with your expanding vendor landscape.

    Your organizational risks may be monitored but are your n-party vendors?

    The image contains a cube that is divided into 6 asymmetrical to highlight the six components of vendor risk. Strategic, Security, Regulatory & Compliance, Financial, Reputational, Operational.

    Review your expectations with your vendors and hold them accountable.

    Regulatory entities are looking beyond your organization’s internal compliance these days. More and more they are diving into your third-party and downstream relationships, particularly as awareness of downstream breaches increases globally.

    • Are you assessing your vendors regularly?
    • Are you validating those assessments?
    • Do your vendors have a map of their downstream support vendors?
    • Do they have the mechanisms to hold those downstream vendors accountable to your standards?

    Regulatory Guidance and Industry Standards

    Are you confident your vendors meet your standards?

    Identify and manage regulatory and compliance risks

    Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG)
    Regulatory agencies are putting more enforcement on ESG practices across the globe. As a result, organizations will need to monitor the changing regulations and validate that their vendors and n-party support vendors are adhering to these regulations, or face penalties for non-compliance.

    Data Protection
    Data Protection remains an issue in the world. Organizations should ensure that the data their vendors obtain remains protected throughout the vendor’s lifecycle, including post-termination. Otherwise, they could be monitoring for a data breach in perpetuity.

    Mergers and Acquisitions
    More prominent vendors continuously buy smaller companies to control the market in the IT industry. Therefore, organizations should put protections in their contracts to ensure that an IT vendor’s acquisition does not put them in a relationship with someone that could cause them an issue.

    What to look for

    Identify regulatory and compliance risk impacts.

    • Is there a record of complaints against the vendor from their employees or customers?
    • Has the vendor been cited for regulatory compliance issues in the past?
    • Does the vendor have a comprehensive list of their n-party vendor partners?
      • Are they willing to accept appropriate contractual protections regarding them?
    • Does the vendor self-audit, or do they use a vetted third-party audit firm to issue a SOC report annually?
    • Does the vendor operate in regions known for regulatory violations?
    • Is the vendor willing to make concessions on contractual protections, or are they only offering “one-sided” agreements with “as-is” warranties?

    Prepare your vendor risk management for success

    Due diligence will enable successful outcomes.

    1. Obtain top-level buy-in; it is critical to success.
    2. Build enterprise risk management (ERM) through incremental improvement.
    3. Focus initial efforts on the “big wins” to prove the process works.
    4. Use existing resources.
    5. Build on any risk management activities that already exist in the organization.
    6. Socialize ERM throughout the organization to gain additional buy‑in.
    7. Normalize the process long term, with ongoing updates and continuing education for the organization.

    (Adapted from COSO)

    How to assess third-party risk

    1. Review Organizational Regulations
    2. Understand the organization’s regulatory risks to prepare for the “What If” game exercise.

    3. Identify & Understand Potential Regulatory-Compliance Risks
    4. Play the “What If” game with the right people at the table.

    5. Create a Risk Profile Packet for Leadership
    6. Pull all the information together in a presentation document.

    7. Validate the Risks
    8. Work with leadership to ensure that the proposed risks are in line with their thoughts.

    9. Plan to Manage the Risks
    10. Lower the overall risk potential by putting mitigations in place.

    11. Communicate the Plan
    12. It is important not only to have a plan but also to socialize it in the organization for awareness.

    13. Enact the Plan
    14. Once the plan is finalized and socialized, put it in place with continued monitoring for success.

    Adapted from Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance

    Insight summary

    Regulatory risk impacts often come from unexpected places and have significant consequences. Knowing who your vendors are using for their support and supply chain could be crucial in eliminating the risk of non-compliance for your organization. Having a plan to identify and validate the regulatory compliance of your vendors is a must for any organization, to avoid penalties.

    Insight 1

    Organizations fail to plan for vendor acquisitions appropriately.

    Vendors routinely get acquired in the IT space. Does your organization have appropriate safeguards from inadvertently entering a negative relationship? Do you have plans around replacing critical vendors purchased in such a manner?

    Insight 2

    Organizations often fail to understand how n-party vendors could place them in non-compliance.

    Even if you know your complete third-party vendor landscape, you may not be aware of the downstream vendors in play. Ensure that you get visibility into this space as well and hold your direct vendors accountable for the actions of their vendors.

    Insight 3

    Organizations need to know where their data lives and ensure it is protected.

    Make sure you know which vendors are accessing/storing your data, where they are keeping it, and that you can get it back and have the vendors destroy it when the relationship is over. Without adequate protection throughout the lifecycle of the vendor, you could be monitoring for breaches in perpetuity.

    Identifying regulatory and compliance risks

    Who should be included in the discussion.

    • While it is true that executive-level leadership defines the strategy for an organization, it is vital for those making decisions to make informed decisions.
    • Getting input from regulatory risk experts within your organization will enhance your long-term potential for successful compliance.
    • Involving those who not only directly manage vendors but also understand your regulatory requirements will aid in determining the path forward for relationships with your current vendors, and identifying new emerging potential partners.

    See the blueprint Build an IT Risk Management Program

    Review your risk management plans for new risks on a regular basis.

    Keep in mind Risk = Likelihood x Impact (R=L*I).

    Impact (I) tends to remain the same, while Likelihood (L) is becoming closer to 100% as threat actors become more prevalent

    Managing vendor regulatory and compliance risk impacts

    How could your vendors fall out of compliance?

    • Review vendors’ downstream connections to understand thoroughly with whom you are in business.
      • Monitor their regulatory stance as it could reflect on your organization.
    • Institute proper vendor lifecycle management.
      • Make sure to follow corporate due diligence and risk assessment policies and procedures.
      • Failure to consistently do so is a recipe for disaster.
    • Develop IT risk governance and change control.
    • Introduce continual risk assessment to monitor the relevant vendor markets.
      • Regularly review your regulatory requirements for new and changing risks.
    • Be adaptable and allow for innovations that arise from the current needs.
      • Capture lessons learned from prior incidents to improve over time, and adjust your plans accordingly.

    Organizations must review their regulatory risk appetite and tolerance levels, considering their complete landscape.

    Changing regulations, acquisitions, and events that affect global supply chains are current realities, not unlikely scenarios.

    Ongoing Improvement

    Incorporating lessons learned.

    • Over time, despite everyone’s best observations and plans, incidents will catch us off guard.
    • When it happens, follow your incident response plans and act accordingly.
    • An essential step is to document what worked and what did not – collectively known as the “lessons learned.”
    • Use the lessons learned document to devise, incorporate, and enact a better risk management process.

    Sometimes disasters occur despite our best plans to manage them.

    When this happens, it is important to document the lessons learned and update our plans.

    The “what if” game

    1-3 hours

    Vendor management professionals are in an excellent position to help senior leadership identify and pull together resources across the organization to determine potential risks. By playing the "what if" game and asking probing questions to draw out – or eliminate – possible adverse outcomes, everyone involved adds their insight into parts of the organization to gather a comprehensive picture of potential impacts.

    1. Break into smaller groups (or if too small, continue as a single group).
    2. Use the Regulatory Risk Impact Tool to prompt discussion on potential risks. Keep this discussion flowing organically to explore all potentials but manage the overall process to keep the discussion pertinent and on track.
    3. Collect the outputs and ask the subject matter experts (SMEs) for management options for each one in order to present a comprehensive risk strategy. You will use this to educate senior leadership so that they can make an informed decision to accept or reject the solution.
    Input Output
    • List of identified potential risk scenarios scored by regulatory-compliance impact
    • List of potential mitigations of the scenarios to reduce the risk
    • Comprehensive regulatory risk profile on the specific vendor solution
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts
    • Regulatory Risk Impact Tool to help drive discussion
    • Vendor Management – Coordinator
    • Organizational Leadership
    • Operations Experts (SMEs)
    • Legal/Compliance/Risk Manager

    High risk example from tool

    The image contains a screenshot demonstrating high risk example from the tool.

    How to mitigate:

    Contractually insist that the vendor have a third-party security audit performed annually, with the stipulation that they will not denigrate below your acceptable standards.

    Note: Even though a few items are “scored” they have not been added to the overall weight, signaling that the company has noted but does not necessarily hold them against the vendor.

    Low risk example from tool

    The image contains a screenshot demonstrating low risk example from the tool.

    Summary

    Seek to understand all regulatory requirements to obtain compliance.

    • Organizations need to understand and map out their entire vendor landscape.
    • Understand where all your data lives and how you can control it throughout the vendor lifecycle.
    • Those organizations that consistently follow their established risk assessment and due diligence processes are better positioned to avoid penalties.
    • Bring the right people to the table to outline potential risks in the market and your organization.
    • Incorporate “lessons learned” from prior incidents into your risk management process to build better plans for future issues.

    Keeping up with the ever-changing regulations can make compliance a difficult task.

    Organizations should increase the resources dedicated to monitoring these regulations as agencies continue to hold them more accountable.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Identify and Manage Financial Risk Impacts on Your Organization

    • Vendor management practices educate organizations on potential financial impacts that vendors may incur and suggest systems to help manage them.
    • Standardize your processes for identifying and monitoring vendor risks to manage financial impacts with our Financial Risk Impact Tool.

    Identify and Manage Reputational Risk Impacts on Your Organization

    • Vendor management practices educate organizations on potential risks to vendors in your market and suggest creative and alternative ways to avoid and help manage them.
    • Standardize your processes for identifying and monitoring vendor risks to manage potential impacts on your reputation and brand with our Reputational Risk Impact Tool.

    Identify and Manage Strategic Risk Impacts on Your Organization

    • Vendor management practices educate organizations on potential risks to vendors in your market and suggest creative and alternative ways to avoid and help manage them.
    • Standardize your processes for identifying and monitoring vendor risks to manage potential impacts on your strategic plan with our Strategic Risk Impact Tool.

    Info-Tech Insight

    It is easier for prospective clients to find out what you did wrong than that you fixed the issue.


    Bibliography

    Alicke, Knut, et al. "Taking the pulse of shifting supply chains", McKinsey & Company, August 26th 2022. Accessed October 31st
    Regan, Samantha, et al. "Can compliance keep up with warp-speed Change?", accenture, May 18th 2022. Accessed Oct 31st 2022.
    Feria, Nathalie, and Rosenberg, Daniel. "Mitigating Healthcare Cyber Risk Through Vendor Management", HIT Consultant, October 17th 2022. Accessed Oct 31st 2022.
    Tonello, Matteo. “Strategic Risk Management: A Primer for Directors.” Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, 23 Aug. 2012.
    Frigo, Mark L., and Richard J. Anderson. “Embracing Enterprise Risk Management: Practical Approaches for Getting Started.” COSO, 2011.

    Understand the Difference Between Backups and Archives

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    • You don’t understand the difference between a backup and an archive or when to use one or the other.
    • Data is not constant. It is ever-changing and growing. How do you protect it?
    • You just replaced an application that was in use since day one, and even though you have a fully functional replacement, you would like to archive that original application just in case.
    • You want to save money, so you use your backup solution to archive data, but you know that is not ideal. What is the correct solution?

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Keep in mind that backups are for recovery while archives are for discovery. Backups and archives are often confused but understanding the differences can result in significant savings of time and money. Backing up and archiving may be considered IT tasks, but recovery and discovery are capabilities the business wants and is willing to pay for.

    Impact and Result

    Archives and backups are not the same, and there is a use case for each. Sometimes minor adjustments may be required to make the use case work. Understanding the basics of backups and archives can lead to significant savings at a monetary and effort level.

    Understand the Difference Between Backups and Archives Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Understand the Difference Between Backups and Archives

    What is the difference between a backup and a data archive? When should I use one over the other? They are not the same and confusing the two concepts could be expensive.

    • Understand the Difference Between Backups and Archives Storyboard
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Understand the Difference Between Backups and Archives

    They are not the same, and confusing the two concepts could be expensive

    Analyst Perspective

    Backups and archives are not interchangeable, but they can complement each other.

    Photo of P.J. Ryan, Research Director, Infrastructure & Operations, Info-Tech Research Group.

    Backups and archives are two very different operations that are quite often confused or misplaced. IT and business leaders are tasked with protecting corporate data from a variety of threats. They also must conform to industry, geographical, and legal compliance regulations. Backup solutions keep the data safe from destruction. If you have a backup, why do you also need an archive? Archive solutions hold data for a long period of time and can be searched. If you have an archive, why do you also need a backup solution? Backups and archives used to be the same. Remember when you would keep the DAT tape in the same room as the argon gas fire suppression system for seven years? Now that's just not feasible. Some situations require a creative approach or a combination of backups and archives.

    Understand the difference between archives and backups and you will understand why the two solutions are necessary and beneficial to the business.

    P.J. Ryan
    Research Director, Infrastructure & Operations
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge
    • You don’t understand the difference between a backup and an archive or when to use one over the other.
    • Data is not constant. It is ever-changing and growing. How do you protect it?
    • You just replaced an application that had been in use since day one, and even though you have a fully functional replacement, you would like to archive that original application just in case.
    • You want to save money, so you use your backup solution to archive data, but you know that is not ideal. What is the correct solution?
    Common Obstacles
    • Storage costs can be expensive, as can some backup and archiving solutions.
    • Unclear requirements definition to decide between backups or archives.
    • Historically, people referred to archiving as tossing something into a box and storing it away indefinitely. Data archiving has a different meaning.
    • Executives want retired applications preserved but do not provide reasons or requirements.
    Info-Tech’s Approach
    • Spend wisely. Why spend money on an archive solution when a backup will suffice? Don’t leave money on the table.
    • Be creative and assess each backup or archive situation carefully. A custom solution may be required.
    • Backup your production data for the purpose of restoring it and adhere to the 3-2-1 rule of backups (Naviko.com).
    • Archive your older data to an alternate storge platform to save space, allow for searchability, and provide retention parameters.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Keep in mind that backups are for recovery while archives are for discovery. Backups and archives are often confused but understanding the differences can result in significant savings of time and money. Backing up and archiving may be considered IT tasks but recovery and discovery are capabilities the business wants and is willing to pay for.

    Archive

    What it IS

    A data archive is an alternate location for your older, infrequently accessed production data. It is indexed and searchable based on keywords. Archives are deleted after a specified period based on your retention policy or compliance directives.

    What it IS NOT

    Archives are not an emergency copy of your production data. They are not any type of copy of your production data. Archives will not help you if you lose your data or accidentally delete a file. Archives are not multiple copies of production data from various recovery points.

    Why use it

    Archives move older data to an alternate location. This frees up storage space for your current data. Archives are indexed and can be searched for historical purposes, compliance reasons, or in the event of a legal matter where specific data must be provided to a legal team.

    Tips & Tricks – Archiving

    • Archiving will move older data to an alternate location. This will free up storage space in the production environment.
    • Archiving solutions index the data to allow for easier searchability. This will aid in common business searches as well as assist with any potential legal searches.
    • Archiving allows companies to hold onto data for historical purposes as well as for specific retention periods in compliance with industry and regional regulations such as SOX, GDPR, FISMA, as well as others (msp360.com).

    Backup

    What it IS

    A backup is a copy of your data from a specific day and time. It is primarily used for recovery or restoration if something happens to the production copy of data. The restore will return the file or folder to the state it was in at the time of the backup.

    Backups occur frequently to ensure the most recent version of data is copied to a safe location.

    A typical backup plan makes a copy of the data every day, once a week, and once a month. The data is stored on tapes, disk, or using cloud storage.

    What it IS NOT

    Backups are not designed for searching or discovery. If you backup your email and must go to that backup in search of all email pertaining to a specific topic, you must restore the full backup and then search for that specific topic or sender. If you kept all the monthly backups for seven years, that will mean repeating that process 84 times to have a conclusive search, assuming you have adequate storage space to restore the email database 84 times.

    Backups do not free up space.

    Why use it

    Backups protect your data in the event of disaster, deletion, or accidental damage. A good backup strategy will include multiple backups on different media and offsite storage of at least one copy.

    Tips & Tricks – Backups

    • Production data should be backed up on a regular basis, ideally once a day or more frequently if possible.
    • Backups are intended to restore data when it gets deleted, over-written, or otherwise compromised. Most restore requests are from the last 24 to 48 hours, so it may be advantageous to keep a backup readily available on disk for a quick restore when needed.
    • Some vendors and industry subject matter experts advocate the use of a 3-2-1 rule when it comes to backups:
      • Keep three copies of your production data
      • In at least two separate locations (some advocate two different formats), and
      • One copy should be offsite (nakivo.com)

    Cold Storage

    • Cold storage refers to a storage option offered by some cloud vendors. In the context of the discussion between backups and archives, it can be an option for a dedicated backup solution for a specific period. Cost is low and the data is protected from destruction.
    • If an app has been replaced and all data transferred to the replacement solution but for some reason the company wishes to hold onto the data, you want a backup, not an archive. Extract the data, convert it into MongoDB or a similar solution, and drop it into cheap cloud storage (cold storage) for less than $5 per TB/month.

    Case Study

    Understanding the difference between archives and backups could save you a lot of time and money

    INDUSTRY: Manufacturing | SOURCE: Info-Tech Research

    Understanding the difference between an archive and a backup was the first step in solving their challenge.

    A leading manufacturing company found themselves in a position where they had to decide between archiving or doing nothing.

    The company had completed several acquisitions and ended up with multiple legacy applications that had been merged or migrated into replacement solutions. These legacy applications were very important to the original companies and although the data they held had been migrated to a replacement solution, executives felt they should hold onto these applications for a period of time, just in case.

    Some of the larger applications were archived using a modern archiving solution, but when it came to the smaller applications, the cost to add them to the archiving solution greatly exceeded the cost to just keep them running and maintain the associated infrastructure.

    A research advisor from Info-Tech Research Group joined a call with the manufacturing company and discussed their situation. The difference between archives and backups was explained and through the course of the conversation it was discovered that the solution was a modified backup. The application data had already been preserved through the migration, so data could be accessed in the production environment. The requirement to keep the legacy application up and running was not necessary but in compliance with the request to keep the information, the data could be exported from the legacy application into a non-sequential database, compressed, and stored in cloud-based cold storage for less than five dollars per terabyte per month. The manufacturing company’s staff realized that they could apply this same approach to several of their legacy applications and save tens of thousands of dollars in the process.

    Understand the Difference Between Backups and Archives

    Backups

    Backups are for recovery. A backup is a snapshot copy of production data at a specific point in time. If the production data is lost, destroyed, or somehow compromised, the data can be restored from the backup.

    Archives

    Archives are for discovery. It is production data that is moved to an alternate location to free up storage space, allow the data to be searchable, and still hold onto the data for historical or compliance purposes.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Archives and backups are not the same, and there is a use case for each. Sometimes minor adjustments may be required to make the use case work. Understanding the basics of backups and archives can lead to significant savings at a monetary and effort level.

    Additional Guidance

    Production data should be backed up.

    The specific backup solution is up to the business.

    Production data that is not frequently accessed should be archived.

    The specific solution to perform and manage the archiving of the data is up to the business

    • Archived data should also be backed up at least once.
    If the app has been replaced and all data transferred, you want a backup not an archive if you want to keep the data.
    • Short term – fence it off.
    • Long term – extract into Mongo then drop it into cheap cloud storage.

    Case Study

    Using tape backups as an archive solution could result in an expensive discovery and retrieval exercise.

    INDUSTRY: Healthcare | SOURCE: Zasio Enterprises Inc.

    “Do not commingle archive data with backup or disaster recovery tapes.”

    A court case in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada involving Guardiola and Renown Health in 2015 is a good example of why using a backup solution to solve an archiving challenge is a bad idea.

    Renown Health used a retention policy that declared any email older than six months of age as inactive and moved that email to a backup tape. Renown Health was ordered by the court to produce emails from a period of time in the past. Renown estimated that it would cost at least $248,000 to produce those emails, based on the effort involved to restore data from each tape and search for the email in question. Renown Health argued that this long and expensive process would result in undue costs.

    The court reviewed the situation and ruled against Renown Health and ordered them to comply with the request (Zasio.com).

    A proper archiving solution would have provided a quick and low-cost method to retrieve the emails in question.

    Backups and archives are complementary to each other

    • Archives are still production data, but the data does not change. A backup is recommended for the archived data, but the frequency of the backups can be lowered.
    • Backups protect you if a disaster strikes by providing a copy of the production data that was compromised or damaged. Archives allow you to access older data that may have just been forgotten, not destroyed or compromised. Archives could also protect you in a legal court case by providing data that is older but may prove your argument in court.

    Archives and backups are not the same.

    Backups copy your data. Archives move your data. Backups facilitate recovery. Archives facilitate discovery.

    Archive Backup
    Definition Move rarely accessed (but still production) data to separate media. Store a copy of frequently used data on a separate media to ensure timely operational recovery.
    Use Case Legal discovery, primary storage reduction, compliance requirements, and audits. Accidental deletion and/or corruption of data, hardware/software failures.
    Method Disk, cloud storage, appliance. Disk, backup appliance, snapshots, cloud.
    Data Older, rarely accessed production data. Current production data.

    Is it a backup or archive?

    • You want to preserve older data for legal and compliance reasons, so you put extra effort into keeping your tape backups safe and secure for seven years. That’s a big mistake that may cost you time and money. You want an archive solution.
    • You replace your older application and migrate all data to the new system, but you want to hold onto the old data, just in case. That’s a backup, not an archive.
    • A long serving senior executive recently left the company. You want to preserve the contents of the executive's laptop in case it is needed in the future. That’s a backup.

    Considerations When Choosing Between Solutions

    1

    Backup or archive?

    2

    What are you protecting?

    3

    Why are you protecting data?

    4

    Solution

    Backup

    Backup and/or archive.
    Additional information required.
    Column 3 may help

    Archive

    Device

    Data

    Application

    Operational Environment

    Operational recovery

    Disaster recovery

    Just in case

    Production storage space reduction

    Retention and preservation

    Governance, risk & compliance

    Backup

    Archive

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Stock image of light grids and flares. Establish an Effective Data Protection Plan

    Give data the attention it deserves by building a strategy that goes beyond backup.

    Stock image of old fuse box switches. Modernize Enterprise Storage

    Current and emerging storage technologies are disrupting the status quo – prepare your infrastructure for the exponential rise in data and its storage requirements.

    Logo for 'Software Reviews' and their information on 'Compare and Evaluate: Data Archiving.'
    Sample of Info-Tech's 'Data Archiving Policy'. Data Archiving Policy

    Bibliography

    “Backup vs. archiving: Know the difference.” Open-E. Accessed 05 Mar 2022.Web.

    G, Denis. “How to build retention policy.” MSP360, Jan 3, 2020. Accessed 10 Mar 2022.

    Ipsen, Adam. “Archive vs Backup: What’s the Difference? A Definition Guide.” BackupAssist, 28 Mar 2017. Accessed 04 Mar 2022.

    Kang, Soo. “Mitigating the expense of E-discovery; Recognizing the difference between back-ups and archived data.” Zasio Enterprises, 08 Oct 2015. Accessed 3 Mar 2022.

    Mayer, Alex. “The 3-2-1 Backup Rule – An Efficient Data Protection Strategy.” Naviko. Accessed 12 Mar 2022.

    “What is Data-Archiving?” Proofpoint. Accessed 07 Mar 2022.

    Make the Case for Legacy Application Modernization

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    • Parent Category Name: Selection & Implementation
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    • Organizations are under continual pressure to deliver faster, with shorter time-to-market, while introducing new products and services at the same time.
    • You and your team have concerns that your existing portfolio of applications is not up to the task.
    • While you understand the need for more investments to modernize your portfolio, your leadership does not appreciate what is required.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Legacy modernization is a process, not a single event.
    • Your modernization approach requires you to understand your landscape and decide on a path that minimizes business continuity risks, keeps the investments under control, and is prepared for surprises but always has your final state in mind.

    Impact and Result

    • Evaluate the current state, develop a legacy application strategy, and execute in an agile manner.
    • When coupled with a business case and communications strategy, this approach gives the organization a clear decision-making framework that will maximize business outcomes and deliver value where needed.

    Make the Case for Legacy Application Modernization Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Make the Case for Legacy Application Modernization Storyboard – Understand legacy application modernization in the context of your organization, assess your landscape of applications, and define prioritization and disposition.

    This blueprint provides the steps necessary to build your own enterprise application implementation playbook that can be deployed and leveraged by your implementation teams.

    • Make the Case for Legacy Application Modernization Storyboard

    2. Make the Case for Legacy Application Modernization Presentation Template – The key output from leveraging this research is a presentation to pitch the modernization process.

    Build a proposal deck to make the case for legacy application modernization for your stakeholders. This will contain a definition of what a legacy application is in the context of your organization, a list of candidate applications to modernize, and a disposition strategy for each selected application.

    • Make the Case for Legacy Application Modernization Presentation Template
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Make the Case for Legacy Application Modernization

    Revamp your business potential to improve agility, security, and user experience while reducing costs.

    Analyst Perspective

    An old application may have served us reliably, but it can prevent us from pursuing future business needs.

    Legacy systems remain well-embedded in the fabric of many organizations' application portfolios. They were often custom-built to meet the needs of the business. Typically, these are core tools that the business leverages to accomplish its goals.

    A legacy application becomes something we need to address when it no longer supports our business goals, is no longer supportable, bears an unsustainable ownership cost, or poses a threat to the organization's cybersecurity or compliance.

    When approaching your legacy application strategy, you must navigate a complex web of business, stakeholder, software, hardware, resourcing, and financial decisions. To complicate matters, the full scope of required effort is not immediately clear. Years of development are embedded in these legacy applications, which must be uncovered and dealt with appropriately.

    IT leaders require a proactive approach for evaluating the current state, developing a legacy application strategy, and executing in an agile manner. When coupled with a business case and communications strategy, the organization will have a clear decision-making framework that will maximize business outcomes and deliver value where needed.

    Ricardo de Oliveira, Research Director, Enterprise Applications

    Ricardo de Oliveira
    Research Director, Enterprise Applications
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge Common Obstacles Info-Tech's Approach
    • Organizations face continual pressure to decrease time-to-market while also introducing new products and services.
    • You and your team have concerns that the existing application portfolio is not up to the task.
    • While you may understand the need for greater investment to modernize your portfolio, leadership does not appreciate what is required.
    • For well-established organizations, applications can have a long lifespan. Employees who are used to existing tools and processes often resist change.
    • Modernization plans can be substantial, but budget and resources are limited.
    • Poor documentation of legacy applications can make it challenging to know what to modernize and how to do it effectively.
    • There are concerns that any changes will have material impacts on business continuity.
    • Info-Tech will enable you to build a proposal deck to make the case for legacy application modernization for your stakeholders. This will assist with:
      • Defining what a legacy application is in the context of your organization.
      • Creating a list of candidate applications for modernization.
      • Articulating the right disposition strategy for each selected applications.
      • Laying out what is next on your modernization journey.

    Info-Tech Insight
    Legacy modernization is a process, not a single event. Your modernization approach requires you to understand your landscape and decide on a path that minimizes business continuity risks, keeps investments under control, and is prepared for surprises but always has your final state in mind.

    An approach to making the case for legacy application modernization

    Understand
    Assess the challenges, lay out the reasons, define your legacy, and prepare to remove the barriers to modernization.
    Assess
    Determine the benefits by business capability. Leverage APM foundations to select the candidate applications and prioritize.
    Legacy Application Modernization
    Define
    Use the prioritized application list to drive the next steps to modernization.

    Legacy application modernization is perceived as necessary to remain competitive

    The 2022 State CIO Survey by NASCIO shows that legacy application modernization jumped from fifth to second in state CIO priorities.

    "Be patient and also impatient. Patient because all states have a lot of legacy tech they are inheriting and government is NOT easy. But also, impatient because there is a lot to do - make your priorities clear but also find out what the CIO needs to accomplish those priorities."

    Source: NASCIO, 2022

    State CIO Priorities

    US government agencies feel pressured to deal with legacy applications

    In fiscal year 2021, the US government planned to spend over $100 billion on information technology. Most of that was to be used to operate and maintain existing systems, including legacy applications, which can be both more expensive to maintain and more vulnerable to hackers. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified:

    • 10 critical federal IT legacy systems
    • In operation between 8 and 51 years
    • Collectively cost $337 million per year to operate and maintain

    Source: U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2021

    Example: In banking, modern platforms are essential

    Increasing competition from fintech 73% of financial services executives perceive retail banking as being the most susceptible to fintech disruption (PwC, 2016)
    Growing number of neo-banks The International Monetary Fund (IMF) notes the fast growth of fintech in financial services is creating systemic risk to global financial stability (IMF, 2022)
    Access to data and advanced analytics Estimated global bank revenue lost due to poor data is 15% to 25% (MIT, 2017)
    Shifting client expectations/demographics 50% of Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z use a digital bank to provide their primary checking account (Finextra, 2022)
    Generational transfer of wealth It is estimated that up to US$68 trillion in wealth will be transferred from baby boomers (Forbes, 2021)

    Case Study

    Delta takes off with a modernized blend of mainframes and cloud

    INDUSTRY: Transportation
    SOURCE: CIO Magazine, 2023

    Challenge
    The airline has hundreds of applications in the process of moving to the cloud, but most main capabilities are underpinned by workloads on the mainframe and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
    Some of those workloads include travel reservation systems and crew scheduling systems - mission-critical, 24/7 applications that are never turned off.
    Solution
    Delta has shifted to a hybrid architecture, with a customer experience transformation that makes the most of the cloud's agility and the mainframe's dependability.
    Delta's foray into the cloud began about two years ago as the pandemic brought travel to a virtual halt. The airline started migrating many front-end and distributed applications to the cloud while retaining traditional back-end workloads on the mainframe.
    Results
    Hybrid infrastructures are expected to remain in complex industries such as airlines and banking, where high availability and maximum reliability are non-negotiable.
    While some CIOs are sharpening their mainframe exit strategies by opting for a steep journey to the cloud, mainframes remain ideal for certain workloads.

    Phase 1: Make the Case for Legacy Application Modernization

    Phase 1
    1.1 Understand your challenges
    1.2 Define legacy applications
    1.3 Assess your barriers
    1.4 Find the impacted capabilities
    1.5 Define candidate applications
    1.6 Now, Next, Later

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Understand your challenges with modernization
    • Define legacy applications in your context
    • Assess your barriers to modernization
    • Find the impacted capabilities and their benefits
    • Define candidate applications and dispositions

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Application group leaders
    • Individual application owners

    Create Stakeholder-Centric Architecture Governance

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    • Parent Category Name: Strategy & Operating Model
    • Parent Category Link: /strategy-and-operating-model
    • Traditional enterprise architecture management (EAM) caters to only 10% – the IT people, and not to the remaining 90% of the organization.
    • EAM practices do not scale well with the agile way of working and are often perceived as "bottlenecks” or “restrictors of design freedom.”
    • The organization scale does not justify a full-fledged EAM with many committees, complex processes, and detailed EA artifacts.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Architecture is a competency, not a function. Project teams, including even business managers outside of IT, can assimilate “architectural thinking.”

    Impact and Result

    Increase business value through the dissemination of architectural thinking throughout the organization. Maturing your EAM practices beyond a certain point does not help.

    Create Stakeholder-Centric Architecture Governance Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Start here

    Improve benefits from your enterprise architecture efforts through the dissemination of architecture thinking throughout your organization.

    • Create Stakeholder-Centric Architecture Governance Storyboard
    [infographic]

    Take Control of Infrastructure and Operations Metrics

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    • Parent Category Name: Operations Management
    • Parent Category Link: /i-and-o-process-management
    • Measuring the business value provided by IT is very challenging.
    • You have a number of metrics, but they may not be truly meaningful, contextual, or actionable.
    • You know you need more than a single metric to tell the whole story. You also suspect that metrics from different systems combined will tell an even fuller story.
    • You are being asked to provide information from different levels of management, for different audiences, conveying different information.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Many organizations collect metrics to validate they are keeping the lights on. But the Infrastructure and Operations managers who are benefitting the most are taking steps to ensure they are getting the right metrics to help them make decisions, manage costs, and plan for change.
    • Complaints about metrics are often rooted in managers wading through too many individual metrics, wrong metrics, or data that they simply can’t trust.
    • Info-Tech surveyed and interviewed a number of Infrastructure managers, CIOs, and IT leaders to understand how they are leveraging metrics. Successful organizations are using metrics for everything from capacity planning to solving customer service issues to troubleshooting system failures.

    Impact and Result

    • Manage metrics so they don’t become time wasters and instead provide real value.
    • Identify the types of metrics you need to focus on.
    • Build a metrics process to ensure you are collecting the right metrics and getting data you can use to save time and make better decisions.

    Take Control of Infrastructure and Operations Metrics Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should implement a metrics program in your Infrastructure and Operations practice, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Gap analysis

    This phase will help you identify challenges that you want to avoid by implementing a metrics program, discover the main IT goals, and determine your core metrics.

    • Take Control of Infrastructure and Operations Metrics – Phase 1: Gap Analysis
    • Infra & Ops Metrics Executive Presentation

    2. Build strategy

    This phase will help you make an actionable plan to implement your metrics program, define roles and responsibilities, and communicate your metrics project across your organization and with the business division.

    • Take Control of Infrastructure and Operations Metrics – Phase 2: Build Strategy
    • Infra & Ops Metrics Definition Template
    • Infra & Ops Metrics Tracking and Reporting Tool
    • Infra & Ops Metrics Program Roles & Responsibilities Guide
    • Weekly Metrics Review With Your Staff
    • Quarterly Metrics Review With the CIO
    [infographic]

    Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring

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    • Parent Category Name: Marketing Solutions
    • Parent Category Link: /marketing-solutions
    • Prospective buyer traffic into digital marketing platforms has exploded.
    • Many freemium/low-cost digital marketing platforms lack lead scoring and nurturing functionality.
    • As a result, the volume of unqualified leads being delivered to outbound sellers has increased dramatically.
    • This has reduced sales productivity, frustrated prospective buyers, and raised the costs of lead generation.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Lead scoring is a must-have capability for high-tech marketers.
    • Without lead scoring, marketers will see increased costs of lead generation and decreased SQL-to-opportunity conversion rates.
    • Lead scoring increases sales productivity and shortens sales cycles.

    Impact and Result

    • Align Marketing, Sales, and Inside Sales on your ideal customer profile.
    • Re-evaluate the assets and activities that compose your current lead generation engine.
    • Develop a documented methodology to ignore, nurture, or contact right away the leads in your marketing pipeline.
    • Deliver more qualified leads to sellers, raising sales productivity and marketing/lead-gen ROI.

    Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should optimize lead generation with lead scoring, review SoftwareReviews Advisory’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Drive aligned vision for lead scoring

    Outline your plan, form your team, and plan marketing tech stack support.

    • Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring – Phase 1: Drive an Aligned Vision for Lead Scoring

    2. Build and test your lead scoring model

    Set lead flow thresholds, define your ideal customer profile and lead generation engine components, and weight, score, test, and refine them.

    • Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring – Phase 2: Build and Test Your Lead Scoring Model
    • Lead Scoring Workbook

    3. Apply your model to marketing apps and go live with better qualified leads

    Apply your lead scoring model to your lead management app, test it, validate the results with sellers, apply advanced methods, and refine.

    • Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring – Phase 3: Apply Your Model to Marketing Apps and Go Live With Better Qualified Leads
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Drive Aligned Vision for Lead Scoring

    The Purpose

    Drive an aligned vision for lead scoring.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Attain an aligned vision for lead scoring.

    Identify the steering committee and project team and clarify their roles and responsibilities.

    Provide your team with an understanding of how leads score through the marketing funnel.

    Activities

    1.1 Outline a vision for lead scoring.

    1.2 Identify steering committee and project team members.

    1.3 Assess your tech stack for lead scoring and seek advice from Info-Tech analysts to modernize where needed.

    1.4 Align on marketing pipeline terminology.

    Outputs

    Steering committee and project team make-up

    Direction on tech stack to support lead generation

    Marketing pipeline definitions alignment

    2 Buyer Journey and Lead Generation Engine Mapping

    The Purpose

    Define the buyer journey and map the lead generation engine.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Align the vision for your target buyer and their buying journey.

    Identify the assets and activities that need to compose your lead generation engine.

    Activities

    2.1 Establish a buyer persona.

    2.2 Map your buyer journey.

    2.3 Document the activities and assets of your lead generation engine.

    Outputs

    Buyer persona

    Buyer journey map

    Lead gen engine assets and activities documented

    3 Build and Test Your Lead Scoring Model

    The Purpose

    Build and test your lead scoring model.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Gain team alignment on how leads score and, most importantly, what constitutes a sales-accepted lead.

    Develop a scoring model from which future iterations can be tested.

    Activities

    3.1 Understand the Lead Scoring Grid and set your thresholds.

    3.2 Identify your ideal customer profile, attributes, and subattribute weightings – run tests.

    Outputs

    Lead scoring thresholds

    Ideal customer profile, weightings, and tested scores

    Test profile scoring

    4 Align on Engagement Attributes

    The Purpose

    Align on engagement attributes.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Develop a scoring model from which future iterations can be tested.

    Activities

    4.1 Weight the attributes of your lead generation engagement model and run tests.

    4.2 Apply weightings to activities and assets.

    4.3 Test engagement and profile scenarios together and make any adjustments to weightings or thresholds.

    Outputs

    Engagement attributes and weightings tested and complete

    Final lead scoring model

    5 Apply Model to Your Tech Platform

    The Purpose

    Apply the model to your tech platform.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Deliver better qualified leads to Sales.

    Activities

    5.1 Apply model to your marketing management/campaign management software and test the quality of sales-accepted leads in the hands of sellers.

    5.2 Measure overall lead flow and conversion rates through your marketing pipeline.

    5.3 Apply lead nurturing and other advanced methods.

    Outputs

    Model applied to software

    Better qualified leads in the hands of sellers

    Further reading

    Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring

    In today’s competitive environment, optimizing Sales’ resources by giving them qualified leads is key to B2B marketing success.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    Improve B2B seller win rates with a lead scoring methodology as part of your modern lead generation engine.

    The image contains a picture of Jeff Golterman.

    As B2B organizations emerge from the lowered demands brought on by COVID-19, they are eager to convert marketing contacts to sales-qualified leads with even the slightest signal of intent, but many sales cycles are wasted when sellers receive unqualified leads. Delivering highly qualified leads to sellers is still more art than science, and it is especially challenging without a way to score a contact profile and engagement. While most marketers capture some profile data from contacts, many will pass a contact over to Sales without any engagement data or schedule a demo with a contact without any qualifying profile data. Passing unqualified leads to Sales suboptimizes Sales’ resources, raises the costs per lead, and often results in lost opportunities. Marketers need to develop a lead scoring methodology that delivers better qualified leads to Field Sales scored against both the ideal customer profile (ICP) and engagement that signals lower-funnel buyer interest. To be successful in building a compelling lead scoring solution, marketers must work closely with key stakeholders to align the ICP asset/activity with the buyer journey. Additionally, working early in the design process with IT/Marketing Operations to implement lead management and analytical tools in support will drive results to maximize lead conversion rates and sales wins.

    Jeff Golterman

    Managing Director

    SoftwareReviews Advisory

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    The affordability and ease of implementation of digital marketing tools have driven global adoption to record levels. While many marketers are fine-tuning the lead generation engine components of email, social media, and web-based advertising to increase lead volumes, just 32% of companies pass well-qualified leads over to outbound marketers or sales development reps (SDRs). At best, lead gen costs stay high, and marketing-influenced win rates remain suboptimized. At worst, marketing reputation suffers when poorly qualified leads are passed along to sellers.

    Common Obstacles

    Most marketers lack a methodology for lead scoring, and some lack alignment among Marketing, Product, and Sales on what defines a qualified lead. In their rush to drive lead generation, marketers often fail to “define and align” on the ICP with stakeholders, creating confusion and wasted time and resources. In the rush to adopt B2B marketing and sales automation tools, many marketers have also skipped the important steps to 1) define the buyer journey and map content types to support, and 2) invest in a consistent content creation and sourcing strategy. The wrong content can leave prospects unmotivated to engage further and cause them to seek alternatives.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    To employ lead scoring effectively, marketers need to align Sales, Marketing, and Product teams on the definition of the ICP and what constitutes a Sales-accepted lead. The buyer journey needs to be mapped in order to identify the engagement that will move a lead through the marketing lead generation engine. Then the project team can score prospect engagement and the prospect profile attributes against the ICP to arrive at a lead score. The marketing tech stack needs to be validated to support lead scoring, and finally Sales needs to sign off on results.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Lead scoring is a must-have capability for high-tech marketers. Without lead scoring, marketers will see increased costs of lead gen, decreased SQL to opportunity conversion rates, decreased sales productivity, and longer sales cycles.

    Who benefits from a lead scoring project?

    This Research Is Designed for:

    • Marketers and especially campaign managers who are:
      • Looking for a more precise way to score leads and deploy outbound marketing resources to optimize contacts-to-MQL conversion rates.
      • Looking for a more effective way to profile contacts raised by your lead gen engine.
      • Looking to use their lead management software to optimize lead scoring.
      • Starting anew to strengthen their lead generation engine and want examples of a typical engine, ways to identify buyer journey, and perform lead nurturing.

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Explain why having a lead scoring methodology is important.
    • Identify a methodology that will call for identifying an ICP against which to score prospect profiles behind each contact that engages your lead generation engine.
    • Create a process of applying weightings to score activities during contact engagement with your lead generation engine. Apply both scores to arrive at a contact/lead score.
    • Compare your current lead gen engine to a best-in-class example in order to identify gaps and areas for improvement and exploration.

    This Research Will Also Assist:

    • CMOs, Marketing Operations leaders, heads of Product Marketing, and regional Marketing leads who are stakeholders in:
      • Finding alternatives to current lead scoring approaches.
        • Altering current or evaluating new marketing technologies to support a refreshed lead scoring approaches.

    This Research Will Help Them:

    • Align stakeholders on an overall program of identifying target customers, building common understanding of what constitutes a qualified lead, and determining when to use higher-cost outbound marketing resources.
    • Deploy high-value applications that will improve core marketing metrics.

    Insight summary

    Continuous adjustment and improvement of your lead scoring methodology is critical for long-term lead generation engine success.

    • Building a highly functioning lead generation engine is an ongoing process and one that requires continual testing of new asset types, asset design, and copy variations. Buyer profiles change over time as you launch new products and target new markets.
    • Pass better qualified leads to Field Sales and improve sales win rates by taking these crucial steps to implement a better lead generation engine and a lead scoring methodology:
      • Make the case for lead scoring in your organization.
      • Establish trigger points that separate leads to ignore, nurture, qualify, or outreach/contact.
      • Identify your buyer journey and ICP through collaboration among Sales, Marketing, and Product.
      • Assess each asset and activity type across your lead generation engine and apply a weighting for each.
      • Test lead scenarios within our supplied toolkit and with stakeholders. Adjust weightings and triggers that deliver lead scores that make sense.
      • Work with IT/Marketing Operations to emulate your lead scoring methodology within your marketing automation/campaign management application.
      • Explore advanced methods including nurturing.
    • Use the Lead Scoring Workbook collaboratively with other stakeholders to design your own methodology, test lead scenarios, and build alignment across the team.

    Leading marketers who successfully implement a lead scoring methodology develop it collaboratively with stakeholders across Marketing, Sales, and Product Management. Leaders will engage Marketing Operations, Sales Operations, and IT early to gain support for the evaluation and implementation of a supporting campaign management application and for analytics to track lead progress throughout the Marketing and Sales funnels. Leverage the Marketing Lead Scoring Toolkit to build out your version of the model and to test various scenarios. Use the slides contained within this storyboard and the accompanying toolkit as a means to align key stakeholders on the ICP and to weight assets and activities across your marketing lead generation engine.

    What is lead scoring?

    Lead scoring weighs the value of a prospect’s profile against the ICP and renders a profile score. The process then weighs the value of the prospects activities against the ideal call to action (CTA) and renders an activity score. Combining the profile and activity scores delivers an overall score for the value of the lead to drive the next step along the overall buyer journey.

    EXAMPLE: SALES MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

    • For a company that markets sales management software the ideal buyer is the head of Sales Operations. While the ICP is made up of many attributes, we’ll just score one – the buyer’s role.
    • If the prospect/lead that we wish to score has an executive title, the lead’s profile scores “High.” Other roles will score lower based on your ICP. Alongside role, you will also score other profile attributes (e.g. company size, location).
    • With engagement, if the prospect/lead clicked on our ideal CTA, which is “request a proposal,” our engagement would score high. Other CTAs would score lower.
    The image contains a screenshot of two examples of lead scoring. One example demonstrates. Profile Scoring with Lead Profile, and the second image demonstrates Activity Scoring and Lead Engagement.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    A significant obstacle to quality lead production is disagreement on or lack of a documented definition of the ideal customer profile. Marketers successful in lead scoring will align key stakeholders on a documented definition of the ICP as a first step in improving lead scoring.

    Use of lead scoring is in the minority among marketers

    The majority of businesses are not practicing lead scoring!

    Up to 66% of businesses don’t practice any type of lead scoring.

    Source: LeadSquared, 2014

    “ With lead scoring, you don’t waste loads of time on unworthy prospects, and you don’t ignore people on the edge of buying.”

    Source: BigCommerce

    “The benefits of lead scoring number in the dozens. Having a deeper understanding of which leads meet the qualifications of your highest converters and then systematically communicating with them accordingly increases both ongoing engagement and saves your internal team time chasing down inopportune leads.”

    – Joey Strawn, Integrated Marketing Director, in IndustrialMarketer.com

    Key benefit: sales resource optimization

    Many marketing organizations send Sales too many unqualified leads

    • Leads – or, more accurately, contacts – are not all qualified. Some are actually nothing more than time-wasters for sellers.
    • Leading marketers peel apart a contact into at least two dimensions – “who” and “how interested.”
      • The “who” is compared to the ICP and given a score.
      • The “how interested” measures contact activity – or engagement – within our lead gen engine and gives it a score.
    • Scores are combined; a contact with a low score is ignored, medium is nurtured, and high is sent to sellers.
    • A robust ICP, together with engagement scoring and when housed within your lead management software, prioritizes for marketers which contacts to nurture and gets hot leads to sellers more quickly.

    Optimizing Sales Resources Using Lead Scoring

    The image contains a screenshot of a graph to demonstrate optimizing sales resources with lead scoring.

    Lead scoring drives greater sales effectiveness

    When contacts are scored as “qualified leads” and sent to sellers, sales win rates and ROI climb

    • Contacts can be scored properly once marketers align with Sales on the ICP and work closely with colleagues in areas like product marketing and field marketing to assign weightings to lead gen activities.
    • When more qualified leads get into the hands of the salesforce, their win rates improve.
    • As win rates improve, and sellers are producing more wins from the same volume of leads, sales productivity improves and ROI on the marketing investment increases.

    “On average, organizations that currently use lead scoring experience a 77% lift in lead generation ROI, over organizations that do not currently use lead scoring.”

    – MarketingSherpa, 2012

    Average Lead Generation ROI by Use of Lead Scoring

    The image contains a screenshot of a graph to demonstrate the average lead generation ROI by using of lead scoring. 138% are currenting using lead scoring, and 78% are not using lead scoring.
    Source: 2011 B2B Marketing Benchmark Survey, MarketingSherpa
    Methodology: Fielded June 2011, N=326 CMOs

    SoftwareReviews’ Lead Scoring Approach

    1. Drive Aligned Vision for Lead Scoring

    2. Build and Test Your Lead Scoring Model

    3. Apply to Your Tech Platform and Validate, Nurture, and Grow

    Phase
    Steps

    1. Outline a vision for lead scoring and identify stakeholders.
    2. Assess your tech stack for lead scoring and seek advice from Info-Tech analysts to modernize where needed.
    3. Align on marketing pipeline terminology, buyer persona and journey, and lead gen engine components.
    1. Understand the Lead Scoring Grid and establish thresholds.
    2. Collaborate with stakeholders on your ICP, apply weightings to profile attributes and values, and test your model.
    3. Identify the key activities and assets of your lead gen engine, weight attributes, and run tests.
    1. Apply model to your marketing management software.
    2. Test quality of sales-accepted leads by sellers and measure conversion rates through your marketing pipeline.
    3. Apply advanced methods such as lead nurturing.

    Phase Outcomes

    1. Steering committee and stakeholder selection
    2. Stakeholder alignment
    3. Team alignment on terminology
    4. Buyer journey map
    5. Lead gen engine components and asset types documented
    1. Initial lead-stage threshold scores
    2. Ideal customer profile, weightings, and tested scores
    3. Documented activities/assets across your lead generation engine
    4. Test results to drive adjusted weightings for profile attributes and engagement
    5. Final model to apply to marketing application
    1. Better qualified leads in the hands of sellers
    2. Advanced methods to nurture leads

    Key Deliverable: Lead Scoring Workbook

    The workbook walks you through a step-by-step process to:

    • Identify your team.
    • Identify the lead scoring thresholds.
    • Define your IPC.
    • Weight the activities within your lead generation engine.
    • Run tests using lead scenarios.

    Tab 1: Team Composition

    Consider core functions and form a cross-functional lead scoring team. Document the team’s details here.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Lead Scoring Workbook, Tab 1.

    Tab 2: Threshold Setting

    Set your initial threshold weightings for profile and engagement scores.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Lead Scoring Workbook, Tab 2.

    Tab 3:

    Establish Your Ideal Customer Profile

    Identify major attributes and attribute values and the weightings of both. You’ll eventually score your leads against this ICP.

    Record and Weight Lead Gen Engine Activities

    Identify the major activities that compose prospect engagement with your lead gen engine. Weight them together as a team.

    Test Lead Profile Scenarios

    Test actual lead profiles to see how they score against where you believe they should score. Adjust threshold settings in Tab 2.

    Test Activity Engagement Scores

    Test scenarios of how contacts navigate your lead gen engine. See how they score against where you believe they should score. Adjust thresholds on Tab 2 as needed.

    Review Combined Profile and Activity Score

    Review the combined scores to see where on your lead scoring matrix the lead falls. Make any final adjustments to thresholds accordingly.

    The image contains screenshots of the Lead Scoring Workbook, Tab 3.

    Several ways we help you build your lead scoring methodology

    DIY Toolkit Guided Implementation Workshop Consulting

    "Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful."

    "Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track."

    "We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place."

    "Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

    • Begin your project using the step-by-step process outlined in this blueprint.
    • Leverage the accompanying workbook.
    • Launch inquiries with the analyst who wrote the research.
    • Kick off your project with an inquiry with the authoring analyst and your engagement manager.
    • Additional inquiries will guide you through each step.
    • Leverage the blueprint and toolkit.
    • Reach out to your engagement manager.
    • During a half-day workshop the authoring analyst will guide you and your team to complete your lead scoring methodology.
    • Reach out to your engagement manager.
    • We’ll lead the engagement to structure the process, gather data, interview stakeholders, craft outputs, and organize feedback and final review.

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    Call #1: Collaborate on vision for lead scoring and the overall project.

    Call #2: Identify the steering committee and the rest of the team.

    Call #3: Discuss app/tech stack support for lead scoring. Understand key marketing pipeline terminology and the buyer journey.

    Call #4: Discuss your ICP, apply weightings, and run test scenarios.

    Call #5: Discuss and record lead generation engine components.

    Call #6: Understand the Lead Scoring Grid and set thresholds for your model.

    Call #7: Identify your ICP, apply weightings to attributes, and run tests.

    Call #8: Weight the attributes of engagement activities and run tests. Review the application of the scoring model on lead management software.

    Call #9: Test quality of sales-accepted leads in the hands of sellers. Measure lead flow and conversion rates through your marketing pipeline.

    Call #10: Review progress and discuss nurturing and other advanced topics.

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is series of calls with a SoftwareReviews Advisory analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization. For guidance on marketing applications, we can arrange a discussion with an Info-Tech analyst. Your engagement managers will work with you to schedule analyst calls.

    Workshop Overview

    Accelerate your project with our facilitated SoftwareReviews Advisory workshops

    Day 1

    Day 2

    Day 3

    Day 4

    Day 5

    Drive Aligned Vision for Lead Scoring

    Buyer Journey and Lead Gen Engine Mapping

    Build and Test Your Lead Scoring Model

    Align on Engagement Attributes

    Apply to Your Tech Platform

    Activities

    1.1 Outline a vision for lead scoring.

    1.2 Identify steering committee and project team members.

    1.3 Assess your tech stack for lead scoring and seek advice from Info-Tech analysts to modernize where needed.

    1.4 Align on marketing pipeline terminology.

    2.1 Establish a buyer persona (if not done already).

    2.2 Map your buyer journey.

    2.3 Document the activities and assets of your lead gen engine.

    3.1 Understand Lead Scoring Grid and set your thresholds.

    3.2 Identify ICP attribute and sub-attribute weightings. Run tests.

    4.1 Weight the attributes of your lead gen engagement model and run tests.

    4.2 Apply weightings to activities and assets.

    4.3 Test engagement and profile scenarios together and adjust weightings and thresholds as needed.

    5.1 Apply model to your campaign management software and test quality of sales-accepted leads in the hands of sellers.

    5.2. Measure overall lead flow and conversion rates through your marketing pipeline.

    5.3 Apply lead nurturing and other advanced methods.

    Deliverables

    1. Steering committee & project team composition
    2. Direction on tech stack to support lead gen
    3. Alignment on marketing pipeline definitions
    1. Buyer (persona if needed) journey map
    2. Lead gen engine assets and activities documented
    1. Lead scoring thresholds
    2. ICP, weightings, and tested scores
    3. Test profile scoring
    1. Engagement attributes and weightings tested and complete
    2. Final lead scoring model
    1. Model applied to your marketing management/ campaign management software
    2. Better qualified leads in the hands of sellers

    Phase 1

    Drive an Aligned Vision for Lead Scoring

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    1.1 Establish a cross-functional vision for lead scoring

    1.2 Asses your tech stack for lead scoring (optional)

    1.3 Catalog your buyer journey and lead gen engine assets

    2.1 Start building your lead scoring model

    2.2 Identify and verify your IPC and weightings

    2.3 Establish key lead generation activities and assets

    3.1 Apply model to your marketing management software

    3.2 Test the quality of sales-accepted leads

    3.3 Apply advanced methods

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Solidify your vision for lead scoring.
    • Achieve stakeholder alignment.
    • Assess your tech stack.

    This phase involves the following stakeholders:

    • Field Marketing/Campaign Manager
    • CMO
    • Product Marketing
    • Product Management
    • Sales Leadership/Sales Operations
    • Inside Sales leadership
    • Marketing Operations/IT
    • Digital Platform leadership

    Step 1.1

    Establish a Cross-Functional Vision for Lead Scoring

    Activities

    1.1.1 Identify stakeholders critical to success

    1.1.2 Outline the vision for lead scoring

    1.1.3 Select your lead scoring team

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Discuss the reasons why lead scoring is important.
    • Review program process.
    • Identify stakeholders and team.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders
    • Project sponsors and leaders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Stakeholder alignment on vision of lead scoring
    • Stakeholders described and team members recorded
    • A documented buyer journey and map of your current lead gen engine

    1.1.1 Identify stakeholders critical to success

    1 hour

    1. Meet to identify the stakeholders that should be included in the project’s steering committee.
    2. Finalize selection of steering committee members.
    3. Contact members to ensure their willingness to participate.
    4. Document the steering committee members and the milestone/presentation expectations for reporting project progress and results
    Input Output
    • Stakeholder interviews
    • List of business process owners (lead management, inside sales lead qualification, sales opportunity management, marketing funnel metric measurement/analytics)
    • Lead generation/scoring stakeholders
    • Steering committee members
    Materials Participants
    • N/A
    • Initiative Manager
    • CMO, Sponsoring Executive
    • Departmental Leads – Sales, Marketing, Product Marketing, Product Management (and others)
    • Marketing Applications Director
    • Senior Digital Business Analyst

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    B2B marketers that lack agreement among Marketing, Sales, Inside Sales, and lead management supporting staff of what constitutes a qualified lead will squander precious time and resources throughout the customer acquisition process.

    1.1.2 Outline the vision for lead scoring

    1 hour

    1. Convene a meeting of the steering committee and initiative team members who will be involved in the lead scoring project.
    • Using slides from this blueprint, understand the definition of lead scoring, the value of lead scoring to the organization, and the overall lead scoring process.
    • Understand the teams’ roles and responsibilities and help your Marketing Operations/IT colleagues understand some of the technical requirements needed to support lead scoring.
    • This is important because as the business members of the team are developing the lead scoring approach on paper, the technical team can begin to evaluate lead management apps within which your lead scoring model will be brought to life.
    Input Output
    • Slides to explain lead scoring and the lead scoring program
    • An understanding of the project among key stakeholders
    Materials Participants
    • Slides taken from this blueprint. We suggest slides from the Executive Brief (slides 3-16) and any others depending on the team’s level of familiarity.
    • Initiative Manager
    • CMO, Sponsoring Executive
    • Departmental leads from Sales, Marketing, Product Marketing, Product Management (and others)
    • Marketing Applications Director
    • Senior Digital Business Analyst

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    While SMBs can implement some form of lead scoring when volume is very low and leads can be scored by hand, lead scoring and effective lead management cannot be performed without investment in digital platforms and lead management software and integration with customer relationship management (CRM) applications in the hands of inside and field sales staff. Marketers should plan and budget for the right combination of applications and tools to be in place for proper lead management.

    Lead scoring stakeholders

    Developing a common stakeholder understanding of the ICP, the way contact profiles are scored, and the way activities and asset engagement in your lead generation engine are scored will strengthen alignment between Marketing, Sales and Product Management.

    Title

    Key Stakeholders Within a Lead Generation/Scoring Initiative

    Lead Scoring Sponsor

    • Owns the project at the management/C-suite level
    • Responsible for breaking down barriers and ensuring alignment with organizational strategy
    • CMO, VP of Marketing, CEO (in SMB providers)

    Lead Scoring Initiative Manager

    • Typically a senior member of the marketing team
    • Responsible for preparing and managing the project plan and monitoring the project team’s progress
    • Marketing Manager or a field marketing team member who has strong program management skills, has run large-scale B2B generation campaigns, and is familiar with the stakeholder roles and enabling technologies

    Business Leads

    • Works alongside the lead scoring initiative manager to ensure that the strategy is aligned with business needs
    • In this case, likely to be a marketing lead
    • Marketing Director

    Digital, Marketing/Sales Ops/IT Team

    • Composed of individuals whose application and technology tools knowledge and skills are crucial to lead generation success
    • Responsible for understanding the business requirements behind lead generation and the requirements in particular to support lead scoring and the evaluation, selection, and implementation of the supporting tech stack – apps, website, analytics, etc.
    • Project Manager, Business Lead, CRM Manager, Integration Manager, Marketing Application SMEs, Sales Application

    Steering Committee

    • Composed of C-suite/management-level individuals who act as the lead generation process decision makers
    • Responsible for validating goals and priorities, defining the scope, enabling adequate resourcing, and managing change especially among C-level leaders in Sales & Product
    • Executive Sponsor, Project Sponsor, CMO, Business Unit SMEs

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Marketers managing the lead scoring initiative must include Product Marketing, Sales, Inside Sales, and Product Management. And given that world-class B2B lead generation engines cannot run without technology enablement, Marketing Operations/IT – those that are charged with enabling marketing and sales – must also be part of the decision making and implementation process of lead scoring and lead generation.

    1.1.3 Select your lead scoring team

    30 minutes

    1. The CMO and other key stakeholders should discuss and determine who will be involved in the lead scoring project.
    • Business leaders in key areas – Product Marketing, Field Marketing, Digital Marketing, Inside Sales, Sales, Marketing Ops, Product Management, and IT – should be involved.
  • Document the members of your lead scoring team in tab 1 of the Lead Scoring Workbook.
    • The size of the team will vary depending on your initiative and size of your organization.
    InputOutput
    • Stakeholders
    • List of lead scoring team members
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Lead Scoring Workbook
    • Initiative Manager
    • CMO, Sponsoring Executive
    • Departmental Leads – Sales, Marketing, Product Marketing, Product Management (and others)
    • Marketing Applications Director
    • Senior Digital Business Analyst

    Download the Lead Scoring Workbook

    Lead scoring team

    Consider the core team functions when composing the lead scoring team. Form a cross-functional team (i.e. across IT, Marketing, Sales, Service, Operations) to create a well-aligned lead management/scoring strategy. Don’t let your core team become too large when trying to include all relevant stakeholders. Carefully limit the size of the team to enable effective decision making while still including functional business units.

    Required Skills/Knowledge

    Suggested Team Members

    Business

    • Understanding of the customer
    • Understanding of brand
    • Understanding of multichannel marketing: email, events, social
    • Understanding of lead qualification
    • Field Marketing/Campaign Lead
    • Product Marketing
    • Sales Manager
    • Inside Sales Manager
    • Content Marketer/Copywriter

    IT

    • Campaign management application capabilities
    • Digital marketing
    • Marketing and sales funnel Reporting/metrics
    • Marketing Application Owners
    • CRM/Sales Application Owners
    • Marketing Analytics Owners
    • Digital Platform Owners

    Other

    • Branding/creative
    • Social
    • Change management
    • Creative Director
    • Social Media Marketer

    Step 1.2 (Optional)

    Assess Your Tech Stack for Lead Scoring

    Our model assumes you have:

    1.2.1 A marketing application/campaign management application in place that accommodates lead scoring.

    1.2.2 Lead management software integrated with the sales automation/CRM tool in the hands of Field Sales.

    1.2.3 Reporting/analytics that spans the entire lead generation pipeline/funnel.

    Refer to the following three slides if you need guidance in these areas.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Confirm that you have your tech stack in place.
    • Set up an inquiry with an Info-Tech analyst should you require guidance on evaluating lead pipeline reporting, CRM, or analytics applications.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders
    • Project sponsors and leaders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Understanding of what new application and technology support is required to support lead scoring.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Marketers that collaborate closely with Marketing Ops/IT early in the process of lead scoring design will be best able to assess whether current marketing applications and tools can support a full lead scoring capability.

    1.2.1 Plan technology support for marketing management apps

    Work with Marketing Ops and IT early to evaluate application enablement for lead management, including scoring

    A thorough evaluation takes months – start early

    • Work closely with Marketing Operations (or the team that manages the marketing apps and digital platforms) as early as possible to socialize your approach to lead scoring.
    • Work with them on a set of updated requirements for selecting a marketing management suite or for changes to existing apps and tools to support your lead scoring approach that includes lead tracking and marketing funnel analytics.
    • Access the Info-Tech blueprint Select a Marketing Management Suite, along with analyst inquiry support during the requirements definition, vendor evaluation, and vendor selection phases. Use the SoftwareReviews Marketing Management Data Quadrant during vendor evaluation and selection.

    SoftwareReviews Marketing Management Data Quadrant

    The image contains a screenshot of the Marketing Management Data Quadrant.

    1.2.2 Plan technology support for sales opportunity management

    Work with Marketing Ops and IT early to evaluate applications for sales opportunity management

    A thorough evaluation takes months – start early

    • Work closely with Sales Operations as early as possible to socialize your approach to lead scoring and how lead management must integrate with sales opportunity management to manage the entire marketing and sales funnel management process.
    • Work with them on a set of updated requirements for selecting a sales opportunity management application that integrates with your marketing management suite or for changes to existing apps and tools to support your lead management and scoring approach that support the entire marketing and sales pipeline with analytics.

    Access the Info-Tech blueprint Select and Implement a CRM Platform, along with analyst inquiry support during the requirements definition, vendor evaluation, and vendor selection phases. Use the SoftwareReviews CRM Data Quadrant during vendor evaluation and selection.

    SoftwareReviews Customer Relationship Management Data Quadrant

    The image contains a screenshot of the SoftwareReviews Customer Relationship Management Data Quadrant.

    1.2.3 Plan analytics support for marketing pipeline analysis

    Work with Marketing Ops early to evaluate analytics tools to measure marketing and sales pipeline conversions

    A thorough evaluation takes weeks – start early

    • Work closely with Marketing and Sales Operations as early as possible to socialize your approach to measuring the lifecycle of contacts through to wins across the entire marketing and sales funnel management process.
    • Work with them on a set of updated requirements for selecting tools that can support the measurement of conversion ratios from contact to MQL, SQL, and opportunity to wins. Having this data enables you to measure improvement in component parts to your lead generation engine.
    • Access the Info-Tech blueprint Select and Implement a Reporting and Analytics Solution, along with analyst inquiry support during the requirements definition, vendor evaluation and vendor selection phases. Use the SoftwareReviews Best Business intelligence & Analytics Software Data Quadrant as well during vendor evaluation and selection.

    SoftwareReviews Business Intelligence Data Quadrant

    The image contains a screenshot of the Software Reviews Business Intelligent Quadrant.

    Step 1.3

    Catalog Your Buyer Journey and Lead Gen Engine Assets

    Activities

    1.3.1 Review marketing pipeline terminology

    1.3.2 Describe your buyer journey

    1.3.3 Describe your awareness and lead generation engine

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Discuss marketing funnel terminology.
    • Describe your buyer journey.
    • Catalog the elements of your lead generation engine.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Stakeholder alignment on terminology, your buyer journey, and elements of your lead generation engine

    1.3.1 Review marketing pipeline terminology

    30 minutes

    1. We assume for this model the following:
      1. Our primary objective is to deliver more, and more-highly qualified, sales-qualified leads (SQLs) to our salesforce. The salesforce will accept SQLs and after further qualification turn them into opportunities. Sellers work opportunities and turn them into wins. Wins that had first/last touch attribution within the lead gen engine are considered marketing-influenced wins.
      2. This model assumes the existence of sales development reps (SDRs) whose mission it is to take marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) from the lead generation engine and further qualify them into SQLs.
      3. The lead generation engine takes contacts – visitors to activities, website, etc. – and scores them based on their profile and engagement. If the contact scores at or above the designated threshold, the lead generation engine rates it as an MQL and passes it along to Inside Sales/SDRs. If the contact scores above a certain threshold and shows promise, it is further nurtured. If the contact score is low, it is ignored.
    2. If an organization does not possess a team of SDRs or Inside Sales, you would adjust your version of the model to, for example, raise the threshold for MQLs, and when the threshold is reached the lead generation engine would pass the lead to Field Sales for further qualification.

    Stage

    Characteristics

    Actions

    Contact

    • Unqualified
    • No/low activity

    Nurture

    SDR Qualify

    Send to Sales

    Close

    MQL

    • Profile scores high
    • Engagement strong

    SQL

    • Profile strengthened
    • Demo/quote/next step confirmed

    Oppt’y

    • Sales acceptance
    • Sales opportunity management

    Win

    • Deal closed

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Score leads in a way that makes it crystal clear whether they should be ignored, further nurtured, further qualified, or go right into a sellers’ hands as a super hot lead.

    1.3.2 Describe your buyer journey

    1. Understand the concept of the buyer journey:
      1. Typically Product Marketing is charged with establishing deep understanding of the target buyer for each product or solution through a complete buyer persona and buyer journey map. The details of how to craft both are covered in the upcoming SoftwareReviews Advisory blueprint Craft a More Comprehensive Go-to-Market Strategy. However, we share our Buyer Journey Template here (on the next slide) to illustrate the connection between the buyer journey and the lead generation and scoring processes.
      2. Marketers and campaigners developing the lead scoring methodology will work closely with Product Marketing, asking them to document the buyer journey.
      3. The value of the buyer journey is to guide asset/content creation, nurturing strategy and therefore elements of the lead generation engine such as web experience, email, and social content and other elements of engagement.
      4. The additional value of having a buyer persona is to also inform the ICP, which is an essential element of lead scoring.
      5. For the purposes of lead scoring, use the template on the next slide to create a simple form of the buyer journey. This will guide lead generation engine design and the scoring of activities later in our blueprint.

    2 hours

    On the following slide:

    1. Tailor this template to suit your buyer journey. Text in green is yours to modify. Text in black is instructional.
    2. Your objective is to use the buyer journey to identify asset types and a delivery channel that once constructed/sourced and activated within your lead gen engine will support the buyer journey.
    3. Keep your buyer journey updated based on actual journeys of sales wins.
    4. Complete different buyer journeys for different product areas. Complete these collaboratively with stakeholders for alignment.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Establishing a buyer journey is one of the most valuable tools that, typically, Product Marketing produces. Its use helps campaigners, product managers, and Inside and Field Sales. Leading marketers keep journeys updated based on live deals and characteristics of wins.

    Buyer Journey Template

    Personas: [Title] e.g. “BI Director”

    The image contains a screenshot of the describe persona level as an example.

    [Persona name] ([levels it includes from arrows above]) Buyer’s Journey for [solution type] Vendor Selection

    The image contains a screenshot of the Personas Type example to demonstrate a specific IT role, end use in a relevant department.

    1.3.3 Describe Your Awareness and Lead Gen Engine

    1. Understand the workings of a typical awareness and lead generation engine. Reference the image of a lead gen engine on the following slide when reviewing our guidance below:
      1. In our lead scoring example found in the Lead Scoring Workbook, tab 3, “Weight and Test,” we use a software company selling a sales automation solution, and the engagement activities match with the Typical Awareness and Lead Gen Engine found on the following slide. Our goal is to match a visual representation of a lead gen and awareness engine with the activity scoring portion of lead scoring.
      2. At the top of the Typical Awareness and Lead Generation Engine image, the activities are activated by a team of various roles: digital manager (new web pages), campaign manager (emails and paid media), social media marketer (organic and paid social), and events marketing manager (webinars).
      3. “Awareness” – On the right, the slide shows additional awareness activities driven by the PR/Corporate Comms and Analyst Relations teams.*
      4. The calls to action (CTAs) found in the outreach activities are illustrated below the timeline. The CTAs are grouped and are designed to 1) drive profile capture data via a main sales form fill, and 2) drive engagement that corresponds to the Education, Solution, and Selection buyer journey phases outlined on the prior slide. Ensure you have fast paths to get a hot lead – request a demo – directly to Field Sales when profiles score high.

    * For guidance on best practices in engaging industry analysts, contact your engagement manager to schedule an inquiry with our expert in this area. during that inquiry, we will share best practices and recommended analyst engagement models.

    Lead Scoring Workbook

    2 hours

    On the following slide:

    1. Tailor the slide to describe your lead generation engine as you will use it when you get to latter steps to describe the activities in your lead gen engine and weight them for lead scoring.
    2. Use the template to see what makes up a typical lead gen and awareness building engine. Record your current engine parts and see what you may be missing.
    3. Note: The “Goal” image in the upper right of the slide is meant as a reminder that marketers should establish a goal for SQLs delivered to Field Sales for each campaign.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Marketing’s primary mission is to deliver marketing-influenced wins (MIWs) to the company. Building a compelling awareness and lead gen engine must be done with that goal in mind. Leaders are ruthless in testing – copy, email subjects, website navigation, etc. – to fine-tune the engine and staying highly collaborative with sellers to ensure high value lead delivery.

    Typical Awareness and Lead Gen Engine

    Understand how a typical lead generation engine works. Awareness activities are included as a reference. Use as a template for campaigns.

    The image contains a screenshot of a diagram to demonstrate how a lead generation engine works.

    Phase 2

    Build and Test Your Lead Scoring Model

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    1.1 Establish a cross-functional vision for lead scoring

    1.2 Asses your tech stack for lead scoring (optional)

    1.3 Catalog your buyer journey and lead gen engine assets

    2.1 Start building your lead scoring model

    2.2 Identify and verify your IPC and weightings

    2.3 Establish key lead generation activities and assets

    3.1 Apply model to your marketing management software

    3.2 Test the quality of sales-accepted leads

    3.3 Apply advanced methods

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    1. Understand the Lead Scoring Grid and establish thresholds.
    2. Collaborate with stakeholders on your ICP, apply weightings to profile attributes and values, and test.
    3. Identify the key activities and assets of your lead gen engine, weight attributes, and run tests.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Field Marketing/Campaign Manager
    • Product Marketing
    • Sales Leadership/Sales Operations
    • Inside Sales leadership
    • Marketing Operations/IT
    • Digital Platform leadership

    Step 2.1

    Start Building Your Lead Scoring Model

    Activities

    2.1.1 Understand the Lead Scoring Grid

    2.1.2 Identify thresholds

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Discuss the concept of the thresholds for scoring leads in each of the various states – “ignore,” “nurture,” “qualify,” “send to sales.”
    • Open the Lead Scoring Workbook and validate your own states to suit your organization.
    • Arrive at an initial set of threshold scores.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Stakeholder alignment on stages
    • Stakeholder alignment on initial set of thresholds

    2.1.1 Understand the Lead Scoring Grid

    30 minutes

    1. Understand how lead scoring works and our grid is constructed.
    2. Understand the two important areas of the grid and the concept of how the contact’s scores will increase as follows:
      1. Profile – as the profile attributes of the contact approaches that of the ICP we want to score the contact/prospect higher. Note: Step 1.3 walks you through creating your ICP.
      2. Engagement – as the contact/prospect engages with the activities (e.g. webinars, videos, events, emails) and assets (e.g. website, whitepapers, blogs, infographics) in our lead generation engine, we want to score the contact/prospect higher. Note: You will describe your engagement activities in this step.
    3. Understand how thresholds work:
      1. Threshold percentages, when reached, trigger movement of the contact from one state to the next – “ignore,” “nurture,” “qualify with Inside Sales,” and “send to sales.”
    The image contains a screenshot of an example of the lead scoring grid, as described in the text above.

    2.1.2 Identify thresholds

    30 minutes

    We have set up a model Lead Scoring Grid – see Lead Scoring Workbook, tab 2, “Identify Thresholds.”

    Set your thresholds within the Lead Scoring Workbook:

    • Set your threshold percentages for ”Profile” and “Engagement.”
    • You will run test scenarios for each in later steps.
    • We suggest you start with the example percentages given in the Lead Scoring Workbook and plan to adjust them during testing in later steps.
    • Define the “Send to Sales,” “Qualify With Inside Sales,” “Nurture,” and “Ignore” zones.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Clarify that all-important threshold for when a lead passes to your expensive and time-starved outbound sellers.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Lead Scoring Workbook, tab 2 demonstrating the Lead Scoring Grid.

    Lead Scoring Workbook

    Step 2.2

    Identify and Verify Your Ideal Customer Profile and Weightings

    Activities

    2.2.1 Identify your ideal customer profile

    2.2.2 Run tests to validate profile weightings

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Identify the attributes that compose the ICP.
    • Identify the values of each attribute and their weightings.
    • Test different contact profile scenarios against what actually makes sense.
    • Adjust weightings if needed.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Stakeholder alignment on ICP
    • Stakeholder alignment on weightings given to attributes
    • Tested results to verify thresholds and cores

    2.2.1 Identify your ideal customer profile

    Collaborate with stakeholders to understand what attributes best describe your ICP. Assign weightings and subratings.

    2 hours

    1. Choose attributes such as job role, organization type, number of employees/potential seat holders, geographical location, interest area, etc., that describe the ideal profile of a target buyer. Best practice sees marketers choosing attributes based on real wins.
    2. Some marketers compare the email domain of the contact to a target list of domains. In the Lead Scoring Workbook, tab 3, “Weight and Test,” we provide an example profile for a “Sales Automation Software” ICP.
    3. Use the workbook as a template, remove our example, and create your own ICP attributes. Then weight the attributes to add up to 100%. Add in the attribute values and weight them. In the next step you will test scenarios.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Marketers who align with colleagues in areas such as Product Marketing, Sales, Inside Sales, Sales Training/Enablement, and Product Managers and document the ICP give their organizations a greater probability of lead generation success.

    The image contains a screenshot of tab 3, demonstrating the weight and test with the example profile.

    Lead Scoring Workbook

    2.2.2 Run tests to validate profile weightings

    Collaborate with stakeholders to run different profile scenarios. Validate your model including thresholds.

    The image contains a screenshot of tab 3 to demonstrate the next step of running tests to validate profile weightings.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Keep your model simple in the interest of fast implementation and to drive early learnings. The goal is not to be perfect but to start iterating toward success. You will update your scoring model even after going into production.

    2 hours

    1. Choose scenarios of contact/lead profile attributes by placing a “1” in the “Attribute” box shown at left.
    2. Place your estimate of how you believe the profile should score in the box to the right of “Estimated Profile State.” How does the calculated state, beneath, compare to the estimated state?
    3. In cases where the calculated state differs from your estimated state, consider weighting the profile attribute differently to match.
    4. If you find estimates and calculated states off dramatically, consider changing previously determined thresholds in tab 2, “Identify Thresholds.” Test multiple scenarios with your team.

    Lead Scoring Workbook

    Step 2.3

    Establish Key Lead Generation Activities and Assets

    Activities

    2.3.1 Establish activities, attribute values, and weights

    2.3.2 Run tests to evaluate activity ratings

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Identify the activities/asset types in your lead gen engine.
    • Weight each attribute and define values to score for each one.
    • Run tests to ensure your model makes sense.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders
    • Project sponsors and leaders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Final stakeholder alignment on which assets compose your lead generation engine
    • Scoring model tested

    2.3.1 Establish activities, attribute values, and weights

    2 hours

    1. Catalog the assets and activities that compose your lead generation engine outlined in Activity 1.3.3. Identify their attribute values and weight them accordingly.
    2. Consider weighting attributes and values according to how close that asset gets to conveying your ideal call to action. For example, if your ideal CTA is “schedule a demo” and the “click” was submitted in the last seven days, it scores 100%. Take time decay into consideration. If that same click was 60 days ago, it scores less – maybe 60%.
    3. Different assets convey different intent and therefore command different weightings; a video comparing your offering against the competition, considered a down funnel asset, scores higher than the company video, considered a top-of-the-funnel activity and “awareness.”
    The image contains a screenshot of the next step of establishing activities, attribute values, and weights.

    Lead Scoring Workbook

    2.3.2 Run tests to validate activity weightings

    Collaborate with stakeholders to run different engagement scenarios. Validate your model including thresholds.

    The image contains a screenshot of activity 2.3.2: run tests to validate activity weightings.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Use data from actual closed deals and the underlying activities to build your model – nothing like using facts to inform your key decisions. Use common sense and keep things simple. Then update further when data from new wins appears.

    2 hours

    1. Test scenarios of contact engagement by placing a “1” in the “Attribute” box shown at left.
    2. Place your estimate of how you believe the engagement should score in the box to the right of “Estimated Engagement State.” How does the calculated state, beneath, compare to the estimated state?
    3. In cases where the calculated state differs from your estimated state, consider weighting the activity attribute differently to match.
    4. If you find that the estimates and calculated states are off dramatically, consider changing previously determined thresholds in tab 2, “Identify Thresholds.” Test multiple scenarios with your team.

    Lead Scoring Workbook

    Phase 3

    Apply Your Model to Marketing Apps and Go Live With Better Qualified Leads

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    1.1 Establish a cross-functional vision for lead scoring

    1.2 Asses your tech stack for lead scoring (optional)

    1.3 Catalog your buyer journey and lead gen engine assets

    2.1 Start building your lead scoring model

    2.2 Identify and verify your IPC and weightings

    2.3 Establish key lead generation activities and assets

    3.1 Apply model to your marketing management software

    3.2 Test the quality of sales-accepted leads

    3.3 Apply advanced methods

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    1. Apply model to your marketing management/campaign management software.
    2. Get better qualified leads in the hands of sellers.
    3. Apply lead nurturing and other advanced methods.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Field Marketing/Campaign Manager
    • Sales Leadership/Sales Operations
    • Inside Sales leadership
    • Marketing Operations/IT
    • Digital Platform leadership

    Step 3.1

    Apply Model to Your Marketing Management Software

    Activities

    3.1.1 Apply final model to your lead management software

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Apply the details of your scoring model to the lead management software.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders
    • Project sponsors and leaders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Marketing management software or campaign management application is now set up/updated with your lead scoring approach.

    3.1.1 Apply final model to your lead management software

    Now that your model is complete and ready to go into production, input your lead scoring parameters into your lead management software.

    The image contains a screenshot of activity 3.1.1 demonstrating tab 4 of the Lead Scoring Workbook.

    3 hours

    1. Go to the Lead Scoring Workbook, tab 4, “Model Summary” for a formatted version of your lead scoring model. Double-check print formatting and print off a copy.
    2. Use the copy of your model to show to prospective technology providers when asking them to demonstrate their lead scoring capabilities.
    3. Once you have finalized your model, use the printed output from this tab to ease your process of transposing the corresponding model elements into your lead management software.

    Lead Scoring Workbook

    Step 3.2

    Test the Quality of Sales-Accepted Leads

    Activities

    3.2.1 Achieve sales lead acceptance

    3.2.2 Measure and optimize

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Suggest that the Inside Sales and Field Sales teams should assess whether to sign off on quality of leads received.
    • Campaign managers and stakeholders should now be able to track lead status more effectively.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders
    • Project sponsors and leaders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Sales leadership should be able to sign off that leads are better qualified.
    • With marketing pipeline analytics in place, campaigners can start to measure lead flow and conversion rates.

    3.2.1 Achieve sales lead acceptance

    Collaborate with sellers to validate your lead scoring approach.

    1 hour

    1. Gather a set of SQLs – leads that have been qualified by Inside Sales and delivered to Field Sales. Have Field Sales team members convey whether these leads were properly qualified.
    2. Where leads are deemed not properly qualified, determine if the issue was a) a lack of proper qualification by the Inside Sales team, or b) the lead generation engine, which should have further nurtured the lead or ignored it outright.
    3. Work collaboratively with Inside Sales to update your lead scoring model and/or Inside Sales practice.

    Stage

    Characteristics

    Actions

    Contact

    • Unqualified
    • No/low activity

    Nurture

    SDR Qualify

    Send to Sales

    Close

    MQL

    • Profile scores high
    • Engagement strong

    SQL

    • Profile strengthened
    • Demo/quote/next step confirmed

    Oppt’y

    • Sales acceptance
    • Sales opportunity management

    Win

    • Deal closed

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Marketers that collaborate with Sales – and in this case, a group of sellers as a sales advisory team – well in advance of sales acceptance to design lead scoring will save time during this stage, build trust with sellers, and make faster decisions related to lead management/scoring.

    3.2.2 Measure and optimize

    Leverage analytics that help you optimize your lead scoring methodology.

    Ongoing

    1. Work with Marketing Ops/IT team to design and implement analytics that enable you to:
    2. Meet frequently with your stakeholder team to review results.
    3. Learn from the wins: see how they actually scored and adjust thresholds and/or asset/activity weightings.
    4. Learn from losses: fix ineffective scoring, activities, assets, form-fill strategies, and engagement paths.
    5. Test from both wins and losses if demographic weightings are delivering accurate scores.
    6. Analyze those high scoring leads that went right to sellers but did not close. This could point to a sales training or enablement challenge.
    The image contains a screenshot of the lead scoring dashboard.

    Analytics will also drive additional key insights across your lead gen engine:

    • Are volumes increasing or decreasing? What percentage of leads are in what status (A1-D4)?
    • What nurturing will re-engage stalled leads that score high in profile but low in engagement (A3, B3)?
    • Will additional profile data capture further qualify leads with high engagement (C1, C2)?
    • And beyond all of the above, what leads move to Inside Sales and convert to SQLs, opportunities, and eventually marketing-influenced wins?

    Step 3.3

    Apply Advanced Methods

    Activities

    3.3.1 Employ lead nurturing strategies

    3.3.2 Adjust your model over time to accommodate more advanced methods

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Apply lead nurturing to your lead gen engine.
    • Adjust your engine over time with more advanced methods.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders
    • Project sponsors and leaders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Marketers can begin to test lead nurturing strategies and other advanced methods.

    3.3.1 Employ lead nurturing strategies

    A robust content marketing competence with compelling assets and the capture of additional profile data for qualification are key elements of your nurturing strategy.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Lead Scoring Grid with a focus on Nurture.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Nurturing success combines the art of crafting engaging copy/experiences and the science of knowing just where a prospect is within your lead gen engine. Great B2B marketers demonstrate the discipline of knowing when to drive engagement and/or additional profile attribute capture using intent while not losing the prospect to over-profiling.

    Ongoing

    1. The goal of lead nurturing is to move the collection of contacts/leads that are scoring, for example, in the A3, B3, C1, C2, and C3 cells into A2, B2, and B1 cells.
    2. How is this best done? To nurture leads that are A3 and B3, entice the prospect with engagement that leads to the bottom of funnel – e.g. “schedule a demo” or “schedule a consultation” via a compelling asset. See the example on the following slide.
    3. To nurture C1 and C2, we need to qualify them further, so entice with an asset that leads to deeper profile knowledge.
    4. For C3 leads, we need both profile and activity nurturing.

    Lead nurturing example

    The image contains an example of a lead nurturing example.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    When nurturing, choose/design content as to what “intent” it satisfies. For example, a head-to-head comparison with a key competitor signals “Selection” phase of the buyer journey. Content that helps determine what app-type to buy signals “Solution”. A company video, or a webinar replay, may mean your buyer is “educating themselves.

    3.3.2 Adjust your model over time to accommodate more advanced methods

    When getting started or within a smaller marketing team, focus on the basics outlined thus far in this blueprint. Larger and/or more experienced teams are able to employ more advanced methods.

    Ongoing

    Advanced Methods

    • Invest in technologies that interpret lead scores and trigger next-step actions, especially outreach by Inside and/or Field Sales.
    • Use the above to route into nurturing environments where additional engagement will raise scores and trigger action.
    • Recognize that lead value decays with time to time additional outreach/activities and to reduce lead scores over time.
    • Always be testing different engagement, copy, and subsequent activities to optimize lead velocity through your lead gen engine.
    • Build intent sensitivity into engagement activities; e.g. test if longer demo video engagement times imply ”contact me for a demo” via a qualification outreach. Update scores manually to drive learnings.
    • Vary engagement paths by demographics to deliver unique digital experiences. Use firmographics/email domain to drive leads through a more tailored account-based marketing (ABM) experience.
    • Reapply learnings from closed opportunities/wins to drive updates to buyer journey mapping and your ICP.

    Frequently used acronyms

    ABM

    Account-Based Marketing

    B2B

    Business to Business

    CMO

    Chief Marketing Officer

    CRM

    Customer Relationship Management

    ICP

    Ideal Customer Profile

    MIW

    Marketing-Influenced Win

    MQL

    Marketing-Qualified Lead

    SDR

    Sales Development Representative

    SQL

    Sales-Qualified Lead

    Works cited

    Arora, Rajat. “Mining the Real Gems from you Data – Lead Scoring and Engagement Scoring.” LeadSquared, 27 Sept. 2014. Web.

    Doyle, Jen. “2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report: Research and insights on attracting and converting the modern B2B buyer.” MarketingSherpa, 2012. Web.

    Doyle, Jen, and Sergio Balegno. “2011 MarketingSherpa B2B Marketing Benchmark Survey: Research and Insights on Elevating Marketing Effectiveness from Lead Generation to Sales Conversion.” MarketingSherpa, 2011.

    Kirkpatrick, David. “Lead Scoring: CMOs realize a 138% lead gen ROI … and so can you.” marketingsherpa blog, 26 Jan 2012. Web.

    Moser, Jeremy. “Lead Scoring Is Important for Your Business: Here’s How to Create Scoring Model and Hand-Off Strategy.” BigCommerce, 25 Feb. 2019. Web.

    Strawn, Joey. “Why Lead Scoring Is Important for B2Bs (and How You Can Implement It for Your Company.” IndustrialMarketer.com, 17 Aug. 2016. Web.

    Network Segmentation

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}503|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): N/A
    • member rating average dollars saved: N/A
    • member rating average days saved: N/A
    • Parent Category Name: Network Management
    • Parent Category Link: /network-management
    • Many legacy networks were built for full connectivity and overlooked potential security ramifications.
    • Malware, ransomware, and bad actors are proliferating. It is not a matter of if you will be compromised but how can the damage be minimized.
    • Cyber insurance will detective control, not a preventative one. Prerequisite audits will look for appropriate segmentation.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Lateral movement amplifies damage. Contain movement within the network through segmentation.
    • Good segmentation is a balance between security and manageability. If solutions are too complex, they won’t be updated or maintained.
    • Network services and users change over time, so must your segmentation strategy. Networks are not static; your segmentation must maintain pace.

    Impact and Result

    • Create a common understanding of what is to be built, for whom, and why.
    • Define what services will be offered and how they will be governed.
    • Understand which assets that you already have can jump start the project.

    Network Segmentation Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Network Segmentation Deck – A deck to help you minimize risk by controlling traffic flows within the network.

    Map out appropriate network segmentation to minimize risk in your network.

    • Network Segmentation Storyboard
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Network Segmentation

    Protect your network by controlling the conversations within it.

    Executive Summary

    Info-Tech Insight

    Lateral movement amplifies damage

    From a security perspective, bad actors often use the tactic of “land and expand.” Once a network is breached, if east/west or lateral movement is not restricted, an attacker can spread quickly within a network from a small compromise.

    Good segmentation is a balance between security and manageability

    The ease of management in a network is usually inversely proportional to the amount of segmentation in that network. Highly segmented networks have a lot of potential complications and management overhead. In practice, this often leads to administrators being confused or implementing shortcuts that circumvent the very security that was intended with the segmentation in the first place.

    Network services and users change over time, so must your segmentation strategy

    Network segmentation projects should not be viewed as singular or “one and done.” Services and users on a network are constantly evolving; the network segmentation strategy must adapt with these changes. Be sure to monitor and audit segmentation deployments and change or update them as required to maintain a proper risk posture.

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Common Obstacles

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Networks are meant to facilitate communication, and when devices on a network cannot communicate, it is generally seen as an issue. The simplest answer to this is to design flat, permissive networks. With the proliferation of malware, ransomware, and advanced persistent threats (ATPs) a flat or permissive network is an invitation for bad actors to deliver more damage at an increased pace.

    Cyber insurance may be viewed as a simpler mitigation than network reconfiguration or redesign, but this is not a preventative solution, and the audits done before policies are issued will flag flat networks as a concern.

    Network segmentation is not a “bolt on” fix. To properly implement a minimum viable product for segmentation you must, at a minimum:

    • Understand the endpoints and their appropriate traffic flows.
    • Understand the technologies available to implement segmentation.

    Implementing appropriate segmentation often involves elements of (if not a full) network redesign.

    To ensure the best results in a timely fashion, Info-Tech recommends a methodology that consists of:

    • Understand the network (or subset thereof) and prioritizing segmentation based on risk.
    • Align the appropriate segmentation methodology for each surfaced segment to be addressed.
    • Monitor the segmented environment for compliance and design efficacy, adding to and modifying existing as required.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The aim of networking is communication, but unfettered communication can be a liability. Appropriate segmentation in networks, blocking communications where they are not required or desired, restricts lateral movement within the network, allowing for better risk mitigation and management.

    Network segmentation

    Compartmentalization of risk:

    Segmentation is the practice of compartmentalizing network traffic for the purposes of mitigating or reducing risk. Segmentation methodologies can generally be grouped into three broad categories:

    1. Physical Segmentation

    The most common implementation of physical segmentation is to build parallel networks with separate hardware for each network segment. This is sometimes referred to as “air gapping.”

    2. Static Virtual Segmentation

    Static virtual segmentation is the configuration practice of using technologies such as virtual LANs (VLANs) to assign ports or connections statically to a network segment.

    3. Dynamic Virtual Segmentation

    Dynamic virtual segmentation assigns a connection to a network segment based on the device or user of the connection. This can be done through such means as software defined networking (SDN), 802.1x, or traffic inspection and profiling.

    Common triggers for network segmentation projects

    1. Remediate Audit Findings

    Many security audits (potentially required for or affecting premiums of cyber insurance) will highlight the potential issues of non-segmented networks.

    2. Protect Vulnerable Technology Assets

    Whether separating IT and OT or segmenting off IoT/IIoT devices, keeping vulnerable assets separated from potential attack vectors is good practice.

    3. Minimize Potential for Lateral Movement

    Any organization that has experienced a cyber attack will realize the value in segmenting the network to slow a bad actor’s movement through technology assets.

    How do you execute on network segmentation?

    The image contains a screenshot of the network segmentation process. The process includes: identify risk, design segmentation, and operate and optimize.

    Identify risks by understanding access across the network

    Gain visibility

    Create policy

    Prioritize change

    "Security, after all, is a risk business. As companies don't secure everything, everywhere, security resilience allows them to focus their security resources on the pieces of the business that add the most value to an organization, and ensure that value is protected."

    – Helen Patton,

    CISO, Cisco Security Business Group, qtd. In PR News, 2022

    Discover the data flows within the network. This should include all users on the network and the environments they are required to access as well as access across environments.

    Examine the discovered flows and define how they should be treated.

    Change takes time. Use a risk assessment to prioritize changes within the network architecture.

    Understand the network space

    A space is made up of both services and users.

    Before starting to consider segmentation solutions, define whether this exercise is aimed at addressing segmentation globally or at a local level. Not all use cases are global and many can be addressed locally.

    When examining a network space for potential segmentation we must include:

    • Services offered on the network
    • Users of the network

    To keep the space a consumable size, both of these areas should be approached in the abstract. To abstract, users and services should be logically grouped and generalized.

    Groupings in the users and services categories may be different across organizations, but the common thread will be to contain the amount of groupings to a manageable size.

    Service Groupings

    • Are the applications all components of a larger service or environment?
    • Do the applications serve data of a similar sensitivity?
    • Are there services that feed data and don’t interact with users (IoT, OT, sensors)?

    User Groupings

    • Do users have similar security profiles?
    • Do users use a similar set of applications?
    • Are users in the same area of your organization chart?
    • Have you considered access by external parties?

    Info-Tech Insight

    The more granular you are in the definition of the network space, the more granular you can be in your segmentation. The unfortunate corollary to this is that the difficulty of managing your end solution grows with the granularity of your segmentation.

    Create appropriate policy

    Understand which assets to protect and how.

    Context is key in your ability to create appropriate policy. Building on the definition of the network space that has been created, context in the form of the appropriateness of communications across the space and the vulnerabilities of items within the space can be layered on.

    To decide where and how segmentation might be appropriate, we must first examine the needs of communication on the network and their associated risk. Once defined, we can assess how permissive or restrictive we should be with that communication.

    The minimum viable product for this exercise is to define the communication channel possibilities, then designate each possibility as one of the following:

    • Permissive – we should freely allow this traffic
    • Restricted – we should allow some of the traffic and/or control it
    • Rejected – we should not allow this traffic

    Appropriate Communications

    • Should a particular group of users have access to a given service?
    • Are there external users involved in any grouping?

    Potential Vulnerabilities

    • Are the systems in question continually patched/updated?
    • Are the services exposed designed with the appropriate security?

    Prioritize the potential segmentation

    Use risk as a guide to prioritize segmentation.

    For most organizations, the primary reason for network segmentation is to improve security posture. It follows that the prioritization of initiatives and/or projects to implement segmentation should be based on risk.

    When examining risk, an organization needs to consider both:

    • Impact and likelihood of visibility risk in respect to any given asset, data, or user
    • The organization’s level of risk tolerance

    The assets or users that are associated with risk levels higher than the tolerance of the organization should be prioritized to be addressed.

    Service Risks

    • If this service was affected by an adverse event, what would the impact on the organization be?

    User Risks

    • Are the users in question FTEs as opposed to contractors or outsourced resources?
    • Is a particular user group more susceptible to compromise than others?

    Info-Tech Insight

    Be sure to keep this exercise relative so that a clear ranking occurs. If it turns out that everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority. When ranking things relative to others in the exercise, we ensure clear “winners” and “losers.”

    Assess risk and prioritize action

    1-3 hours

    1. Define a list of users and services that define the network space to be addressed. If the lists are too long, use an exercise like affinity diagramming to appropriately group them into a smaller subset.
    2. Create a matrix from the lists (put users and services along the rows and columns). In the intersecting points, label how the traffic should be treated (e.g. Permissive, Restricted, Rejected).
    3. Examine the matrix and assess the intersections for risk using the lens of impact and likelihood of an adverse event. Label the intersections for risk level with one of green (low impact/likelihood), yellow (medium impact/likelihood), or red (high impact/likelihood).
    4. Find commonalities within the medium/high areas and list the users or services as priorities to be addressed.
    Input Output
    • Network, application, and security documentation
    • A prioritized list of areas to address with segmentation
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts

    OR

    • Excel spreadsheet
    • Network Team
    • Application Team
    • Security Team
    • Data Team

    Design segmentation

    Segmentation comes in many flavors; decide which is right for the specific circumstance.

    Methodology

    Access control

    "Learning to choose is hard. Learning to choose well is harder. And learning to choose well in a world of unlimited possibilities is harder still, perhaps too hard."

    ― Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less

    What is the best method to segment the particular user group, service, or environment in question?

    How can data or user access move safely and securely between network segments?

    Decide on which methods work for your circumstances

    You always have options…

    There are multiple lenses to look through when making the decision of what the correct segmentation method might be for any given user group or service. A potential subset could include:

    • Effort to deploy
    • Cost of the solution
    • Skills required to operate
    • Granularity of the segmentation
    • Adaptability of the solution
    • Level of automation in the solution

    Info-Tech Insight

    Network segmentation within an organization is rarely a one-size-fits-all proposition. Be sure to look at each situation that has been identified to need segmentation and align it with an appropriate solution. The overall number of solutions deployed has to maintain a balance between that appropriateness and the effort to manage multiple environments.

    Framework to examine segmentation methods

    To assess we need to understand.

    To assess when technologies or methodologies are appropriate for a segmentation use case, we need to understand what those options are. We will be examining potential segmentation methods and concepts within the following framework:

    WHAT

    A description of the segmentation technology, method, or concept.

    WHY

    Why would this be used over other choices and/or in what circumstances?

    HOW

    A high-level overview of how this option could or would be deployed.

    Notional assessments will be displayed in a sidebar to give an idea of Effort, Cost, Skills, Granularity, Adaptability, and Automation.

    Implement

    Notional level of effort to implement on a standard network

    Cost

    Relative cost of implementing this segmentation strategy

    Maintain

    Notional level of time and skills needed to maintain

    Granularity

    How granular this type of segmentation is in general

    Adaptability

    The ability of the solution to be easily modified or changed

    Automation

    The level of automation inherent in the solution

    Air gap

    … And never the twain shall meet.

    – Rudyard Kipling, “The Ballad of East and West.”

    WHAT

    Air gapping is a strategy to protect portions of a network by segmenting those portions and running them on completely separate hardware from the primary network. In an air gap scenario, the segmented network cannot have connectivity to outside networks. This difference makes air gapping a very specific implementation of parallel networks (which are still segmented and run on separate hardware but can be connected through a control point).

    WHY

    Air gap is a traditional choice when environments need to be very secure. Examples where air gaps exist(ed) are:

    • Operational technology (OT) networks
    • Military networks
    • Critical infrastructure

    HOW

    Most networks are not overprovisioned to a level that physical segmentation can be done without purchasing new equipment. The major steps required for constructing an air gap include:

    • Design segmentation
    • Purchase and install new hardware
    • Cable to new hardware

    The image contains a screenshot that demonstrates pie graphs with the notional assessments: Effort, Cost, Skills, Granularity, and Automation.

    Info-Tech Insight

    An air gapped network is the ultimate in segmentation and security … as long as the network does not require connectivity. It is unfortunately rare in today’s world that a network will stand on its own without any need for external connectivity.

    VLAN

    Do what you can, with what you’ve got…

    – Theodore Roosevelt

    WHAT

    Virtual local area networks (VLANs) are a standard feature on today’s firewalls, routers, and manageable switches. This configuration option allows for network traffic to be segmented into separate virtual networks (broadcast domains) on existing hardware. This segmentation is done at layer 2 of the OSI model. All traffic will share the same hardware but be partitioned based on “tags” that the local device applies to the traffic. Because of these tags, traffic is handled separately at layer 2 of the OSI model, but traffic can pass between segments at layer 3 (e.g. IP layer).

    WHY

    VLANs are commonly used because most existing deployments already have the technology available without extra licensing. VLANs are also potentially used as foundational components in more complex segmentation strategies such as static or dynamic overlays.

    HOW

    VLANs allow for segmentation of a device at the port level. VLAN strategies are generally on a location level (e.g. most VLAN deployments are local to a site, though the same structure may be used among sites). To deploy VLANs you must:

    • Define VLAN segments
    • Assign ports appropriately

    The image contains a screenshot that demonstrates pie graphs with the notional assessments: Effort, Cost, Skills, Granularity, and Automation.

    Info-Tech Insight

    VLANs are tried and true segmentation workhorses. The fact that they are already included in modern manageable solutions means that there is very little reason to not have some level of segmentation within a network.

    Micro-segmentation

    Everyone is against micromanaging, but macro managing means you’re working on the big picture but don’t understand the details.

    – Henry Mintzberg

    WHAT

    Micro-segmentation is used to secure and control network traffic between workloads. This is a foundational technology when implementing zero trust or least-privileged access network designs. Segmentation is done at or directly adjacent to the workload (on the system or its direct network connectivity) through firewall or similar policy controls. The controls are set to only allow the network communication required to execute the workload and is limited to appropriate endpoints. This restrictive design restricts all traffic (including east-west) and reduces the attack surface.

    WHY

    Micro-segmentation is primarily used:

    • In server-to-server communication.
    • When lateral movement by bad actors is identified as a concern.

    HOW

    Micro-segmentation can be deployed at different places within the connectivity depending on the technologies used:

    • Workload/server (e.g. server firewall)
    • VM network overlay (e.g. VMware NSX)
    • Network port (e.g. ACL, firewall, ACI)
    • Cloud native (e.g. Azure Firewall)

    Info-Tech Insight

    Micro-segmentation is necessary in the data center to limit lateral movement. Just be sure to be thorough in defining required communication as this technology works on allowlists, not traditional blocklists.

    Static overlay

    Adaptability is key.

    – Marc Andreessen

    WHAT

    Static overlays are a form of virtual segmentation that allows multiple network segments to exist on the same device. Most of these solutions will also allow for these segments to expand across multiple devices or sites, creating overlay virtual networks on top of the existing physical networks. The static nature of the solution is because the ports that participate in the overlays are statically assigned and configured. Connectivity between devices and sites is done through encapsulation and may have a dynamic component of the control plane handled through routing protocols.

    WHY

    Static overlays are commonly deployed when the need is to segment different use cases or areas of the organization consistently across sites while allowing easy access within the segments between sites. This could be representative of segmenting a department like Finance or extending a layer 2 segment across data centers.

    HOW

    Static overlays are can segment and potentially extend a layer 2 or layer 3 network. These solutions could be executed with technologies such as:

    • VXLAN (Virtual eXtensible LAN)
    • MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching)
    • VRF (Virtual Routing & Forwarding)

    The image contains a screenshot that demonstrates pie graphs with the notional assessments: Effort, Cost, Skills, Granularity, and Automation.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Static overlays are commonly deployed by telecommunications providers when building out their service offerings due to the multitenancy requirements of the network.

    Dynamic overlay

    Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

    – George S. Patton

    WHAT

    A dynamic overlay segmentation solution has the ability to make security or traffic decisions based on policy. Rather than designing and hardcoding the network architecture, the policy is architected and the network makes decisions based on that policy. Differing levels of control exist in this space, but the underlying commonality is that the segmentation would be considered “software defined” (SDN).

    WHY

    Dynamic overlay solutions provide the most flexibility of the presented solutions. Some use cases such as BYOD or IoT devices may not be easily identified or controlled through static means. As a general rule of thumb, the less static the network is, the more dynamic your segmentation solution must be.

    HOW

    Policy is generally applied at the network ingress. When applying policy, which policy to be applied can be identified through different methodologies such as:

    • Authentication (e.g. 802.1x)
    • Device agents
    • Device profiling

    The image contains a screenshot that demonstrates pie graphs with the notional assessments: Effort, Cost, Skills, Granularity, and Automation.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Dynamic overlays allow for more flexibility through its policy-based configurations. These solutions can provide the highest value when positioned where we have less control of the points within a network (e.g. BYOD scenarios).

    Define how your segments will communicate

    No segment is an island…

    Network segmentation allows for protection of devices, users, or data through the act of separating the physical or virtual networks they are on. Counter to this protective stance, especially in today’s networks, these devices, users, or data tend to need to interact with each other outside of the neat lines we draw for them. Proper network segmentation has to allow for the transfer of assets between networks in a safe and secure manner.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The solutions used to facilitate the controlled communication between segments has to consider the friction to the users. If too much friction is introduced, people will try to find a way around the controls, potentially negating the security that is intended with the solution.

    Potential access methods

    A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.

    – John A. Shedd

    Firewall

    Two-way controlled communication

    Firewalls are tried and true control points used to join networks. This solution will allow, at minimum, port-level control with some potential for deeper inspection and control beyond that.

    • Traditionally firewalls are sized to handle internet-bound (North-South) traffic. When being used between segments, (East-West) loads are usually much higher, necessitating a more powerful device.

    Jump Box

    A place between worlds

    Also sometimes referred to as a “Bastion Host,” a jump box is a special-purpose computer/server that has been hardened and resides on multiple segments of a network. Administrators or users can log into this box and use it to securely use the tools installed to act on other segments of the network.

    • Jump box security is of utmost importance. Special care should be taken in hardening, configuration, and application installed to ensure that users cannot use the box to tunnel or traverse between the segments outside of well-defined and controlled circumstances.

    Protocol Gateway

    Command-level control

    A protocol gateway is a specific and special subset of a firewall. Whereas a firewall is a security generalist, a protocol gateway is designed to understand and have rule-level control over the commands passing through it within defined protocols. This granularity, for example, allows for control and filtering to only allow defined OT commands to be passed to a secure SCADA network.

    • Protocol gateways are generally specific feature sets of a firewall and traditionally target OT network security as their core use case.

    Network Pump

    One-way data extraction

    A network pump is a concept designed to allow data to be transferred from a secure network to a less secure network while still protecting against covert channels such as using the ACK within a transfer to transmit data. A network pump will consist of trusted processes and schedulers that allow for data to pass but control channels to be sufficiently modified so as to not allow security concerns.

    • Network pumps would generally be deployed in the most security demanding of environments and are generally not “off the shelf” products.

    Operate and optimize

    Security is not static. Monitor and iterate on policies within the environment.

    Monitor

    Iterate

    Two in three businesses (68%) allow more employee data access than necessary.

    GetApp's 2022 Data Security Survey Report

    Are the segmentation efforts resulting in the expected traffic changes? Are there any anomalies that need investigation?

    Using the output from the monitoring stage, refine and optimize the design by iterating on the process.

    Monitor for efficacy, compliance, and the unknown

    Monitor to ensure your intended results and to identify new potential risks.

    Monitoring network segments

    A combination of passive and active monitoring is required to ensure that:

    • The rules that have been deployed are working as expected.
    • Appropriate proof of compliance is in place for auditing and insurance purposes.
    • Environments are being monitored for unexpected traffic.

    Active monitoring goes beyond the traditional gathering of information for alerts and dashboards and moves into the space of synthetic users and anomaly detection. Using these strategies helps to ensure that security is enforced appropriately and responses to issues are timely.

    "We discovered in our research that insider threats are not viewed as seriously as external threats, like a cyberattack. But when companies had an insider threat, in general, they were much more costly than external incidents. This was largely because the insider that is smart has the skills to hide the crime, for months, for years, sometimes forever."

    – Dr. Larry Ponemon, Chairman Ponemon Institute, at SecureWorld Boston

    Info-Tech Insight

    Using solutions like network detection and response (NDR) will allow for monitoring to take advantage of advanced analytical techniques like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). These technologies can help identify anomalies that a human might miss.

    Monitoring options

    It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

    – Henry David Thoreau

    Traditional

    Monitor cumulative change in a variable

    Traditional network monitoring is a minimum viable product. With this solution variables can be monitored to give some level of validation that the segmentation solution is operating as expected. Potential areas to monitor include traffic volumes, access-list (ACL) matches, and firewall packet drops.

    • This is expected baseline monitoring. Without at least this level of visibility, it is hard to validate the solutions in place

    Rules Based

    Inspect traffic to find a match against a library of signatures

    Rules-based systems will monitor traffic against a library of signatures and alert on any matches. These solutions are good at identifying the “known” issues on the network. Examples of these systems include security incident and event management (SIEM) and intrusion detection/prevention systems (IDS/IPS).

    • These solutions are optimally used when there are known signatures to validate traffic against.
    • They can identify known attacks and breaches.

    Anomaly Detection

    Use computer intelligence to compare against baseline

    Anomaly detection systems are designed to baseline the network traffic then compare current traffic against that to find anomalies using technologies like Bayesian regression analysis or artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML). This strategy can be useful in analyzing large volumes of traffic and identifying the “unknown unknowns.”

    • Computers can analyze large volumes of data much faster than a human. This allows these solutions to validate traffic in (near) real-time and alert on things that are out of the ordinary and would not be easily visible to a human.

    Synthetic Data

    Mimic potential traffic flows to monitor network reaction

    Rather than wait for a bad actor to find a hole in the defenses, synthetic data can be used to mimic real-world traffic to validate configuration and segmentation. This often takes the form of real user monitoring tools, penetration testing, or red teaming.

    • Active monitoring or testing allows a proactive stance as opposed to a reactive one.

    Gather feedback, assess the situation, and iterate

    Take input from operating the environment and use that to optimize the process and the outcome.

    Optimize through iteration

    Output from monitoring must be fed back into the process of maintaining and optimizing segmentation. Network segmentation should be viewed as an ongoing process as opposed to a singular structured project.

    Monitoring can and will highlight where and when the segmentation design is successful and when new traffic flows arise. If these inputs are not fed back through the process, designs will become stagnant and admins or users will attempt to find ways to circumvent solutions for ease of use.

    "I think it's very important to have a feedback loop, where you're constantly thinking about what you've done and how you could be doing it better. I think that's the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself."

    – Elon Musk, qtd. in Mashable, 2012

    Info-Tech Insight

    The network environment will not stay static; flows will change as often as required for the business to succeed. Take insights from monitoring the environment and integrate them into an iterative process that will maintain relevance and usability in your segmentation.

    Bibliography

    Andreessen, Marc. “Adaptability is key.” BrainyQuote, n.d.
    Barry Schwartz. The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. Harper Perennial, 18 Jan. 2005.
    Capers, Zach. “GetApp’s 2022 Data Security Report—Seven Startling Statistics.” GetApp,
    19 Sept. 2022.
    Cisco Systems, Inc. “Cybersecurity resilience emerges as top priority as 62 percent of companies say security incidents impacted business operations.” PR Newswire, 6 Dec. 2022.
    “Dynamic Network Segmentation: A Must-Have for Digital Businesses in the Age of Zero Trust.” Forescout Whitepaper, 2021. Accessed Nov. 2022.
    Eaves, Johnothan. “Segmentation Strategy - An ISE Prescriptive Guide.” Cisco Community,
    26 Oct. 2020. Accessed Nov. 2022.
    Kambic, Dan, and Jason Fricke. “Network Segmentation: Concepts and Practices.” Carnegie Mellon University SEI Blog, 19 Oct. 2020. Accessed Nov. 2022.
    Kang, Myong H., et al. “A Network Pump.” IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, vol. 22 no. 5, May 1996.
    Kipling, Rudyard. “The Ballad of East and West.” Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, 1892.
    Mintzberg, Henry. “Everyone is against micro managing but macro managing means you're working at the big picture but don't know the details.” AZ Quotes, n.d.
    Murphy, Greg. “A Reimagined Purdue Model For Industrial Security Is Possible.” Forbes Magazine, 18 Jan. 2022. Accessed Oct. 2022.
    Patton, George S. “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” BrainyQuote, n.d.
    Ponemon, Larry. “We discovered in our research […].” SecureWorld Boston, n.d.
    Roosevelt, Theodore. “Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are.” Theodore Roosevelt Center, n.d.
    Sahoo, Narendra. “How Does Implementing Network Segmentation Benefit Businesses?” Vista Infosec Blog. April 2021. Accessed Nov. 2022.
    “Security Outcomes Report Volume 3.” Cisco Secure, Dec 2022.
    Shedd, John A. “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” Salt from My Attic, 1928, via Quote Investigator, 9 Dec. 2023.
    Singleton, Camille, et al. “X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2022” IBM, 17 Feb. 2022.
    Accessed Nov. 2022.
    Stone, Mark. “What is network segmentation? NS best practices, requirements explained.” AT&T Cyber Security, March 2021. Accessed Nov. 2022.
    “The State of Breach and Attack Simulation and the Need for Continuous Security Validation: A Study of US and UK Organizations.” Ponemon Institute, Nov. 2020. Accessed Nov. 2022.
    Thoreau, Henry David. “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” BrainyQuote, n.d.
    Ulanoff, Lance. “Elon Musk: Secrets of a Highly Effective Entrepreneur.” Mashable, 13 April 2012.
    “What Is Microsegmenation?” Palo Alto, Accessed Nov. 2022.
    “What is Network Segmentation? Introduction to Network Segmentation.” Sunny Valley Networks, n.d.

    Modernize Your Corporate Website to Drive Business Value

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    • Parent Category Name: Marketing Solutions
    • Parent Category Link: /marketing-solutions
    • Users are demanding more valuable web functionalities and improved access to your website services. They are expecting development teams to keep up with their changing needs.
    • The criteria of user acceptance and satisfaction involves more than an aesthetically pleasing user interface (UI). It also includes how emotionally attached the user is to the website and how it accommodates user behaviors.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Complication

    • Organizations are focusing too much on the UI when they optimize the user experience of their websites. The UI is only one of many components involved in successful websites with good user experience.
    • User experience (UX) is often an afterthought in development, risking late and costly fixes to improve end-user reception after deployment.

    Insights

    • Organizations often misinterpret UX as UI. In fact, UX incorporates both the functional and emotional needs of the user, going beyond the website’s UI.
    • Human behaviors and tendencies are commonly left out of the define and design phases of website development, putting user satisfaction and adoption at risk.

    Impact and Result

    • Gain a deep understanding of user needs and behaviors. Become familiar with the human behaviors, emotions, and pain points of your users in order to shortlist the design elements and website functions that will receive the highest user satisfaction.
    • Perform a comprehensive website review. Leverage satisfaction surveys, user feedback, and user monitoring tools (e.g. heat maps) to reveal high-level UX issues. Use these insights to drill down into the execution and composition of your website to identify the root causes of issues.
    • Incorporate modern UX trends in your design. New web technologies are continuously emerging in the industry to enhance user experience. Stay updated on today’s UX trends and validate their fit for the specific needs of your target audience.

    Modernize Your Corporate Website to Drive Business Value Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should modernize your website, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and discover the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Define UX requirements

    Reveal the opportunities to heighten the user experience of your website through a deep understanding of the behaviors, emotions, and needs of your end users in order to design a receptive and valuable website.

    • Modernize Your Corporate Website to Drive Business Value – Phase 1: Define UX Requirements
    • Website Design Document Template

    2. Design UX-driven website

    Design a satisfying and receptive website by leveraging industry best practices and modern UX trends and ensuring the website is supported with reliable and scalable data and infrastructure.

    • Modernize Your Corporate Website to Drive Business Value – Phase 2: Design UX-Driven Website
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Modernize Your Corporate Website to Drive Business Value

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Define Your UX Requirements

    The Purpose

    List the business objectives of your website.

    Describe your user personas, use cases, and user workflow.

    Identify current UX issues through simulations, website design, and system reviews.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Strong understanding of the business goals of your website.

    Knowledge of the behaviors and needs of your website’s users.

    Realization of the root causes behind the UX issues of your website.

    Activities

    1.1 Define the business objectives for the website you want to optimize

    1.2 Define your end-user personas and map them to use cases

    1.3 Build your website user workflow

    1.4 Conduct a SWOT analysis of your website to drive out UX issues

    1.5 Gauge the UX competencies of your web development team

    1.6 Simulate your user workflow to identify the steps driving down UX

    1.7 Assess the composition and construction of your website

    1.8 Understand the execution of your website with a system architecture

    1.9 Pinpoint the technical reason behind your UX issues

    1.10 Clarify and prioritize your UX issues

    Outputs

    Business objectives

    End-user personas and use cases

    User workflows

    Website SWOT analysis

    UX competency assessment

    User workflow simulation

    Website design assessment

    Current state of web system architecture

    Gap analysis of web system architecture

    Prioritized UX issues

    2 Design Your UX-Driven Website

    The Purpose

    Design wireframes and storyboards to be aligned to high priority use cases.

    Design a web system architecture that can sufficiently support the website.

    Identify UX metrics to gauge the success of the website.

    Establish a website design process flow.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Implementation of key design elements and website functions that users will find stimulating and valuable.

    Optimized web system architecture to better support the website.

    Website design process aligned to your current context.

    Rollout plan for your UX optimization initiatives.

    Activities

    2.1 Define the roles of your UX development team

    2.2 Build your wireframes and user storyboards

    2.3 Design the target state of your web environment

    2.4 List your UX metrics

    2.5 Draw your website design process flow

    2.6 Define your UX optimization roadmap

    2.7 Identify and engage your stakeholders

    Outputs

    Roles of UX development team

    Wireframes and user storyboards

    Target state of web system architecture

    List of UX metrics

    List of your suppliers, inputs, processes, outputs, and customers

    Website design process flow

    UX optimization rollout roadmap

    Reimagine Learning in the Face of Crisis

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    • Parent Category Name: Train & Develop
    • Parent Category Link: /train-and-develop
    • As organizations re-evaluate their priorities and shift to new ways of working, leaders and employees are challenged to navigate unchartered territory and to adjust quickly to ever-evolving priorities.
    • Learning how to perform effectively through the crisis and deliver on new priorities is crucial to the success of all employees and the organization.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    The most successful organizations recognize that learning is critical to adjusting quickly and effectively to their new reality. This requires L&D to reimagine their approach to deliver learning that enables the organization’s immediate and evolving priorities.

    Impact and Result

    • L&D teams should focus on how to support employees and managers to develop the critical competencies they need to successfully perform through the crisis, enabling organizations to survive and thrive during and beyond the crisis.
    • Ensure learning needs align closely with evolving organizational priorities, collaborate cross-functionally, and curate content to provide the learning employees and leaders need most, when they need it.

    Reimagine Learning in the Face of Crisis Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Prioritize

    Involve key stakeholders, identify immediate priorities, and conduct high-level triage of L&D.

    • Reimagine Learning in the Face of Crisis Storyboard
    • Reimagine Learning in the Face of Crisis Workbook

    2. Reimagine

    Determine learning needs and ability to realistically deliver learning. Leverage existing or curate learning content that can support learning needs.

    3. Transform

    Identify technical requirements for the chosen delivery method and draft a four- to six-week action plan.

    • How to Curate Guide
    • Tips for Building an Online Learning Community
    • Ten Tips for Adapting In-Person Training During a Crisis
    • Tips for Remote Learning in the Face of Crisis
    [infographic]

    Diagnose and Optimize Your Lead Gen Engine

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    • Parent Category Name: Marketing Solutions
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    88% of marketing professionals are unsatisfied with their ability to convert leads (Convince & Convert), but poor lead conversion is just a symptom of much deeper problems.

    Globally, B2B SaaS marketers without a well-running lead gen engine will experience:

    • A low volume of quality leads from their website.
    • A low conversion rate from their website visitors.
    • A long lead conversion time compared to competitors.
    • A low volume of organic website visitors.

    If treated without a root cause analysis, these symptoms often result in higher-than-average marketing spend and wasted resources. Without an accurate lead gen engine diagnostic tool and a strategy to fix the misfires, marketers will continue to waste valuable time and resources.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    The lead gen engine is foundational in building profitable long-term customer relationships. It is the process through which marketers build awareness, trust, and loyalty. Without the ability to continually diagnose lead gen engine flaws, marketers will fail to optimize new customer relationship creation and long-term satisfaction and loyalty.

    Impact and Result

    With a targeted set of diagnostic tools and an optimization strategy, you will:

    • Uncover the critical weakness in your lead generation engine.
    • Develop a best-in-class lead gen engine optimization strategy that builds relationships, creates awareness, and establishes trust and loyalty with prospects.
    • Build profitable long-term customer relationships.

    Organizations who activate the findings from their lead generation diagnostic and optimization strategy will decrease the time and budget spent on lead generation by 25% to 50%. They will quickly uncover inefficiencies in their lead gen engine and develop a proven lead generation optimization strategy based on the diagnostic findings.

    Diagnose and Optimize Your Lead Gen Engine Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Diagnose and Optimize Your Lead Gen Engine Deck – A deck to help you diagnose what’s not working in your lead gen engine so that you can remedy issues and get back on track, building new customer relationships and driving loyalty.

    Organizations who activate the findings from their lead generation diagnostic and optimization strategy will decrease the time and budget spent on lead generation by 25% to 50%. They will quickly uncover inefficiencies in their lead gen engine and develop a proven lead generation optimization strategy based on the diagnostic findings.

    • Diagnose and Optimize Your Lead Gen Engine Storyboard

    2. Lead Gen Engine Diagnostic Tool – An easy-to-use diagnostic tool that will help you pinpoint weakness within your lead gen engine.

    The diagnostic tool allows digital marketers to quickly and easily diagnose weakness within your lead gen engine.

    • Lead Gen Engine Diagnostic Tool

    3. Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template – A step-by-step document that walks you through how to properly optimize the performance of your lead gen engine.

    Develop a best-in-class lead gen engine optimization strategy that builds relationships, creates awareness, and establishes trust and loyalty with prospects.

    • Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template

    Infographic

    Further reading

    Diagnose and Optimize Your Lead Gen Engine

    Quickly and easily pinpoint any weakness in your lead gen engine so that you stop wasting money and effort on ineffective advertising and marketing.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    Quickly and easily pinpoint any weakness in your lead gen engine so that you stop wasting money and effort on ineffective advertising and marketing.

    The image contains a photo of Terra Higginson.

    Senior digital marketing leaders are accountable for building relationships, creating awareness, and developing trust and loyalty with website visitors, thereby delivering high-quality, high-value leads that Sales can easily convert to wins. Unfortunately, many marketing leaders report that their website visitors are low-quality and either disengage quickly or, when they engage further with lead gen engine components, they just don’t convert. These marketing leaders urgently need to diagnose what’s not working in three key areas in their lead gen engine to quickly remedy the issue and get back on track, building new customer relationships and driving loyalty. This blueprint will provide you with a tool to quickly and easily diagnose weakness within your lead gen engine. You can use the results to create a strategy that builds relationships, creates awareness, and establishes trust and loyalty with prospects.

    Terra Higginson

    Marketing Research Director

    SoftwareReviews

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Globally, business-to-business (B2B) software-as-a-service (SaaS) marketers without a well-running lead gen engine will experience:

    • A low volume of quality leads from their website.
    • A low conversion rate from their website visitors.
    • A long lead conversion time compared to competitors.
    • A low volume of organic website visitors.

    88% of marketing professionals are unsatisfied with their ability to convert leads (Convince & Convert), but poor lead conversion is just a symptom of a much larger problem with the lead gen engine. Without an accurate lead gen engine diagnostic tool and a strategy to fix the leaks, marketers will continue to waste valuable time and resources.

    Common Obstacles

    Even though lead generation is a critical element of marketing success, marketers struggle to fix the problems with their lead gen engine due to:

    • A lack of resources.
    • A lack of budget.
    • A lack of experience in implementing effective lead generation strategies.

    Most marketers spend too much on acquiring leads and not enough on converting and keeping them. For every $92 spent acquiring customers, only $1 is spent converting them (Econsultancy, cited in Outgrow). Marketers are increasingly under pressure to deliver high-quality leads to sales but work under tight budgets with inadequate or inexperienced staff who don’t understand the importance of optimizing the lead generation process.

    SoftwareReviews’ Approach

    With a targeted set of diagnostic tools and an optimization strategy, you will:

    • Uncover the critical weakness in your lead generation engine.
    • Develop a best-in-class lead gen engine optimization strategy that builds relationships, creates awareness, and establishes trust and loyalty with prospects.
    • Build profitable long-term customer relationships.

    Organizations who activate the findings from their lead generation diagnostic and optimization strategy will decrease the time and budget spent on lead generation by 25% to 50%. They will quickly uncover inefficiencies in their lead gen engine and develop a proven lead generation optimization strategy based on the diagnostic findings.

    SoftwareReviews Insight

    The lead gen engine is foundational in building profitable long-term customer relationships. It is the process through which marketers build awareness, trust, and loyalty. Without the ability to continually diagnose lead gen engine flaws, marketers will fail to optimize new customer relationship creation and long-term satisfaction and loyalty.

    Your Challenge

    88% of marketing professionals are unsatisfied with their ability to convert leads, but poor lead conversion is just a symptom of much deeper problems.

    Globally, B2B SaaS marketers without a well-running lead gen engine will experience:

    • A low volume of organic website visitors.
    • A low volume of quality leads from their website.
    • A low conversion rate from their website visitors.
    • A longer lead conversion time than competitors in the same space.

    If treated without a root-cause analysis, these symptoms often result in higher-than-average marketing spend and wasted resources. Without an accurate lead gen engine diagnostic tool and a strategy to fix the misfires, marketers will continue to waste valuable time and resources.

    88% of marketers are unsatisfied with lead conversion (Convince & Convert).

    The image contains a diagram that demonstrates a flowchart of the areas where visitors fail to convert. It incorporates observations, benchmarks, and uses a flowchart to diagnose the root causes.

    Benchmarks

    Compare your lead gen engine metrics to industry benchmarks.

    For every 10,000 people that visit your website, 210 will become leads.

    For every 210 leads, 101 will become marketing qualified leads (MQLs).

    For every 101 MQLs, 47 will become sales qualified leads (SQLs).

    For every 47 SQLs, 23 will become opportunities.

    For every 23 opportunities, nine will become customers.

    .9% to 2.1%

    36% to 48%

    28% to 46%

    39% to 48%

    32% to 40%

    Leads Benchmark

    MQL Benchmark

    SQL Benchmark

    Opportunity Benchmark

    Closing Benchmark

    The percentage of website visitors that convert to leads.

    The percentage of leads that convert to marketing qualified leads.

    The percentage of MQLs that convert to sales qualified leads.

    The percentage of SQLs that convert to opportunities.

    The percentage of opportunities that are closed.

    Midmarket B2B SaaS Industry

    Source: “B2B SaaS Marketing KPIs,” First Page Sage, 2021

    Common obstacles

    Why do most organizations improperly diagnose a misfiring lead gen engine?

    Lack of Clear Starting Point

    The lead gen engine is complex, with many moving parts, and marketers and marketing ops are often overwhelmed about where to begin diagnosis.

    Lack of Benchmarks

    Marketers often call out metrics such as increasing website visitors, contact-to-lead conversions, numbers of qualified leads delivered to Sales, etc., without a proven benchmark to compare their results against.

    Lack of Alignment Between Marketing and Sales

    Definitions of a contact, a marketing qualified lead, a sales qualified lead, and a marketing influenced win often vary.

    Lack of Measurement Tools

    Integration gaps between the website, marketing automation, sales enablement, and analytics exist within some 70% of enterprises. The elements of the marketing (and sales) tech stack change constantly. It’s hard to keep up.

    Lack of Understanding of Marketing ROI

    This drives many marketers to push the “more” button – more assets, more emails, more ad spend – without first focusing on optimization and effectiveness.

    Lack of Resources

    Marketers have an endless list of to-dos that drive them to produce daily results. Especially among software startups and mid-sized companies, there are just not enough staff with the right skills to diagnose and fix today’s sophisticated lead gen engines.

    Implications of poor diagnostics

    Without proper lead gen engine diagnostics, marketing performs poorly

    • The lead gen engine builds relationships and trust. When a broken lead gen engine goes unoptimized, customer relationships are at risk.
    • When the lead gen engine isn’t working well, customer acquisition costs rise as more expensive sales resources are charged with prospect qualification.
    • Without a well-functioning lead gen engine, marketers lack the foundation they need to create awareness among prospects – growth suffers.
    • Marketers will throw money at content or ads to generate more leads without any real understanding of engine leakage and misfires – your cost per lead climbs and reduces marketing profitability.

    Most marketers are spending too much on acquiring leads and not enough on converting and keeping them. For every $92 spent acquiring customers, only $1 is spent converting them.

    Source: Econsultancy, cited in Outgrow

    Lead gen engine optimization increases the efficiency of your marketing efforts and has a 223% ROI.

    Source: WordStream

    Benefits of lead gen engine diagnostics

    Diagnosing your lead gen engine delivers key benefits:

    • Pinpoint weakness quickly. A quick and accurate lead gen engine diagnostic tool saves Marketing 50% of the effort spent uncovering the reason for low conversion and low-quality leads.
    • Optimize more easily. Marketing executives will save 70% of the time spent creating a lead gen optimization marketing strategy based upon the diagnostic findings.
    • Maximize marketing ROI. Build toward and maintain the golden 3:1 LTV:CAC (lifetime value to customer acquisition cost) ratio for B2B SaaS marketing.
    • Stop wasting money on ineffective advertising and marketing. Up to 75% of your marketing budget is being inefficiently spent if you are running on a broken lead gen engine.

    “It’s much easier to double your business by doubling your conversion rate than by doubling your traffic. Correct targeting and testing methods can increase conversion rates up to 300 percent.” – Jeff Eisenberg, IterateStudio

    Source: Lift Division

    True benefits of fixing the lead gen engine

    These numbers add up to a significant increase in marketing influenced wins.

    175%
    Buyer Personas Increase Revenue
    Source: Illumin8

    202%
    Personalized CTAs Increase Conversions
    Source: HubSpot

    50%
    Lead Magnets Increase Conversions
    Source: ClickyDrip

    79%
    Lead Scoring Increases Conversions
    Source: Bloominari

    50%
    Lead Nurturing Increases Conversions
    Source: KevinTPayne.com

    80%
    Personalized Landing Pages Increase Conversions
    Source: HubSpot

    Who benefits from an optimized lead gen engine?

    This Research Is Designed for:

    • Senior digital marketing leaders who are:
      • Looking to increase conversions.
      • Looking to increase the quality of leads.
      • Looking to increase the value of leads.

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Diagnose issues with your lead gen engine.
    • Create a lead gen optimization strategy and a roadmap.

    This Research Will Also Assist:

    • Digital marketing leaders and product marketing leaders who are:
      • Looking to decrease the effort needed by Sales to close leads.
      • Looking to increase leadership’s faith in Marketing’s ability to generate high-quality leads and conversions.

    This Research Will Help Them:

    • Align the Sales and Marketing teams.
    • Receive the necessary buy-in from management to increase marketing spend and headcount.
    • Avoid product failure.
    The image contains a screenshot of the thought model that is titled: Diagnose and Optimize your Lead Gen Engine. The image contains the screenshot of the previous image shown on Where Lead Gen Engines Fails, and includes new information. The flowchart connects to a box that says: STOP, Your engine is broken. It then explains phase 1, the diagnostic, and then phase 2 Optimization strategy.

    SoftwareReviews’ approach

    1. Diagnose Misfires in the Lead Gen Engine
    2. Identifying any areas of weakness within your lead gen engine is a fundamental first step in improving conversions, ROI, and lead quality.

    3. Create a Lead Gen Optimization Strategy
    4. Optimize your lead gen strategy with an easily customizable template that will provide your roadmap for future growth.

    The SoftwareReviews Methodology to Diagnose and Optimize Your Lead Gen Engine

    1. Lead Gen Engine Diagnostic

    2. Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy

    Phase Steps

    1. Select lead gen engine optimization steering committee & working team
    2. Gather baseline metrics
    3. Run the lead gen engine diagnostic
    4. Identify low-scoring areas & prioritize lead gen engine fixes
    1. Define the roadmap
    2. Create lead gen engine optimization strategy
    3. Present strategy to steering committee

    Phase Outcomes

    • Identify weakness within the lead gen engine.
    • Prioritize the most important fixes within the lead gen engine.
    • Create a best-in-class lead gen engine optimization strategy and roadmap that builds relationships, creates awareness, and develops trust and loyalty with website visitors.
    • Increase leadership’s faith in Marketing’s ability to generate high-quality leads and conversions.

    Insight Summary

    The lead gen engine is the foundation of marketing

    The lead gen engine is critical to building relationships. It is the foundation upon which marketers build awareness, trust, and loyalty.

    Misalignment between Sales and Marketing is costly

    Digital marketing leaders need to ensure agreement with Sales on the definition of a marketing qualified lead (MQL), as it is the most essential element of stakeholder alignment.

    Prioritization is necessary for today’s marketer

    By prioritizing the fixes within the lead gen engine that have the highest impact, a marketing leader will be able to focus their optimization efforts in the right place.

    Stop, your engine is broken

    Any advertising or effort expended while running marketing on a broken lead gen engine is time and money wasted. It is only once the lead gen engine is fixed that marketers will see the true results of their efforts.

    Tactical insight

    Without a well-functioning lead gen engine, marketers risk wasting valuable time and money because they aren’t creating relationships with prospects that will increase the quality of leads, conversion rate, and lifetime value.

    Tactical insight

    The foundational lead relationship must be built at the marketing level, or else Sales will be entirely responsible for creating these relationships with low-quality leads, risking product failure.

    Blueprint Deliverable:

    Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:

    Lead Gen Engine Diagnostic

    An efficient and easy-to-use diagnostic tool that uncovers weakness in your lead gen engine.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Lead Gen Engine Diagnostic is shown.

    Key Deliverable:

    Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template

    The image contains a screenshot of the Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy.

    A comprehensive strategy for optimizing conversions and increasing the quality of leads.

    SoftwareReviews Offers Various Levels of Support to Meet Your Needs

    Included within Advisory Membership:

    DIY Toolkit

    “Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.”

    Guided Implementation

    “Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.”

    Optional add-ons:

    Workshop

    “We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.”

    Consulting

    “Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on lead gen engine diagnostics look like?

    Diagnose Your Lead Gen Engine

    Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and specific challenges with your lead gen engine.

    Call #2: Gather baseline metrics and discuss the steering committee and working team.

    Call #3: Review results from baseline metrics and answer questions.

    Call #4: Discuss the lead gen engine diagnostic tool and your steering committee.

    Call #5: Review results from the diagnostic tool and answer questions.

    Develop Your Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy

    Call #6: Identify components to include in the lead gen engine optimization strategy.

    Call #7: Discuss the roadmap for continued optimization.

    Call #8: Review final lead gen engine optimization strategy.

    Call #9: (optional) Follow-up quarterly to check in on progress and answer questions.

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is series of calls with a SoftwareReviews Advisory analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization. For guidance on marketing applications, we can arrange a discussion with an Info-Tech analyst. Your engagement managers will work with you to schedule analyst calls.

    Workshop Overview

    Day 1

    Day 2

    Activities

    Complete Lead Gen Engine Diagnostic

    1.1 Identify the previously selected lead gen engine steering committee and working team.

    1.2 Share the baseline metrics that were gathered in preparation for the workshop.

    1.3 Run the lead gen engine diagnostic.

    1.4 Identify low-scoring areas and prioritize lead gen engine fixes.

    Create Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy

    2.1 Define the roadmap.

    2.2 Create a lead gen engine optimization strategy.

    2.3 Present the strategy to the steering committee.

    Deliverables

    1. Lead gen engine diagnostic scorecard

    1. Lead gen engine optimization strategy

    Contact your account representative for more information.

    workshops@infotech.com1-888-670-8889

    Phase 1

    Lead Gen Engine Diagnostic

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    1.1 Select lead gen engine steering committee & working team

    1.2 Gather baseline metrics

    1.3 Run the lead gen engine diagnostic

    1.4 Identify & prioritize low-scoring areas

    2.1 Define the roadmap

    2.2 Create lead gen engine optimization strategy

    2.3 Present strategy to steering committee

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    The diagnostic tool will allow you to quickly and easily identify the areas of weakness in the lead gen engine by answering some simple questions. The steps include:

    • Select the lead gen engine optimization committee and team.
    • Gather baseline metrics.
    • Run the lead gen engine diagnostic.
    • Identify and prioritize low-scoring areas.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Marketing lead
    • Lead gen engine steering committee

    Step 1.1

    Identify Lead Gen Engine Optimization Steering Committee & Working Team

    Activities

    1.1.1 Identify the lead gen engine optimization steering committee and document in the Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template

    1.1.2 Identify the lead gen engine optimization working team document in the Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Identify the lead gen engine optimization steering committee.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Marketing director
    • Leadership

    Outcomes of this step

    An understanding of who will be responsible and who will be accountable for accomplishing the lead gen engine diagnostic and optimization strategy.

    1.1.1 Identify the lead gen engine optimization steering committee

    1-2 hours

    1. The marketing lead should meet with leadership to determine who will make up the steering committee for the lead gen engine optimization.
    2. Document the steering committee members in the Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template slide entitled “The Steering Committee.”

    Input

    Output

    • Stakeholders and leaders across the various functions outlined on the next slide
    • List of the lead gen engine optimization strategy steering committee members

    Materials

    Participants

    • Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template
    • Marketing director
    • Executive leadership

    Download the Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template

    Lead gen engine optimization steering committee

    Consider the skills and knowledge required for the diagnostic and the implementation of the strategy. Constructing a cross-functional steering committee will be essential for the optimization of the lead gen engine. At least one stakeholder from each relevant department should be included in the steering committee.

    Required Skills/Knowledge

    Suggested Functions

    • Target Buyer
    • Product Roadmap
    • Brand
    • Competitors
    • Campaigns/Lead Gen
    • Sales Enablement
    • Media/Analysts
    • Customer Satisfaction
    • Data Analytics
    • Ad Campaigns
    • Competitive Intelligence
    • Product Marketing
    • Product Management
    • Creative Director
    • Competitive Intelligence
    • Field Marketing
    • Sales
    • PR/AR/Corporate Comms
    • Customer Success
    • Analytics Executive
    • Campaign Manager

    For small and mid-sized businesses (SMB), because employees wear many different hats, assign people that have the requisite skills and knowledge, not the role title.

    The image contains examples of small and mid-sized businesses, and the different employee recommendations.

    1.1.2 Identify the lead gen engine optimization working team

    1-2 hours

    1. The marketing director should meet with leadership to determine who will make up the working team for the lead gen engine optimization.
    2. Finalize selection of team members and fill out the slide entitled “The Working Team” in the Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template.

    Input

    Output

    • Executives and analysts responsible for execution of tasks across Marketing, Product, Sales, and IT
    • The lead gen engine optimization working team

    Materials

    Participants

    • The Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template
    • Marketing director
    • Executive leadership

    Download the Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template

    Lead gen engine working team

    Consider the working skills required for the diagnostic and implementation of the strategy and assign the working team.

    Required Skills/Knowledge

    Suggested Titles

    • SEO
    • Inbound Marketing
    • Paid Advertising
    • Website Development
    • Content Creation
    • Lead Scoring
    • Landing Pages
    • A/B Testing
    • Email Campaigns
    • Marketing and Sales Automation
    • SEO Analyst
    • Content Marketing Manager
    • Product Marketing Manager
    • Website Manager
    • Website Developer
    • Sales Manager
    • PR
    • Customer Success Manager
    • Analytics Executive
    • Campaign Manager

    Step 1.2

    Gather Baseline Metrics

    Activities

    1.2.1 Gather baseline metrics and document in the Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Gather baseline metrics.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Marketing director
    • Analytics lead

    Outcomes of this step

    Understand and document baseline marketing metrics.

    1.2.1 Gather baseline metrics and document in the Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template

    1-2 hours

    1. Use the example on the next slide to learn about the B2B SaaS industry-standard baseline metrics.
    2. Meet with the analytics lead to analyze and record the data within the “Baseline Metrics” slide of the Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template. The baseline metrics will include:
      • Unique monthly website visitors
      • Visitor to lead conversion rate
      • Lead to MQL conversion rate
      • Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
      • Lifetime customer value to customer acquisition cost (LTV to CAC) ratio
      • Campaign ROI

    Recording the baseline data allows you to measure the impact your lead gen engine optimization strategy has over the baseline.

    Input

    Output
    • Marketing and analytics data
    • Documentation of baseline marketing metrics

    Materials

    Participants

    • The lead gen engine optimization strategy
    • Marketing director
    • Analytics lead

    B2B SaaS baseline metrics

    Industry standard metrics for B2B SaaS in 2022

    Unique Monthly Visitors

    Industry standard is 5% to 10% growth month over month.

    Visitor to Lead Conversion

    Industry standard is between 0.9% to 2.1%.

    Lead to MQL Conversion

    Industry standard is between 36% to 48%.

    CAC

    Industry standard is a cost of $400 to $850 per customer acquired.

    LTV to CAC Ratio

    Industry standard is an LTV:CAC ratio between 3 to 6.

    Campaign ROI

    Email: 201%

    Pay-Per-Click (PPC): 36%

    LinkedIn Ads: 94%

    Source: “B2B SaaS Marketing KPIs,” First Page Sage, 2021

    Update the Lead Gen Optimization Strategy Template with your company’s baseline metrics.

    Download the Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template

    Step 1.3

    Run the Lead Gen Engine Diagnostic

    Activities

    1.3.1 Gather steering committee and working team to complete the Lead Gen Engine Diagnostic Tool

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Gather the steering committee and answer the questions within the Lead Gen Engine Diagnostic Tool.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Lead gen engine optimization working team
    • Lead gen engine optimization steering committee

    Outcomes of this step

    Lead gen engine diagnostic and scorecard

    1.3.1 Gather the committee and team to complete the Lead Gen Engine Diagnostic Tool

    2-3 hours

    1. Schedule a two-hour meeting with the steering committee and working team to complete the Lead Gen Engine Diagnostic Tool. To ensure the alignment of all departments and the quality of results, all steering committee members must participate.
    2. Answer the questions within the tool and then review your company’s results in the Results tab.

    Input

    Output

    • Marketing and analytics data
    • Diagnostic scorecard for the lead gen engine

    Materials

    Participants

    • Lead Gen Engine Diagnostic Tool
    • Marketing director
    • Analytics lead

    Download the Lead Gen Engine Diagnostic Tool

    Step 1.4

    Identify & Prioritize Low-Scoring Areas

    Activities

    1.4.1 Identify and prioritize low-scoring areas from the diagnostic scorecard

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Identify and prioritize the low-scoring areas from the diagnostic scorecard.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Marketing director

    Outcomes of this step

    A prioritized list of the lead gen engine problems to include in the Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template

    1.4.1 Identify and prioritize low-scoring areas from the diagnostic scorecard

    1 hour

    1. Transfer the results from the Lead Gen Engine Diagnostic Scorecard Results tab to the Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template slide entitled “Lead Gen Engine Diagnostic Scorecard.”
      • Results between 0 and 2 should be listed as high-priority fixes on the “Lead Gen Engine Diagnostic Scorecard” slide. You will use these areas for your strategy.
      • Results between 2 and 3 should be listed as medium-priority fixes on “Lead Gen Engine Diagnostic Scorecard” slide. You will use these areas for your strategy.
      • Results between 3 and 4 are within the industry standard and will require no fixes or only small adjustments.

    Input

    Output

    • Marketing and analytics data
    • Documentation of baseline marketing metrics

    Materials

    Participants

    • Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template
    • Marketing director
    • Analytics lead

    Download the Lead Gen Engine Diagnostic Tool

    Phase 2

    Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    1.1 Select lead gen engine steering committee & working team

    1.2 Gather baseline metrics

    1.3 Run the lead gen engine diagnostic

    1.4 Identify & prioritize low-scoring areas

    2.1 Define the roadmap

    2.2 Create lead gen engine optimization strategy

    2.3 Present strategy to steering committee

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    Create a best-in-class lead gen optimization strategy and roadmap based on the weaknesses found in the diagnostic tool. The steps include:

    • Define the roadmap.
    • Create a lead gen engine optimization strategy.
    • Present the strategy to the steering committee.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Marketing director

    Step 2.1

    Define the Roadmap

    Activities

    2.1.1 Create the roadmap for the lead gen optimization strategy

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Create the optimization roadmap for your lead gen engine strategy.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Marketing director

    Outcomes of this step

    Strategy roadmap

    2.1.1 Create the roadmap for the lead gen optimization strategy

    1 hour

    1. Copy the results from "The Lead Gen Engine Diagnostic Scorecard" slide to the "Value, Resources & Roadmap Matrix" slide in the Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template. Adjust the Roadmap Quarter column after evaluating the internal resources of your company and expected value generated.
    2. Using these results, create your strategy roadmap by updating the slide entitled “The Strategy Roadmap” in the Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template.

    Input

    Output

    • Diagnostic scorecard
    • Strategy roadmap

    Materials

    Participants

    • Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template
    • Marketing Director

    Download the Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template

    Step 2.2

    Create the Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy

    Activities

    2.2.1 Customize your lead gen engine optimization strategy using the template

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Create a lead gen engine optimization strategy based on the results of your diagnostic scorecard.

    This step involves the following participants:

    Marketing director

    Outcomes of this step

    A leadership-facing lead gen optimization strategy

    2.2.1 Customize your lead gen engine optimization strategy using the template

    2-3 hours

    Review the strategy template:

    1. Use "The Strategy Roadmap" slide to organize the remaining slides from the Q1, Q2, and Q3 sections.
      1. Fixes listed in "The Strategy Roadmap" under Q1 should be placed within the Q1 section.
      2. Fixes listed in "The Strategy Roadmap" under Q2 should be placed within the Q2 section.
      3. Fixes listed in "The Strategy Roadmap" under Q3 should be placed within the Q3 section.

    Input

    Output

    • The strategy roadmap
    • Your new lead gen engine optimization strategy

    Materials

    Participants

    • Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template
    • Marketing director

    Download the Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template

    Step 2.3

    Present the strategy to the steering committee

    Activities

    2.3.1 Present the findings of the diagnostic and the lead gen optimization strategy to the steering committee.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Get executive buy-in on the lead gen engine optimization strategy.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Marketing director
    • Steering committee

    Outcomes of this step

    • Buy-in from leadership on the strategy

    2.3.1 Present findings of diagnostic and lead gen optimization strategy to steering committee

    1-2 hours

    1. Schedule a presentation to present the findings of the diagnostic, the lead gen engine optimization strategy, and the roadmap to the steering committee.
    InputOutput
    • Your company’s lead gen engine optimization strategy
    • Official outline of strategy and buy-in from executive leadership

    Materials

    Participants

    • Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template
    • Marketing director
    • Executive leadership
    • Steering committee

    Download the Lead Gen Engine Optimization Strategy Template

    Related SoftwareReviews Research

    Create a Buyer Persona and Journey

    Make it easier to market, sell, and achieve product-market fit with deeper buyer understanding.

    • Reduce time and treasure wasted chasing the wrong prospects.
    • Improve product-market fit.
    • Increase open and click-through rates in your lead gen engine.
    • Perform more effective sales discovery and increase eventual win rates.

    Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring

    In today’s competitive environment, optimizing Sales’ resources by giving them qualified leads is key to B2B marketing success.

    • Lead scoring is a must-have capability for high-tech marketers.
    • Without lead scoring, marketers will see increased costs of lead generation and decreased SQL-to-opportunity conversion rates.
    • Lead scoring increases sales productivity and shortens sales cycles.

    Build a More Effective Go-to-Market Strategy

    Creating a compelling go-to-market strategy and keeping it current is a critical software company function – as important as financial strategy, sales operations, and even corporate business development – given its huge impact on the many drivers of sustainable growth.

    • Align stakeholders on a common vision and execution plan.
    • Build a foundation of buyer and competitive understanding.
    • Deliver a team-aligned launch plan that enables commercial success.

    Bibliography

    “11 Lead Magnet Statistics That Might Surprise You.” ClickyDrip, 28 Dec. 2020. Accessed April 2022.

    “45 Conversion Rate Optimization Statistics Every Marketer Should Know.” Outgrow, n.d. Accessed April 2022.

    Bailyn, Evan. “B2B SaaS Funnel Conversion Benchmarks.” First Page Sage, 24 Feb. 2021. Accessed April 2022.

    Bailyn, Evan. “B2B SaaS Marketing KPIs: Behind the Numbers.” First Page Sage, 1 Sept. 2021. Accessed April 2022.

    Conversion Optimization.” Lift Division, n.d. Accessed April 2022.

    Corson, Sean. “LTV:CAC Ratio [2022 Guide] | Benchmarks, Formula, Tactics.” Daasity, 3 Nov. 2021. Accessed April 2022.

    Dudley, Carrie. “What are personas?” Illumin8, 26 Jan. 2018. Accessed April 2022.

    Godin, Seth. “Permission Marketing.” Accenture, Oct. 2009. Accessed April 2022.

    Lebo, T. “Lead Conversion Statistics All B2B Marketers Need to Know.” Convince & Convert, n.d. Accessed April 2022.

    Lister, Mary. “33 CRO & Landing Page Optimization Stats to Fuel Your Strategy.” WordStream, 24 Nov. 2021. [Accessed April 2022].

    Nacach, Jamie. “How to Determine How Much Money to Spend on Lead Generation Software Per Month.” Bloominari, 18 Sept. 2018. Accessed April 2022.

    Needle, Flori. “11 Stats That Make a Case for Landing Pages.” HubSpot, 10 June 2021. Accessed April 2022.

    Payne, Kevin. “10 Effective Lead Nurturing Tactics to Boost Your Sales.” Kevintpayne.com, n.d. Accessed April 2022.

    Tam, Edwin. “ROI in Marketing: Lifetime Value (LTV) & Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC).” Construct Digital, 19 Jan. 2016. Accessed April 2022.

    Implement an IT Employee Development Plan

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    • Parent Category Name: Train & Develop
    • Parent Category Link: /train-and-develop
    • There is a growing gap between the competencies organizations have been focused on developing and what is needed in the future.
    • Employees have been left to drive their own development with little direction or support and without the alignment of development to organizational needs.
    • The pace of change in today’s environment demands new competencies while making others obsolete, and IT is challenged with keeping up with upskilling employees.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Organizations position development as employee-owned, yet employees still feel like their needs aren’t being met, and many leave as a result.
    • Development needs to be employee-owned and manager-supported but also organization-informed to ensure that it meets the organization’s needs.
    • Today, operating environments change quickly, and organizations need to develop the competencies employees need both today and in the future.

    Impact and Result

    • Design employee development plans that build the competencies the organization and IT department need both today and in the future.
    • Equip managers and build program support to foster continuous learning and development.
    • Connect the right development opportunity to the right employee through an effective development planning process.

    Implement an IT Employee Development Plan Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should implement effective development planning, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Assess employees' development needs

    Assist your employees in setting appropriate development goals.

    • Implement Effective Employee Development Planning – Phase 1: Assess Employees' Development Needs
    • IT Manager Job Aid: Employee Development
    • IT Employee Job Aid: Employee Development
    • IT Employee Career Development Workbook
    • Individual Competency Development Plan
    • IT Competency Library
    • Leadership Competencies Workbook

    2. Select appropriate activities for development

    Review existing and identify new development activities that employees can undertake to achieve their goals.

    • Implement Effective Employee Development Planning – Phase 2: Select Activities for Developing Prioritized Competencies
    • Learning Methods Catalog for IT Employees

    3. Build manager coaching skills

    Establish manager and employee follow-up accountabilities.

    • Implement Effective Employee Development Planning – Phase 3: Build Manager Coaching Skills to Support Employee Development
    • Role Play Coaching Scenarios
    [infographic]

    External audit company

    External IT audit of your company

    Based on experience
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    human-based and people-oriented

    Do you seek an external expert to help you prepare for a thorough IT audit of your company? Tymans Group serves as a consulting company with extensive expertise in helping small and medium enterprises. Read on and learn more about how our consulting firm can help your company with an external IT audit.

    Why should you organize an external IT audit of your company?

    Regularly preparing for an IT audit of your company with the help of of an experienced consultancy company like Tymans Group is a great way to discover any weaknesses within your IT and data security management systems, as well as your applications and data architecture, before the real audits by your regulator happen After all, you can only tackle any possible issues when you know their exact nature and origin. Additionally, the sooner you are aware of any security threats in your company thanks to an external audit, the smaller the chances outside forces will be able to take advantage of these threats to harm your business.

    Security and risk management

    Our security and risk services

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    Security Strategy

    Embed security thinking through aligning your security strategy to business goals and values

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    Disaster Recovery Planning

    Create a disaster recovey plan that is right for your company

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    Receive practical solutions when using our guides to prepare you for an external audit.

    If you hire our consultancy firm to prepare for an external IT audit in your firm, our guides will allow you to thoroughly analyze your systems and protocols to discover flaws and threats. Based on this analysis, your firm will receive concrete advice and practical solutions on dealing with the findings of in advance of an external audit. Besides identifying threats, the findings of will also offer your business insights in possible optimizations and processes which could benefit from automation. As such, you benefit from our consultancy company’s extensive experience in corporate security management and IT.

    Book an appointment with our consultancy company to get ahead of an external audit.

    If you hire our consulting company to help you prepare for an IT audit of your firm, you will receive guides that enable you to make a critical analysis of your IT security, as well as practical solutions based on our holistic approach. We are happy to tell you more about our services for small and medium business and to offer insights into any issues you may be facing. Our help is available offline and online, through one-hour talks with our expert Gert Taeymans. Contact us to set up an appointment online or on-site now.

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    Implement Lean Management Practices That Work

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    • Parent Category Name: Performance Measurement
    • Parent Category Link: /performance-measurement
    • Service delivery teams do not measure, or have difficulty demonstrating, the value they provide.
    • There is a lack of continuous improvement.
    • There is low morale within the IT teams leading to low productivity.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Create a problem-solving culture. Frequent problem solving is the differentiator between sustaining Lean or falling back to old management methods.
    • Commit to employee growth. Empower teams to problem solve and multiply your organizational effectiveness.

    Impact and Result

    • Apply Lean management principles to IT to create alignment and transparency and drive continuous improvement and customer value.
    • Implement huddles and visual management.
    • Build team capabilities.
    • Focus on customer value.
    • Use metrics and data to make better decisions.
    • Systematically solve problems and improve performance.
    • Develop an operating rhythm to promote adherence to Lean.

    Implement Lean Management Practices That Work Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how a Lean management system can help you increase transparency, demonstrate value, engage your teams and customers, continuously improve, and create alignment.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Understand Lean concepts

    Understand what a Lean management system is, review Lean philosophies, and examine simple Lean tools and activities.

    • Implement Lean Management Practices That Work – Phase 1: Understand Lean Concepts
    • Lean Management Education Deck

    2. Determine the scope of your implementation

    Understand the implications of the scope of your Lean management program.

    • Implement Lean Management Practices That Work – Phase 2: Determine the Scope of Your Implementation
    • Lean Management Scoping Tool

    3. Design huddle board

    Examine the sections and content to include in your huddle board design.

    • Implement Lean Management Practices That Work – Phase 3: Design Huddle Board
    • Lean Management Huddle Board Template

    4. Design Leader Standard Work and operating rhythm

    Determine the actions required by leaders and the operating rhythm.

    • Implement Lean Management Practices That Work – Phase 4: Design Leader Standard Work and Operating Rhythm
    • Leader Standard Work Tracking Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Implement Lean Management Practices That Work

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Understand Lean Concepts

    The Purpose

    Understand Lean management.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Gain a common understanding of Lean management, the Lean management thought model, Lean philosophies, huddles, visual management, team growth, and voice of customer.

    Activities

    1.1 Define Lean management in your organization.

    1.2 Create training materials.

    Outputs

    Lean management definition

    Customized training materials

    2 Understand Lean Concepts (Continued) and Determine Scope

    The Purpose

    Understand Lean management.

    Determine the scope of your program.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understand metrics and performance review.

    Understand problem identification and continuous improvement.

    Understand Kanban.

    Understand Leader Standard Work.

    Define the scope of the Lean management program.

    Activities

    2.1 Develop example operational metrics

    2.2 Simulate problem section.

    2.3 Simulate Kanban.

    2.4 Build scoping tool.

    Outputs

    Understand how to use operational metrics

    Understand problem identification

    Understand Kanban/daily tasks section

    Defined scope for your program

    3 Huddle Board Design and Huddle Facilitation Coaching

    The Purpose

    Design the sections and content for your huddle board.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Initial huddle board design.

    Activities

    3.1 Design and build each section in your huddle board.

    3.2 Simulate coaching conversations.

    Outputs

    Initial huddle board design

    Understanding of how to conduct a huddle

    4 Design and Build Leader Standard Work

    The Purpose

    Design your Leader Standard Work activities.

    Develop a schedule for executing Leader Standard Work.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Standard activities identified and documented.

    Sample schedule developed.

    Activities

    4.1 Identify standard activities for leaders.

    4.2 Develop a schedule for executing Leader Standard Work.

    Outputs

    Leader Standard Work activities documented

    Initial schedule for Leader Standard Work activities

    Switching Software Vendors Overwhelmingly Drives Increased Satisfaction

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    • Parent Category Name: Selection & Implementation
    • Parent Category Link: /selection-and-implementation

    Organizations risk being locked in a circular trap of inertia from auto-renewing their software. With inertia comes complacency, leading to a decrease in overall satisfaction. Indeed, organizations are uniformly choosing to renew their software – even if they don’t like the vendor!

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Renewal is an opportunity cost. Switching poorly performing software substantially drives increased satisfaction, and it potentially lowers vendor costs in the process. To realize maximum gains, it’s essential to have a repeatable process in place.

    Impact and Result

    Realize the benefits of switching by using Info-Tech’s five action steps to optimize your vendor switching processes:

    1. Identify switch opportunities.
    2. Evaluate your software.
    3. Build the business case.
    4. Optimize selection method.
    5. Plan implementation.

    Switching Software Vendors Overwhelmingly Drives Increased Satisfaction Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Why you should consider switching software vendors

    Use this outline of key statistics to help make the business case for switching poorly performing software.

    • Switching Existing Software Vendors Overwhelmingly Drives Increased Satisfaction Storyboard

    2. How to optimize your software vendor switching process

    Optimize your software vendor switching processes with five action steps.

    [infographic]

    Assess Your Cybersecurity Insurance Policy

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    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.1/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $33,656 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 7 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: Governance, Risk & Compliance
    • Parent Category Link: /governance-risk-compliance
    • Organizations must adapt their information security programs to accommodate insurance requirements.
    • Organizations need to reduce insurance costs.
    • Some organizations must find alternatives to cyber insurance.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Shopping for insurance policies is not step one.
    • First and foremost, we must determine what the organization is at risk for and how much it would cost to recover.
    • The cyber insurance market is still evolving. As insurance requirements change, effectively managing cyber insurance requires that your organization proactively manages risk.

    Impact and Result

    Perform an insurance policy comparison with scores based on policy coverage and exclusions.

    Assess Your Cybersecurity Insurance Policy Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Assess Your Cybersecurity Insurance Policy Storyboard - A step-by-step document that walks you through how to acquire cyber insurance, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Use this blueprint to score your potential cyber insurance policies and develop skills to overcome common insurance pitfalls.

    • Assess Your Cybersecurity Insurance Policy Storyboard

    2. Acquire cyber insurance with confidence – Learn the essentials of the requirements gathering, policy procurement, and review processes.

    Use these tools to gather cyber insurance requirements, prepare for the underwriting process, and compare policies.

    • Threat and Risk Assessment Tool
    • DRP Business Impact Analysis Tool
    • Legacy DRP Business Impact Analysis Tool
    • DRP BIA Scoring Context Example
    • Cyber Insurance Policy Comparison Tool
    • Cyber Insurance Controls Checklist

    Infographic

    Map Technical Skills for a Changing Infrastructure & Operations Organization

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    • member rating average dollars saved: 5 Average Days Saved
    • member rating average days saved: After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve.
    • Parent Category Name: Strategy and Organizational Design
    • Parent Category Link: /strategy-and-organizational-design
    • Infrastructure & Operations is changing rapidly. It’s a constant challenge to find the right skills to support the next new technology while at the same time maintaining the skills in house that allow you to support your existing platforms.
    • A lack of clarity around required skills makes finding the right skills difficult, and it’s not clear whether you should train, hire, contract, or outsource to address gaps.
    • You need to keep up with changes and new strategy while continuing to support your existing environment.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Take a strategic approach to acquiring skills – looking only as far as the needs of the next project will lead to a constant skills shortage with no plan for it to be addressed.
    • Begin by identifying your future state. Identify needed skills in the organization to support planned projects and initiatives, and to mitigate skills-related risks.

    Impact and Result

    • Leverage your infrastructure roadmap and cloud strategy to identify needed skills in your future state environment.
    • Decide how you’ll acquire needed skills based on the characteristics of need for each skill.
    • Communicate the change and create a plan of action for the skills transformation.

    Map Technical Skills for a Changing Infrastructure & Operations Organization Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should map technical skills for a changing Infrastructure & Operations organization, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Identify skills needs for the future state environment

    Identify what skills are needed based on where the organization is going.

    • Map Technical Skills for a Changing Infrastructure & Operations Organization – Phase 1: Identify Skills Needs for Your Future State Environment
    • Future State Playbook
    • IT/Cloud Solutions Architect
    • IT/Cloud Engineer
    • IT/Cloud Administrator
    • IT/Cloud Demand Billing & Accounting Analyst

    2. Acquire needed skills

    Ground skills acquisition decisions in the characteristics of need.

    • Map Technical Skills for a Changing Infrastructure & Operations Organization – Phase 2: Acquire Needed Skills
    • Technical Skills Map

    3. Maximize the value of the skills map

    Get stakeholder buy-in; leverage the skills map in other processes.

    • Map Technical Skills for a Changing Infrastructure & Operations Organization – Phase 3: Maximize the Value of Your Skills Map
    • Technical Skills Map Communication Deck Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Map Technical Skills for a Changing Infrastructure & Operations Organization

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Review Initiatives and Skills-Related Risks

    The Purpose

    Identify process and skills changes required by the future state of your environment.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Set foundation for alignment between strategy-defined technology initiatives and needed skills.

    Activities

    1.1 Review the list of initiatives and projects with the group.

    1.2 Identify how key support, operational, and deployment processes will change through planned initiatives.

    1.3 Identify skills-related risks and pain points.

    Outputs

    Future State Playbook

    2 Identify Needed Skills and Roles

    The Purpose

    Identify process and skills changes required by the future state of your environment.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Set foundation for alignment between strategy-defined technology initiatives and needed skills.

    Activities

    2.1 Identify skills required to support the new environment.

    2.2 Map required skills to roles.

    Outputs

    IT/Cloud Architect Role Description

    IT/Cloud Engineer Role Description

    IT/Cloud Administrator Role Description

    3 Create a Plan to Acquire Needed Skills

    The Purpose

    Create a skills acquisition strategy based on the characteristics of need.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Optimal skills acquisition strategy defined.

    Activities

    3.1 Modify impact scoring scale for key skills decision factors.

    3.2 Apply impact scoring scales to needed skills

    3.3 Decide whether to train, hire, contract, or outsource to acquire needed skills.

    Outputs

    Technical Skills Map

    4 Develop a Communication Plan

    The Purpose

    Create an effective communication plan for different stakeholders across the organization.

    Identify opportunities to leverage the skills map elsewhere.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Create a concise, clear, consistent, and relevant change message for stakeholders across the organization.

    Activities

    4.1 Review skills decisions and decide how you will acquire skills in each role.

    4.2 Update roles descriptions.

    4.3 Create a change message.

    4.4 Identify opportunities to leverage the skills map in other processes.

    Outputs

    Technical Skills Map Communication Deck

    Initiate Digital Accessibility for IT

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    • Parent Category Name: Lead
    • Parent Category Link: /lead
    • Determining IT requirements (legal and business needs) is overwhelming.
    • Prioritizing people in the process is often overlooked.
    • Mandating changes instead of motivating change isn’t sustainable.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Compliance is the minimum; the people and behavior changes are the harder part and have the largest impact on accessibility. Preparing for and building awareness of the reasons for accessibility makes the necessary behavior changes easier. Communicate, communicate, and communicate some more.
    • Accessibility is a practice, not a project. Therefore, accessibility is an organizational initiative, however, IT support is critical. Use change management theory to guide the new behaviors, processes, and thinking to adopt accessibility beyond compliance. Determining where to start is challenging, the tendency is to start with tech or compliance, however, starting with the people is key. It must be culture.
    • Think about accessibility like you think about IT security. Use IT security concepts that you and your team are already familiar with to initiate the accessibility program.

    Impact and Result

    • Take away the overwhelm that many feel when they hear ‘accessibility’ and make the steps for your organization approachable.
    • Clearly communicate why accessibility is critical and how it supports the organization’s key objectives and initiatives.
    • Understand your current state related to accessibility and identify areas for key initiatives to become part of the IT strategic roadmap.
    • Build your accessibility plan while prioritizing the necessary culture change
    • Use change management and communication practices to elicit the behavior shift needed to sustain accessibility.

    Initiate Digital Accessibility for IT Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Initiate Digital Accessibility for IT – Use this blueprint to narrow down the requirements for your organization and team while also clearly communicating why accessibility is critical and how it supports the organization’s key objectives and initiatives.

    A step-by-step approach to walk you through understanding the IT accessibility compliance requirements, building your roadmap, and communicating with your department. This storyboard will help you figure out what’s needed from IT to support the business and launch accessibility with your team.

    • Initiate Digital Accessibility for IT – Phases 1-2

    2. IT Manager Meeting Template – A clear, concise, and compelling communication to introduce accessibility for your organization to IT managers and to facilitate their participation in building the roadmap.

    Accessibility compliance can be overwhelming at first. Use this template to simplify the requirements for the IT managers and build out a roadmap.

    • IT Manager Meeting Template

    3. Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool – This tool helps to decrease the overwhelm of accessibility compliance. Narrow down the list of controls needed to the ones that apply to your organization and to IT.

    Using the EN 301 549 V3.2.1 (2021-03) as a basis for digital accessibility conformance. Use this tool to build a priorities list of requirements that are applicable to your organization.

    • Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool

    4. Departmental Meeting Template – Cascade your communication down to the IT department with this facilitation guide for introducing accessibility and the roadmap to the entire IT team.

    Use this pre-built slide deck to customize your accessibility communication to the IT department. It will help you build a shared vision for accessibility, a current state picture, and plans to build to the target future state.

    • Departmental Meeting Template
    • Accessibility Quick Cards

    Infographic

    Further reading

    Initiate Digital Accessibility For IT

    Make accessibility accessible.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    Accessibility is a practice, not a project.

    Accessibility is an organizational directive; however, IT plays a fundamental role in its success. As business partners require support and expertise to assist with their accessibility requirements IT needs to be ready to respond. Even if your organization hasn't fully committed to an accessibility standard, you can proactively get ready by planting the seeds to change the culture. By building understanding and awareness of the significant impact technology has on accessibility, you can start to change behaviors.

    Implementing an accessibility program requires many considerations: legal requirements; international guidelines, such as Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG); training for staff; ongoing improvement; and collaborating with accessibility experts and people with disabilities. It can be overwhelming to know where to start. The tendency is to start with compliance, which is a fantastic first step. For a sustained program use, change management practices are needed to change behaviors and build inclusion for people with disabilities.

    15% of the world's population identify as having some form of a disability (not including others that are impacted, e.g. caretakers, family). Why would anyone want to alienate over 1.1 billion people?

    This is a picture of Heather Leier-Murray

    Heather Leier-Murray
    Senior Research Analyst, People & Leadership
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Disability is part of being human

    Merriam-Webster defines disability as a "physical, mental, cognitive, or developmental condition that impairs, interferes with, or limits a person's ability to engage in certain tasks or actions or participate in typical daily activities and interactions."(1)

    The World Health Organization points out that a crucial part of the definition of disability is that it's not just a health problem, but the environment impacts the experience and extent of disability. Inaccessibility creates barriers for full participation in society.(2)

    The likelihood of you experiencing a disability at some point in your life is very high, whether a physical or mental disability, seen or unseen, temporary or permanent, severe or mild.(2)

    Many people acquire disabilities as they age yet may not identify as "a person with a disability."3 Where life expectancies are over 70 years of age, 11.5% of life is spent living with a disability. (4)

    "Extreme personalization is becoming the primary difference in business success, and everyone wants to be a stakeholder in a company that provides processes, products, and services to employees and customers with equitable, person-centered experiences and allows for full participation where no one is left out."
    – Paudie Healy, CEO, Universal Access

    (1.) Merriam-Webster
    (2.) World Health Organization, 2022
    (3.) Digital Leaders, as cited in WAI, 2018
    (4.) Disabled World, as cited in WAI, 2018

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    You know the push for accessibility is coming in your organization. You might even have a program started or approval to build one. But you're not sure if you and your team are ready to support and enable the organization on its accessibility journey.

    Common Obstacles

    Understanding where to start, where accessibility lives, and if or when you're done can be overwhelmingly difficult. Accessibility is an organizational initiative that IT enables; being able to support the organization requires a level of understanding of common obstacles.

    • Determining IT requirements (legal and business needs) is overwhelming.
    • Prioritizing people in the process is often overlooked.
    • Mandating changes instead of motivating change isn't sustainable.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    Prepare your people for accessibility and inclusion, even if your organization doesn't have a formal standard yet. Take your accessibility from mandate to movement, i.e. from Phase 1 - focused on compliance to Phase 2 - driven by experience for sustained change.

    • Use this blueprint to build your accessibility plan while prioritizing the necessary culture change.
    • Use change management and communication practices to elicit the behavior shift needed to sustain accessibility.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Accessibility is a practice, not a project. Therefore, accessibility is an organizational initiative; however, IT support is critical. Use change management theory to guide the new behaviors, processes, and thinking to adopt accessibility beyond compliance. Determining where to start is challenging because the tendency is to start with tech or compliance; however, starting with the people is key. It must be a change in organizational culture.

    Your challenge

    This research is designed to help IT leaders who are looking to:

    • Determine accessibility requirements of IT based on the business' needs and priorities, and the existing standards and regulations.
    • Prepare the IT leaders to implement and sustain accessibility and prepare for the behavior shift that is necessary.
    • Build the plan for IT as it pertains to accessibility, including a list of business needs and priorities, and prioritization of accessibility initiatives that IT is responsible for.
    • Ensure that accessibility is sustained in the IT department by following phase 2 of this blueprint on using change management and communication to impact behavior and change the culture.

    90% of companies claim to prioritize diversity.
    Source: Harvard Business Review, 2020

    Over 30% of those that claim to prioritize diversity are focused on compliance.
    Source: Harvard Business Review, 2022

    Accessibility is an organizational initiative

    Is IT ready and capable to enable it?

    • With increasing rates of lawsuits related to digital accessibility, more organizations are prioritizing initiatives to support increased accessibility. About 68% of Applause's survey respondents indicated that digital accessibility is a higher priority for their organization than it was last year.
    • This increase in priority will trickle into IT's tasks – get ahead and start working toward accessibility proactively so you're ready when business requests start coming in.

    A survey of nearly 1,800 respondents conducted by Applause found that:

    • 79% of respondents rated digital accessibility either a top priority or important for their organizations.
    • 42% of respondents indicated they have limited or no in-house expertise or resources to test accessibility.
      Source: Business Wire, May 2022

    How organizations prioritize digital accessibility

    • 43% rated accessibility as a top priority.
    • 36% rated accessibility as important.
    • Fewer than 5% rated accessibility as either low priority or not even on the radar.
    • More than 65% agreed or strongly agreed that accessibility is a higher priority than last year.

    Source: Angel Business Communications, 2022

    Why organizations address accessibility

    Top three reasons:

    1. 61% To comply with laws
    2. 62% To provide the best user experience
    3. 78% To include people with disabilities
      Source: Level Access, 2022

    Still, most businesses aren't meeting compliance standards. Even though legislation has been in place for over 30 years, a 2022 study by WebAIM of 1,000,000 homepages returned a 96.8% WCAG 2.0 failure rate.

    Source: Institute for Disability Research, Policy, and Practice, 2022

    Info-Tech's approach to Initiate Digital Accessibility

    An image of the Business Case for Accessibility

    The Info-Tech difference:

    1. Phase 1 of this blueprint gets you started and helps you build a plan to get you to the initial compliance driven maturity level. It's focused more on standards and regulations than on the user and employee experience.
    2. Phase 2 takes you further in maturity and helps you become experience driven in your efforts. It focuses on building your accessibility maturity into the developing, defined, and managed levels, as well as balancing mandate and movement of the accessibility maturity continuum.

    Determining conformance seems overwhelming

    Unfortunately, it's the easier part.

    • Focus on local regulations and what corporate leaders are setting as accessibility standards for the organization. This will narrow down the scope of what compliance looks like for your team.
    • Look to best practices like WCAG guidelines to ensure digital assets are accessible and usable for all users. WCAG's international guideline outlines principles that can also aid in scoping.
    • In phase 1 of this blueprint, use the Accessibility Compliance Tracking Toolto prioritize criteria and legislation for which IT is responsible.
    • Engage with business partners and other areas of the organization to figure out what is needed from IT. Accessibility is an organizational initiative; it shouldn't be on IT to figure it all out. Determine what your team is specifically responsible for before tackling it all.

    Motivating behavior change

    This is the hard part.

    Changing behaviors and mindsets is necessary to be experience driven and sustain accessibility.

    • Compliance is the minimum when it comes to accessibility, much like employment or labor regulations.
    • Making accessibility an organizational imperative is an iterative process. Managing the change is hard. People, culture, and behavior change matures accessibility from compliance driven to experience driven, increasing the benefits of accessibility.
    • Focus accessibility initiatives on improving the experience of everyone and improving engagement (customer and employee).
    • Being people focused and experience driven enables the organization to provide the best user experience and realize the benefits of accessibility.

    A picture of Jordyn Zimmerman

    "Compliance is the minimum. And when we look at web tech, people are still arguing about their positioning on the standards that need to be enforced in order to comply, forgetting that it isn't enough to comply."
    -- Jordyn Zimmerman, M.Ed., Director of Professional Development, The Nora Project, and Appointee, President's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities.

    This is an image of the Info-Tech Accessibility Maturity Framework Table.

    To see more on the Info-Tech Accessibility Maturity Framework:

    The Accessibility Business Case for IT

    Think of accessibility like you think of IT security

    Use IT security concepts to build your accessibility program.

    • Risk management: identify and prioritize accessibility risks and implement controls to mitigate those risks.
    • Compliance: use an IT security-style compliance approach to ensure that the accessibility program is compliant with the many accessibility regulations and standards.
    • Defense in depth: implement multiple layers of accessibility controls to address different types of accessibility risks and issues.
    • Response and recovery: quickly and effectively respond to accessibility issues, minimizing the potential impact on the organization and its users.
    • End-user education: educate end users about accessibility best practices, such as how to use assistive technologies and how to report accessibility issues.
    • Monitor and audit: use monitoring and auditing tools to ensure that accessibility remains over time and to identify and address issues that arise.
    • Collaboration: ensure the accessibility program is effective and addresses the needs of all users by collaborating with accessibility experts and people with disabilities.

    "As an organization matures, the impact of accessibility shifts. A good company will think of security at the very beginning. The same needs to be applied to accessibility thinking. At the peak of accessibility maturity an organization will have people with disabilities involved at the outset."
    -- Cam Beaudoin, Owner, Accelerated Accessibility

    This is a picture of Cam Beaudoin

    Info-Tech's methodology for Initiate Digital Accessibility for IT

    1. Planning IT's accessibility requirements

    2. Change enablement of accessibility

    Phase Steps

    1. Determine accessibility requirements of IT
    2. Build the IT accessibility plan
    1. Build awareness
    2. Support new behaviors
    3. Continuous reinforcement

    Phase Outcomes

    List of business needs and priorities related to accessibility

    IT accessibility requirements for conformance

    Assessment of state of accessibility conformance

    Prioritization of accessibility initiatives for IT

    Remediation plan for IT related to accessibility conformance

    Accessibility commitment statement

    Team understanding of what, why, and how

    Accessibility Quick Cards

    Sustainment plan

    Insight summary

    Overarching insight

    Accessibility is a practice, not a project. Therefore, accessibility is an organizational initiative; however, IT support is critical. Use change management theory to guide the new behaviors, processes, and thinking to adopt accessibility beyond compliance. Determining where to start is challenging. The tendency is to start with tech or compliance; however, starting with the people is key. It must be a change in organizational culture.

    Insight 1

    Compliance is the minimum; people and behavior changes are the hardest part and have the largest impact on accessibility. Preparing for and building awareness of the reasons for accessibility makes the necessary behavior changes easier. Communicate, communicate, and communicate some more.

    Insight 2

    Think about accessibility like you think about IT security. Use IT security concepts that you and your team are already familiar with to initiate the accessibility program.

    Insight 3

    People are learning a new way to behave and think; this can be an unsettling period. Patience, education, communication, support, and time are keys for success of the implementation of accessibility. There is a transition period needed; people will gradually change their practices and attitudes. Celebrate small successes as they arise.

    Insight 4

    Accessibility isn't a project as there is no end. Effective planning and continuous reinforcement of "the new way of doing things" is necessary to enable accessibility as the new status quo.

    Blueprint deliverables

    Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals.

    IT Manager Meeting Template

    IT Manager Meeting Template
    Use this meeting slide deck to work with IT managers to build out the accessibility remediation plan and commitment statement.

    Departmental Meeting Template

    Departmental Meeting Template
    Use this meeting slide deck to introduce the concept of accessibility and communicate IT goals and objectives.

    Accessibility Quick Cards

    Accessibility Quick Cards
    Using the Info-Tech IT Management and Governance Framework to identify key activities to help improve and maintain the accessibility of your organization and your core IT processes.

    Key deliverable:

    Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool

    Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool
    This tool will assist you in identifying remediation priorities applicable to your organization.

    Blueprint benefits

    IT Benefits

    Business Benefits

    • Know and understand your role and responsibility in accessibility implementation within the organization.
    • Provide effective support and excellent business service experience to internal stakeholders related to accessibility.
    • You will be set up to effectively support your team through the necessary behavior, process, and thinking changes.
    • Proactively prepare for accessibility requests that will be coming in.
    • Move beyond compliance to support your organization's sustainment of accessibility.
    • Don't lose out on a trillion-dollar market.
    • Don't miss opportunities to work with organizations because you're not accessible.
    • Enable and empower current employees with disabilities.
    • Minimize potential for negative brand reputation due to a lack of consideration for people with disabilities.
    • Decrease the risk of legal action being brought upon the organization.

    Measure the value of this blueprint

    Improve IT effectiveness and employee buy-in to change.

    Measuring the effectiveness of your program helps contribute to a culture of continuous improvement. Having consistent measures in place helps to inform decisions and enables your plan to be iterative to take advantage of emerging opportunities.

    Monitor employee engagement, overall stakeholder satisfaction with IT, and the overall end-customer satisfaction.

    Remember, accessibility is not a project – just because measures are positive does not mean your work is done.

    In phase 1 of this blueprint, we will help you establish metrics for your organization.
    In phase 2, we will help you develop a sustainment for achieving those metrics.

    A screenshot of the slide titled Establish Baseline Metrics.

    Suggested Metrics
    • Overall end-customer satisfaction
    • Requests for accommodation or assistive technology fulfilled
    • Employee engagement
    • Overall compliance status

    Info-Tech's IT Metrics Library

    Executive brief case study

    INDUSTRY: Technology


    SOURCE: Microsoft.com
    https://blogs.microsoft.com/accessibility/accessib...

    Microsoft

    Microsoft's accessibility journey starts with the goal of building a culture of accessibility and disability inclusion. They recognize that the starting point for the magnitude of organizational change is People.

    "Accessibility in Action Badge"

    Every employee at Microsoft is trained on accessibility to build understanding of why and how to be inclusive using accessibility. The program entails 90 minutes of virtual content.

    Microsoft treats accessibility and inclusion like a business, managing and measuring it to ensure sustained growth and success. They have worked over the years to bust systemic bias company-wide and to build a program with accessibility criteria that works for their business.

    Results

    The program Microsoft has built allows them to shift the accessibility lens earlier in their processes and listen to its users' needs. This allows them to continuously mature their accessibility program, which means continuously improving its users' experience.

    Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

    DIY Toolkit

    “Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.”

    Guided Implementation

    “Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.”

    Workshop

    “We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.”

    Consulting

    “Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Guided implementation

    What does a typical guided implementation (GI) on this topic look like?

    Phase 1 Phase 2

    Call #1: Discuss motivation for the initiative and foundational knowledge requirements.
    Call #2: Discuss stakeholder analysis and business needs of IT.

    Call #3: Identify current maturity and IT accountabilities.
    Call #4: Discuss introduction to senior IT leaders and drivers.
    Call #5: Discuss manager meeting outline and slides.

    Call #6: Review key messages and next steps to prepare for departmental meeting.
    Call #7: Discuss post-meetings next steps and timelines.

    Call #8: Review sustainment plan and plan next steps.

    A GI is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

    A typical GI is eight to ten calls over the course of four to six months.

    Workshop overview

    Contact your account representative for more information.
    workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

    Pre-Work

    Day 1

    Day 2

    Day 3

    Day 4

    Day 5

    Understand Your Legislative Environment

    Understand Your Current State

    Define the
    IT Target State

    Build the IT Accessibility Plan

    Prepare for Change Enablement

    Next Steps and
    Wrap-Up

    Activities

    0.1 Make a list of the legislation you need to comply with
    0.2 Seek legal counsel or and/or professional services' input on compliance
    0.3 Complete the Accessibility Maturity Assessment
    0.4 Conduct stakeholder analysis

    1.1 Define the risks of inaction
    1.2 Review maturity assessment
    1.3 Conduct stakeholder focus group

    2.1 Define IT compliance accountabilities
    2.2 Define IT accessibility goals/objectives/ metrics
    2.3 Indicate the target-state maturity

    3.1 Assess current accessibility compliance and mitigation
    3.2 Decide on priorities
    3.3 Write an IT accessibility commitment statement

    4.1 Prepare the roadmap
    4.2 Prepare the communication plan

    5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days
    5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps

    Deliverables

    1. Legislative requirements for your organization
    2. List of stakeholders
    3. Completed maturity assessment.
    1. Defined risks of inaction
    2. Stakeholder analysis completed with business needs identified
    1. IT accessibility goals/objectives
    2. Target maturity
    1. Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool completed
    2. Accessibility commitment statement
    3. Current compliance and mitigation assessed
    1. IT accessibility roadmap
    2. Communication plan
    1. IT accessibility roadmap
    2. Communication plan

    Phase 1

    Planning IT's Accessibility Requirements.

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    1.1 Determine accessibility requirements of IT

    1.2 Build IT accessibility plan

    2.1 Build awareness

    2.2 Support new behaviors

    2.3 Continuous reinforcement

    Initiate Digital Accessibility For IT

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Analyzing stakeholders to determine accessibility needs of business for IT.
    • Determining accessibility compliance requirements of IT.
    • Build a manager communication deck.
    • Assess current accessibility compliance and mitigation.
    • Prioritize and assign timelines.
    • Build a sunrise diagram to visualize your accessibility roadmap.
    • Write an IT accessibility commitment statement.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT leadership team
    • Business partners in other areas of the organization (e.g., HR, finance, communications)

    Step 1.1

    Determine the accessibility requirements of IT.

    Activities

    1.1.1 Determine what the business needs from IT
    1.1.2 Complete the Accessibility Maturity Assessment (optional)
    1.1.3 Determine IT compliance requirements
    1.1.4 Define target state
    1.1.5 Create a list of goals and objectives
    1.1.6 Finalize key metrics
    1.1.7 Prepare a meeting for IT managers

    Prepare to support the organization with accessibility

    This step involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT senior leaders
    • IT managers
    • Business partners in other areas of the organization (e.g., HR, finance, communications)

    Outcomes of this step

    • Stakeholder analysis with business needs listed
    • Defined target future state
    • List of goals and objectives
    • Key metrics
    • Communication deck for IT management rollout meeting

    While defining future state, consider your drivers

    The Info-Tech Accessibility Maturity Framework identifies three key strategic drivers: compliance, experience, and incorporation.

    • Over 30% of organizations are focused on compliance, according to a 2022 survey by Harvard Business Review and Slack's Future Forum. The survey asked more than 10,000 workers in six countries about their organizations' approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).(2)
    • Even though 90% of companies claim to prioritize diversity, over 30% are focused on compliance.(1)

    1. Harvard Business Review, 2020
    2. Harvard Business Review, 2022

    31.6% of companies remain in the compliant stage where they are focused on DEI compliance and not on integrating DEI throughout the organization or on creating continual improvement, from Harvard Business Review 2022.

    Info-Tech accessibility maturity framework

    This is an image of Info-Tech's accessibility maturity framework

    Info-Tech Insight

    IT typically works through maturity frameworks from the bottom to the top, progressing at each level until they reach the end. When it comes to IT accessibility initiatives, being especially thorough, thoughtful, and collaborative is critical to success. This will mean spending more time in the Developing, Defined, and Managed levels of maturity rather than trying to reach Optimized as quickly as you can. This may feel contrary to what IT historically considers as a successful implementation.

    After initially ensuring your organization is compliant with regulations and standards, you will progress to building disciplined process and consistent standardized processes. Eventually you will build the ability for predictable process, and lastly, you'll optimize by continuously improving.

    Depending on the level of maturity you are trying to achieve, it could take months or even years to implement. The important thing to understand, however, is that accessibility work is never done.

    At all levels of the maturity framework, you must consider the interconnected aspects of people, process, and technology. However, as the organization progresses, the impact will shift from largely being focused on process and technology improvement to being focused on people.

    Align the benefits of program drivers to organizational goals or outcomes

    Although there will be various motivating factors, aligning the drivers of your accessibility program provides direction to the program. Connecting the advantages of program drivers to organizational goals builds the confidence of senior leaders and decision makers, increasing the continued commitment to invest in accessibility programming.

    This is an image of a table describing the maturity level; Description; Advantages, and Disadvantages for the three drivers: Compliance; Experience; and Incorporation.

    Accessibility maturity levels

    Driver Description Benefits
    Initial Compliance
    • Accessibility processes are mostly undocumented.
    • Accessibility happens mostly on a reactive or ad hoc basis.
    • No one is aware of who is responsible for accessibility or what role they play.
    • Heavily focused on complying with regulations and standards to decrease legal risk.
    • The organization is aware of the need for accessibility.
    • Legal risk is decreased.
    Developing Experience
    • The organization is starting to take steps to increase accessibility beyond compliance.
    • Lots of opportunity for improvement.
    • Defining and refining processes.
    • Working toward building a library of assistive tools.
    • Awareness of the need for accessibility is growing.
    • Process review for accessibility increases process efficiency through avoiding rework.
    Defined Experience
    • Accessibility processes are repeatable.
    • There is a tendency to resort to old habits under stress.
    • Tools are in place to facilitate accommodation.
    • Employees know accommodations are available to them.
    • Accessibility is becoming part of daily work.
    Managed Experience
    • Defined by effective accessibility controls, processes, and metrics.
    • Mostly anticipating preferences.
    • Roles and responsibilities are defined.
    • Disability is included as part of DEI.
    • Employees understand their role in accessibility.
    • Engagement is positively impacted.
    • Attraction and retention are positively impacted.
    Optimized Incorporation
    • Not the goal for every organization.
    • Characterized by a dramatic shift in organizational culture and a feeling of belonging.
    • Ongoing continuous improvement.
    • Seamless interactions with the organization for everyone.
    • Using feedback to inform future initiatives.
    • More likely to be innovative and inclusive, reach more people positively, and meet emerging global legal requirements.
    • Better equipped for success.

    Cheat sheet: Identify stakeholders

    Ask stakeholders, "Who else should I be talking to?" to discover additional stakeholders and ensure you don't miss anyone.

    Identify stakeholders through the following questions:

    Take a 360-degree view of potential internal and external stakeholders who might be impacted by the initiative.

    • Who in areas of influence will be adversely affected by potential environmental and social impacts of what you are doing?
    • At which stage will stakeholders be most affected (e.g. procurement, implementation, operations, decommissioning)?
    • Will other stakeholders emerge as the phases are started and completed?
    • Who is sponsoring the initiative?
    • Who benefits from the initiative?
    • Who is negatively impacted by the initiative?
    • Who can make approvals?
    • Who controls resources?
    • Who has specialist skills?
    • Who implements the changes?
    • Who are the owners, governors, customers, and suppliers of impacted capabilities or functions?
    • Executives
    • Peers
    • Direct reports
    • Partners
    • Customers
    • Subcontractors
    • Suppliers
    • Contractors
    • Lobby groups
    • Regulatory agencies

    Categorize your stakeholders with a stakeholder prioritization map

    A stakeholder prioritization map help teams categorize their stakeholders by their level of influence and ownership.

    There are four areas in the map, and the stakeholders within each area should be treated differently.

    This is an image of a quadrant analysis for mediators; players; spectators; and noisemakers.
    • Players – Players have a high interest in the initiative and high influence to affect change over the initiative. Their support is critical, and a lack of support can cause significant impediment to the objectives.
    • Mediators – Mediators have a low interest but significant influence over the initiative. They can help to provide balance and objective opinions to issues that arise.
    • Noisemakers – Noisemakers have low influence but high interest. They tend to be very vocal and engaged, either positively or negatively, but have little ability to enact their wishes.
    • Spectators – Generally, spectators are apathetic and have little influence over or interest in the initiative.

    Strategize to engage stakeholders by type

    Each group of stakeholders draws attention and resources away from critical tasks.

    By properly identifying your stakeholder groups, you can develop corresponding actions to manage stakeholders in each group. This can dramatically reduce wasted effort trying to satisfy spectators and noisemakers while ensuring the needs of the mediators and players are met.

    Type Quadrant Actions
    Players High influence, high interest Actively Engage
    Keep them engaged through continuous involvement. Maintain their interest by demonstrating their value to its success.
    Mediators High influence, low interest Keep Satisfied
    They can be the game changers in groups of stakeholders. Turn them into supporters by gaining their confidence and trust, and include them in important decision-making steps. In turn, they can help you influence other stakeholders.
    Noisemakers Low influence, high interest Keep InformedTry to increase their influence (or decrease it if they are detractors) by providing them with key information, supporting them in meetings, and using mediators to help them.
    Spectators Low influence, low interest MonitorThey are followers. Keep them in the loop by providing clarity on objectives and status updates.

    1.1.1 Determine what the business needs from IT (stakeholder analysis)

    1.5 hours

    1. Consider all the potential individuals or groups of individuals who will be impacted or influence the accessibility needs of IT.
    2. List each of the stakeholders you identify. If in person, use sticky notes to define the target audiences. The individuals or group of individuals that potentially have needs from IT related to accessibility before, during, or after the initiative.
    3. As you list each stakeholder, consider how they perceive IT. This perception could impact how you choose to interact with them.
    4. For each stakeholder identified as potentially having a business need requirement for IT related to accessibility, conduct an analysis to understand their degree of influence or impact.
    5. Based on the stakeholder, the influence or impact of the business need can inform the interaction and prioritization of IT requirements.
    6. Update slide 9 of the IT Manager Meeting Template.

    Input

    • The change
    • Why the change is needed
    • Key stakeholder map from activity 2.1.1 of The Accessibility Business Case for IT (optional)

    Output

    • The degree of influence or impact each stakeholder has on accessibility needs from IT

    Materials

    • Stakeholder Management Analysis Tool (optional)

    Participants

    • CIO/ head of IT/ initiative lead
    • Business partners

    Proactively consider how accessibility could be received

    Think about the positive and negative reactions you could face about implementing accessibility.

    It's likely individuals will have an emotional reaction to change and may have different emotions at different times during the change process.
    Plan for how to leverage support and deal with resistance to change by assessing people's emotional responses:

    • What are possible questions, objections, suggestions, and concerns that might arise.
    • How will you respond to the possible questions and concerns.
    • Include proactive messaging in your communications that address possible objections.
    • Express an understanding for others point of views by re-positioning objections and suggestions as questions.

    This is an image of the 10 change chakras

    Determine your level of maturity

    Use Info-Tech's Accessibility Maturity Assessment.

    On the accessibility questionnaire, tab 2, choose the amount you agree or disagree with each statement. Answer the questions based on your knowledge of your current state organizationally.

    Once you've answered all the questions, see the results on the tab 3, Accessibility Results. You can see your overall maturity level and the maturity level for each of six dimensions that are necessary to increase the success of an accessibility program.

    Click through to tab 4, Recommendations, to see specific recommendations based on your results and proven research to progress through the maturity levels. Keep in mind that not all organizations will or should aspire to the "Optimize" maturity level.

    A series of three screenshots from the Accessibility Maturity Assessment

    Download the Accessibility Maturity Assessment

    1.1.2 Complete the Accessibility Maturity Assessment (optional)

    1. Download the Accessibility Maturity Assessment and save it with the date so that as you work on your accessibility program, you can reassess later and track your progress.
    2. Once you have saved the assessment, select the appropriate answer for each statement on tab 2, Accessibility Questions, based on your knowledge of the organization's approach.
    3. After reviewing all the accessibility statements, see your maturity level results on tab 3, Accessibility Results. Then see tab 4, Recommendations, for suggestions based on your answers.
    4. Document your accessibility maturity results on slides 12 and 13 of the IT Manager Meeting Template and slide 17 of the Departmental Meeting Template.
    5. Use the maturity assessment results in activity 1.1.3.

    Input

    • Assess your current state of accessibility by choosing all the statements that apply to your organization

    Output

    • Identified accessibility maturity level

    Materials

    • Accessibility Maturity Assessment
    • Accessibility Business Case Template

    Participants

    • Project leader/sponsor
    • IT leadership team

    1.1.3 Determine IT compliance responsibilities

    1-3 hours

    Before you start this activity, you may need to discuss with your organization's legal counsel to determine the legislation that applies to your organization.

    1. Determine which controls apply to your organization based on your knowledge of the organization goals, stakeholders, and accessibility maturity target. If you haven't determined your current and future state maturity model, use the Info-Tech resource from the Accessibility Business Case for IT(see previous two slides).
    2. Using the drop down in column J – Applies to My Org., select "Yes" or "No" for each control on each of the data entry tabs of the Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool.
    3. For each control you have selected "Yes" for in column J, identify the control owner in column I.
    4. Update slide 10 in the IT Manager Meeting Template and slide 13 in the IT Departmental Meeting Template.

    Input

    • Local, regional, and/or global legislation and guidelines applicable to your organization
    • Organizational accessibility standard
    • Business needs list
    • Completed Accessibility Maturity Assessment (optional)

    Output

    • List of legislation and standards requirements that are narrowed based on organization need

    Materials

    • Accessibility Maturity Assessment
    • Accessibility Business Case Template

    Participants

    • CIO/ head of IT/ CAO/ initiative leader
    • Legal counsel

    Download the Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool

    1.1.4 Conduct future-state analysis*

    Identify your target state of maturity.

      1. Provide the group with the accessibility maturity levels to review as well as the slides on the framework and drivers (slides 27-29).
      2. Ask the group to brainstorm pain points created by inaccessibility (e.g. challenges related to stakeholders, process issues).
      3. Next, discuss opportunities to be gained from improving these practices.
      4. Then, have everyone look at the accessibility maturity levels and, based on the descriptions, determine as a group the current maturity level of accessibility in your organization .
      5. Next, review the benefits listed on the accessibility maturity levels slide to those that you named in step 3 and determine which maturity level best describes your target state. Discuss as a group and agree on one desired maturity level to reach.
      6. Document your current and target states on slide 14 of the IT Manager Meeting Template.

    *Note: If you've completed the Accessibility Business Case for IT blueprint you may already have this information compiled. Refer to activities 2.1.2 and 2.1.3.

    Input

    • Accessibility maturity levels chart, framework, and drivers slides
    • Maturity level assessment results (optional)

    Output

    • Target maturity level documented

    Materials

    • Paper and pens
    • Handouts of maturity levels

    Participants

    • CIO
    • IT senior leaders

    What does a good goal look like?

    SMART is a common framework for setting effective goals. Make sure your goals satisfy these criteria to ensure you can achieve real results.

    Use the SMART framework to build effective goals.

    S

    Specific: Is the goal clear, concrete, and well defined?

    M

    Measurable: How will you know when the goal is met?

    A

    Achievable: Is the goal possible to achieve in a reasonable time?

    R

    Relevant: Does this goal align with your responsibilities and with departmental and organizational goals?

    T

    Time-based: Have you specified a time frame in which you aim to achieve the goal?

    1.1.5 Create a list of goals and objectives*

    Use the outcomes from activity 1.2.1.

    1. Using the information from activity 1.2.1, develop goals.
    2. Remember to use the SMART goal framework to build out each goal (see the previous slide for more information on SMART goals).
    3. Ensure each goal supports departmental and organizational goals to ensure it is meaningful.
    4. Document your goals and objectives on slides 6 and 9 in your IT Manager Meeting Template.

    *Note: If you've completed the Accessibility Business Case for IT blueprint you may already have this information compiled. Refer to activity 2.2.1.

    Input

    • Outcomes of activity 1.2.1
    • Organizational and departmental goals

    Output

    • Accessibility goals and objectives identified

    Materials

    • n/a

    Participants

    • CIO/ head of IT/ initiative lead
    • IT senior leaders

    Establish baseline metrics

    Baseline metrics will be improved through:

    1. Progressing through the accessibility maturity model.
    2. Addressing accessibility earlier in processes with input from people with disabilities.
    3. Motivating behavior changes and culture that supports accessibility and disability inclusion.
    4. Ensuring compliance with regulations and standards.
    5. Focusing on experience and building a disability inclusive culture.
    Metric Definition Calculation
    Overall end-customer satisfaction The percentage of end customers who are satisfied with the IT department. Number of end customers who are satisfied / Total number of end customers
    Requests for accommodation or assistive technology fulfilled The percentage of accommodation/assistive technology requests fulfilled by the IT department. Number of requests fulfilled / Total number of requests
    Employee engagement The percentage of employees who are engaged within an organization. Number of employees who are engaged / Total number of employees
    Overall compliance status The percentage of accessibility controls in place in the IT department. The number of compliance controls in place / Total number of applicable accessibility controls

    1.1.6 Finalize key metrics*

    Finalize key metrics the organization will use to measure accessibility success.

    1. Brainstorm how you will measure the success of each goal you identified in the previous activity, based on the benefits, challenges, and risks you previously identified.
    2. Write each of the metric ideas down and finalize three to five key metrics which you will track. The metrics you choose should relate to the key challenges or risks you have identified and match your desired maturity level and driver.
    3. Document your key metrics on slide 15 of your IT Manager Meeting Templateand slide 23 of the Departmental Meeting Template.

    Input

    • Accessibility challenges and benefits
    • Goals from activity 1.2.2

    Output

    • Three to five key metrics to track

    Materials

    • n/a

    Participants

    • IT leadership team
    • Project lead/sponsor

    *Note: If you've completed the Accessibility Business Case for IT blueprint you may already have this information compiled. Refer to activity 2.2.2.

    Use Info-Tech's template to communicate with IT managers

    Cascade messages down to IT managers next. This ensures they will have time to internalize the change before communicating it to others.

    Communicate with and build the accessibility plan with IT managers by customizing Info-Tech's IT Manager Meeting Template, which is designed to effectively convey your key messages. Tailor the template to suit your needs.

    It includes:

    • Project scope and objectives
    • Current state analysis
    • Compliance planning
    • Commitment statement drafting

    IT Manager Meeting Template

    Download the IT Manager Meeting Template

    Info-Tech Insight

    Preparing for and building awareness of the reasons for accessibility make the necessary behavior changes easier.

    1.1.7 Prepare a meeting for IT managers

    Now that you understand your current and desired accessibility maturity, the next step is to communicate with IT managers and begin planning your initiatives.

    Know your audience:

    1. Consider who will be included in your presentation audience.
    2. You want your presentation to be succinct and hard-hitting. Managers are under huge demands and time is tight, they will lose interest if you drag out the delivery.
    3. Contain the presentation and planning activities to no more than an afternoon. You want to ensure adequate time for questions and answers, as well as the planning activities necessary to inform the roll out to the larger IT department later.
    4. Schedule a meeting with the IT managers.

    Download the IT Manager Meeting Template

    Input

    • Activity results

    Output

    • A completed presentation to communicate your accessibility initiatives to IT managers

    Materials

    • IT Manager Meeting Template

    Participants

    • CIO/ head of IT/ initiative lead
    • IT senior leaders
    • IT managers

    Step 1.2

    Build the IT accessibility action plan.

    Activities

    1.2.1 Assess current accessibility compliance and mitigation

    1.2.2 Decide on your priorities

    1.2.3 Add priorities to the roadmap

    1.2.4 Write an IT accessibility commitment statement

    Planning IT's accessibility requirements

    This step involves the following participants:

    • CIO/ head of IT/ initiative lead
    • IT senior leaders
    • IT managers

    Outcomes of this step

    • Priority controls and mitigation list with identified control owners.
    • IT accessibility commitment statement.
    • Draft visualization of roadmap/sunrise diagram.

    Involve managers in assessing current compliance

    To know what work needs to happen you need to know what's already happening.

    Use the spreadsheet from activity 1.1.3 where you identified which controls apply to your organization.

    Have managers work in groups to identify which controls (of the applicable ones) are currently being met and which ones have an existing mitigation plan.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Based on EN 301 549 V3.2.1 (2021-03) as a basis for digital accessibility conformance. This tool is designed to assist you in building a priorities list of requirements that are applicable to your organization. EN 301 549 is currently the most robust accessibility regulation and encompasses other regulations within it. Although EN 301 549 is the European Standard, other countries are leaning on it as the standard they aspire to as well.

    This is an image of the Compliance Tracing Tool, with a green box drawn around the columns for Current Compliance, and Mitigation.

    1.2.1 Assess current accessibility compliance and mitigation

    1-3 hours

    1. Share the Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool with the IT leaders and managers during the meeting with IT management that you scheduled in activity 1.1.7.
    2. Break into smaller groups (or if too small, continue as a single group):
      1. Divide up the controls between the small groups to work on assessing current compliance and mitigation plans.
      2. For each control that is identified as applying to your organization, identify if there currently is compliance by selecting "yes" from the drop-down. For controls where the organization is not compliant, select "no" and identify if there is a mitigation plan in place by selecting "yes" or "no" in column L.
      3. Use the comments column to add any pertinent information regarding the control.

    Input

    • List of IT compliance requirements applicable to the org. from activities 1.1.2 and 1.1.3

    Output

    • List of IT compliance requirements that have current compliance or mitigation plans

    Materials

    • Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool

    Participants

    • CIO
    • IT senior leaders
    • IT managers

    Download the Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool

    Involve managers in building accountability into the accessibility plan

    Building accountability into your compliance tracking will help ensure accessibility is prioritized.

    Use the spreadsheet from activity 1.3.1.

    Have managers work in the same groups to prioritize controls by assigning a quarterly timeline for compliance.

    An image of the Compliance Tracking tool, with the timeline column highlighted in green.

    1.2.2 Decide on your priorities

    1-3 hours

    1. In the same groups used in activity 1.2.1, prioritize the list of controls that have no compliance and no mitigation plan.
    2. As you work through the spreadsheet again, assign a timeline using the drop-down menu in column M for each control that applies to the organization and has no current compliance. Consider the following in your prioritization:
      1. Does the control impact customers or is it public-facing?
      2. What are the business needs related to accessibility?
      3. Does the team currently have the skills and knowledge needed to address the control?
      4. What future state accessibility maturity are you targeting?
    3. Be prepared to review with the larger group.

    Input

    • List from activity 1.2.1
    • Business needs from activity 1.1.1

    Output

    • List of IT compliance requirements with accountability timelines

    Materials

    • Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool

    Participants

    • CIO
    • IT senior leaders
    • IT managers

    Download the Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool

    Review your timeline

    Don't overload your team. Make sure the timelines assigned in the breakout groups make sense and are realistic.

    A screenshot of the Accessibility Compliance Dashboard.

    Download the Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool

    Empty roadmap template

    An image of an empty Roadmap Template.

    1.2.3 Add priorities to the roadmap

    1 hour

    1. Using the information entered in the compliance tracking spreadsheet during activities 1.2.1 and 1.2.2, build a visual representation to capture your strategic initiatives over time, using themes and timelines. Consider group initiatives in four categories, technology, people, process, and other.
    2. Copy and paste the controls onto the roadmap from the Accessibility Compliance Tracking Toolto the desired time quadrant on the roadmap.
    3. Set your desired timelines by changing the Q1-Q4 blocks (set the timelines that make sense for your situation).

    Input

    • Output of activity 1.2.2
    • Roadmap template
    • Other departmental project plans and timelines

    Output

    • Visual roadmap of accessibility compliance controls

    Materials

    • n/a

    Participants

    • CIO
    • IT senior leaders
    • IT managers

    Communicate commitment

    Support people leaders in leading by example with an accessibility commitment statement.

    A commitment statement communicates why accessibility and disability inclusion are important and guides behaviors toward the ideal state. The statement will guide and align work, build accountability, and acknowledge the dedication of the leadership team to accessibility and disability inclusion. The statement will:

    • Publicly commit the team to fostering disability inclusivity.
    • Highlight related values and goals of the team or organization.
    • Set expectations.
    • Help build trust and increase feelings of belonging.
    • Connect the necessary changes (people, process, and technology related) to organization strategy.

    Take action! Writing the statement is only the first step. It takes more than words to build accessibility and make your work environment more disability inclusive.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Preparing for and building awareness of the reasons for accessibility make the necessary behavior changes easier.

    Sample accessibility commitment statements

    theScore

    "theScore strives to provide products and services in a way that respects the dignity and independence of persons with disabilities. We are committed to giving persons with disabilities the same opportunity to access our products and services and allowing them to benefit from the same services, in the same place and in a similar way as other clients. We are also committed to meeting the needs of persons with disabilities in a timely manner, and we will meet applicable legislative requirements for preventing and removing barriers."(1)

    Apple Canada

    "Apple Canada is committed to ensuring equal access and participation for people with disabilities. Apple Canada is committed to treating people with disabilities in a way that allows them to maintain their dignity and independence. Apple Canada believes in integration and is committed to meeting the needs of people with disabilities in a timely manner. Apple Canada will do so by removing and preventing barriers to accessibility and meeting accessibility requirements under the AODA and provincial and federal laws across Canada." (2)

    Google Canada

    "We are committed to meeting the accessibility needs of people with disabilities in a timely manner, and will do so by identifying, preventing and removing barriers to accessibility, and by meeting the accessibility requirements under the AODA." (3)

    Source 1: theScore
    Source 2: Apple Canada
    Source 3: Google Canada.

    1.2.4 Write an IT accessibility commitment statement

    45 minutes

    1. As a group, brainstorm the key reasons and necessity for disability inclusion and accessibility for your organization, and the drivers and behaviors required. Record the ideas brainstormed by the group.
    2. Break into smaller groups or pairs (or if too small, continue as a single group):
      • Each group uses the brainstormed ideas to draft an accessibility commitment statement.
    3. Each smaller group shares their statement with the larger group and receives feedback. Smaller groups redraft their statements based on the feedback.
    4. Post each redrafted statement and provide each person two dot stickers to place on the two statements that resonate the most with them.
    5. Using the two statements with the highest number of dot votes, write the final accessibility commitment statement.
    6. Add the commitment statement to slide 18 of the Departmental Meeting Template.

    Input

    • Business objectives
    • Risks related to accessibility
    • Target future accessibility maturity

    Output

    • IT accessibility commitment statement

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/flip charts
    • Dot stickers or other voting mechanism

    Participants

    • CIO
    • IT senior leaders
    • IT managers

    Phase 2

    Change Enablement for Accessibility.

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    1.1 Determine accessibility requirements of IT

    1.2 Build IT accessibility plan

    2.1 Build awareness

    2.2 Support new behaviors

    2.3 Continuous reinforcement

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Clarifying key messages
    • IT department accessibility presentation
    • Establishing a frequency and timeframe for communications
    • Obtaining feedback
    • Sustainment plan

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT senior leaders
    • IT managers
    • Other key business stakeholders
    • Marketing and communications team

    Be experience driven

    Building awareness and focusing on experience helps move along the accessibility maturity framework. Shifting from mandate to movement.

    In this phase, start to move beyond compliance. Build the IT team's understanding of accessibility, disability inclusion, and their role.
    Communicate the following messages to your team:

    • The motivation behind the change.
    • The reasons for the change.
    • And encourage feedback.

    Info-Tech Accessibility Maturity Framework

    an image of the Info-Tech Accessibility Maturity Framework

    Info-Tech Insight

    Compliance is the minimum; the people and behavior changes are the harder part and have the largest impact on accessibility. Preparing for and building awareness of the reasons for accessibility make the necessary behavior changes easier. Communicate, communicate, and communicate some more.

    What is an organizational change?

    Before communicating, understand the degree of change.

    Incremental Change:

    • Changes made to improve current processes or systems (e.g. optimizing current technology).

    Transitional Change:

    • Changes that involve dismantling old systems and/or processes in favor of new ones (e.g. new product or services added).

    Transformational Change:

    • Significant change in organizational strategy or culture resulting in substantial shift in direction.

    Examples:

    • New or changed policy
    • Switching from on-premises to cloud-first infrastructure
    • Implementing ransomware risk controls
    • Implementing a Learning and Development Plan

    Examples:

    • Moving to an insourced or outsourced service desk
    • Developing a BI and analytics function
    • Integrating risk into organization risk
    • Developing a strategy (technology, architecture, security, data, service, infrastructure, application)

    Examples:

    • Organizational redesign
    • Acquisition or merger of another organization
    • Implementing a digital strategy
    • A new CEO or board taking over the organization's direction

    Consider the various impacts of the change

    Invest time at the start to develop a detailed understanding of the impact of the change. This will help to create a plan that will simplify the change and save time. Evaluate the impact from a people, process, and technology perspective.

    Leverage a design thinking principle: Empathize with the stakeholder – what will change?

    People

    Process Technology
    • Team structure
    • Reporting structure
    • Career paths
    • Job skills
    • Responsibilities
    • Company vision/mission
    • Number of FTE
    • Culture
    • Training required
    • Budget
    • Work location
    • Daily workflow
    • Working conditions
    • Work hours
    • Reward structure
    • Required number of completed tasks
    • Training required
    • Required tools
    • Required policies
    • Required systems
    • Training required

    Change depends on how well people understand it

    Help people internalize what they can do to make the organization more inclusive.

    Anticipate responses to change:

    1. Emotional reaction – different people require different styles of management to guide them through the change. Individual's may have different emotions at different times during the change process. The more easily you can identify persona characteristics, the better you can manage them.
    2. Level of impact – the higher level of change on an individual's day-to-day, the more difficult it will be to adjust to the change. The more impactful the change, the more time focused on people management.

    an image showing staff personas at different stages through the change process.

    Quickly assess the size of change by answering these questions:

    1. Will the change affect your staff's daily work?
    2. Is the change high urgency?
    3. Is there a change in reporting relationships?
    4. Is there a change in skills required for staff to be successful?
    5. Will the change modify entrenched cultural practices?
    6. Is there a change in the mission or vision of the role?

    If you answered "Yes" to two or more questions, the change is bigger than you think. Your staff will feel the impact.

    Ensure effective communication by focusing on four key elements

    1. Audience
    • Stakeholders (either groups or individuals) who will receive the communication.
  • Message
    • Information communicated to impacted stakeholders. Must be rooted in a purpose or intent.
  • Messenger
    • Person who delivers the communication to the audience. The communicator and owner are two different things.
  • Channel
    • Method or channel used to communicate to the audience.
  • Step 2.1

    Build awareness and define key messages for IT.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT leadership team
    • Marketing/communications (optional)

    Outcomes of this step

    • Key accessibility messages

    Determine the desired outcome of communicating within IT

    This phase is focused on communicating within IT. All communication has an overall goal. This outcome or purpose of communicating is often dependent on the type of influence the stakeholder wields within the organization as well as the type of impact the change will have on them. Consider each of the communication outcomes listed below.

    Communicating within IT

    • Obtain buy-in
    • Inform about the IT change
    • Create a training plan
    • Inform about department changes
    • Inform about organization changes
    • Inform about a crisis
    • Obtain adoption related to the change
    • Distribute key messages to change agents

    Departmental Meeting Template

    Departmental Meeting Template

    Accessibility Quick Cards

    Accessibility Quick Cards

    Establish and define key messages based on organizational objectives

    What are key messages?

    1. Key messages guide all internal communications to ensure they are consistent, unified, and straightforward.
    2. Distill key messages down from organizational objectives and use them to reinforce the organization's strategic direction. Key messages should inspire employees to act in a way that will help the organization reach its objectives.

    How to establish key messages

    Ground key messages in organizational strategy and culture. These should be the first places you look to determine the organization's key messages:

    • Refer to organizational strategy documents. What needs to be reinforced in internal communications to ensure the organization can achieve its strategy? This is a key message.
    • Look at the organization's values. How do values guide how work should be done? Do employees need to behave in a certain way or keep a certain value top of mind? This is a key message.

    The intent of key messages is to convey important information in a way that is relatable and memorable, to promote reinforcement, and ultimately, to drive action.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Empathizing with the audience is key to anticipating and addressing objections as well as identifying benefits. Customize messaging based on audience attributes such as work model (e.g. hybrid), anticipated objections, what's in it for me?, and specific expectations.

    2.1.1 Clarify the key messages

    30 minutes

    1. Brainstorm the key stakeholders and target audiences you will likely need to communicate with to sustain the accessibility initiative (depending on the size of your group, you might break into pairs or smaller groups and each work on one target audience).
    2. Based on the outcome expected from engaging the target audience in communications, define one to five key messages that should be expressed about accessibility.
    3. The key messages should highlight benefits anticipated, concerns anticipated, details about the change, plan of action, or next steps. The goal here is to ensure the target audience is included in the communication process.
    4. The key messages should be focused on how the target audience receives a consistent message, especially if different communication messengers are involved.
    5. Document the key messages on Tab 3 of the Communications Planner Tool.

    Download the Communications Planner Tool

    Input

    • The change
    • Target audience
    • Communication outcomes

    Output

    • Key messages to support a consistent approach

    Materials

    • Communications Planner Tool
    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • IT leadership team
    • Marketing/communications partner (optional)

    Step 2.2

    Support new behaviors.

    Activities

    2.2.1 Prepare for IT department meeting

    2.2.2 Practice delivery of your presentation

    2.2.3 Hold department meeting

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Entire IT department

    Outcomes of this step

    • IT departmental meeting slides
    • Accessibility quick cards
    • Task list of how each IT team will support the accessibility roadmap

    Key questions to answer with change communication

    To effectively communicate change, answer questions before they're asked, whenever possible. To do this, outline at each stage of the change process what's happening next for the audience, as well as answer other anticipated questions. Pair key questions with core messages.

    Examples of key questions by change stage include:

    The outline for each stage of the change process, showing what happens next.

    2.2.1 Prepare for the IT departmental meeting

    2 hours

    1. Download the IT Department Presentation Template and follow the instructions on each slide to update for your organization.
    2. Insert information on the current accessibility maturity level. If you haven't determined your current and future state maturity level, use the Info-Tech resource from The Accessibility Business Case for IT.
    3. Review the presentation with the information added.
    4. Consider what could be done to make the presentation better:
      1. Concise: Identify opportunities to remove unnecessary information.
      2. Clear: It uses only terms or language the target audience would understand.
      3. Relevant: It matters to the target audience and the problems they face.
      4. Consistent: The message could be repeated across audiences.
    5. Schedule a departmental meeting or add the presentation to an existing departmental meeting.

    Download the Departmental Presentation Template

    Input

    • Organizational accessibility risks
    • Accessibility maturity current state
    • Outputs from manager presentation
    • Key messages

    Output

    • Prepared presentation to introduce accessibility to the entire IT department

    Materials

    • Departmental Presentation Template

    Participants

    • CIO/ head of IT/ CAO/ initiative leader

    Hone presentation skills before meeting with key stakeholders

    Using voice and body

    Think about the message you are trying to convey and how your body can support that delivery. Hands, stance, frame – all have an impact on what might be conveyed.

    If you want your audience to lean in and be eager about your next point, consider using a pause or softer voice and volume.

    Be professional and confident

    State the main points of your presentation confidently. While this should be obvious, it is essential. Your audience should be able to clearly see that you believe the points you are stating.

    Present in a way that is genuine to you and your voice. Whether you have an energetic personality or calm and composed personality, the presentation should be authentic to you.

    Connect with your audience

    Look each member of the audience in the eye at least once during your presentation. Avoid looking at the ceiling, the back wall, or the floor. Your audience should feel engaged – this is essential to keeping their attention.

    Avoid reading from your slides. If there is text on a slide, paraphrase it while maintaining eye contact.

    Info-Tech Insight

    You are responsible for the response of your audience. If they aren't engaged, it is on you as the communicator.

    2.2.2 Practice delivery of your presentation and schedule department meeting

    45 minutes

    1. Take ten minutes to think about how to deliver your presentation. Where will you emphasize words, speak louder, softer, lean in, stand tall, make eye contact, etc.?
    2. Set a timer on your phone or watch. Record yourself if possible.
    3. Take a few seconds to center yourself and prepare to deliver your pitch.
    4. Practice delivery of your presentation out loud. Don't forget to use your body language and your voice to deliver.
    5. Listen to the recording. Are the ideas communicated correctly? Are you convinced?
    6. Review and repeat.

    Input

    • Presentation deck from activity 2.2.1
    • Best practices for delivering

    Output

    • An ability to deliver the presentation in a clear and concise manner that creates understanding

    Materials

    • Recorder
    • Timer

    Participants

    • CIO/ head of IT/ initiative leader

    2.2.3 Lead the IT department meeting

    1–2 hours

    1. Gather the IT department in a manner appropriate for your organization and facilitate the meeting prepared in activity 2.2.1.
    2. Within the meeting, capture all key action items and outcomes from the Quick Cards Development and Roadmap Planning.
    3. Following the meeting, review the quick cards that everyone built and share these with all IT participants.
    4. Update your sunrise diagram to include any initiatives that came up in the team meetings to support moving to experiential.

    Input

    • Presentation deck from activity 2.2.1

    Output

    • A shared understanding of accessibility at your organization and everyone's role
    • Area task list (including behavior change needs)
    • Accessibility quick cards

    Materials

    Participants

    • CIO/ head of IT/ initiative leader

    Download the Accessibility Quick Cards template

    Step 2.3

    Continuous reinforcement – keep the conversation going – sustain the change.

    Activities

    2.3.1 Establish a frequency and timeframe for communications

    2.3.2 Obtain feedback and improve

    2.3.3 Sustainment plan

    This step involves the following participants:

    • CIO/ head of IT/ initiative lead
    • IT leadership team

    Outcomes of this step

    • Assigned roles for ongoing program monitoring
    • Communication plan
    • Accessibility maturity monitoring plan
    • Program evaluation

    Communication is ongoing before, during, and after implementing a change initiative

    Just because you've rolled out the plan doesn't mean you can stop talking about it.

    An image of the five steps, with steps four and five highlighted in a green box. The five headings are: Identify and Prioritize; Prepare for initiative; Create a communication plan; Implement change; Sustain the desired outcome

    Don't forget: Cascade messages down through the organization to ensure those who need to deliver messages have time to internalize the change before communicating it to others. Include a mix of personal and organizational messages, but where possible, separate personal and organizational content into different communications.

    2.3.1 Establish a frequency and timeframe

    30 minutes

    1. For each row in Tab 3, determine how frequently that communication needs to take place and when that communication needs to be completed by.
      • Frequency: How often the communication will be delivered to the audience (e.g. one-time, monthly, as needed).
      • Timeframe: When the communication will be delivered to the audience (e.g. a planned period or a specific date).
    2. When selecting the timeframe, consider what dependencies need to take place prior to that communication. For example, IT employees should not be communicated with on anything that has not yet been approved by the CEO. Also consider when other communications might be taking place so that the message is not lost in the noise.
    3. For frequency, the only time that a communication needs to take place once is when presenting up to senior leaders of the organizations. And even then, it will sometimes require more than one conversation. Be mindful of this.

    Input

    • The change
    • Target audience
    • Communication outcome
    • Communication channel

    Output

    • Frequency and timeframe of the communication

    Materials

    • Communications Planner Tool
    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • Changes based on those who would be relevant to your initiative

    Download the Communications Planner Tool

    Ensure feedback mechanisms are in place

    Soliciting and acting on feedback involves employees in the decision-making process and demonstrates to them that their contributions matter.

    Make sure you have established feedback mechanisms to collect feedback on both the messages delivered and how they were delivered. Some ways to collect feedback include:

    • Evaluating intranet comments and interactions (e.g. likes, etc.) if this function is enabled.
    • Measuring comprehension and satisfaction through surveys and polls.
    • Looking for themes in the feedback and questions employees bring forward to managers during in-person briefings.

    Feedback Mechanisms:

    • CIO business vision survey
    • Engagement surveys
    • Focus groups
    • Suggestion boxes
    • Team meetings
    • Random sampling
    • Informal feedback
    • Direct feedback
    • Audience body language
    • Repeating the message back

    Gather feedback on plan and iterate

    Who

    The project team gathers feedback from:

    • As many members of impacted groups as possible, as it helps build broad buy-in for the plan.
    • All levels (e.g. frontline employees, managers, directors).

    What

    Gather feedback on:

    • How to implement tactics successfully.
    • The timing of implementation (helps inform the next slide).
    • The resources required (helps inform the next slide).
    • Potential unforeseen impacts, questions, and concerns.

    How

    • Use focus groups to gather feedback.
    • Adjust sustainment plan based on feedback.

    Use Info-Tech's Standard Focus Group Guide

    2.3.2 Obtain feedback and improve

    20 minutes

    1. Evenly distribute the number of rows in the communication plan to all those involved. Consider a metric that would help inform whether the communication outcome was achieved.
    2. For each row, identify a feedback mechanism (slide 75) that could be used to enable the collection and confirm a successful outcome.
    3. Come back as a group and validate the feedback mechanisms selected.
    4. The important aspect here is not just to measure if the desired outcome was achieved. If the desired outcome is not achieved, consider what you might do to change or enable better communication to that target audience.
    5. Every communication can be better. Feedback, whether it be tactical or strategic, will help inform methods to improve future communication activities.

    Input

    • Communication outcome
    • Target audience
    • Communication channel

    Output

    • A mechanism to measure communication feedback and adjust future communications when necessary

    Materials

    • Communications Planner Tool
    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • Changes based on those who would be relevant to your initiative

    Download the Communications Planner Tool

    Identify owners and assign other roles

    • Eventually there needs to be a hand off to leaders to sustain accessibility. Senior leaders continue to play the role of guide and facilitator, helping the team identify owners and transfer ownership.
    • Guide the team to work with owners to assign roles to other stakeholders. Spread responsibility across multiple people to avoid overload.

    R

    Responsible
    Carries out the work to implement the component (e.g. payroll manager).

    A

    Accountable
    Owner of the component and held accountable for its implementation (e.g. VP of finance).

    C

    Consulted
    Asked for feedback and input to modify sustainment tactics (e.g. sustainment planning team).

    I

    Informed
    Told about progress of implementation (senior leadership team, impacted staff).

    Identify required resources and secure budget

    Sustainment is critical to success of accessibility

    • This step (i.e. sustainment) often gets overlooked because leaders are focused on the implementation. It takes resources and budget to sustain a plan and change as well.
    • Resorting to the old way is more likely to occur when you don't plan to support sustainment with ongoing resources and budget that's required.

    Resources

    Identify resources required for sustainment components using metrics and input from implementation owners, subject matter experts, and frontline managers.

    For example:

    • Inventory
    • Collateral for communications
    • Technology
    • Physical space
    • People resources (FTE)

    Budget

    Estimate the budget required for resources based on past projects that used similar resources, and then estimate the time it will take until the change evolves into "business as usual" (e.g. 6 months, 12 months).

    Monitor accessibility maturity

    If you haven't already performed the Accessibility Maturity Assessment, complete it in the wake of the accessibility initiative to assess improvements and progress toward target future accessibility maturity.
    As your accessibility program starts to scale out over a range of projects, revisit the assessment on a quarterly or bi-annual basis to help focus your improvement efforts across the six accessibility categories.

    • Vendor relations
    • Products and services
    • Policy and process
    • Support and accommodation
    • Communication
    • People and culture

    Info-Tech Insight

    To drive continual improvement of your organizational accessibility and disability inclusion, continue to share progress, wins, challenges, feedback, and other accessibility related concerns with stakeholders. At the end of the day, IT's efforts to become a change leader and support organizational accessibility will come down to stakeholder perceptions based upon employee morale and benefits realized.

    Download the Accessibility Maturity Assessment

    An image of the maturity level bar graph.

    Evaluate and iterate the program on an ongoing basis

    1. Continually monitor the results of project metrics.
      • Track progress toward goals and metrics set at the beginning of the initiative to gauge the success of the program.
      • Analyze metrics at the work-unit level to highlight successes and challenges in accessibility and disability inclusion and the parameters around it for each impacted unit.
    2. Regularly gather feedback on program effectiveness using questions such as:
      • Has the desired culture been effectively communicated and leveraged, or has the culture changed?
      • Collect feedback through regular channels (e.g. manager check-ins) and set up a cadence to survey employees on the program (e.g. three months after rollout and then annually).
    3. Determine if changes to the program structure are needed.
      • Revisit the accessibility maturity framework and the compliance requirements of IT. Understand what is being experienced; it may be necessary to select a different target or adjust the parameters to mitigate the common challenges.
      • Evaluate the effectiveness of current internal processes to determine if the program would benefit from a dedicated resource.

    2.3.3 Sustain the change

    1. Identify who will own what pieces of the program going forward and assign roles to transition the initiative from implementation to the new normal.
    2. Continue to communicate with stakeholders about accessibility and disability inclusion initiatives, controls, and requirements.
    3. Identify required resources and secure any budget that will be needed to support the accessibility program. Think about employee training, consulting needs, assistive technology requirements, human resources (FTE), etc.
    4. Continue to monitor your accessibility maturity. Use the Accessibility Maturity Assessment tool to periodically evaluate progress on goals and targets. Also, use this tool to communicate progress with senior leaders and executives.
    5. Strive for continuous improvement by evaluating and iterating the program on an ongoing basis.

    Input

    • Activity outputs from this blueprint

    Output

    • Ongoing continuous improvement and progress related to accessibility
    • Demonstrable results

    Materials

    • n/a

    Participants

    • CIO/ head of IT/ initiative Lead
    • IT senior leaders
    • IT managers

    Related Info-Tech Research

    The Accessibility Business Case for IT

    • Take away the overwhelm that many feel when they hear "accessibility" and make the steps for your organization approachable.
    • Clearly communicate why accessibility is critical and how it supports the organization's key objectives and initiatives.
    • Understand your current state related to accessibility and identify areas for key initiatives to become part of the IT strategic roadmap.

    Lead Staff through Change

    • Anticipate and respond to staff questions about the change in order to keep messages consistent, organized, and clear.
    • Manage staff based on their specific concerns and change personas to get the best out of your team during the transition through change.
    • Maintain a feedback loop between staff, executives, and other departments in order to maintain the change momentum and reduce angst throughout the process.

    IT Diversity and Inclusion Tactics

    • Although inclusion is key to the success of a diversity and inclusion (D&I) strategy, the complexity of the concept makes it a daunting pursuit.
    • This is further complicated by the fact that creating inclusion is not a one-and-done exercise. Rather, it requires the ongoing commitment of employees and managers to reassess their own behaviors and to drive a cultural shift.

    Implement and Mature Your User Experience Design Practice

    • Create a practice that is focused on human outcomes; it starts and ends with the people you are designing for. This includes:
      • Establishing a practice with a common vision.
      • Enhancing the practice through four design factors.
      • Communicating a roadmap to improve your business through design.

    Works cited

    "2021 State of Digital Accessibility." Level Access, n.d. Accessed 10 Aug. 2022
    "Apple Canada Accessibility Policy & Plan." Apple Canada, 11 March 2019. .
    Casey, Caroline. "Do Your D&I Efforts Include People With Disabilities?" Harvard Business Review, 19 March 2020. Accessed 28 July 2022.
    Digitalisation World. "Organisations failing to meet digital accessibility standards." Angel Business Communications, 19 May 2022. Accessed Oct. 2022.
    "disability." Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, . Accessed 10 Aug. 2022.
    "Disability." World Health Organization, 2022. Accessed 10 Aug 2022.
    "Google Canada Corporation Accessibility Policy and Multi Year Plan." Google Canada, June 2020. .
    Hypercontext. "The State of High Performing Teams in Tech 2022." Hypercontext. 2022..
    Lay-Flurrie, Jenny. "Accessibility Evolution Model: Creating Clarity in your Accessibility Journey." Microsoft, 2023. <https://blogs.microsoft.com/accessibility/accessibility-evolution-model/>.
    Maguire, Jennifer. "Applause 2022 Global Accessibility Survey Reveals Organizations Prioritize Digital Accessibility but Fall Short of Conformance with WCAG 2.1 Standards." Business Wire, 19 May 2022. . Accessed 2 January 2023.
    "The Business Case for Digital Accessibility." W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), 9 Nov. 2018. Accessed 4 Aug. 2022.
    "THESCORE's Commitment to Accessibility." theScore, May 2021. .
    "The WebAIM Million." Web AIM, 31 March 2022. Accessed 28 Jul. 2022.
    Washington, Ella F. "The Five Stages of DEI Maturity." Harvard Business Review, November - December 2022. Accessed 7 Nov. 2022.
    Web AIM. "The WebAIM Million." Institute for Disability Research, Policy, and Practice, 31 March 2022. Accessed 28 Jul. 2022.

    Business Continuity

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}36|cart{/j2store}
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    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.2/10
    • member rating average dollars saved: $30,547
    • member rating average days saved: 37
    • Parent Category Name: Security and Risk
    • Parent Category Link: /security-and-risk

    The challenge

    • Recent crises have put business continuity firmly on the radar with executives. The pressures mount to have a proper BCP in place.

    • You may be required to show regulators and oversight bodies proof of having your business continuity processes under control.
    • Your customers want to know that you can continue to function under adverse circumstances and may require proof of your business continuity practices and plans.
    • While your company may put the BCM function in facility management or within the business, it typically falls upon IT leaders to join the core team to set up the business continuity plans.

    Our advice

    Insight

    • Business continuity plans require the cooperation and input from all departments with often conflicting objectives.
    • For most medium-sized companies, BCP activities do not require a full-time position. 
    • While the set up of a BCP is an epic or project, embed the maintenance and exercises in its regular activities.
    • As an IT leader in your company, you have the skillset and organizational overview to lead a BCP set up. It is the business that must own the plans. They know their processes and know where to prioritize.
    • The traditional approach to creating a BCP is a considerable undertaking. Most companies will hire one or more consultants to guide them. If you want to do this in-house, then carve up the work into discrete tasks to make it more manageable. Our blueprint explains to you how to do that.

    Impact and results 

    • You have a structured and straightforward process that you can apply to one business unit or department at a time.
    • Start with a pilot, and use the results to fine-tune your approach, fill the gaps while at the same time slowly reducing your business continuity exposure. Repeat the process for each department or team.
    • Enable the business to own the plans. Develop templates that they can use.
    • Leverage the BCP project's outcome and refine your disaster recovery plans to ensure alignment with the overall BCP.

    The roadmap

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    Get started

    Our concise executive brief shows you why you should develop a sound business continuity practice in your company. We'll show you our methodology and the ways we can help you in completing this.

    Identify your current maturity and document process dependencies.

    Choose a medium-sized department and build a team. Identify that department's processes, dependencies, and alternatives.

    • BCP Maturity Scorecard (xls)
    • BCP Pilot Project Charter Template (doc)
    • BCP Business Process Workflows Example (Visio)
    • BCP Business Process Workflows Example (PDF)

    Conduct a business impact analysis to determine what needs to recover first and how much (if any) data you can afford to lose in a disaster.

    Define an objective impact scoring scale for your company. Have the business estimate the impact of downtime and set your recovery targets.

    • BCP Business Impact Analysis Tool (xls)

    Document the recovery workflow entirely.

    The need for clarity is critical. In times when you need the plans, people will be under much higher stress. Build the workflow for the steps necessary to rebuild. Identify gaps and brainstorm on how to close them. Prioritize solutions that mitigate the remaining risks.

    • BCP Tabletop Planning Template (Visio)
    • BCP Tabletop Planning Template (PDF)
    • BCP Project Roadmap Tool
    • BCP Relocation Checklists

    Report the results of the pilot BCP and implement governance.

    Present the results of the pilot and propose the next steps. Assign BCM teams or people within each department. Update and maintain the overall BCMS documentation.

    • BCP Pilot Results Presentation (ppt)
    • BCP Summary (doc)
    • Business Continuity Teams and Roles Tool (xls)

    Additional business continuity tools and templates

    These can help with the creation of your BCP.

    • BCP Recovery Workflow Example (Visio)
    • BCP Recovery Workflow Example (PDF)
    • BCP Notification, Assessment, and Disaster Declaration Plan (doc)
    • BCP Business Process Workarounds and Recovery Checklists (doc)
    • Business Continuity Management Policy (doc)
    • Business Unit BCP Prioritization Tool (xls)
    • Industry-Specific BIA Guidelines (zip)
    • BCP-DRP Maintenance Checklist (xls)
    • Develop a COVID-19 Pandemic Response Plan Storyboard (ppt)

     

    2020 IT Talent Trend Report

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    • IT is an employee’s market.
    • Automation, outsourcing, and emerging technologies are widening the skill gap and increasing the need for skilled staff.
    • IT departments must find new ways to attract and retain top talent.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Improving talent management is the way forward, but many IT leaders are approaching it the wrong way.
    • Among the current climate of automating everything in the workplace, we need to bring the human element back into talent management.

    Impact and Result

    • Using talent management strategies that speak to employees as individuals, rather than cogs in a machine, produces more effective IT departments.
    • IT leaders who make use of these strategies see benefits across the talent lifecycle – from hiring, to training, to retention.

    2020 IT Talent Trend Report Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should focus on talent management and get an overview of what successful IT leaders are doing differently heading into 2020 – the six new talent management trends.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. IT takes ownership of talent acquisition

    IT leaders who get personally involved in recruitment see better results. Read this section to learn how leader are getting involved, and how to take the first steps.

    • 2020 IT Talent Trend Report – Trend 1: IT Takes Ownership of Talent Acquisition

    2. Flexible work becomes fluid work

    Heading into 2020, flexible work is table stakes. Read this section to learn what organizations offer and how you can take advantage of opportunities your competitors are missing.

    • 2020 IT Talent Trend Report – Trend 2: Flexible Work Becomes Fluid Work

    3. The age of radical transparency

    Ethics and transparency are emerging as key considerations for employees. How can you build a culture that supports this? Read this section to learn how.

    • 2020 IT Talent Trend Report – Trend 3: The Age of Radical Transparency

    4. People analytics is business analytics

    Your staff is the biggest line item in your budget, but are you using data to make decisions about your people they way you do in other areas of the business? Read this section to learn how analytics can be applied to the workforce no matter what level you are starting at.

    • 2020 IT Talent Trend Report – Trend 4: People Analytics Is Business Analytics

    5. IT departments become their own universities

    With the rapid pace of technological change, it is becoming increasingly harder to hire skilled people for critical roles. Read this section to learn how some IT departments are turning to in-house training to fill the skill gap.

    • 2020 IT Talent Trend Report – Trend 5: IT Departments Become Their Own Universities

    6. Offboarding: The missed opportunity

    What do an employee's last few days with your company look like? For most organizations, they are filled with writing rushed documentation, hosting last-minute training sessions and finishing up odd jobs. Read this section to understand the crucial opportunity most IT departments are missing when it comes to departing staff.

    • 2020 IT Talent Trend Report – Trend 6: Offboarding: The Missed Opportunity
    [infographic]

    Develop a COVID-19 Pandemic Response Plan

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    • Parent Category Name: DR and Business Continuity
    • Parent Category Link: /business-continuity
    • IT departments are being asked to rapidly ramp up work-from-home capabilities and other business process workarounds.
    • Crisis managers are experiencing a pandemic more severe than what they’ve managed in the past.
    • Organizations are scrambling to determine how they can keep their businesses running through this pandemic.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Obstacles to working from home go beyond internet speed and needing a laptop. Business input is critical to uncover unexpected obstacles.
    • IT needs to address a range of issues from security risk to increased service desk demand from users who don’t normally work from home.
    • Resist the temptation to bypass IT processes – your future-self will thank you for tracking all those assets about to go out the door.

    Impact and Result

    • Start with crisis management fundamentals – identify crisis management roles and exercise appropriate crisis communication.
    • Prioritize business processes and work-from-home requirements. Not everyone can be set up on day one.
    • Don’t over-complicate your work-from-home deployment plan. A simple spreadsheet (see the Work-from-Home Requirements Tool) to track requirements can be very effective.

    Develop a COVID-19 Pandemic Response Plan Research & Tools

    Start here

    Stay up to date on COVID-19 and the resources available to you.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    • Develop a COVID-19 Pandemic Response Plan Storyboard

    1. Manage the pandemic crisis

    Identify key roles and immediate steps to manage this crisis.

    • Pandemic Response Plan Example

    2. Create IT’s plan to support the pandemic response plan

    Plan the deployment of a work-from-home initiative.

    • Work-From-Home Requirements Tool
    [infographic]

    IT Governance

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    • Parent Category Name: Strategy and Governance
    • Parent Category Link: /strategy-and-governance
    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you may want to redesign your IT governance, Review our methodology, and understand how we can support you in completing this process.

    Manage an IT Budget

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    • Parent Category Name: Cost & Budget Management
    • Parent Category Link: /cost-and-budget-management
    • IT is viewed as a cost center without a clear understanding of the value it provides.
    • After completing the budget, the CIO is faced with changing expectations, disruptions, new risks, and new threats.
    • IT departments often lack a reliable budget management process to keep itself on track towards its budget goals.
    • Over budgeting risks credibility if projects are not all delivered, while under budgeting risks not being able to execute important projects.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Managing your budget is not just about numbers; it’s also about people and processes. Better relationships and a proper process leads to better management of your budget. Understand how your relationships and current processes might be leveraged to manage your budget.
    • No one likes to be over budget, but being under budget isn’t necessarily good either. Coming in under budget may mean that you are not accomplishing the initiatives that you promised you would, reflecting poor job performance.

    Impact and Result

    • Implement a formal budget management process that documents your planned budget and actual expenditures, tracks variances, and responds to those variances to stay on track towards budget goals.
    • Manage the expectations of business stakeholders by communicating the links between IT spend and business value in a way that is easily understood by the business.
    • Control for under- or overspending by using Info Tech’s budget management tool and tactics.

    Manage an IT Budget Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to understand the increasing expectations for IT departments to better manage their budgets, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Document

    Create a streamlined documentation process that also considers the elements of people and technology.

    • Manage an IT Budget – Phase 1: Document
    • Manage Your IT Budget Tool

    2. Track

    Track your planned budget against actual expenditures to catch areas of over- and underspending in a timely manner.

    • Manage an IT Budget – Phase 2: Track

    3. Control

    Leverage control mechanisms to manage variances in your budget.

    • Manage an IT Budget – Phase 3: Control
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Manage an IT Budget

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Document Budget

    The Purpose

    The first step of managing your IT budget is to make sure there is a properly documented budget that everyone agrees upon.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A properly documented budget facilitates management and communication of the budget.

    Activities

    1.1 Review budget for the year.

    1.2 Document each budget in the tool.

    1.3 Review CAPEX vs. OPEX.

    1.4 Customize accounts to match your organization.

    Outputs

    Budget broken out into monthly increments and by each account.

    Budget documented in tool.

    Tool customized to reflect organization's specific accounts and terminology.

    2 Optimize Documentation Process

    The Purpose

    A proper documentation process forms the backbone for effective budget management.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A streamlined documentation process with accurate inputs that also considers the elements of people and technology.

    Activities

    2.1 Draw out process flow of current documentation.

    2.2 Identify bottlenecks.

    2.3 Discuss and develop roadmap to solving bottlenecks.

    Outputs

    Process flow of current documentation process with identified bottlenecks.

    Plan to mitigate bottlenecks.

    3 Track and Control for Over- and Underspending

    The Purpose

    Track your planned budget against actual expenditures to catch areas of over- and underspending in a timely manner. Then, leverage control mechanisms to manage variances in your budget.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Tracking and controlling for variances will help the IT department stay on track towards its budget goals. It will also help with communicating IT’s value to the business.

    Activities

    3.1 Walk through the “Overview Bar.”

    3.2 Document actual expenses incurred in fiscal to date.

    3.3 Review the risk of over- and underspending.

    3.4 Use the reforecast column to control for over- and underspend.

    Outputs

    Assess the “Overview Bar.”

    Document actual expenditures and committed expenses up to the current date.

    Develop a strategy and roadmap for how you will mitigate any current under- or overspends.

    Reforecast expenditures for each account for each month for the remainder of the fiscal year.

    Effectively Acquire Infrastructure Services

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    • Parent Category Name: Data Center & Facilities Optimization
    • Parent Category Link: /data-center-and-facilities-optimization
    • Most organizations are good at procuring IT products, but few are truly good at acquiring infrastructure services.
    • The lack of expertise in acquiring services is problematic – not only is the acquisition process for services more complex, but it also often has high stakes with large deal sizes, long-term contracts, and high switching costs.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Don’t treat infrastructure service acquisitions lightly. Not only are failure rates high, but the stakes are high as well.
    • Make sure your RFP strategy aligns with your deal value. Large deals, characterized by high monthly spend, high criticality to the organization, and high switching costs, warrant a more thorough and lengthy planning period and RFP process.
    • Word your RFP carefully and do your due diligence when reviewing SLAs. Make sure your RFP will help you understand what the vendor’s standard offerings are and don’t treat your service level agreements like an open negotiation. The vendor’s standard offerings will be your most reliable options.

    Impact and Result

    • Follow this blueprint to avoid common pitfalls and navigate the tricky business of acquiring infrastructure services.
    • This blueprint will provide step-by-step guidance from assessing your acquisition goals to transitioning your service. Make sure you do the due diligence required to acquire the best service for your needs.

    Effectively Acquire Infrastructure Services Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should follow the blueprint to effectively acquire infrastructure services, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Develop the procurement strategy and process

    Kick off an acquisition by establishing acquisition goals, validating the decision to acquire a service, and structuring an acquisition approach. There are several RFP approaches and strategies – evaluate the options and develop one that aligns with the nature of the acquisition.

    • Effectively Acquire Infrastructure Services – Phase 1: Develop the Procurement Strategy and Process

    2. Assess requirements and build the RFP

    A solid RFP is critical to the success of this project. Assess the current and future requirements, examine the characteristics of an effective RFP, and develop an RFP.

    • Effectively Acquire Infrastructure Services – Phase 2: Assess Requirements and Build the RFP
    • Infrastructure Service RFP Template

    3. Manage vendor questions and select the vendor

    Manage the activities surrounding vendor questions and score the RFP responses to select the best-fit solution.

    • Effectively Acquire Infrastructure Services – Phase 3: Manage Vendor Questions and Select the Vendor
    • Vendor Question Organizer Template
    • Infrastructure Outsourcing RFP Scoring Tool

    4. Manage the contract, transition, and vendor

    Perform due diligence in reviewing the SLAs and contract before signing. Plan to transition the service into the environment and manage the vendor on an ongoing basis for a successful partnership.

    • Effectively Acquire Infrastructure Services – Phase 4: Manage the Contract, Transition, and Vendor
    • Service Acquisition Planning and Tracking Tool
    • Vendor Management Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Effectively Acquire Infrastructure Services

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Develop the Procurement Strategy and Process

    The Purpose

    Establish procurement goals and success metrics.

    Develop a projected acquisition timeline.

    Establish the RFP approach and strategy.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Defined acquisition approach and timeline.

    Activities

    1.1 Establish your acquisition goals.

    1.2 Establish your success metrics.

    1.3 Develop a projected acquisition timeline.

    1.4 Establish your RFP process and refine your RFP timeline.

    Outputs

    Acquisition goals

    Success metrics

    Acquisition timeline

    RFP strategy and approach

    2 Gather Service Requirements

    The Purpose

    Gather requirements for services to build into the RFP.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Gathered requirements.

    Activities

    2.1 Assess the current state.

    2.2 Evaluate service requirements and targets.

    2.3 Assess the gap and validate the service acquisition.

    2.4 Define requirements to input into the RFP.

    Outputs

    Current State Assessment

    Service requirements

    Validation of services being acquired and key processes that may need to change

    Requirements to input into the RFP

    3 Develop the RFP

    The Purpose

    Build the RFP.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    RFP development.

    Activities

    3.1 Build the RFP requirement section.

    3.2 Develop the rest of the RFP.

    Outputs

    Service requirements input into the RFP

    Completed RFP

    4 Review RFP Responses and Select a Vendor (Off-Site)

    The Purpose

    Review RFP responses to select the best solution for the acquisition.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Vendor selected.

    Activities

    4.1 Manage vendor questions regarding the RFP.

    4.2 Review RFP responses and shortlist the vendors.

    4.3 Conduct additional due diligence on the vendors.

    4.4 Select a vendor.

    Outputs

    Managed RFP activities

    Imperceptive scoring of RFP responses and ranking of vendors

    Additional due diligence and further questions for the vendor

    Selected vendor

    Create an IT View of the Service Catalog

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    • Parent Category Name: Service Management
    • Parent Category Link: /service-management
    • Organizations often don’t understand which technical services affect user-facing services.
    • Organizations lack clarity around ownership of responsibilities for service delivery.
    • Organizations are vulnerable to change-related incidents when they don’t have insight into service dependencies and their business impact.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Even IT professionals underestimate the effort and the complexity of technical components required to deliver a service.
    • Info-Tech’s methodology promotes service orientation among technical teams by highlighting how their work affects the value of user-facing services.
    • CIOs can use the technical part of the catalog as a tool to articulate the value, dependencies, and constraints of services to business leaders.

    Impact and Result

    • Extend the user-facing service catalog to document the people, processes, and technology required to deliver user-facing services.
    • Bring transparency to how services are delivered to better articulate IT’s capabilities and strengthen IT-business alignment.
    • Increase IT’s ability to assess the impact of changes, make informed decisions, and mitigate change-related risks.
    • Respond to incidents and problems in the IT environment with more agility due to reduced diagnosis time for issues.

    Create an IT View of the Service Catalog Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should build the technical components of your service catalog, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Launch the project

    Build a strong foundation for the project to increase the chances of success.

    • Create an IT View of the Service Catalog – Phase 1: Launch the Project
    • Service Catalog Extension Project Charter
    • Service Catalog Extension Training Deck

    2. Identify service-specific technologies

    Identify which technologies are specific to certain services.

    • Create an IT View of the Service Catalog – Phase 2: Identify Service-Specific Technology
    • IT Service Catalog

    3. Identify underpinning technologies

    Determine which technologies underpin the existence of user-facing services.

    • Create an IT View of the Service Catalog – Phase 3: Identify Underpinning Services

    4. Map the people and processes to the technologies they support

    Document the roles and responsibilities required to deliver each user-facing service.

    • Create an IT View of the Service Catalog – Phase 4: Determine People & Process
    • Service Definitions: Visual Representations
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Create an IT View of the Service Catalog

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Launch the Project

    The Purpose

    Build a foundation to kick off the project.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A carefully selected team of project participants.

    Identified stakeholders and metrics.

    Activities

    1.1 Create a communication plan

    1.2 Complete the training deck

    Outputs

    Project charter

    Understanding of the process used to complete the definitions

    2 Identify Service-Specific Technologies and Underpinning Technologies

    The Purpose

    Determine the technologies that support the user-facing services.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of what is required to run a service.

    Activities

    2.1 Determine service-specific technology categories

    2.2 Identify service-specific technologies

    2.3 Determine underpinning technologies

    Outputs

    Logical buckets of service-specific technologies makes it easier to identify them

    Identified technologies

    Identified underpinning services and technologies

    3 Identify People and Processes

    The Purpose

    Discover the roles and responsibilities required to deliver each user-facing service.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of what is required to deliver each user-facing service.

    Activities

    3.1 Determine roles required to deliver services based on organizational structure

    3.2 Document the services

    Outputs

    Mapped responsibilities to each user-facing service

    Completed service definition visuals

    4 Complete the Service Definition Chart and Visual Diagrams

    The Purpose

    Create a central hub (database) of all the technical components required to deliver a service.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Single source of information where IT can see what is required to deliver each service.

    Ability to leverage the extended catalog to benefit the organization.

    Activities

    4.1 Document all the previous steps in the service definition chart and visual diagrams

    4.2 Review service definition with team and subject matter experts

    Outputs

    Completed service definition visual diagrams and completed catalog

    Elevate Your Vendor Management Initiative

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    • Parent Category Name: Vendor Management
    • Parent Category Link: /vendor-management
    • As cloud vendors, managed service providers, and other IT vendors continue to play a larger role in IT operations, the VMI must evolve to meet new challenges. Maximizing the VMI's impact requires it to keep pace with the IT landscape and transforming from tactical to strategic.
    • Increased spend with and reliance on vendors leads to less control and more risk for IT organizations. The VMI must mature on multiple fronts to continue adding value; staying stagnant is not an option.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • An organization’s vendor management initiative must continue to evolve and mature to reach its full strategic value. In the early stages, the vendor management initiative may be seen as transactional, focusing on the day-to-day functions associated with vendor management. The real value of a VMI comes from becoming strategic partner to other functional groups (departments) within your organization.
    • Developing vendor management personnel is critical to the vendor management initiative’s evolution and maturation. For the VMI to mature, its personnel must mature as well. Their professional skills, competencies, and knowledge must increase over time. Failure to accentuate personal growth within the team limits what the team is able to achieve and how the team is perceived.
    • Vendor management is not about imposing your will on vendors; it is about understanding the multi-faceted dynamics between your organization and your vendors and charting the appropriate path forward. Resource allocation and relationship expectations flow from these dynamics. Each critical vendor requires an individual plan to build the best possible relationship and to leverage that relationship. What works with one vendor may not work or even be possible with another vendor…even if both vendors are critical to your success.

    Impact and Result

    • Evolve the VMI from tactical to strategic
    • Improve the VMI’s brand and brand awareness
    • Develop the VMI’s team members to increase the VMI’s impact
    • Take relationships to the next level with your critical vendors
    • Understand how your vendors view your organization as a customer
    • Create and implement plans to improve relationships with critical vendors
    • Create and implement plans to improve underperforming vendors

    Elevate Your Vendor Management Initiative Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should continue to evolve and mature your vendor management initiative and to understand the additional elements of Info-Tech’s four-step cycle to running your vendor management initiative.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    • Elevate Your Vendor Management Initiative – Executive Brief
    • Elevate Your Vendor Management Initiative – Phases 1-4

    1. Plan

    This phase helps the VMI stay focused and aligned by reviewing existing materials, updating the existing maturity assessment, and ensuring that the foundational elements of the VMI are up to date. The main outcomes from this phase are a current maturity assessment and updated or revised Plan documents.

    • Elevate Your Vendor Management Initiative – Phase 1

    2. Build

    This phase helps you configure, create, and understand the tools and templates used to elevate the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are a clear understanding of the tools that identify which vendors are important to you, tools and concepts to help you take key vendor relationships to the next level, and tools to help you evaluate and improve the VMI and its personnel.

    • Elevate Your Vendor Management Initiative – Phase 2
    • Elevate – COST Model Vendor Classification Tool
    • Elevate – MVP Model Vendor Classification Tool
    • Elevate – OPEN Model Customer Positioning Tool
    • Elevate – Relationship Assessment and Improvement Tool
    • Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium

    3. Run

    This phase helps you begin integrating the new tools and templates into the VMI’s operations. The main outcomes from this phase are guidance and the steps required to continue your VMI’s maturation and evolution.

    • Elevate Your Vendor Management Initiative – Phase 3

    4. Review

    This phase helps the VMI stay aligned with the overall organization, stay current, and improve its strategic value as it evolves. The main outcomes from this phase are ways to advance the VMI’s strategic impact.

    • Elevate your Vendor Management Initiative – Phase 4

    Infographic

    Workshop: Elevate Your Vendor Management Initiative

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Plan and Build

    The Purpose

    Review existing tools and templates and configure new tools and templates.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Updated Maturity Assessment and configured tools and templates.

    Activities

    1.1 Existing Plan document review and new maturity assessment.

    1.2 Optional classification models.

    1.3 Customer positioning model.

    1.4 Two-way scorecards.

    Outputs

    Updated Plan documents.

    New maturity assessment.

    Configured classification model.

    Customer positioning for top five vendors.

    Configured scorecard and feedback form.

    2 Build and Run

    The Purpose

    Configure VMI Tools and Templates.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Configured Tools and Templates for the VMI.

    Activities

    2.1 Performance improvement plans (PIPs).

    2.2 Relationship improvement plans (RIPs).

    2.3 Vendor-at-a-Glance reports.

    2.4 VMI Personnel Competency Evaluation Tool.

    Outputs

    Configured Performance Improvement Plan.

    Configured Relationship Assessment and Relationship Improvement Plan.

    Configured 60-Second Report and completed Vendor Calendar for one vendor.

    Configured VMI Personnel Competency Evaluation Tool.

    3 Build and Run

    The Purpose

    Continue configuring VMI Tools and Templates and enhancing VM competencies.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Configured Tools and Templates for the VMI and market intelligence to gather.

    Activities

    3.1 Internal feedback tool.

    3.2 VMI ROI calculation.

    3.3 Vendor recognition program.

    3.4 Assess the Relationship Landscape.

    3.5 Gather market intelligence.

    3.6 Improve professional skills.

    Outputs

    Configured Internal Feedback Tool.

    General framework for a vendor recognition program.

    Completed Relationship Landscape Assessment (representative sample).

    List of market intelligence to gather for top five vendors.

    4 Run and Review

    The Purpose

    Improve the VMI’s brand awareness and impact on the organization; continue to maintain alignment with the overall organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Raising the organization’s awareness of the VMI, and ensuring the VMI Is becoming more strategic.

    Activities

    4.1 Expand professional knowledge.

    4.2 Create brand awareness.

    4.3 Investigate potential alliances.

    4.4 Continue increasing the VMI’s strategic value.

    4.5 Review and update (governances, policies and procedures, lessons learned, internal alignment, and leading practices).

    Outputs

    Branding plan for the VMI.

    Branding plan for individual VMI team members.

    Further reading

    Elevate Your Vendor Management Initiative

    Transform Your VMI From Tactical to Strategic to Maximize Its Impact and Value

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    Transform your VMI into a strategic contributor to ensure its longevity.

    The image contains a picture of Phil Bode.

    By the time you start using this blueprint, you should have established a solid foundation for your vendor management initiative (VMI) and implemented many or all of the principles outlined in Info-Tech’s blueprint Jump Start Your Vendor Management (the Jump Start blueprint). This blueprint (the Elevate blueprint) is meant to continue the evolutionary or maturation process of your VMI. Many of the items presented here will build on and refer to the elements from the Jump Start blueprint. The goal of the Elevate blueprint is to assist in the migration of your VMI from transactional to strategic. Why? Simply put, the more strategic the VMI, the more value it adds and the more impact it has on the organization as a whole.

    While the day-to-day, transactional aspect of running a VMI will never go away, getting stuck in transactional mode is a horrible place for the VMI and its team members:

    • The VMI will never live up to its potential.
    • The work won’t be enjoyable or rewarding for most people.
    • The VMI will be seen paper pushers, gatekeepers, and other things that don’t add value or should be avoided.
    • Being reactive (i.e. putting out fires all day) is exhausting and provides little or no control over the work and workflow.
    • Lastly, the VMI’s return on investment will be low, and unless it was established due to regulatory, audit, or other influences, the VMI could be disbanded. Minimal resources will be available to the VMI…just enough to keep it alive and obtain whatever checkmark needs to be earned to satisfy the original need for its creation.

    To prevent these tragic things from happening, transform the VMI into a strategic contributor and partner internally. This Elevate blueprint provides a roadmap and guidance to get your journey started. Focus on expanding your understanding of customer/vendor dynamics, improving the skills, competencies, and knowledge of the VMI’s team members, contributing value beyond the savings aspect, and building a solid brand internally and with your vendors. This requires a conscious effort and a proactive approach to vendor management…not to mention treating your internal “clients” with respect and providing great customer service.

    At the end of the day, ask yourself one question: If your internal clients had to pay for your services, would they? If you can answer yes, you are well on your way to being strategic. If not, you still have some work to do. Long live the strategic VMI!

    Phil Bode
    Principal Research Director, Vendor Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Common Obstacles

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Each year, IT organizations “outsource” tasks, activities, functions, and other items. During 2021:

    • Spend on as-a-service providers increased 38% over 2020.*
    • Spend on managed service providers increased 16% over 2020.*
    • IT service providers increased their merger and acquisition numbers by 47% over 2020.*

    This leads to more spend, less control, and more risk for IT organizations. Managing this becomes a higher priority for IT, but many IT organizations are ill-equipped to do this proactively.

    As new contracts are negotiated and existing contracts are renegotiated or renewed, there is a perception that the contracts will yield certain results, output, performance, solutions, or outcomes. The hope is that these will provide a measurable expected value to IT and the organization. Often, much of the expected value is never realized. Many organizations don’t have a VMI to help:

    • Ensure at least the expected value is achieved.
    • Improve on the expected value through performance management.
    • Significantly increase the expected value through a proactive VMI.

    Vendor Management is a proactive, cross-functional lifecycle. It can be broken down into four phases:

    • Plan
    • Build
    • Run
    • Review

    The Info-Tech process addresses all four phases and provides a step-by-step approach to configure and operate your VMI. The content in this blueprint helps you and the VMI evolve to add value and impact to the organization that was started with the Info-Tech blueprint Jump Start Your VMI.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The VMI must continue to mature and evolve, or it will languish, atrophy, and possibly be disbanded.

    • A transactional approach to vendor management ignores the multi-faceted dynamics in play and limits the VMI’s potential value.
    • Improving the VMI’s impact starts with the VMI’s personnel – their skills, knowledge, competencies, and relationships.
    • Adding value to the organization requires time to build trust and understand the landscape (internal and external).
    *Source: Information Services Group, Inc., 2022.

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Spend on managed service providers and as-a-service providers continues to increase. In addition, IT services vendors continue to be active in the mergers and acquisitions arena. This increases the need for a VMI to help with the changing IT vendor landscape.

    38%

    2021

    16%

    2021

    47%

    2021

    Spend on

    As-a-Service Providers

    Spend on

    Managed Services

    Providers

    IT Services

    Merger & Acquisition

    Growth

    (Transactions)

    Source: Information Services Group, Inc., 2022.

    Executive Summary

    Common Obstacles

    When organizations execute, renew, or renegotiate a contract, there is an “expected value” associated with that contract. Without a robust VMI, most of the expected value will never be realized. With a robust VMI, the realized value significantly exceeds the expected value during the contract term.

    The image contains a screenshot of a diagram that demonstrates the expected value of a contract with and without a vmi.

    Source: Based on findings from Geller & Company, 2003.

    Executive Summary

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    A sound, cyclical approach to vendor management will help ensure your VMI meets your needs and stays in alignment with your organization as they both change (i.e. mature and evolve).

    Vendor Management Process

    1. Plan
    • Review and Update Existing Plan Materials
  • Build
    • Vendor Classification Models
    • Customer Positioning Model
    • 2-Way Scorecards
    • Performance Improvement Plan (PIP)
    • Relationship Improvement Plan (RIP)
    • Vendor-at-a-Glance Reports
    • VMI Personnel Competency Evaluation Tool
    • Internal Feedback Tool
    • VMI ROI Calculation Tools
    • Vendor Recognition Program
  • Run
    • Classify Vendors and Identify Customer Position
    • Assess the Relationship Landscape
    • Leverage 2-Way Scorecards
    • Implement PIPs and RIPS
    • Gather Market Intelligence
    • Generate Vendor-at-a-Glance Reports
    • Evaluate VMI Personnel
    • Improve Professional Skills
    • Expand Professional Knowledge
    • Create Brand Awareness
    • Survey Internal Clients
    • Calculate VMI ROI
    • Implement Vendor Recognition Program
  • Review
    • Investigate Potential Alliances
    • Continue Increasing the VMI's Strategic Value
    • Review and Update Governances
    • Outcomes
      • Better Allocation of VMI Resources
      • Measurable Impact of the VMI
      • Increased Awareness of the VMI
      • Improved Vendor Performance
      • Improved Vendor Relationships
      • VMI Team Member Development
      • Strategic Relationships Internally

    Info-Tech’s Methodology for Elevating Your VMI

    Phase 1 - Plan

    Phase 2 - Build

    Phase 3 - Run

    Phase 4 – Review

    Phase Steps

    1.1 Review and Update Existing Plan Materials

    2.1 Vendor Classification Models

    2.2 Customer Positioning Model

    2.3 Two-Way Scorecards

    2.4 Performance Improvement Plan (PIP)

    2.5 Relationship Improvement Plan (RIP)

    2.6 Vendor-at-a-Glance Reports

    2.7 VMI Personnel Competency Evaluation Tool

    2.8 Internal Feedback Tool

    2.9 VMI ROI Calculation

    2.10 Vendor Recognition Program

    3.1 Classify Vendors & Identify Customer Position

    3.2 Assess the Relationship Landscape

    3.3 Leverage Two-Way Scorecards

    3.4 Implement PIPs and RIPs

    3.5 Gather Market Intelligence

    3.6 Generate Vendor-at-a-Glance Reports

    3.7 Evaluate VMI Personnel

    3.8 Improve Professional Skills

    3.9 Expand Professional Knowledge

    3.10 Create Brand Awareness

    3.11 Survey Internal Clients

    3.12 Calculate VMI ROI

    3.13 Implement Vendor Recognition Program

    4.1 Investigate Potential Alliances

    4.2 Continue Increasing the VMI’s Strategic Value

    4.3 Review and Update

    Phase Outcomes

    This phase helps the VMI stay focused and aligned by reviewing existing materials, updating the existing maturity assessment, and ensuring that the foundational elements of the VMI are up-to-date.

    This phase helps you configure, create, and understand the tools and templates used to elevate the VMI.

    This phase helps you begin integrating the new tools and templates into the VMI’s operations.

    This phase helps the VMI stay aligned with the overall organization, stay current, and improve its strategic value as it evolves.

    Insight Summary

    Insight 1

    An organization’s vendor management initiative must continue to evolve and mature to reach its full strategic value. In the early stages, the vendor management initiative may be seen as transactional, focusing on the day-to-day functions associated with vendor management. The real value of a VMI comes from becoming strategic partner to other functional groups (departments) within your organization.

    Insight 2

    Developing vendor management personnel is critical to the vendor management initiative’s evolution and maturation. For the VMI to mature, its personnel must mature as well. Their professional skills, competencies, and knowledge must increase over time. Failure to accentuate personal growth within the team limits what the team can achieve and how the team is perceived.

    Insight 3

    Vendor management is not about imposing your will on vendors; it is about understanding the multifaceted dynamics between your organization and your vendors and charting the appropriate path forward. Resource allocation and relationship expectations flow from these dynamics. Each critical vendor requires an individual plan to build the best possible relationship and to leverage that relationship. What works with one vendor may not work or even be possible with another vendor – even if both vendors are critical to your success.

    Blueprint Deliverables

    The four phases of maturing and evolving your vendor management initiative are supported with configurable tools, templates, and checklists to help you stay aligned internally and achieve your goals.

    VMI Tools and Templates

    Continue building your foundation for your VMI and configure tools and templates to help you manage your vendor relationships.

    The image contains screenshots of the VMI Tools and Templates.

    Key Deliverables:

    Info-Tech’s

    1. Elevate – COST Model Vendor Classification Tool
    2. Elevate – MVP Model Vendor Classification Tool
    3. Elevate – OPEN Model Customer Positioning Tool
    4. Elevate – Relationship Assessment and Improvement Plan Tool
    5. Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium

    A suite of tools and templates to help you upgrade and evolve your vendor management initiative.

    Blueprint benefits

    IT Benefits

    Business Benefits

    • Improve VMI performance and value.
    • Improve VMI team member performance.
    • Build better relationships with critical vendors.
    • Measure the impact and contributions provided by the VMI.
    • Establish realistic and appropriate expectations for vendor interactions.
    • Understand customer positioning to allocate vendor management resources more effectively and more efficiently.
    • Improve vendor accountability.
    • Increase collaboration between departments.
    • Improve working relationships with your vendors.
    • Create a feedback loop to address vendor/customer issues before they get out of hand or are more costly to resolve.
    • Increase access to meaningful data and information regarding important vendors.

    Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

    DIY Toolkit

    Guided Implementation

    Workshop

    Consulting

    “Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.” “Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.” “We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.” “Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1 Phases 2 and 3 Phase 4

    Call #1: Review status of existing plan materials.

    Call #2: Conduct a new maturity assessment.

    Call #3: Review optional classification models.

    Call #4: Determine customer positioning for top vendors.

    Call #5: Configure vendor Scorecards and vendor feedback forms.

    Call #6: Discuss PIPs, RIPs, and vendor-at-a-glance reports.

    Call #7: VMI personnel competency evaluation tool.

    Call #8: Create internal feedback tool and discuss ROI.

    Call #9: Identify vendor recognition program attributes and assess the relationship landscape.

    Call #10: Gather market intelligence and create brand awareness.

    Call #11: Identify potential vendor alliances, review the components of a strategic VMI, and discuss the continuous improvement loop.

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

    A typical GI is between 6 to 12 calls over the course of 3 to 6 months.

    Workshop Overview

    Contact your account representative for more information.
    workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

    Day 1

    Day 2

    Day 3

    Day 4

    Plan/Build Run

    Build/Run

    Build/Run

    Run/Review

    Activities

    1.1 Existing Plan document review and new maturity assessment.

    1.2 Optional classification models.

    1.3 Customer positioning model.

    1.4 Two-way scorecards.

    2.1 Performance improvement plans (PIPs).

    2.2 Relationship improvement plans (RIPs).

    2.3 Vendor-at-a-glance reports.

    2.4 VMI personnel competency evaluation tool.

    3.1 Internal feedback tool.

    3.2 VMI ROI calculation.

    3.3 Vendor recognition program.

    3.4 Assess the relationship landscape.

    3.5 Gather market intelligence.

    3.6 Improve professional skills.

    4.1 Expand professional knowledge.

    4.2 Create brand awareness.

    4.3 Investigate potential alliances.

    4.4 Continue increasing the VMI’s strategic value.

    4.5 Review and update (governances, policies and procedures, lessons learned, internal alignment, and leading practices).

    Deliverables

    1. Updated plan documents.
    2. New maturity assessment.
    3. Configured classification model.
    4. Customer positioning for top 5 vendors.
    5. Configured scorecard and feedback form.
    1. Configured performance improvement plan.
    2. Configured relationship assessment and relationship improvement plan.
    3. Configured 60-second report and completed vendor calendar for one vendor.
    4. Configured VMI personnel competency evaluation tool.
    1. Configured internal feedback tool.
    2. General framework for a vendor recognition program.
    3. Completed relationship landscape assessment (representative sample).
    4. List of market intelligence to gather for top 5 vendors.
    1. Roadmap/plan for improving skills and knowledge for VMI personnel.
    2. Action plan for creating brand awareness for the VMI.
    3. Action plan for creating brand awareness for each VMI team member.

    Using complementary vendor management blueprints

    Jump Start Your VMI and Elevate Your VMI

    The image contains a screenshot to demonstrate using complementary vendor management blueprints.

    Phase 1 – Plan

    Look to the Future and Update Existing Materials

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    Phase 4

    1.1 Review and update existing Plan materials

    2.1 Vendor classification models

    2.2 Customer positioning model

    2.3 Two-way scorecards

    2.4 Performance improvement plan (PIP)

    2.5 Relationship improvement plan (RIP)

    2.6 Vendor-at-a-glance reports

    2.7 VMI personnel competency evaluation tool

    2.8 Internal feedback tool

    2.9 VMI ROI calculation

    2.10 Vendor recognition program

    3.1 Classify vendors and identify customer position

    3.2 Assess the relationship landscape

    3.3 Leverage two-way scorecards

    3.4 Implement PIPs and RIPs

    3.5 Gather market intelligence

    3.6 Generate vendor-at-a-glance reports

    3.7 Evaluate VMI personnel

    3.8 Improve professional skills

    3.9 Expand professional knowledge

    3.10 Create brand awareness

    3.11 Survey internal clients

    3.12 Calculate VMI ROI

    3.13 Implement vendor recognition program

    4.1 Investigate potential alliances

    4.2 Continue increasing the VMI’s strategic value

    4.3 Review and update

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    This phase helps the VMI stay focused and aligned by reviewing existing materials, updating the existing maturity assessment, and ensuring that the foundational elements of the VMI are up-to-date. The main outcomes from this phase are a current maturity assessment and updated or revised Plan documents.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives
    • Procurement/Sourcing
    • IT
    • Others as needed

    Phase 1 – Plan

    Phase 1 – Plan revisits the foundational elements from the Info-Tech blueprint Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative. As the VMI continues to operate and mature, looking backward periodically provides a new perspective and helps the VMI move forward:

    • Has anything changed (mission statement, goals, scope, strengths and obstacles, roles and responsibilities, and process mapping)?
    • What progress was made against the maturity assessment?
    • What is next in the maturity process for the VMI?
    • Were some foundational elements overlooked or not done thoroughly due to time constraints, a lack of knowledge, or other factors?

    Keep an eye on the past as you begin looking toward the future.

    Step 1.1 – Review and update existing Plan materials

    Ensure existing materials are current

    At this point, the basic framework for your VMI should be in place. However, now is a good time to correct any oversights in your foundational elements. Have you:

    • Drafted a mission statement for the VMI and listed its goals, answering the questions “why does the VMI exist” and “what will it achieve”?
    • Determined the VMI’s scope, establishing what is in and outside the purview of the VMI?
    • Listed the VMI’s strengths and obstacles, identifying what you can leverage and what needs to be managed to ensure smooth sailing?
    • Established roles and responsibilities (OIC Chart) for the vendor management lifecycle, defining each internal party’s place in the process?
    • Documented process maps, delineating (at a minimum) what the VMI is doing for each step of the vendor management lifecycle?
    • Created a charter, establishing an operational structure for the VMI?
    • Completed a vendor inventory, identifying the major vendors included in the VMI?
    • Conducted a VMI maturity assessment, establishing a baseline and desired future state to work toward?
    • Defined the VMI’s structure, documenting the VMI’s place in the organization, its services, and its clients?

    If any of these elements is missing, revisit the Info-Tech blueprint Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative to complete these components. If they exist, review them and make any required modifications.

    Download the Info-Tech blueprint Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

    1.1.1 – Review and update existing Plan materials

    1 – 6 Hours

    1. Meet with the participants and review existing documents and tools created or configured during Phase 1 of the Info-Tech blueprint Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative: mission statement and goals, scope, strengths and obstacles, OIC chart, process maps, charter, vendor inventory, maturity assessment, and structure.
    2. Update the documents as needed.
    3. Redo the maturity assessment if more than 12 months have passed since the initial assessment was conducted.
    Input Output
    • Documents and tools from Phase 1 of the Info-Tech blueprint Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative
    • Updated documents and tools from Phase 1 of the Info-Tech blueprint Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative
    Materials Participants
    • Documents and tools from Phase 1 of the Info-Tech blueprint Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative
    • Whiteboard or flip charts (as needed)
    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Download the Info-Tech blueprint Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

    Download the Jump - Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Phase 2 – Build

    Create New Tools and Consider Alternatives to Existing Tools

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    Phase 4

    1.1 Review and update existing Plan materials

    2.1 Vendor classification models

    2.2 Customer positioning model

    2.3 Two-way scorecards

    2.4 Performance improvement plan (PIP)

    2.5 Relationship improvement plan (RIP)

    2.6 Vendor-at-a-glance reports

    2.7 VMI personnel competency evaluation tool

    2.8 Internal feedback tool

    2.9 VMI ROI calculation

    2.10 Vendor recognition program

    3.1 Classify vendors and identify customer position

    3.2 Assess the relationship landscape

    3.3 Leverage two-way scorecards

    3.4 Implement PIPs and RIPs

    3.5 Gather market intelligence

    3.6 Generate vendor-at-a-glance reports

    3.7 Evaluate VMI personnel

    3.8 Improve professional skills

    3.9 Expand professional knowledge

    3.10 Create brand awareness

    3.11 Survey internal clients

    3.12 Calculate VMI ROI

    3.13 Implement vendor recognition program

    4.1 Investigate potential alliances

    4.2 Continue increasing the VMI’s strategic value

    4.3 Review and update

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    This phase helps you configure, create, and understand the tools and templates used to elevate the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are a clear understanding of the tools that identify which vendors are important to you, tools and concepts to help you take key vendor relationships to the next level, and tools to help you evaluate and improve the VMI and its personnel.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives
    • Legal
    • Marketing
    • Others as needed

    Phase 2 – Build

    Create and configure tools, templates, and processes

    Phase 2 – Build is similar to its counterpart in the Info-Tech blueprint Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative; this phase focuses on tools, templates, and concepts that help the VMI increase its strategic value and impact. The items referenced in this phase will require your customization or configuration to integrate them within your organization and culture for maximum effect.

    One goal of this phase is to provide new ways of looking at things and alternate approaches. (For example, two methods of classifying your vendors are presented for your consideration.) You don’t live in a one-size-fits-all world, and options allow you (or force you) to evaluate what’s possible rather than running with the herd. As you review this phase, keep in mind that some of the concepts presented may not be applicable in your environment…or it may be that they just aren’t applicable right now. Timing, evolution, and maturity will always be factors in how the VMI operates.

    Another goal of this phase is to get you thinking about the value the VMI brings to the organization, and just as important, how to capture and report it. Money alone may be at the forefront of most people’s minds when return on investment is brought up, but there are many ways to measure a VMI’s value and impact. This Phase will help you in your pursuit.

    Lastly, a VMI must focus on its internal clients, and that starts with the VMI’s personnel. The VMI is a reflection of its team members – what they do, say, and know will determine how the VMI is perceived…and used.

    Step 2.1 – Vendor classification model

    Determine which classification model works best for your VMI

    The classification model in the Info-Tech blueprint Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative is simple and easy to use. It provides satisfactory results for the first one or two years of the VMI’s life. After that, a more sophisticated model should be used, one with more parameters or flexibility to accommodate the VMI’s new maturity.

    Two models are presented on the following pages. The first is a variation of the COST model used in the Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative blueprint. The second is the MVP model, which segments vendors into three categories instead of four and eliminates the 50/50 allocation constraint inherent in a 2x2 model.

    Step 2.1 – Vendor classification model

    Configure the COST Vendor Classification Tool

    The image contains a screenshot of the COST classification model.

    If you used the COST classification model in the Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative blueprint, you are familiar with its framework: vendors are plotted into a 2x2 matrix based on their spend and switching costs and their value to your operation. The simple variation of this model uses three variables to assess the vendor’s value to your operation and two variables to determine the vendor’s spend and switching cost implications.

    The COST classification model presented here sticks to the same basic tenets but adds to the number of variables used to plot a vendor’s position within the matrix. Six variables are used to define a vendor’s value and three variables are used to set the spend and switching cost. This provides greater latitude in identifying what makes a vendor important to you.

    Step 2.1 – Vendor classification model

    Configure the MVP Vendor Classification Tool

    The image contains a screenshot example of the MVP clsssification tool.

    Another option for classifying vendors is the MVP classification model. In this model, vendors fall into one of three categories: minor, valued, or principal. Similar to the COST vendor classification model, the MVP classification model requires a user to evaluate statements or questions to assess a vendor’s importance to the organization. In the MVP approach, each question/statement is weighted, and the potential responses to each question/statement are assigned points (100, 33, or 10) based on their impact. Multiplying the weight (expressed as a percentage) for each question/statement by the response points for each question/statement yields a line-item score. The total number of points obtained by a vendor determines its classification category. A vendor receiving a score of 75 or greater would be a principal vendor (similar to a strategic vendor under the COST model); 55 to 74 points would be a valued vendor (similar to operational or tactical vendor); less than 55 points would be a minor vendor (similar to a commodity vendor).

    Step 2.1 – Vendor classification model

    Which classification model is best?

    By now, you may be asking yourself, “Which model should I use? What is the advantage of the MVP model?” Great questions! Both models work well, but the COST model has a limitation inherent in any basic 2x2 model. Since two axes are used in a 2x2 approach, the effective weighting for each axis is 50%. As a result, the weights assigned to an individual element are reduced by 50%. A simple but extreme example will help clarify this issue (hopefully).

    Suppose you wanted to use an element such as How integrated with our business processes are the vendor's products/services? and weighted it 100%. Under the 2x2 matrix approach, this element only moves the X-axis score; it has no impact on the Y-axis score. The vendor in this hypothetical could max out the X-axis under the COST model, but additional elements would be needed for the vendor to rise from the tactical quadrant to the strategic quadrant. In the MVP model, if the vendor maxed out the score on that one element (at 100%), the vendor would be at the top of the pyramid and would be a principal vendor.

    One model is not necessarily better than the other. Both provide an objective way for you to determine the importance of your vendors. However, if you are using elements that don’t fit neatly into the two axes of the COST model, consider using the MVP model. Play with each and see which one works best in your environment, knowing you can always switch at a later point.

    2.1.1 – COST Model Vendor Classification Tool

    15 – 45 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants to decide whether you want to use this model or the MVP model (see next page); if you choose this model, configure it for your environment by reviewing Elevate – COST Model Vendor Classification Tool – Tab 2. Set Parameters.
      1. Review the questions in column C for each axis (items 1-9), the weights in column D, and the answers/descriptors for each question (columns E, F, G, and H). Make any adjustments necessary to fit your culture, environment, and goals.
      2. Using the Jump Start Your Vendor Management blueprint tool Jump - Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 1.7 Vendor Inventory, sort your vendors by spend; if you used multiple line items for a vendor in the Vendor Inventory Tool, aggregate the spend data for this activity.
      3. Adjust the descriptors and values in row 16 (Item 7) to match your actual data. General guidance for establishing the spend ranges is provided in the tool itself.
    2. No other modifications should be made to the parameters.
    Input Output
    • Jump - Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 1.7 Vendor Inventory from the blueprint Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative
    • Configured COST Model Vendor Classification Tool
    Materials Participants
    • Elevate – Cost Model Vendor Classification Tool – Tab 2. Set Parameters
    • VMI team

    Download the Info-Tech Elevate - COST Model Vendor Classification Tool

    2.1.2 – MVP Model Vendor Classification Tool

    15 – 45 Minutes

    1. Meet with the Participants to decide whether you want to use this model or the COST Model (see previous page); if you choose this model, configure it for your environment by reviewing Elevate – MVP Model Vendor Classification Tool – Tab 2. Set Parameters.
    2. Review the questions in column C (Items 1 - 7 ), the answers/descriptors for each question (columns D, E, and F), and the weights in column G. Make any adjustments necessary to fit your culture, environment, and goals.
    3. For the answers/descriptors use words and phrases that resonate with your audience and are as intuitive as possible.
    4. If you use annualized spend as an element, general guidance for establishing the spend ranges is provided in the tool itself.
    5. When assigning a weight value to a question, refrain from going below 5%; weights below this threshold will have minimal to no impact on a vendor's score.
    InputOutput
    • Jump - Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 1.7 Vendor Inventory from the Info-Tech blueprint Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative
    • Configured MVP Model Vendor Classification Tool
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Elevate – MVP Model Vendor Classification Tool – Tab 2. Set Parameters
    • VMI team

    Download the Info-Tech Elevate – MVP Model Vendor Classification Tool

    Step 2.2 – Customer positioning model

    Identify how the vendors view your organization

    The image contains a screenshot of the customer positioning model.

    Now that you have configured your choice of vendor classification model (or decided to stick with your original model), it’s time to think about the other side of the coin: How do your vendors view your organization. Why is this important? Because the VMI will have only limited success if you are trying to impose your will on your vendors without regard for how they view the relationship from their perspective. For example, if the vendor is one of your strategic (COST Model) or principal (MVP Model) vendors, but you don’t spend much money with them, you are difficult to work with, and there is no opportunity for future growth, you may have a difficult time getting the vendor to show up for BAMs (business alignment meetings), caring about scorecards, or caring about the relationship period.

    Our experience at Info-Tech interacting with our members through vendor management workshops, guided implementations, and advisory calls has led us to a significant conclusion on this topic: Most customers tend to overvalue their importance to their vendors. To open your eyes about how your vendors actually view your account, use Info-Tech’s OPEN Model Customer Positioning Tool. (It is based on the supplier preferencing model pioneered by Steele & Court in 1996 in which the standard 2x2 matrix tool for procurement [and eventually vendor management] was repurposed to provide insights from the vendor’s perspective.) For our purposes, think of the OPEN model for customer positioning as a mirror’s reflection of the COST model for vendor classification. The OPEN model provides a more objective way to determine your importance to your vendors. Ultimately, your relationship with each vendor will be plotted into the 2x2 grid, and it will indicate whether your account is viewed as an opportunity, preferred, exploitable, or negligible.

    *Adapted from Profitable Purchasing Strategies by Paul T. Steele and Brian H. Court

    Step 2.3 – Two-way scorecards

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors

    The image contains a screenshot example of the otwo-way feedback loop with vendors.

    As with the vendor classification models discussed in Step 2.1, the two-way scorecards presented here are an extension of the scorecard and feedback material from the Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative blueprint.

    The vendor scorecard in this blueprint provides additional flexibility and sophistication for your scorecarding approach by allowing the individual variables (or evidence indicators) within each measurement category to be evaluated and weighted. (The prior version only allowed the evaluation and weighting at the category level.)

    On the vendor feedback side, the next evolution is to formalize the feedback and document it in its own scorecard format rather than continuing to list questions in the BAM agenda. The vendor feedback template included with this blueprint provides a sample approach to quantifying the vendor’s feedback and tracking the information.

    The fundamentals of scorecarding remain the same:

    • Keep your eye on what is important to you.
    • Limit the number of measurement categories and evidence indicators to a reasonable and manageable number.
    • Simple is almost always better than complicated.

    2.3.1 – Two-way scorecards (vendor scorecard)

    15 – 60 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants to configure the scorecard from Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.3.1 Vendor Scorecard to meet your needs:
      1. Review the measurement categories and criteria and modify as needed.
      2. Weight the measurement categories (Column E) according to their relative importance to each other; make sure the total adds up to 100%.
      3. Weight the measurement criteria (Column D) within each measurement category according to their relative importance to each other; make sure the total adds up to 100%.
    2. As a reminder, the vendor scorecard is for the vendor overall, not for a specific contract.
    3. You can create variations of the scorecard based on vendor categories (e.g. hardware, software, cloud, security, telecom), but avoid the temptation of creating vendor-specific scorecards unless the vendor is unique; conversely, you may want to create two or more scorecards for a vendor that crosses categories (one for each category).
    InputOutput
    • Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.3.1 Vendor Scorecard
    • Brainstorming
    • Configured vendor scorecards
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.3.1 Vendor Scorecard
    • VMI team

    Download the Info-Tech Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium

    2.3.2 – Two-way scorecards (vendor feedback form)

    15 – 60 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants to configure the feedback form from Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.3.2 Vendor Feedback Form to meet your needs:
      1. Review the measurement categories and criteria and modify as needed.
      2. Weight the measurement categories (Column E) according to their relative importance to each other; make sure the total adds up to 100%.
      3. Weight the measurement criteria (Column D) within each measurement category according to their relative importance to each other; make sure the total adds up to 100%.
    2. As a reminder, the vendor feedback form is for the relationship overall and not for a specific contract.
    3. You can create variations of the feedback form based on vendor categories (e.g. hardware, software, cloud, security, telecom), but avoid the temptation of creating vendor-specific feedback forms unless the vendor is unique; conversely, you may want to create two or more feedback forms for a vendor that crosses categories and you work with different account management teams (one for each team).
    InputOutput
    • Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.3.2 Vendor Feedback Form
    • Brainstorming
    • Configured vendor feedback forms
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.3.2 Vendor Feedback Form
    • VMI team

    Download the Info-Tech Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 2.4 – Performance improvement plan (PIP)

    Design your template to help underperforming vendors

    It is not uncommon to see performance dips from even the best vendors. However, when poor performance becomes a trend, the vendor manager can work with the vendor to create and implement a performance improvement plan (PIP).

    Performance issues can come from a variety of sources:

    • Contractual obligations.
    • Scorecard items.
    • Compliance issues not specified in the contract.
    • Other areas/expectations not covered by the scorecard or contract (e.g. vendor personnel showing up late for meetings, vendor personnel not being adequately trained, vendor personnel not being responsive).

    PIPs should focus on at least a few key areas:

    • The stated performance in the contract or the expected performance.
    • The actual performance provided by the vendor.
    • The impact of the vendor’s poor performance on the customer.
    • A corrective action plan, including steps to be taken by the vendor and due dates and/or review dates.
    • The consequences for not improving the performance level.

    Info-Tech Insight

    PIPs are most effective when the vendor is an operational, strategic, or tactical vendor (COST model) or a principal or valued vendor (MVP model) and when you are an opportunity or preferred customer (OPEN model).

    2.4.1 – Performance improvement plan (PIP)

    15 – 30 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants to review the two options for PIPs: Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium – Tabs 2.4.1 and 2.4.2. Decide whether you want to use one or both options.
    2. Modify, add, or delete elements from either or both options to meet your needs.
    3. If you want to add signature lines for acknowledgement by the parties or other elements that may have legal implications, check with your legal advisors.
    InputOutput
    • Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium - Tabs 2.4.1 and 2.4.2
    • Brainstorming
    • Configured performance improvement plan templates
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium - Tabs 2.4.1 and 2.4.2
    • VMI team

    Download the Info-Tech Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 2.5 – Relationship improvement plan (RIP)

    Identify key relationship indicators for your vendors

    Relationships are often taken for granted, and many faulty assumptions are made by both parties in the relationship: good relationships will stay good, bad relationships will stay bad, and relationships don’t require any work. In the vendor management space, these assumptions can derail the entire VMI and diminish the value added to your organization by vendors.

    To complicate matters, relationships are multi-faceted. They can occur:

    • On an organization-to-organization, working level.
      • Do your roadmaps align with the vendors?
      • Do the parties meet their contractual obligations?
      • Do the parties meet their day-to-day requirements (meetings, invoices, responses to inquiries)?
    • On an individual, personnel-to-personnel basis.
      • Do you have a good relationship with the account manager?
      • Does your project manager work well with the vendor’s project manager?
      • Do your executives have good relationships with their counterparts at the vendor?

    Improving or maintaining a relationship will not happen by accident. There must be a concerted effort to achieve the desired results (or get as close as possible). A relationship improvement plan can be used to improve or maintain a relationship with the vendor and the individuals who make up the vendor’s organization.

    Step 2.5 – Relationship improvement plan (RIP)

    Identify key relationship indicators for your vendors (continued)

    Improving relationships (or even maintaining them) requires a plan. The first step is to understand the current situation: Is the relationship good, bad, or somewhere in between? While the analysis will be somewhat subjective, it can be made more objective than merely thinking about relationships emotionally or intuitively. Relationships can be assessed based on the presence and quality of certain traits, factors, and elements. For example, you may think communication is important in a relationship. However, that is too abstract and subjective; to be more objective, you would need to identify the indicators or qualities of good communication. For a vendor relationship, they might include (but wouldn’t necessarily be limited to):

    • Vendor communication is accurate and complete.
    • Vendor personnel respond to inquiries on a timely basis.
    • Vendor personnel communications are easy to understand.
    • Vendor personnel communicate with you in your preferred manner (text, email, phone).
    • Vendor personnel discuss the pros and cons of vendor products/services being presented.

    Evaluating these statements on a predefined and consistent scale establishes the baseline necessary to conduct a gap analysis. The second half of the equation is the future state. Using the same criteria, what would or should the communication component look like a year from now? After that is determined, a plan can be created to improve the deficient areas and maintain the acceptable areas.

    Although this example focused on one category, the same methodology can be used for additional categories. It all starts with the simple question that requires a complex answer, “What traits are important to you and are indicators of a good relationship?”

    2.5.1 – Relationship Improvement Plan (RIP)

    15 – 60 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants to configure the relationship indicators in Elevate – Relationship Assessment and Improvement Plan tool – Tab 2. Set Parameters.
    2. Review the 60 relationship indicators in column E of Tab 2. Set Parameters.
    3. Identify any relationship indicators that are important to you but that are missing from the prepopulated list.
    4. Add the relationship indicators you identified in step 3 above in the space provided at the end of column E of Tab 2. Set Parameters. There is space for up to 15 additional relationship indicators.
    InputOutput
    • Elevate – Relationship Assessment and Improvement Plan Tool
    • Brainstorming
    • Configured Relationship Assessment and Improvement Plan tool
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Elevate – Relationship Assessment and Improvement Plan tool
    • Whiteboard of flip chart
    • VMI team

    Download the Info-Tech Elevate – Relationship Assessment and Improvement Plan tool

    Step 2.6 – Vendor-at-a-glance reports

    Configure executive and stakeholder reports

    Executives and stakeholders (“E&S”) discuss vendors during internal meetings and often meet directly with vendors as well. Having a solid working knowledge of all the critical vendors used by an organization is nearly impossible for E&S. Without situational awareness, though, E&S can appear uninformed, can be at the mercy of others with better information, and can be led astray by misinformation. To prevent these and other issues from derailing the E&S, two essential vendor-at-a-glance reports can be used.

    The first report is the 60-Second Report. As the name implies, the report can be reviewed and digested in roughly a minute. The report provides a lot of information on one page in a combination of graphics, icons, charts, and words.

    The second report is a vendor calendar. Although it is a simple document, the Vendor Calendar is a powerful communication tool to keep E&S informed of upcoming events with a vendor. The purpose is not to replace the automated calendaring systems (e.g. Outlook), but to supplement them.

    Combined, the 60-Second Report and the Vendor Calendar provide E&S with an overview of the information required for any high-level meeting with a vendor or to discuss a vendor.

    2.6.1 – Vendor-at-a-glance reports (60-Second Report)

    30 – 90 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants to review the sample 60-Second Report and the Checklist of Potential Topics in Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.6.1 V-at-a-G 60-Second Report.
    2. Identify topics of interest and ways to convey the data/information. (Make sure the data sources are valid and the data are easy to obtain.)
    3. Create a framework for the report and populate the fields with sample data. Use one printed page as a guideline for the framework; if it doesn’t fit on one page, adjust the amount of content until it does. If you adjust the margins, font, size of the graphic content, and other items, make sure you don’t reduce the size too much. The brain needs white space to more easily absorb the content, and people shouldn’t have to squint to read the content!
    4. Share the mockup with the intended audience and get their feedback. Use an iterative approach until you are satisfied that no further changes are necessary (or reasonable). Keep in mind that you will not be able to please everyone!
    InputOutput
    • Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.6.1 V-at-a-G 60-Second Report
    • Design elements and framework for 60-Second Reports
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.6.1. V-at-a-G 60-Second Report
    • Whiteboard or flip chart
    • VMI team

    Download the Info-Tech Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium

    2.6.2 – Vendor-at-a-glance reports (vendor calendar)

    15 – 30 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants to review the sample Vendor Calendar format in Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.6.2 V-at-a-G Vendor Calendar.
    2. Brainstorm as a team to identify items to include in the calendar (e.g. business alignment meeting dates, conference dates, contract renewals).
    3. Determine whether you want the Vendor Calendar to be:
      1. A calendar year or a fiscal year (if they are different in your organization)
      2. A rolling twelve-month calendar or a fixed calendar.
    4. Decide whether the fill color for each month should change based on your answers in 3, above. For example, you might want a color scheme by quarter or by year (if you choose a rolling twelve-month calendar).
    5. Share the mockup with the intended audience to get their feedback. Use an iterative approach until you are satisfied that no further changes are necessary (or reasonable). Keep in mind you will not be able to please everyone!
    InputOutput
    • Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.6.2 V-at-a-G Vendor Calendar
    • Brainstorming
    • Framework and topics for Vendor Calendar Reports
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.6.2 V-at-a-G Vendor Calendar
    • Whiteboard or flip chart
    • VMI team

    Download the Info-Tech Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 2.7 – VMI personnel competency evaluation tool

    Identify skills, competencies, and knowledge required for success

    The image contains a screenshot of the VMI personnel competency evaluation tool.

    By now, you have built and begun managing the VMI’s 3-year roadmap and 90-day plans to help you navigate the VMI’s day-to-day operational path. To complement these plans, it is time to build a roadmap for the VMI’s personnel as well. It doesn’t matter whether VMI is just you, you and some part-time personnel, a robust and fully staffed vendor management office, or some other point on the vendor management spectrum. The VMI is a reflection of its personnel, and they must improve their skills, competencies, and knowledge (“S/C/K”) over time for the VMI to reach its potential. As the adage says, “What got you here won’t get you there.”

    To get there requires a plan that starts with creating an inventory of the VMI’s team members’ S/C/K. Initially, focus on two items:

    • What S/C/K does the VMI currently have across its personnel?
    • What S/C/K does the VMI need to get to the next level?

    Conducting an assessment of and developing an improvement plan for each team member will be addressed later in this blueprint. (See steps 3.7 – Evaluate VMI Personnel, 3.8 – Improve Professional Skills, and 3.9 - Expand Professional Knowledge.)

    2.7.1 – VMI Personnel Competency Evaluation Tool

    15 – 60 Minutes

    1. Review the two options of the competency matrix found in Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium tabs 2.7.1 and 2.7.2 and decide which format you want to use.
    2. Review and modify as needed the prepopulated list of skills, competencies, knowledge, and other intellectual assets found in section 1 of the template option you selected in step 1. The list you use should reflect items that are important to your VMI's mission, goals, scope, charter, and operations.
    3. No changes are required to Sections 2 and 3. They are dashboards and will be updated automatically based on any changes you make to the skills, competencies, knowledge, and other intellectual assets elements in section 1.
    Input Output
    • Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium – Tabs 2.7.1 and 2.7.2
    • Current job descriptions
    • A list of competencies, skills, and knowledge VMI personnel
      • Should have
      • Do have

    An assessment and inventory of competencies, skills, knowledge, and other intellectual assets by VMI team member

    Materials Participants
    • Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium – Tabs 2.7.1 and 2.7.2
    • VMI team lead
    • VMI team members as needed

    Download the Info-Tech Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium.

    Step 2.8 – Internal feedback tool

    Create a user-friendly survey to learn about the VMI’s impact on the organization

    The image contains a screenshot of the internal feedback tool.

    *Adapted from “Best Practices for Every Step of Survey Creation” from surveymonkey.com and “The 9 Most Important Survey Design Tips & Best Practices” by Swetha Amaresan.

    As part of the vendor management lifecycle, the VMI conducts an annual review to assesses compliance with policies and procedures, to incorporate changes in leading practices, to ensure that lessons learned are captured and leveraged, to validate that internal alignment is maintained, and to update governances as needed. As the VMI matures, the annual review process should incorporate feedback from those the VMI serves and those directly impacted by the VMI’s efforts. Your internal clients and others will be able to provide insights on what the VMI does well, what needs improvement, what challenges arise when using the VMI’s services, and other issues.

    A few best practices for creating surveys are set out below:*

    1. Start by establishing a clearly defined, attainable, and high-level goal by filling in the blank: "I want to better understand [blank] (e.g. how the VMI impacts our clients and the executives/stakeholders)." From there, you can begin to derive questions that will help you meet your stated goal.
    2. Use mostly “closed-ended” questions in the survey – responses selected from a list provided. Do ask some “open-ended” questions at the end of the survey to obtain specific examples, anecdotes, or compliments by providing space for the respondent to provide a narrative.
    3. Avoid using biased and leading questions, for example, “Would you say the VMI was great or merely fabulous?” The goal is to get real feedback that helps the VMI improve. Don’t ask the respondents to tell you what you want to hear…listen to what they have to say.

    Step 2.8 – Internal feedback tool

    Create a user-friendly survey to learn about the VMI’s impact on the organization (continued)

    The image contains a screenshot of the internal feedback tool.

    4. Pay attention to your vocabulary and phrasing; use simple words. The goal is to communicate effectively and solicit feedback, and that all starts with the respondents being able to understand what you are asking or seeking.

    5. Use response scales and keep the answer choices balanced. You want the respondents to find an answer that matches their feedback. For example, potential answers such as “strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree” are better than “strongly agree, agree, other.”

    6. To improve your response rate, keep your survey short. Most people don’t like surveys, but they really hate long surveys. Make every question count, and keep the average response time to a maximum of a couple of minutes.

    7. Watch out for “absolutes;” they can hurt the quality of your responses. Avoid using language such as always, never, all, and every in your questions or statements. They tend to polarize the evaluation and make it feel like an all-or-nothing situation.

    8. Ask one question at a time or request evaluation of one statement at a time. Combining two topics into the same question or statement (double-barreled questions or statements) makes it difficult for the respondent to determine how to answer if both parts require different answers, for example, “During your last interaction with the VMI, how would you rate our assistance and friendliness?”

    2.8.1 – Internal Feedback Tool

    15 – 60 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and review the information in Elevate – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.8.
    2. Two types of surveys are referenced in tab 2.8: a general awareness survey and a specific interaction survey. Decide whether you want to create one or both for your VMI.
      1. For a general awareness survey, review the questions in part 1 of tab 2.8 and make any changes required to meet your needs. Try to keep the number of questions to seven or less. Determine who will receive the survey and how often it will be used.
      2. For a specific interaction survey, review the questions in Part 2 of Tab 2.8. Select up to 7 questions you want to use, making changes to existing questions or creating your own. The goal of this survey is to solicit feedback immediately after one of your internal clients has used the VMI’s services. You may need multiple variations of the survey based on the types of interactions or services the VMI provides.
    3. Balance the length of the surveys against the information you are seeking and the time required for the respondents to complete the survey.
    InputOutput
    • Elevate – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.8
    • Brainstorming
    • Configured internal surveys
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Elevate – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.8
    • VMI team

    Download the Info-Tech Elevate –Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 2.9 – VMI ROI calculation

    Identify ROI variables to track

    After the VMI has been operating for a year or two, questions may begin to surface about the value the VMI provides. “We’re making an investment in the VMI. What are we getting in return?” “Does the VMI provide us with any tangible benefits, or is it another mandatory area like Internal Audit?” To keep the naysayers at bay, start tracking the value the VMI adds to the organization or the return on investment (ROI) provided.

    The easy thing to focus on is money: hard-dollar savings, soft-dollar savings, and cost avoidance. However, the VMI often plays a critical role in vendor-facing activities that lead to saving time, improving performance, and managing risk. All of these are quantifiable and trackable. In addition, internal customer satisfaction (step 2.8 and step 3.11) can provide examples of the VMI’s impact beyond the four pillars of money, time, performance, and risk.

    VMI ROI is a multifaceted and complex topic that is beyond the scope of this blueprint. However, you can do a deep (or shallow) dive on this topic by downloading and reading Info-Tech’s blueprint Capture and Market the ROI of Your VMO to plot your path for tracking and reporting the VMI’s ROI or value.

    Download the Info-Tech blueprint Capture and Market the ROI of Your VMO

    2.9.1 – VMI ROI calculation

    2 – 4 Hours

    1. Meet with the participants to review the Info-Tech blueprint Capture and Market the ROI of Your VMO.
    2. Identify your ROI maturity level using the tools from that blueprint.
    3. Develop a game plan for measuring and reporting your ROI.
    4. Configure the tools to meet your needs.
    5. Gain approval from applicable stakeholders or executives.
    Input Output
    • The tools and materials from the Info-Tech blueprint Capture and Market the ROI of Your VMO
    • Brainstorming
    • Game plan for measuring and reporting ROI
    Materials Participants
    • The Info-Tech blueprint Capture and Market the ROI of Your VMO and its tools
    • VMI team
    • Executives and stakeholders as needed

    Download the Info-Tech blueprint Capture and Market the ROI of Your VMO

    Step 2.10 – Vendor recognition program

    Address the foundational elements of your program

    A vendor recognition program can provide many benefits to your organization. Obtaining those benefits requires a solid plan and the following foundational elements:

    • Internal alignment: The program must align with your organization’s principles and culture. A vendor recognition program that accentuates value and collaboration will not succeed in a customer environment that operates with a “lowest cost wins/price is the only thing we care about” mentality.
    • Funding: Not every program requires extensive funding (or any funding), but more formal vendor recognition programs do require some investment. Underfunding will make your program look cheap and unimpressive. For example, a certificate of appreciation printed on plain paper using a Word template doesn’t send the same message as a nice plaque engraved with the winner’s name.
    • Support: Executive buy-in and support are essential. Without this, only the most informal vendor recognition programs stand a chance of surviving. Executives and stakeholders are often directly involved in formal programs, and this broadens the appeal of the program from the vendor’s perspective.
    • Designated leader: Someone needs to be in charge of the vendor recognition program. This doesn’t mean only one person is doing all the work, but it does require one person to lead the effort and drive the program forward. Much like the VMI itself, there are things the leader will be able to do themselves and things that will require the input, assistance, and participation from others throughout the organization.

    Step 2.10 – Vendor recognition program

    Leverage the advantages of recognizing vendors

    As with any project, there are advantages and disadvantages with implementing and operating a vendor recognition program.

    Advantages:

    • The Pygmalion effect may come into play; the vendors’ performance can be influenced by your expectations as conveyed through the program.
    • There may be some prestige for the vendor associated with winning one of your awards or receiving recognition.
    • Vendor recognition programs can be viewed as a competition, and this can improve vendor performance as it relates to the program and program categories.
    • The program can provide additional feedback to the vendor on what's important to you and help the vendor focus on those items.
    • The vendors’ executives may have an increased awareness of your organization, which can help build relationships.
    • Performance gains can be maintained or increased. Vendors are competitive by nature. Once a vendor wins an award or receives the recognition, it will strive to win again the following year (or measurement period).

    Step 2.10 – Vendor recognition program

    Manage the disadvantages of recognizing vendors

    Just as a coin has two sides, there are two sides to a vendor recognition program. Advantages must be weighed against disadvantages, or at the very least, you must be aware of the potential disadvantages.

    Disadvantages:

    • The program may require funding, depending upon the scope and type of awards, rewards, and recognition being provided.
    • Some vendors who don’t qualify for the program or who fail to win may get hurt feelings. This may alienate them.
    • In addition to hurt feelings from being excluded or finishing outside of the winner’s circle, some vendors may believe the program shows favoritism to certain vendors or is too subjective.
    • Some vendors may not “participate” in the program; they may not understand the WIIFM (what’s in it for me). You may have to “sell” the benefits and advantages of participation to the vendors.
    • Participation may vary by size of vendor. The award, reward, or recognition may mean more to small and mid-sized companies than large companies.

    Step 2.10 – Vendor recognition program

    Create your program’s framework

    There is no one-size-fits-all approach to creating a vendor recognition program. Your program should align with your goals. For example, do you want to drive performance and collaboration, or do you want to recognize vendors that exceed your expectations? While these are not mutually exclusive, the first step is to identify your goals. Next, focus on whether you want a formal or informal program. An informal program could consist of sending thank-you emails or notes to vendor personnel who go above and beyond; a formal program could consist of objective criteria announced and measured annually, with the winners receiving plaques, publicity, and/or recognition at a formal award ceremony with your executives. Once you have determined the type of program you want, you can begin building the framework.

    Take a “crawl, walk, run” approach to designing, implementing, and running your vendor recognition program. Start small and build on your successes. If you try something and it doesn’t work the way you intended, regroup and try again.

    The vendor recognition program may or may not end up residing in the VMI. Regardless, the VMI can be instrumental in creating the program and reinforcing it with the vendors. Even if the program is run and operated by the VMI, other departments will need to be involved. Seek input from the legal and marketing departments to build a durable program that works for your environment and maximizes its impact.

    Lastly, don’t overlook the simple gestures…they go a long way to making people feel appreciated in today’s impersonal world. A simple (but specific) thank-you can have a lasting impact, and not everything needs to be about the vendor’s organization. People make the organization “go,” not the other way around.

    2.10.1 – Vendor recognition program

    30 – 90 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants to review the checklist in Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.10 Vendor Recognition.
      1. Decide whether you want to create a program that recognizes individual vendor personnel. If so, review part 1 of tab 2.10 and select the elements you are interested in using to build your program.
      2. Decide whether you want to create a program that recognizes vendors at the company level. If so, review part 2 of tab 2.10.
        1. The first section lists elements of an informal and a formal approach. Decide which approach you want to take.
        2. The second section focuses on creating a formal recognition program. Review the checklist and identify elements that you want to include or issues that must be addressed in creating your program.
    2. Create a draft framework of your programs and work with other areas to finalize the program elements, timeline, marketing, budget, and other considerations.
    Input Output
    • Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.10 Vendor Recognition
    • Brainstorming
    • A framework for a vendor recognition program
    Materials Participants
    • Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.10. Vendor Recognition
    • Whiteboard or flip chart
    • VMI team
    • Executives and stakeholders as needed
    • Marketing and legal as needed

    Download the Info-Tech Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium

    Phase 3 – Run

    Use New and Updated Tools and Increase the VMI’s Impact

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    Phase 4

    1.1 Review and update existing Plan materials

    2.1 Vendor classification models

    2.2 Customer positioning model

    2.3 Two-way scorecards

    2.4 Performance improvement plan (PIP)

    2.5 Relationship improvement plan (RIP)

    2.6 Vendor-at-a-glance reports

    2.7 VMI personnel competency evaluation tool

    2.8 Internal feedback tool

    2.9 VMI ROI calculation

    2.10 Vendor recognition program

    3.1 Classify vendors and identify customer position

    3.2 Assess the relationship landscape

    3.3 Leverage two-way scorecards

    3.4 Implement PIPs and RIPs

    3.5 Gather market intelligence

    3.6 Generate vendor-at-a-glance reports

    3.7 Evaluate VMI personnel

    3.8 Improve professional skills

    3.9 Expand professional knowledge

    3.10 Create brand awareness

    3.11 Survey internal clients

    3.12 Calculate VMI ROI

    3.13 Implement vendor recognition program

    4.1 Investigate potential alliances

    4.2 Continue increasing the VMI’s strategic value

    4.3 Review and update

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    This phase helps you begin integrating the new tools and templates into the VMI’s operations. The main outcomes from this phase are guidance and the steps required to continue your VMI’s maturation and evolution.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • VMI team
    • IT
    • Legal
    • Marketing
    • Human resources
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives
    • Others as needed

    Phase 3 – Run

    Implement new processes, tools, and templates and leverage new concepts

    The review and assessment conducted in Phase 1 – Plan and the tools and templates created and configured during Phase 2 – Build are ready for use and incorporation into your operations. As you trek through Phase 3 – Run, a couple of familiar concepts will be reviewed (vendor classification and scorecarding), and additional details on previously introduced concepts will be provided (customer positioning, surveying internal clients); in addition, new ideas will be presented for your consideration:

    • Assessing the relationship landscape
    • Gathering market intelligence
    • Improving professional skills
    • Expanding professional knowledge
    • Creating brand awareness

    Step 3.1 – Classify vendors & identify customer position

    Classify your top 25 vendors by spend

    The methodology used to classify your vendors in the blueprint Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative applies here as well, regardless of whether you use the COST model or the MVP model. Info-Tech recommends using an iterative approach initially to validate the results from the model you configured in step 2.1.

    1. Start with your top 25 vendors by spend. From this pool, select 10 vendors: choose your top three vendors by spend, three from the middle of the pack (e.g. numbers 14, 15, and 16 by spend), and the bottom four by spend. Run all 10 vendors through the classification model and review the results.
    2. If the results are what you expected and do not contain any significant surprises, run the rest of the top 25 vendors through the model.
    3. If the results are not what you expected or do contain significant surprises, look at the configuration page of the tool (tab 2) and adjust the weights slightly. Be cautious in your evaluation of the results before modifying the configuration page – some legitimate results are unexpected or surprises based on biases or subjective expectations. Proceed to point 1 above and repeat this process as needed.

    Remember to share the results with executives and stakeholders. Switching from one classification model to another may lead to concerns or questions. As always, obtain their buy-in on the final results.

    Step 3.1 – Classify vendors and identify customer position

    Translate terminology and processes if you use the MVP vendor classification model

    If you use the MVP model, the same features will be applicable and the same processes will be followed after classifying your vendors, despite the change in nomenclature. (Strategic vendors are the equivalent of principal vendors; high operational and high tactical vendors are the equivalent of valued vendors; and all other vendors are the equivalent of minor vendors.)

    • Roughly 5% (max) of your total vendor population will be classified as principal.
    • Approximately 10% (max) of your total vendor population will be classified as valued.
    • About 80% of your total vendor population will be classified as minor.
    • Business alignment meetings should be conducted and scorecards should be compiled quarterly for your principal vendors and at least every six months for your valued vendors; business alignment meetings are not necessary for your minor vendors.
    • All other activities will be based on the criteria you used in your MVP model. For example, risk measuring, monitoring, and reporting might be done quarterly for principal and valued vendors if risk is a significant component in your MVP model; if risk is a lesser component, measuring, monitoring, and reporting might be done less frequently (every six or 12 months).

    Step 3.1 – Classify vendors and identify customer position

    Determine your customer position for your top 25 vendors using the OPEN model

    The image contains a screenshot of the customer positioning model.

    After classifying your vendors, run your top 25 vendors through the OPEN Model Customer Positioning Tool. The information you need can come from multiple sources, including:

    • Talking to internal personnel to determine responses to the OPEN model assessment statements.
    • Compiling spend information.
    • Looking at the vendors’ financial statements.
    • Talking with the vendors to glean additional information.

    At first blush, the results can run the emotional and logical gamut: shocking, demeaning, degrading, comforting, insightful, accurate, off-kilter, or a combination of these and other reactions. To a certain extent, that is the point of the activity. As previously stated, customers often overestimate their importance to a vendor. To be helpful, your perspective must be as objective as possible rather than the subjective view painted by the account team and others within the vendor (e.g. “You’re my favorite client,” “We love working with you,” “You’re one of our key accounts,” or “You’re one of our best clients.”) The vendor often puts customers on a pedestal that is nothing more than sales puffery. How a vendor treats you is more important than them telling you how great you are.

    Use the OPEN model results and the material on the following pages to develop a game plan as you move forward with your vendor-facing VMI activities. The outcomes of the OPEN model will impact your business alignment meetings, scorecards, relationships, expectations, and many other facets of the VMI.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The OPEN Model Customer Positioning Tool can be adapted for use at the account manager level to determine how important your account is to the account manager.

    *Adapted from Profitable Purchasing Strategies by Paul T. Steele and Brian H. Court

    Step 3.1 – Classify vendors and identify customer position

    Learn how each quadrant of the open model impacts your organization (continued)

    Opportunity

    Low value and high attractiveness

    Characteristics and potential actions by the vendor

    • Higher level of service provided.
    • Higher level of attention.
    • Nurture the customer.1
    • Expand the business and relationship.1
    • Seek new opportunities.2
    • Provide proactive service.
    • Demonstrate added value.

    Customer strategies

    • Leverage the position – the vendor may be willing (at least in the short term) to meet your requirements in order to win more business.3
    • Look for ways to improve your value to the vendor and to grow the relationship and business if it works to your advantage.
    1. Procurement Cube, 2020. 2. Accuity Consultants, 2012. 3. New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment, 2021.

    Step 3.1 – Classify vendors and identify customer position

    Learn how each quadrant of the OPEN model impacts your organization (continued)

    Preferred

    High value and high attractiveness

    Characteristics and potential actions by the vendor

    • High level of service provided.
    • High level of attention, service, and response.1
    • The supplier actively seeks longer-term commitments.2
    • Retain and expand the business and relationship.3
    • Look after and pamper the customer.4
    • Fight to keep the account.
    • There is a dedicated account manager2 (you are the account manager’s only account).

    Customer strategies

    • Establish a rewarding business relationship in which both parties continually seek to add value.3
    • Leverage the relationship to gain better access to innovation, collaborate to eliminate waste, and work together to maintain or increase your competitive advantages.1
      1. Procurement Cube, 2020. 2. Comprara, 2015. 3. New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment, 2021. 4. Accuity Consultants, 2012.

    Step 3.1 – Classify vendors and identify customer position

    Learn how each quadrant of the OPEN model impacts your organization (continued)

    Exploitable

    High value and low attractiveness

    Characteristics and potential actions by the vendor

    • Lower level of service provided.
    • Lower level of attention.
    • Strive for best price from the customer (i.e. premium pricing).1
    • Seek short-term advantage and consistent price increases.
    • Accept risk of losing the customer.
    • Focus on maximizing profits.2
    • Provide reactive service.

    Customer strategies

    • Look for alternative vendors or try to make the relationship more attractive by considering more efficient ways to do business2 or focusing on issues other than pricing.
    • Identify ways to improve your organization’s attractiveness to the vendor or the account manager.
    1. Accuity Consultants, 2012. 2. New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment, 2021.

    Step 3.1 – Classify vendors and identify customer position

    Learn how each quadrant of the open model impacts your organization

    Negligible

    Low value and low attractiveness

    Characteristics and potential actions by the vendor

    • Lower level of service provided.
    • Lower level of attention.1
    • Loss of interest and enthusiasm for customer’s business.
    • Loss of customer will not cause any pain.1
    • Terminate the relationship.2
    • Terms and conditions are the “standard” terms and are non-negotiable.3
    • There is a standard price list and discounts are in line with industry norms.3

    Customer strategies

    • You may wish to consider sourcing from other suppliers who value your business more highly.2
    • Identify the root cause of your position and determine whether it is worthwhile (or possible) to improve your position.
    1. Procurement Cube, 2020. 2. New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment, 2021. 3 Comprara, 2015.

    Step 3.1 – Classify vendors and identify customer position

    Think like a vendor to increase situational awareness

    In summary, vendor actions are understandable and predictable. Learning about how they think and act is invaluable. As some food for thought, consider this snippet from an article aimed at vendors:

    “The [customer positioning] grid or matrix is, in itself, a valuable snapshot of the portfolio of customers. However, it is what we do with this information that governs how effective the tool is. It can be used in many ways:

    • It helps in the allocation of resources to specific customers, and whether the right resources are being allocated to the right customers.
    • It can determine the style of relationship that is appropriate to have with this client – and whether the real relationship truly reflects this.
    • It can influence the amount of time spent with these clients. Interestingly, we often find that a disproportionate amount of management time is spent on [Negligible] Customers (at the expense of spending more time with [Preferred] Accounts)!
    • It should significantly influence the price and profitability targets for specific customers.
    • And, last but by no means least, it should determine our negotiation style for different customers.”1
    1 “Rule No. 5: All Customers/Suppliers Have a Different Value to You,” New Dawn Partners.

    Step 3.2 – Assess the relationship landscape

    Identify key relationships and relationship risks

    After classifying your vendors (COST or MVP model) and identifying your positioning for the top vendors via the OPEN Model Customer Positioning Tool, the next step is to assess the relationship landscape. For key vendors (strategic, high operational, and high tactical under the COST model and principal and valued under the MVP model), look closer at the relationships that currently exist:

    • What peer-to-peer relationships exist between your organization and the vendor (e.g. your project manager works closely with the vendor’s project manager)? Look across executives, mid-level management, and frontline employees.
    • What politically charged relationships exist between employees of the two organizations and the organizations themselves? Examples include:
      • Friendships, neighbors, and relationships fostered by children on the same sports team or engaged in other activities.
      • Serving on third-party boards of directors or working with the same charities in an active capacity.
      • Reciprocity relationships where each organization is a customer and vendor to the other (e.g. a bank buys hardware from the vendor and the vendor uses the customer for its banking needs).
    • How long has the contract relationship been in place?

    This information will provide a more holistic view of the dynamics at work (or just beneath the surface) beyond the contract and operational relationships. It will also help you understand any relationship leverage that may be in play…now or in the future…from each party’s perspective.

    3.2.1 – Assess the relationship landscape

    10 - 30 Minutes per vendor

    1. Decide whether to meet with the participants in small groups or as a large group.
    2. Using Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 3.2 Relationship Landscape, for each important vendor (strategic, tactical, and operational under the COST model or principal and valued under the MVP model), identify and evaluate the relationships that exist for the following categories:
      1. Professional: relationships your personnel have with the vendor’s executives, mid-level management, and frontline employees.
      2. Political: personal relationships between customer and vendor personnel, any professional connections, and any reciprocity between your organization and the vendor.
    Input Output
    • Relationship information
    • Vendor classification categories for each vendor being assessed
    • A list of customer-vendor relationships
    • Potential reciprocity issues to manage
    Materials Participants
    • Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 3.2 Relationship Landscape
    • VMI team
    • Stakeholders
    • Others with knowledge of customer/vendor relationships

    Download the Info-Tech Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 3.3 – Leverage two-way scorecards

    Roll out your new vendor scorecards and feedback forms

    As you roll out your new, enhanced scorecards, the same principles apply. Only a couple of modifications need to be made to your processes.

    For the vendor scorecards, the VMI will still be driving the process, and internal personnel will still be completing the scorecards. An email or short orientation meeting for those involved will ease the transition from the old format to the new format. Consider creating a FAQ (frequently asked questions) for the new template, format, and content; you’ll be able to leverage it via the email or meeting to answer questions such as: What changed? Why did it change? Why are we doing this? In addition, making a change to the format and content may generate a need for new or additional internal personnel to be part of the scorecarding process. A scorecarding kick-off meeting or orientation meeting will ensure that the new participants buy into the process and acclimate to the process quickly.

    For the vendor feedback, the look and feel is completely new. The feedback questions that were part of the BAM agenda have been replaced by a more in-depth approach that mirrors the vendor scorecards. Consider conducting a kick-off meeting with each participating vendor to ensure they understand the importance of the feedback form and the process for completing it. Remember to update your process to remind the vendors to submit the feedback forms three to five business days prior to the BAM (and update your BAM agenda). You will want time to review the feedback and identify any questions or items that need to be clarified. Lastly, set aside some extra time to review the feedback form in the first BAM after you shift to the formal format.

    Step 3.4 – Implement PIPs and RIPs

    Improve vendor performance

    Underperforming vendors are similar to underperforming employees. There can be many reasons for the lackluster performance, and broaching the subject of a PIP may put the vendor on the defensive. Consider working with the human resources department (or whatever it is called in your organization) to learn some of the subtle nuances and best practices from the employee PIP realm that can be used in the vendor PIP realm.

    When developing the PIP, make sure you:

    • Work with legal to ensure compliance with the contract and applicable laws.
    • Adequately convey the expected performance to the vendor; it is unfair to hold a vendor accountable for unreasonable and unconveyed expectations.
    • Work with the vendor on the PIP rather than imposing the PIP on the vendor.
    • Remain objective and be realistic about timelines and improvement.

    Not all performance issues require a PIP; some can be addressed one-on-one with the vendor’s account manager, project manager, or other personnel. The key is to identify meaningful problems and use a PIP to resolve them when other measures have failed or when more formality is required.

    A PIP is a communication tool, not a punishment tool. When used properly, PIPs can improve relationships, help avoid lawsuits, and prevent performance issues from having a significant impact on your organization.

    Step 3.4 – Implement PIPs and RIPs

    Improve vendor relationships

    After assessing the relationship landscape in step 3.2 and configuring the Relationship Assessment and Improvement Plan Tool in step 2.5, the next step is to leverage that information: 1) establish a relationship baseline for each critical vendor; and 2) develop and implement a plan for each to maintain or improve those relationships.

    The Relationship Assessment and Improvement Plan Tool provides insights into the actual status of your relationships. It allows you to quantify and qualify those relationships rather than relying on intuition or instinct. It also pinpoints areas that are strong and areas that need improvement. Identify your top seven relationship priorities and build your improvement/maintenance plan around those to start. (This number can be expanded if some of your priorities are low effort or if you have several people who can assist with the implementation of the plan.) Decide which relationship indicators need a formal plan, which ones require only an informal plan, and which ones involve a hybrid approach. Remember to factor in the maintenance aspect of the relationship – if something is going well, it can still be a top priority to ensure that the relationship component remains strong.

    Similar to a PIP, your RIP can be very formal with action items and deadlines. Unlike a PIP, the RIP is typically not shared with the vendor. (It can be awkward to say, “Here are the things we’re going to do to improve our relationship, vendor.”)

    The level of formality for your plan will vary. Customize your plan for each vendor. Relationships are not formulaic, although they can share traits. Keep in mind what works with one person or one vendor may not work for another. It’s okay to revisit the plan if it is not working and make adjustments.

    Step 3.5 – Gather market intelligence

    Determine the nature and scope of your market intelligence

    What is market intelligence?

    Market intelligence is a broad umbrella that covers a lot of topics, and the breadth and depth of those topics depend on whether you sit on the vendor or customer side of the equation. Even on the customer side, the scope and meaning of market intelligence are defined by the role served by those gathering market intelligence. As a result, the first step for the VMI is to set the boundaries and expectations for its role in the process. There can be some overlap between IT, procurement/sourcing, and the VMI, for example. Coordinating with other functional areas is a good idea to avoid stepping on each other’s toes or expending duplicate resources unnecessarily.

    For purposes of this blueprint, market intelligence is defined as gathering, analyzing, interpreting, and synthesizing data and information about your critical vendors (high operational, high tactical, and strategic under the COST model or valued and principal under the MVP model), their competitors, and the industry. Market intelligence can be broken into two basic categories: individual vendors and the industry as a whole. For vendors, it generally encompasses data and information about products and services available, each vendor’s capabilities, reputation, costs, pricing, advantages, disadvantages, finances, location, risks, quality ratings, standard service level agreements (SLAs) and other metrics, supply chain risk, total cost of ownership, background information, and other points of interest. For the industry, it can include the market drivers, pressures, and competitive forces; each vendor’s position in the industry; whether the industry is growing, stable, or declining; whether the industry is competitive or led by one or two dominant players; and the potential for disruption, trends, volatility, and risk for the industry. This represents some of the components of market intelligence; it is not intended to be an exhaustive list.

    Market intelligence is an essential component of a VMI as it matures and strives to be strategic and to provide significant value to the organization.

    Step 3.5 – Gather market intelligence

    Determine the nature and scope of your market intelligence

    What are the benefits of gathering market intelligence?

    Depending on the scope of your research, there are many potential uses, goals, and benefits that flow from gathering market intelligence:

    • Identify potential alternate vendors.
    • Learn more about the vendors and market in general.
    • Identify trends, innovations, and what’s available in the industry.
    • Improve contract protections and mitigate contract/performance risk.
    • Identify more comprehensive requirements for RFPs and negotiations.
    • Identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for vendors.
    • Assist with minority/women/veteran-owned business or small business use initiatives.
    • Improve the pool of potential vendors for future RFPs, which can improve competition for your business.
    • Leverage information gained when negotiating or renegotiating at renewal (better terms and conditions).
    • Ensure ongoing alignment or identify gaps/risks between your current vendor’s capabilities and your needs.

    Step 3.5 – Gather market research and intelligence

    Begin collecting data and information

    What are some potential sources of information for market intelligence?

    For general information, there are many places to obtain market intelligence. Here are some common resources:

    • User groups
    • The internet
    • Vendor demos
    • Vendor marketing materials and websites
    • Internal personnel interviews and meetings
    • Industry publications and general periodicals
    • Trade shows and conferences (hosted or attended by vendors)
    • Requests for information (RFIs) and requests for proposal (RFPs)
    • Vendor financial filings for publicly held companies (e.g. annual reports, 10-K, 10-Q)

    Keep in mind the source of the information may be skewed in favor of the vendor. For example, vendor marketing materials may paint a rosier picture of the vendor than reality. Using multiple sources to validate the data and information is a leading practice (and common sense).

    For specific information, many VMIs use a third-party service. Third-party services can dedicate more resources to research since that is their core function. However, the information obtained from any third party should be used as guidance and not as an absolute. No third-party service has access to every deal, and market conditions can change often and quickly.

    Step 3.5 – Gather market research and intelligence

    Resolve storage and access issues

    Some additional thoughts on market intelligence

    • Market intelligence is another tool in the VMI’s toolbox. How you use it and what you do with the results of your efforts is critical. Collecting information and passing it on without analysis or insights is close to being a capital offense.
    • As previously mentioned, defining the scope and nature of market intelligence is the first step. In conjunction with that, remember to identify where the information will be stored. Set up a system that allows for searching by relevance and easy retrieval. You can become overwhelmed with information.
    • Periodically update the scope and reach of your market intelligence efforts. Do you need to expand, contract, or maintain the breadth and depth of your research? Do new vendors and industries need to be added to the mix?
    • Information can grow stale. Review your market intelligence repository at least annually and purge unneeded or outdated information. Be careful though – some historical information is helpful to show trends and evolution. Decide whether old information should be deleted completely or moved to an archive.
    • Determine who should have access to your repository and what level of access they should have. Do you want to share outside of the VMI? Do you want others to contribute to or modify/edit the material in the repository or only be able to read from the repository?

    Step 3.6 – Generate vendor-at-a-glance reports

    Keep executives and stakeholders informed about critical vendors

    Much of the guidance provided on reports in the blueprint Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative holds true for the 60-Second Report and the Vendor Calendar.

    • Determine who will be responsible for updating the reports, knowing that the VMI will be mainly coordinating the process and assembling the data/information rather than obtaining the data firsthand.
    • Determine the frequency. Most likely it will be periodic and ad hoc; for example, you may decide to update the 60-Second Report in whole or in part each quarter, but you may need to update it in the middle of the quarter if an executive has a meeting with one of your critical vendors at that time.
    • Even though you obtained feedback and “approval” from executives and stakeholders during step 2.6, you will still want to seek their input periodically. Their needs may change from time to time with respect to data, information, and formatting. Avoid the temptation to constantly make changes to the format, though. After the initial review cycle, try to make changes only annually as part of your ongoing review process.
    • Unfortunately, these reports require a manual approach; some parts may be automated, but that will depend on your format and systems.

    These reports should be kept confidential. Consider using a “confidential” stamp, header, watermark, or other indicator to highlight that the materials are sensitive and should not be disclosed outside of your organization without approval.

    Step 3.7 – Evaluate VMI personnel

    Compare skills, competencies, and knowledge needed to current levels

    Using the configured VMI personnel assessment tool (Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium tab 2.7.1 or 2.7.2), evaluate each VMI employee’s skills, competencies, and knowledge (S/C/K) against the established minimum level required/desired field for each. Use this tool for full-time and part-time team members to obtain a complete inventory of the VMI’s S/C/K.

    After completing the assessment, you will be able to identify areas where personnel exceed, meet, or fail to meet the minimum level required/desired using the included dashboards. This information can be used to create a development plan for areas of deficiency or areas where improvement is desired for career growth.

    As an alternative, you can assess VMI personnel using their job descriptions. Tab 2.7.3 of the Tools and Templates Compendium is set up to perform this type of analysis and create a plan for improvement when needed. Unlike Tabs 2.7.1 and 2.7.2, however, the assessment does not provide a dashboard for all employee evaluations. Tab 2.7.3 is intended to focus on the different roles and responsibilities for each employee versus the VMI as a whole.

    Lastly, you can use Tab 2.7.4 to evaluate potential VMI personnel during the interview process. Load the roles and responsibilities into the template, and evaluate all the candidates on the same criteria. A dashboard at the bottom of the template quantifies the number of instances each candidate exceeds, meets, and fails to meet the criteria. Used together, the evaluation matrix and dashboard will make it easier to identify each candidate’s strengths and weaknesses (and ultimately select the best new VMI team member).

    Step 3.8 – Improve professional skills

    Increase proficiency in a few key areas

    The image contains an a screenshot example to demonstrate how to increase proficiency in a few key areas.

    To be an effective member of the VMI requires proficiency in many areas. Some basic skills like computer skills, writing, and time management are straightforward. Others are more nebulous. The focus of this step is on a few of the often-overlooked skills lurking in the shadows:

    • Communication
    • Running a meeting
    • Diplomacy
    • Emotional intelligence quotient (EQ)
    • Influence and persuasion
    • Building and maintaining relationships

    For the VMI to be viewed as a strategic and integral part of the organization, these skills (and others) are essential. Although this blueprint cannot cover all of them, some leading practices, tips, and techniques for each of the skills listed above will be shared over the next several pages.

    Step 3.8 – Improve professional skills

    Communicate more effectively

    Communication is the foundational element for the other professional skills covered in this Step 3.8. By focusing on seven key areas, you can improve your relationships, influence, emotional intelligence quotient, diplomacy, and impact when interacting with others. The concepts for the seven focal points presented here are the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Continue learning about these areas, and recognize that mastering each will require time and practice.

    1. Writing.
      1. Stick with simple words;1 you’re trying to communicate, not impress people with your vocabulary.
      2. Keep your sentences simple;1 use short words, short sentences, and short paragraphs.2
      3. Read your writing aloud;1 If you have to take a breath while reading a sentence out loud, the sentence is too long.
      4. Use a tool like Grammarly or the built-in functionality of Word to determine readability; aim for a score of 60 to 70 or a seventh- or eighth-grade level.3
      5. When reviewing your writing: consider your word choice and the implications of your words; look for unintended interpretations, ambiguities, and implied-tone issues.
    1 Grammarly, 2017. 2 Elna Cain, 2018. 3 Forbes, 2016.

    Step 3.8 – Improve professional skills

    Communicate more effectively (continued)

    2. Speaking

    1. Similar to writing, focus on short words and sentences. Avoid run-on sentences.
    2. Think before speaking and work on eliminating “ums,” “uhs,” and “you knows.” These detract from your message.
    3. Choose words that are “comfortable” for the other person/people. Rule number one in public speaking is to know your audience, and that rule applies beyond public speaking and to groups of all sizes (1 to 1,000+).
    4. Don’t confuse the words with the message.
    5. Pay attention to your tone, pace, and volume. Try to match your counterpart in one-on-one settings.

    3. Body Language.

    1. Understand body language’s limitations; it is part art and part science…not an absolute.
    2. Individual movements and movement clusters can provide information regarding the spoken message – look for consistencies and inconsistencies. A baseline for the person is needed to interpret the body language “accurately.”
    3. Pay attention to your own body language. Does it match the message being conveyed by your words or those of your teammates (in group settings)?

    Step 3.8 – Improve professional skills

    Communicate more effectively (continued)

    4. Personality.

    1. Identify your counterpart’s personality: Are they extroverted or introverted? Are they effusive or reserved? Are they diplomatic or offensive? Are they collaborative or looking to blame someone?
    2. Appeal to their personality type when possible, but avoid the blame game. For example, don’t be loud and “over the top” with someone who is reserved and quiet.

    5. Style.

    1. Determine your counterpart’s style for both written and spoken communications: Are they direct or indirect? Are they bottom-line or do they prefer descriptions and build-ups? Are they into empirical data or anecdotal examples?
    2. To maximize the connection and communication effectiveness, match their style…even if it means getting out of your comfort zone a little. For example, if you have an indirect style, you will have to be more direct when dealing with someone who is direct; otherwise, you run the risk of alienating your counterpart (i.e. they will get frustrated or bored, or their mind will wander).

    Step 3.8 – Improve professional skills

    Communicate more effectively (continued)

    6. Learning

    1. People absorb information in three ways:
      1. Visually: These learners need to see things for them to make sense and be retained.
      2. Auditory: These learners need to hear things for them to make sense and be retained.
      3. Kinesthetic/experiential: These learners need to do something or experience it to understand and retain it.
    2. While some people are dominant in one area, most are a combination of one or more methods.
    3. If you can identify a person’s preferred method of learning, you can enhance your ability to communicate. For example, talking (exclusively) with a visual learner will be minimally effective; showing that person a picture or graph while talking will increase your effectiveness.

    7. Actions and inactions.

    1. Communication goes beyond words, messages, body language, and other issues. Your actions or inactions following a communication can undo your hard work to communicate effectively.
    2. Follow through on promises, action items, or requests.
    3. Meet any deadlines or due dates that result from communications. This helps build trust.
    4. Make sure your follow-through items are complete and thorough. Half-way is no way!
    5. Communicate any delays in meeting the deadlines or due dates to avoid

    Step 3.8 – Improve professional skills

    Tap into your inner diplomat

    Diplomacy can be defined many ways, but this one seems to fit best for the purposes of vendor management: The ability to assert your ideas or opinions, knowing what to say and how to say it without damaging the relationship by causing offense.1 At work, diplomacy can be about getting internal or external parties to work together, influencing another party, and conveying a message tactfully. As a vendor manager, diplomacy is a necessary skill for working with your team, your organization, and vendors.

    To be diplomatic, you must be in tune with others and understand many things about them such as their feelings, opinions, ideas, beliefs, values, positions, preferences, and styles. To achieve this, consider the following guidance:2

    • Modify your communication style: Communication is about getting someone to understand and evaluate your message so they can respond. Approach people the way they want to be approached. For example, sending an email to a person who prefers phone calls may create a communication issue.
    • Choose your words carefully: Use words as an artist uses a brush, paint, and a canvas. Paint a picture through word selection. Similar words can portray different scenes (e.g. the child ran to the store quickly vs. the child raced to the store). Make sure your image is relatable for your counterpart.
    1 “The Art of Tact and Diplomacy,” SkillsYouNeed 2 Communiqué PR, 2020.

    Step 3.8 – Improve professional skills

    Tap into your inner diplomat (continued)

    • Slow down a speak concisely: Say what you have to say…and stop. No one likes a communicator who rambles on and on. Once your message has been conveyed, go into silent mode. Get comfortable with silence; there is no need to fill the void with more meaningless words. Let your counterpart contemplate in peace.
    • Listen to understand: Be an active listener rather than biding your time until you can talk again. Avoid interrupting the other party (whenever possible, but sometimes it is needed!). Show interest in what the other person is saying and ask clarifying questions. Make eye contact, nod your head periodically, and summarize what you hear from time to time. Use your ears and mouth in proportion: listen twice as much as you talk.
    • Consider nonverbals: Read the facial expressions of the speaker and be aware of your own. Faces tend to be expressive; sometimes we are aware of it…and sometimes we aren’t. Try relaxing your face and body to minimize the involuntary expressions that may betray you. Adopt a diplomatic facial expression and practice using it; find the right mix of interest and neutrality.

    Whenever things get tense, take a deep breath, take a break, or stop the communication (based on the situation and what is appropriate). Being diplomatic can be taxing, and it is better to step back than to continue down a wrong path due to stress, emotion, being caught off guard, etc.

    Step 3.8 – Improve professional skills

    Build and maintain relationships

    Relationship building and networking cannot be overvalued. VMI personnel interact with many areas and people throughout the organization, and good relationships are essential. Building and maintaining relationships requires hard work and focusing on the right items. Although there isn’t a scientific formula or a mathematical equation to follow, key elements are present in all durable relationships.

    Focus on building relationships at all levels within your organization. People at every level may have data or information you need, and your relationship with them may be the deciding factor in whether you get the information or not. At other times, you will have data and information to give, and the relationship may determine how receptive others are to your message. Some relationship fundamentals are provided below and continue on the next page.1,2

    • Trust: be honest and ethical and follow through on your commitments.
    • Diversity: build relationships with people who aren’t just like you to expand your mindset.
    • Interrelatedness: understand how what you do impacts others you have relationships with.
    • Varied interaction: a good relationship will incorporate work-related interactions with personal interactions.
    • Effective communication: combine methods of communication but focus on the other person’s preferred method.
    1 ”Seven Characteristics of Successful Work Relationships,” 2006. 2 Success.com, 2022.

    Step 3.8 – Improve professional skills

    Build and maintain relationships (continued)

    • Empathy – understand where the other person is coming from through active listening.
    • Vulnerability – create a judgment-free zone.
    • Respect – this must be given and earned.
    • Real face time – meeting in the offline world signals to the person that they are important (but this is not always possible today).
    • A giving-first mentality – provide something of value before asking for something in return.
    • Unique perspective – tap into what the other person believes and values.
    • Intent – start with genuine interest in the other person and the relationship.
    • Hard work – active engagement and a commitment to the relationship are required.
    • Honesty – be honest in your communications.
    • Challenge – be open to thinking differently and trying new things.
    • Value – identify what you add to the relationship.
    • Conscientiousness – be aware of the relationship’s status and react accordingly.

    Step 3.8 – Improve professional skills

    Run meetings more efficiently and effectively

    Most people don’t get excited about meetings, but they are an important tool in the toolbox. Unfortunately, many meetings are unnecessary and unproductive. As a result, meeting invites often elicit an audible groan from invitees. Eliminating meetings completely is not a practical solution, which leaves one other option: improving them.

    You may not be in charge of every meeting, but when you are, you can improve their productivity and effectiveness by making a few modifications to your approach. Listed below are ten ideas for getting the most out of your meetings:*

    1. Begin with the mindset that you are a steward or protector of the meeting attendees’ time, and you never want attendees to feel that you wasted their time.
    2. Keep the attendee list to essential personnel only. Everyone attending the meeting should be able to justify their attendance (or you should be able to justify it).
    3. Set an appropriate time limit for the meeting. Don’t default to the 60-minute meeting; right-size the meeting time (e.g. 15, 30, or 45 minutes or some other number). Shorter meeting times force participants to focus.
    4. Create and use an agenda. To help you stay focused and to determine who to invite, set up the agenda as a list of questions rather than a list of topics.
    *Adapted from “The Surprising Science Behind Successful Remote Meetings” by Steven G. Rogelberg

    Step 3.8 – Improve professional skills

    Run meetings more efficiently and effectively (continued)

    5. Use video when anyone is attending virtually. This helps prevent anonymity and increases engagement.

    6. Start and end meetings on time. Running over impacts other meetings and commitments; it also makes you look ineffective and increases stress levels for attendees.

    7. If longer meetings are necessary, build in a short break or time for people to stand up and stretch. Don’t say, “If you need a break or to stand up during the meeting, feel free.” Make it a planned activity.

    8. Keep others engaged by facilitating and drawing specific people into the conversation; however, don’t ask people to contribute on topics that they know nothing about or ask generally if anyone has any comments.

    9. Leverage technology to help with the meeting; have someone monitor the chat for questions and concerns. However, the chat should not be for side conversations, memes, and other distractions.

    10. End the meeting with a short recap, and make sure everyone knows what was decided/accomplished, what next steps are, and which action items belong to which people.

    Step 3.8 – Improve professional skills

    Increase emotional intelligence

    Emotional intelligence (otherwise known as emotional intelligence quotient or EQ) is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict.1 This is an important set of skills for working with vendors and internal personnel. Increasing your EQ will help you build better relationships and be seen as a valuable teammate…at all levels within your organization.

    Improving this skill dovetails with other skills discussed in this step 3.8, such as communication and diplomacy. Being well versed in the concepts of EQ won’t be enough. To improve requires a willingness to be open – open to feedback from others and open to new ideas. It also requires practice and patience. Change won’t happen overnight, but with some hard work and perseverance, your EQ can improve.

    There are many resources that can help you on your journey, and here are some tips to improve your EQ:2

    • Practice observing how you feel.
    • Pay attention to how you behave.
    • Learn to look at yourself objectively.
    • Understand what motivates you.
    • Acknowledge your emotional triggers.
    • Be interested in the subject matter.
    1 HelpGuide, 2022. 2 RocheMartin, 2022.

    Step 3.8 – Improve professional skills

    Increase emotional intelligence (continued)

    Tips to improve your EQ (continued from previous page):

    • It’s your choice how you react to a situation.
    • Listen without interruption, preconceptions, or skepticism; absorb their situation and consider how they are feeling before you react.
    • Try to be approachable and accessible.
    • Think about what’s happening from their perspective.
    • Cultivate a curiosity about strangers to understand different opinions, views, and values.
    • Acknowledge what people are saying to show you are actively listening.
    • Think about how you’re physically coming across with your body language, tone of voice, eye contact, and facial expressions.

    Things to avoid:1

    • Drama – don’t let others’ emotions affect or rule yours.
    • Complaining – don’t be a victim; do look for solutions.
    • Dwelling on the past – learn from the past and live in the present.
    • Selfishness – consider others’ needs, not just your own.
    • Being overly critical – understand the other person, then communicate the change you want to see.
    1 RocheMartin, 2022.

    Step 3.8 – Improve Professional Skills

    Use Influence and Persuasion to Benefit the VMI

    Skills such as influence and persuasion are important (even necessary) for vendor managers. (Don’t confuse this with the dark arts version – manipulation.) A good working definition is provided by the Center for Creative Leadership: Influence is the ability to affect the behavior of others in a particular direction, leveraging key tactics that involve, connect, and inspire them.* Influence and persuasion are not about strongarming or blackmailing someone to get your way. Influence and persuasion are about presenting issues, facts, examples, and other items in a way that moves people to align with your position. Sometimes you will be attempting to change a person’s mind, and other times you will be moving them from a neutral stance to agreeing to support your position.

    Building upon the basic communication skills discussed at the start of this step, there are some ways to improve your ability to influence and persuade others. Here are some suggestions to get you started:*

    1. Develop organizational intelligence – learn how your organization truly operates; identify the power brokers and their spheres of control and influence. Many failures to persuade and influence stem from not understanding who can help and how they can help (or hinder) your efforts. The most influential person in your organization may not be the person with the fancy title.
    2. Promote yourself and the team – don’t be afraid to step into the spotlight and demonstrate your knowledge and expertise. To be able to persuade and influence as and individual or a team, credibility must be established.
    * Center for Creative Leadership, 2020.

    Step 3.8 – Improve professional skills

    Use influence and persuasion to benefit the VMI (continued)

    3. Build and maintain trust – trust has two main components: competency and character. In item 2 on the previous page, competency trust was discussed from the perspective of knowledge and expertise. For character trust, you need to be viewed as being above reproach. You are honest and ethical; you follow through and honor your commitments. Once both types of trust are in place, eyes and ears will be open and more receptive to your messages. Bottom line: You can’t influence or persuade people if they don’t trust you.

    4. Grow and leverage networks – the workplace is a dynamic atmosphere, and it requires almost constant networking to ensure adequate contacts throughout the organization are maintained. Leveraging your network is an artform, and it must be used wisely. You don’t want to wear out your welcome by asking for assistance too often.

    As you prepare your plan to influence or persuade someone, ask yourself the following questions:*

    • Who am I attempting to influence?
    • What is the situation and how much support do I need?
    • Why do I need this person’s support for my idea?
    • What tactics can I use, and how can I establish rapport?
    • What responses do I anticipate?
    • What mutual points of agreement can I use?
    • How can I end on a positive note no matter what the outcome is?
    * Center for Creative Leadership, 2020.

    Step 3.9 – Expand professional knowledge

    Learn more about departments and functions tangential to the VMI

    To function in their roles, VMI personnel must be well versed in the concepts and terminology associated with vendor management. To be strategic and to develop relationships with other departments, divisions, agencies, and functional groups, VMI personnel must also be familiar with the concepts and terminology for functions outside the VMI. Although a deep dive is beyond the scope of this blueprint, understanding basic concepts within each of the topics below is critical:

    • Finance and accounting
    • Project management
    • Contracts and contract management
    • Procurement/sourcing
    • Change management
    • Conflict management
    • Account team dynamics

    It isn’t necessary to be an expert in these subjects, but VMI personnel must be able to talk with their peers intelligently. For example, a vendor manager needs to have a general background in contract terms and conditions to be able to discuss issues with legal, finance, procurement, and project management groups. A well-rounded and well-versed VMI team member can rise to the level of trusted advisor and internal strategic partner rather than wallowing in the operational or transactional world.

    Step 3.9 – Expand professional knowledge

    Understand finance and accounting basics

    Finance and accounting terms and concepts are commonplace in every organization. They are the main language of business – they are the way for-profit businesses keep score. Regardless of whether your organization is a for-profit, non-profit, governmental, or other entity, finance and accounting run through the veins of your organization as well. In addition to the customer side of the equation, there is the vendor side of the equation: Every vendor you deal with will be impacted financially by working with you.

    Having a good grasp of finance and accounting terms and concepts will improve your ability to negotiate, talk to finance and accounting personnel (internal and external), conduct ongoing due diligence on your critical vendors, review contracts, and evaluate vendor options, to name just a few of the benefits.

    The concepts listed on the following pages are some of the common terms applicable to finance and accounting. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list. Continue to learn about these concepts and identify others that allow you to grow professionally.

    Step 3.9 – Expand professional knowledge

    Understand finance and accounting basics (continued)

    Finance and accounting terms and concepts

    • Cash accounting vs. accrual accounting.
    • Fiscal year vs. calendar year.
    • Profit vs. cash flow.
    • Fixed expenses vs. variable expenses.
    • Capital expense (CapEx) vs. operating expense (OpEx).
    • Depreciation vs. amortization.
    • Payment upfront vs. payment in arrears.
    • Favorable (positive) variance vs. unfavorable (negative) variance.
    • Discretionary expense (cost/expenditure) vs. non-discretionary expense (cost/expenditure).
    • Income statement and its components.
    • Balance sheet and its components.

    Step 3.9 – Expand professional knowledge

    Understand finance and accounting basics (continued)

    Finance and accounting terms and concepts (cont’d)

    • Operating profit margin.
    • Net profit margin.
    • Return on assets.
    • Current ratio.
    • Quick ratio.
    • Debt-to-asset ratio.
    • Interest coverage.
    • Total asset turnover.
    • Receivables turnover.
    • Average collection period.
    • Inventory turnover.
    • Time value of money concept.
    • Future value (FV).
    • Present value (PV).
    • Net present value (NPV).
    • Cost of capital.
    • Internal rate of return (IRR).
    • Return on investment (ROI).
    • Payback (payback period or break even).

    Step 3.9 – Expand professional knowledge

    Understand project management basics

    The image contains a screenshot example of expanding professional knowledge.

    Whether your organization has a formal project management office (PMO) or not, project management practices are being used by those tasked with making sure software and software as a service implementations go smoothly, technology refreshes are rolled out without a hitch, and other major activities are successful. Listed below are some common competencies/skills used by project managers to make sure the job gets done right.

    1. Requirements – define the project’s goals, objectives, and requirements.
    2. Scope – develop, monitor, and manage the project’s scope.
    3. Time – develop and manage the timeline and determine the order (parallel and sequential) for the tasks and activities.
    4. Budget – create and manage the project budget and report on any variances.
    5. Resources – manage space, people, software, equipment, services, etc.
    6. Risk – identify, evaluate, monitor, and manage project risk.
    7. Change – manage updated requirements, changes to the scope, and modifications to the contract.
    8. Documentation – work with the project charter, open issue logs, meeting minutes, and various reports.
    9. Communication – communicate with vendor personnel and internal personnel, including stakeholders and executives as needed.
    10. Quality – ensure the deliverables and other work are acceptable and coordinate/conduct acceptance tests.

    Step 3.9 – Expand professional knowledge

    Understand project management basics (continued)

    The image contains a screenshot of understanding project management basics.

    The concepts listed below are common project management terms and concepts.1, 2 This list is not intended to be exhaustive. Look internally at your project management processes and operations to identify the concepts applicable in your environment and any that are missing from this list.
    • Project plan
    • Work breakdown structure (WBS)
    • Critical path
    • Project manager
    • Project stakeholder
    • Agile project
    • Waterfall project
    • Milestone
    • Deliverable
    • Dependency
    • Phase
    • Kickoff meeting
    • Project budget
    • Project timeline
    • Resource allocation
    • Project risk
    • Risk management
    • Risk owner
    • Issue log
    • Gantt chart
    1 nTask, 2019. 2 Whiz Labs, 2018.

    Step 3.9 – Expand professional knowledge

    Understand contracts and contract lifecycle management basics

    Contracts and contract lifecycle management (CLM) are two separate but related topics. It is possible to have contracts without a formal CLM process, but you can’t have CLM without contracts. This portion of step 3.9 provides some general background on each topic and points you to blueprints that cover each subject in more detail.

    IT contracts tend to be more complicated than other types of contracts due to intellectual property (IP) rights being associated with most IT contracts. As a result, it is necessary to have a basic understanding of IP and common IT contract provisions.

    There are four main areas of IP: copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets. Each has its own nuances, and people who don’t work with IP often mistake one for another or use the terms interchangeably. They are not interchangeable, and each affords a different type of protection when available (e.g. something may not be capable of being patented, but it can be copyrighted).

    For contract terms and conditions, vendor managers are best served by understanding both the business side and the legal side of the provisions. In addition, a good contract checklist will act as a memory jogger whether you are reviewing a contract or discussing one with legal or a vendor. For more information on contract provisions, checklists, and playbooks, download the Info-Tech blueprints identified to the left.

    Download the Info-Tech blueprint Understand Common IT Contract Provisions to Negotiate More Effectively

    Download the Info-Tech blueprint Improve Your Statements of Work to Hold Your Vendors Accountable

    Step 3.9 – Expand professional knowledge

    Understand contracts and contract lifecycle management basics (continued)

    CLM is a process that helps you manage your agreements from cradle to grave. A robust CLM process eases the challenges of managing hundreds or even thousands of contracts that affect the day-to-day business and could expose your organization to various types of vendor-related risk.

    Managing a few contracts through the contracting process is easy, but as the number of contracts grows, managing each step of the process for each contract becomes increasingly difficult and time consuming. That’s where CLM and CLM tools can help. Here is a high-level overview of the CLM process:

    1. Request – a request for a contract is initiated.
    2. Create contract – the contract is drafted by the customer or provided by the vendor.
    3. Review risk – areas of risk in the contract are identified.
    4. Approve – base agreement and attachments are approved and readied for negotiations.
    5. Negotiate – the agreement is negotiated and finalized.
    6. Sign – the agreement is signed or executed by the parties.
    7. Capture – the agreement is stored in a centralized repository.
    8. Manage – actively manage the operational and commitment aspects of the agreement.
    9. Monitor compliance – ensure that each party is honoring and complying with its obligations.
    10. Optimize – review the process and the contracts for potential improvements.

    For more information on CLM, download the Info-Tech blueprint identified to the left.

    Download the Info-Tech Blueprint Design and Build an Effective Contract Lifecycle Management Process

    Step 3.9 – Expand professional knowledge

    Understand procurement/sourcing basics

    Almost every organization has a procurement or sourcing department. Procurement/sourcing is often the gatekeeper of the processes used to buy equipment and services, lease equipment, license software, and acquire other items. There are many different types of procurement/sourcing departments and several points of maturity within each type. As a result, the general terms listed on the next page may or may not be applicable within your organization. (Or your organization may not have a procurement/sourcing department at all!)

    Identifying your organization’s procurement/sourcing structure is the best place to start. From there, you can determine which terms are applicable in your environment and dive deeper on the appropriate concepts as needed.

    Step 3.9 – Expand professional knowledge

    Understand procurement/sourcing basics (continued)

    Procurement sourcing terms and concepts

    • Hard dollar savings
    • Soft dollar savings
    • Cost avoidance
    • Value creation
    • Value created
    • Addressable spend
    • Spend addressed
    • Revenue creation
    • Category management
    • Category manager
    • Targeted negotiations
    • Indirect procurement/sourcing
    • Direct procurement/sourcing
    • Sourcing/procurement processes
    • Sourcing/procurement drivers and metrics
    • RFX (RFP, RFI, RFQ) processes
    • Forecasting value creation
    • Percentage of value creation to spend addressed
    • Category opportunity
    • Category plans
    • Center-led procurement/sourcing
    • Centralized procurement/sourcing
    • Decentralized procurement/sourcing

    Step 3.9 – Expand professional knowledge

    Understand conflict management basics

    Whether you consider conflict management a skill, knowledge, or something in between, there is no denying that vendor managers are often engaged to resolve conflicts and disputes. At times, the VMI will be a “disinterested third party,” sitting somewhere between the vendor and an internal department, line of business, agency, or other functional designation. The VMI also may be one of the parties involved in the dispute or conflict. As a result, a little knowledge and a push in the right direction will help you learn more about how to handle situations where two parties don’t agree.

    To begin with, there are four levels of “formal” dispute resolution. You may be intimately aware of all of them or only have cursory knowledge of how they work and the purpose they serve:

    • Negotiation
    • Mediation
    • Arbitration
    • Litigation

    Their use often can be controlled or limited either contractually or by your organization’s preferences. They may be exclusive or used in combination with one another (e.g. negotiation first, and if things aren’t resolved, arbitration). Look at your contracts and legal department for guidance. It’s important to understand when and how these tools are used and what is expected (if anything) from the VMI.

    Step 3.9 – Expand professional knowledge

    Understand conflict management basics (continued)

    The image contains a screenshot of The Thomas-Kilman Conflict Resolution Model.

    Another factor in the conflict management and informal dispute resolution process is the people component. Perhaps the most famous or well-known model on this topic is the Thomas-Kilmann conflict resolution model. It attempts to bring clarity to the five different personality types you may encounter when resolving differences. As the graphic indicates, it is not purely a black-and-white endeavor; it is comprised of various shades of grey.

    The framework presented by Mr. Thomas and Mr. Kilmann provides insights into how people behave and how to engage them based on personality characteristics and attributes. The model sorts people into one of five categories:

    • Avoiders.
    • Competitors.
    • Collaborators.
    • Accommodators.
    • Compromisers.

    Although it is not an absolute science since people are unpredictable at times, the Thomas-Kilmann model provides great insights into human behavior and ways to work with the personality types listed.

    *Kilmann Diagnostics, 2018.

    Step 3.9 – Expand professional knowledge

    Understand conflict management basics (continued)

    Although the topic is vastly greater than being presented here, the last consideration is a sound process to follow when the conflict or dispute will be handled informally (at least to start). The simple process presented below works with vendors, but it can be adapted to work with internal disputes as well. The following process assumes that the VMI is attempting to facilitate a dispute between an internal party and a vendor.

    Step 1. Validate the person and the issue being brought to you; don’t discount the person, their belief, or their issue. Show genuine interest and concern.

    Step 2. Gather and verify data; not all issues brought forward can be pursued or pursued as presented. For example, “The vendor is always late with its reports” may or may not be 100% accurate as presented.

    Step 3. Convert data gathered into useful and relatable information. To continue the prior example, you may find that the vendor was late with the reports on specified dates, and this can be converted into “the vendor was late with its reports 50% of the time during the last three months.”

    Step 3.9 – Expand professional knowledge

    Understand conflict management basics (continued)

    Step 4. Escalate findings internally to the appropriate stakeholders and executives as necessary so they are not blindsided if a vendor complains or goes around you and the process. In addition, they may want to get involved if it is a big issue, or they may tell you to get rid of it if it is a small issue.

    Step 5. Engage the vendor once you have your facts and present the issues without judgment. Ask the vendor to do its own fact gathering.

    Step 6. Schedule a meeting to review of the situation and hear the vendor’s version of the facts…they may align, or they may not.

    Step 7. Resolve any differences between your facts/information and the vendor’s. There may be extenuating circumstances, oversights, different data, or other items that come to light.

    Step 8. Attempt to resolve the problem and prevent further occurrences through root cause analysis and collaborative problem-solving techniques.

    Develop your own process and make sure it stays neutral. The process should not put the vendor (or any party) on the defensive. The process is to help the parties reach resolution…not to assign blame.

    Step 3.9 – Expand professional knowledge

    Understand account team management basics

    Working with the account or sales team from your critical vendors can be challenging. A basic understanding of account team operations and customer/vendor dynamics will go a long way to improving your interactions (and even vendor performance) over time.

    Sales basics

    • Salespeople are typically paid a base salary and a commission on each sale.
    • Salespeople have quotas that must be met; failure to meet the quota results in probation (at a minimum) or termination.
    • Salespeople sell what they are motivated to sell; the motivation comes in the way of contests, commissions, and recognition. The commission structure is not the same for every service or product sold by the vendor. In addition, incentives may be created to move old product, overstock, or new product (to name a few).
    • Salespeople have multiple goals when interacting with customers:
      • Sell
      • Gather information
      • Build a relationship
      • Get a reference
      • Obtain a reference
      • Increase the vendor’s footprint

    Step 3.9 – Expand professional knowledge

    Understand account team management basics (continued)

    Improving sales and account team dynamics with your organization

    • Conduct due diligence on your account team. Are they “qualified” to work with your account?
    • Set expectations with the account team for the ongoing relationship. Don’t leave it to chance.
    • Evaluate the sales and account teams at least annually. Get feedback from those who work closely with the salespeople and account managers, including stakeholders and executives.
    • Educate people internally about the sales process. At a minimum, counsel them to avoid giving away leverage, answering “damaging” questions, and disclosing confidential information.
    • Try to get involved early in the sales cycle. Sell your value to internal personnel.
    • Work to convert your account manager into your champion within the vendor. The salesperson can benefit by going to bat for you even though they work for the vendor. The commission structure often creates a split loyalty issue. Capitalize on it!
    • Watch out for high turnover. This can indicate a problem at the vendor OR your account is not that attractive/profitable. (See steps 2.2 and 3.1 regarding customer positioning.)

    Step 3.9 – Expand professional knowledge

    Understand account team management basics (continued)

    Improving sales and account team dynamics with your organization (continued)

    • Support effective sales reps by educating them on your organization, the best way to work with you, and the benefits of working with your processes. If they do something above and beyond, consider sending them a thank-you and copying their boss. Little things go a long way.
    • Control the sales process. Require qualified people from your organization to be invited to meetings; require an agenda for those meetings; and avoid “surprise” meetings (those meetings with limited notice and no agenda… "My boss is in town today, and I wanted to stop by and introduce her to you").
    • Don’t be afraid to request a new account manager. For your critical vendors, you should always be dealing with competent account teams. They should have the requisite knowledge of their products and services to be able to answer basic through intermediate questions; they should be ethical; and they should be responsive.
    • Build relationships beyond the salesperson or account manager. Develop a network that extends throughout the sales organization. (For example, the sales manager, sales director, and sales vice president at a minimum.) These people generally have more sway within the vendor organization and can get things done when the need arises.

    For more information on this topic, download the Info-Tech blueprint Evaluate Your Vendor Account Team to Optimize Vendor Relations.

    Step 3.10 – Create brand awareness

    Determine whether a brand makes sense for the VMI

    Branding isn’t just for companies. It is for departments (or whatever you call them at your place of employment) and individuals working in those departments. With a little work and even less money, you can create a meaningful brand for the VMI. While you are at it, you may want to encourage the VMI’s team members to focus a little attention on their personal brands since the VMI and its personnel are intertwined. First, let's define “brand.”

    Ask 50 people, “How do you define ‘brand’?” and you are likely to get 50 different answers. For the purposes of this blueprint, the following definition provides some guiderails by describing what a brand is and isn’t: “A brand is not a logo. A brand is not an identity. A brand is not a product. A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or organization.”1 Let’s expand the definition of “a brand is…” to include departments and individuals since that’s the focus of this step, and it doesn’t violate the spirit of the original definition. A further expansion could include the goodwill associated with the product, service, organization, department, or individual.

    Dedicating time and other resources to proactively creating and nurturing the VMI’s brand has many advantages:

    • “If you don’t define your brand, others will.”2 This is your chance to define the VMI’s narrative and influence the perception others have of it.
    • It allows VMI team members to feel connected to the VMI’s vision and goals during their day-to-day activities.
    • It helps form an emotional connection between the VMI and your internal “clients.”
    • “Branding is a way of establishing and consistently reinforcing who you are and what you [do]…”2 Your brand helps you promote the VMI’s value and impact.
    1 Emotive Brand, 2019. 2 Forbes, 2018.

    Step 3.10 – Create brand awareness

    Establish the VMI’s brand and monitor it

    As you embark on creating a brand for the VMI and raising awareness, here are a few considerations to keep in mind:

    • Identify your mission.* Review the VMI’s mission statement and goals. Translate them into statements that connect with your internal clients.
    • Establish your unique value proposition.* What does the VMI provide to your internal clients that would make them go out of their way to use your services? How can you help them in ways others can’t?
    • Create your brand’s visual identity.* Can you create a logo for the VMI? Can you provide a consistent look and feel for the reports you generate and information you provide?
    • Increase brand recognition.* It takes time to build trust and establish a reputation. The same is true of creating a brand and increasing its recognition. Develop a plan for this rather than leaving it to chance.
    • Be consistent. Make sure your brand is consistent with the organization’s brand or at least doesn’t contradict it. The VMI’s brand is based on its values, mission, goals, and other items; these should complement the organization’s values, mission, goals, and other items.
    • Spread the word. Attend internal clients’ staff meetings, conduct lunch & learn sessions, send out a newsletter to ensure that your internal clients know who you are, what you do, and the impact you can make or have made. Make personal connections whenever possible.
    • Monitor your brand. It is not enough to create a brand and turn it loose unsupervised. Seek feedback on the VMI and its brand beyond the internal survey (step 3.11), and adjust your brand periodically as needed.
    * Stevens & Tate, 2019.

    Step 3.10 – Create brand awareness

    Enhance the brand of VMI team members

    As previously mentioned, brands are for individuals as well. In fact, everybody has a brand associated with them…for better or worse...whether they have consciously created and molded it or not. Focusing on the individual brand at this point offers the VMI and its team members the opportunity to enhance the brand for both. After all, the VMI is a reflection of its personnel.

    Here are some things VMI team members can do to enhance their brand:

    • Network internally beyond your immediate team.1 Get to know people and build relationships with others even if you don’t work directly or indirectly with them.
    • Say yes to relevant opportunities.1 Volunteer for projects where you can make an impact and let others see your value; it’s also a good way to build relationships beyond your immediate team.
    • Speak at a conference. According to Jeff Butler (author and TEDx speaker), “Speaking gets you that immediate credibility not only internally but also externally where other companies are now seeing you as an expert.” He also states that “speaking at … conferences is not only good for you but also good for your [organization].”1
    • Share your voice.1 Become a resource for bloggers, authors, and podcasters; consider blogging, writing, and podcasting. Remember not to disclose any proprietary or confidential information, though! Work with your legal and marketing departments before embarking on this path.
    • Set goals and monitor your progress. Track the number of times you are asked to speak or contribute to a blog, podcast, event, or article, and track the number of times you are mentioned or referenced in social media, blogs, articles, and podcasts.2
    1 Forbes, 2018. 2 Oberlo, 2022.

    3.10.1 – Create brand awareness

    30 – 90 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants to review the information in Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 3.10. The worksheet is divided into two parts.
      1. Part 1 is for the VMI to use to create a brand, and
      2. Part 2 is for an individual VMI team member to create a brand.
    2. For Part 1, work as a team to answer the questions to begin identifying components of your brand awareness and building a strategy for the VMI's brand.
    3. For Part 2, individuals can work by themselves or with the team leader to answer the questions and set goals to help build an individual brand (if it is desirable).
    InputOutput
    • Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 3.10
    • Brainstorming
    • VMI brand framework
    • Individual VMI personnel brand framework
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Elevate – Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 3.10
    • VMI team

    Download the Info-Tech Elevate - Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 3.11 – Survey internal clients

    Gain insights and feedback from internal sources

    As you deploy your surveys, timing must be considered. For annual surveys, avoid busy seasons such as mid to late December (especially if your organization’s fiscal year is a calendar year). Give people time to recover from any November holidays, and survey them before they become distracted by December holidays (if possible). You may want to push the annual survey until January or February when things have settled back into a normal routine. Your needs for timing and obtaining the results must be balanced against the time constraints and other issues facing the potential respondents.

    For recency surveys, timing can work to your advantage or disadvantage. Send the survey almost immediately after providing assistance. If you wait more than a week or two, memories will begin to fade, and the results will trend toward the middle of the road.

    Regardless of whether it is an annual survey or a recency survey, distributing the surveys to a big enough sample size will be tough. Combine that with low response rates and the results may be skewed. Take what you can get and look for trends over time. Some people may be tough critics; if possible, send the survey to the same people (and incorporate new ones) to see if the tough graders’ responses are remaining true over time. Another way to mitigate some of the tough critics is to review their answers to the open-ended questions. For example, a tough grader may respond with a “4 – helpful” when you were expecting a “5 – very helpful;” the narrative portion of the survey may be consistent with that answer, or it may provide what you were looking for: “The VMI was great to work with on this project.” When confined to a scale, some respondents won’t give the top value/assessment no matter what, but they will sing your praises in a question that requires a narrative response. Taken together, you may get a slightly different picture – one that often favors you.

    Step 3.11 – Survey internal clients

    Gain insights and feedback from internal sources (continued)

    The image contains a screenshot of an example survey.

    After you have received a few responses to your surveys (recency and annual), review the results against your expectations and follow up with some of the respondents. Were the questions clear? Were the answer choices appropriate? Ultimately, you have to decide if the survey provided the meaningful feedback you were looking for. If not, revise the questions and answers choices as needed. (Keep in mind, you are not looking for “feelgood fluff.” You are looking for feedback that will reinforce what you are doing well and show areas for improvement.)

    Once you have the results, it’s time to share them with the executives and stakeholders. When creating a report, consider the following guidance:

    • Don’t just list the data; convert it to usable information.
    • When needed, provide some context and interpretation for the results. For example, if you have an internal goal or service level, indicate this and show how the results compare to the target (e.g. in a bar chart, insert a horizontal line and label it “target”).
    • Present the results on a question-by-question basis, but you may want to combine or aggregate results to provide meaningful information. For example, combine 21% responding with “doing a great job” and 62% responding with “doing a good job” into one statement of “83% of those surveyed said the VMI is doing a good job or doing a great job.”
    • Use an executive summary as an overview or to highlight the key findings, with the detailed data and information on subsequent pages for people who want to dive deeper.

    Step 3.12 – Calculate VMI ROI

    Identify and report the VMI’s value and impact on the organization

    Calculating ROI begins with establishing baselines: what is the current situation? Once those are established, you can begin tracking the impact made by the VMI by looking at the differences between the baseline and the end result. For example, if the VMI is tracking money saved, it is critical to know the baseline amounts (e.g. the initial quote from the vendor, the budgeted amount). If time is being measured, it is important to understand how much time was previously spent on items (e.g. vendor meetings to address concerns, RFPs).

    The blueprint Capture and Market the ROI of Your VMO will lead you through the process, but there are a couple of key things to remember: 1) some results will be quick and easy – the low-hanging fruit, things that have been ignored or not done well, eliminating waste, and streamlining inefficiencies; and 2) other things may take time to come to fruition. Be patient and make sure you work with finance or others to bring credibility to your calculations.

    When reporting the ROI, remember to include the results of the survey from step 3.11. They are not always quantifiable, but they help executives and stakeholders see the complete picture, and the stories or examples make the ROI “personal” to the organization.

    Reporting can be a challenge. VMIs often underestimate their value and don’t like self-promotion. While you don’t want to feel like you operate in justification mode, many eyes will be on the VMI. The ROI report helps validate and promote the VMI, and it helps build brand awareness for the VMI.

    Step 3.13 – Implement vendor recognition program

    Set your plan in motion

    As indicated in step 2.10, take a “crawl, walk, run” approach to your vendor recognition program. Start off small and grow the program over time. Based on the scope of the program, decide how you’ll announce and promote it. Work with marketing, IT, and others to ensure a consistent message, to leverage technology (e.g. your website), and to maximize awareness.

    For a formal program, you may want to hold a kickoff meeting to introduce the program internally and externally. The external kickoff can be handled in a variety of ways depending on available resources and the extent of the program. For example, a video can be produced and shared with eligible vendors, an email from the VMI or an executive can be used, or the program can be rolled out through BAMs if only BAM participants are eligible for the program. If you are taking an informal approach to the vendor recognition program, you may not need an external kickoff at all.

    For a formal program, collect information periodically throughout the year rather than waiting until the end of the year; however, some data may not be available or relevant until the end of the measurement period. For subjective criteria, the issue of recency may be an issue, and memories will fade over time. (Be careful the subjective portion doesn’t turn into a popularity contest.)

    If the vendor recognition program is not meeting your goals adequately, don’t be afraid to modify it or even scrap it. At some point, you may have to do a partial or total reboot of the program. Creating and maintaining a “lessons learned” document will make a reboot easier and better if it is necessary. Remember: While a vendor recognition program has many potential benefits, your main goals must be achieved or the program adds little or no value.

    Phase 4 - Review

    Ensure Your VMI Continues to Evolve

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    Phase 4

    1.1 Review and update existing Plan materials

    2.1 Vendor classification models

    2.2 Customer positioning model

    2.3 Two-way scorecards

    2.4 Performance improvement plan (PIP)

    2.5 Relationship improvement plan (RIP)

    2.6 Vendor-at-a-glance reports

    2.7 VMI personnel competency evaluation tool

    2.8 Internal feedback tool

    2.9 VMI ROI calculation

    2.10 Vendor recognition program

    3.1 Classify vendors and identify customer position

    3.2 Assess the relationship landscape

    3.3 Leverage two-way scorecards

    3.4 Implement PIPs and RIPs

    3.5 Gather market intelligence

    3.6 Generate vendor-at-a-glance reports

    3.7 Evaluate VMI personnel

    3.8 Improve professional skills

    3.9 Expand professional knowledge

    3.10 Create brand awareness

    3.11 Survey internal clients

    3.12 Calculate VMI ROI

    3.13 Implement vendor recognition program

    4.1 Investigate potential alliances

    4.2 Continue increasing the VMI’s strategic value

    4.3 Review and update

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    This phase helps the VMI stay aligned with the overall organization, stay current, and improve its strategic value as it evolves. The main outcomes from this phase are ways to advance the VMI’s strategic impact.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives
    • Others as needed

    Phase 4 – Review

    Continue evolving the VMI and keep it up to date

    The emphasis of this final phase is on the VMI’s continued evolution.

    • First up is the concept of alliances. For a small number of vendors, your relationship has the ability to transcend to a different level. A collaborative, synergistic relationship can be achieved under the right circumstances.
    • Next, additional material on transforming the VMI from purely transactional to strategic is provided (along with some reminders from prior phases). To reach its full potential, the VMI must mature and evolve, but this won’t happen without the active management of a well-crafted plan. What got the VMI to this point won’t necessarily work to get you to the next point on the evolution scale.
    • Lastly, remember to stay vigilant about the review process. What is the VMI doing well? Where can it improve? What needs to change?

    Step 4.1 – Investigate potential alliances

    Understand what separates an alliance from a regular relationship

    Chances are you’ve seen a marketing or business alliance at work in your personal life. If you’ve visited a Target store or a Barnes and Noble store, you’ve more than likely walked past the Starbucks counter. The relationship is about more than the landlord-tenant agreement, and the same business concept can exist in non-retail settings. Although they may not be as common in the customer-IT vendor space, alliances can work here as well.

    Definition

    For vendor management purposes, an alliance is a symbiotic relationship between two parties where both benefit beyond the traditional transactional (i.e. buyer-seller) relationship.

    Characteristics

    • Each party remains independent; this is not a true partnership or joint venture from a legal perspective.
    • Each party obtains benefits they wouldn’t be able to obtain by themselves (or, at a minimum, the timeline is accelerated significantly).
    • The relationship is geared toward the long term, and each party contributes resources to achieve synergies.

    Step 4.1 – Investigate potential alliances

    Analyze benefits and risks for the alliance

    Benefits

    • Synergies
    • Innovations
    • Use of pooled resources
    • Access to different areas of expertise
    • Quicker development or improvement of products or services
    • Competitive advantages, new revenue streams, and new markets

    Risks

    • Cultural fit
    • Departing executives/sponsors
    • Return on investment pressures
    • Different interests or expectations
    • Failure to address intellectual property issues adequately
    • Lack of experience and process to manage the relationship

    Step 4.1 – Investigate potential alliances

    Set up the alliance for success

    Keys to success

    • Communicate transparently.
    • Ensure executive participation from both parties.
    • Establish a joint steering committee and alliance governances.
    • Set clear expectations and define what each party wants out of the alliance.
    • Create “alliance managers” in addition to vendor managers and project mangers.
    • Start with a small alliance; don’t go all-in on a big alliance the first time you try it.
    • Create an environment of trust and collaboration; the alliance goes beyond the contract.
    • Make sure both parties are happy with their contributions to and rewards from the alliance.

    The purpose of this step is not to make you an expert on alliances or to encourage you to rush out of your office, cubicle, bedroom, or other workspace looking for opportunities. The purpose is to familiarize you with the concepts, to encourage you to keep your eyes open, and to think about relationships from different angles. How will you make the most of your vendors’ expertise, resources, market, and other things they bring to the table?

    Step 4.2 – Continue increasing the VMI’s strategic value

    Grow the VMI’s impact over time

    Although they are not synonymous concepts, increasing the VMI’s maturity and increasing the VMI’s strategic value can go hand in hand. Evolving the VMI to be strategic allows the organization to receive the greatest benefit for its investment. This isn’t to say that all work the VMI does will be strategic. It will always live in two places – the transactional world and the strategic world – even when it is fully mature and operating strategically. Just like any job, there are transactional tasks and activities that must be done, and some of them are foundational elements for being strategic (e.g. conducting research, preparing reports, and classifying vendors). The VMI must evolve and become strategic for many reasons: staying in the transactional world limits the VMI’s contributions, results, influence and impact; team members will have less job satisfaction and enjoyment and lower salaries; ultimately, the justification for the VMI could disappear.

    To enhance the VMI’s (and, as applicable, its personnel’s) strategic value, continue:

    • Maturing the VMI and its personnel.
    • Building relationships internally and with the critical vendors (typically, high operational, high tactical, and strategic vendors under the COST model and valued and principal vendors under the MVP model).
    • Increasing your knowledge about vendor management and your critical vendors and their industries.
    • Saying yes to opportunities or volunteering for cross-functional teams that allow the VMI to showcase its abilities.
    • Increasing your knowledge of your organization, how it operates, the political environment, and anything else that will help the VMI provide information, insight, and guidance.
    • Learning about your industry and competitors (if applicable).

    Step 4.2 – Continue increasing the VMI’s strategic value

    Shift from transactional to strategic as much as possible

    Indicators of a transactional VMI:

    Indicators of a strategic VMI:

    • Exclusively reactive approach to operations
    • Focused exclusively on day-to-day operations
    • Internal clients are obligated to use the VMI due to policy
    • No perceived value-add; perceived as an administrative function
    • Left out of the RFP process or only have a limited role
    • Left out of the negotiation process or only have a limited role
    • VMI has a narrow reach and impact within the organization
    • Measure of value for the VMI is only quantitative
    • Metrics gathering without analysis and influential use
    • Personnel have limited skills, competencies, and knowledge
    • Proactive approach to operations
    • Focused on the big picture
    • Internal clients seek out or voluntarily consult the VMI
    • VMI is valued for its contributions and impact
    • Good relationships exist with vendors and stakeholders
    • Personnel possess high levels of skill, competency, and knowledge
    • VMI processes are integrated into the organization
    • VMI participates in business strategy development
    • VMI leads or is heavily involved in the RFP & negotiation processes
    • Relationship managers are assigned to all critical vendors
    • Measure of value for the VMI is quantitative and qualitative
    • Metrics are used to make and influence decisions/strategy

    Step 4.3 – Review and update

    Tap into the collective wisdom and experience of your team members

    The vendor management lifecycle is continuous and more chaotic than linear, but the chaos mostly stays within the boundaries of the “plan, build, run, and review” framework outlined in this blueprint and the blueprint Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative. Two of the goals of managing the lifecycle are: 1) to adapt to a changing world; and 2) to improve the VMI and its impact over time. To do this, keep following the guidance in this phase, but don’t forget about the direction provided in phase 4 of the blueprint Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative:

    • Review and assess compliance.
    • Compile and leverage lessons learned.
    • Focus on maintaining alignment internally.
    • Identify and incorporate leading practices.
    • Update governances.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Continue reviewing and updating the VMI’s risk footprint. Add risk categories and scope as needed (measurement, monitoring, and reporting). Review Info-Tech’s vendor management-based series of risk blueprints for further information (Identify and Manage Reputational Risk Impacts on Your Organization and others).

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Problem Solved

    It is easy for business owners to lose sight of things. There is a saying among entrepreneurs about remembering to work on the business rather than working exclusively in the business. For many entrepreneurs, it is easy to get lost in the day-to-day grind and to forget to look at the bigger picture. A VMI is like a business in that regard – it is easy to focus on the transactional work and lose sight of maturing or evolving the VMI. Don’t let this happen!

    Leverage the tools and templates from this blueprint and adapt them to your environment as needed. Unlike the blueprint Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative, some of the concepts presented here may take more time, resources, and evolution before you are ready to deploy them. Continue using the three-year roadmap and 90-day plans from the Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative blueprint, and add components from this blueprint when the time is right. The two blueprints are designed to work in concert as you move forward on your VMI journey.

    Lastly, focus on getting a little better each day, week, month, or year: better processes, better policies and procedures, better relationships with vendors, better relationships with internal clients, better planning, better anticipation, better research, better skills, competencies, and knowledge for team members, better communication, better value, and better impact. A little “better” goes a long way, and over time it becomes a lot better.

    If you would like additional support, have our analysts guide you through other phases as part of an Info-Tech workshop.

    Contact your account representative for more information.

    workshops@infotech.com

    1-888-670-8889

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

    IT (and the organization as a whole) are more reliant on vendors than ever before, and vendor management has become increasingly necessary to manage the relationships and manage the risks. Implementing a vendor management initiative is no longer a luxury...it is a necessity.

    Capture and Market the ROI of Your VMO

    Calculating the impact or value of a vendor management office (VMO) can be difficult without the right framework and tools. Let Info-Tech’s tools and templates help you account for the contributions made by your VMO.

    Evaluate Your Vendor Account Team to Optimize Vendor Relations

    Understanding your vendor team’s background, experience, and strategic approach to your account is key to the management of the relationship, the success of the vendor agreement, and, depending on the vendor, the success of your business.

    Identify and Manage Financial Risk Impacts on Your Organization

    Vendors’ failure to perform, including security and compliance violations, can have significant financial consequences. Good vendor management practices help organizations understand the costs of those actions.

    Bibliography

    Amaresan, Swetha. “The 9 Most Important Survey Design Tips & Best Practices.” HubSpot. Accessed 13 July 2022.
    “Best Practices for Every Step of Survey Creation.” Survey Monkey. Accessed 13 July 2022.
    Brevig, Armand. ”Here Is a Quicker Way of Getting Better Supply Market Insights.” Procurement Cube, 30 July 2020. Accessed 19 May 2022.
    Cain, Elna. “9 Simple Ways on How to Improve Your Writing Skills.” Elna Cain, 20 Nov. 2018. Accessed 5 June 2020.
    Colwell, Tony. “How to Select Strategic Suppliers Part 1: Beware the Supplier's Perspective.” Accuity Consultants, 7 Feb 2012. Accessed 19 May 2022.
    “50 Tips for Improving Your Emotional Intelligence.” RocheMartin, 12 Jan. 2022. Accessed 25 July 2022.
    “4 Ways to Strengthen Your Ability to Influence Others.” Center for Creative Leadership, 24 Nov. 2020. Accessed 20 July 2022.
    Ferreira, Nicole Martins. “10 Personal Branding Tips That’ll Elevate Your Business In 2022.” Oberlo, 21 Mar. 2022. Accessed 24 May 2022.
    Gartlan, Dan. “4 Essential Brand Components.” Stevens & Tate, 25 Nov. 2019. Accessed 24 May 2022.
    Geller & Company. “World-Class Procurement — Increasing Profitability and Quality.” Spend Matters, 2003. Accessed 4 March 2022.
    Gumaste, Pavan. “50 Project Management Terms You Should Know.” Whiz Labs, 2018. Accessed 22 July 2022.
    Hertzberg, Karen. “How to Improve Writing Skills in 15 Easy Steps.” Grammarly, 15 June 2017. Accessed 5 June 2020.
    “Improving Emotional Intelligence (EQ).” HelpGuide, 2022. Accessed 25 July 2022.
    “ISG Index 4Q 2021.” Information Services Group, Inc., 2022. Web.
    Lehoczky, Etelka. “How To Improve Your Writing Skills At Work.” Forbes, 9 Mar. 2016. Accessed 5 June 2020.
    Liu, Joseph. “5 Ways To Build Your Personal Brand At Work.” Forbes, 30 Apr. 2018. Accessed 24 May 2022.
    Lloyd, Tracy. “Defining What a Brand Is: Why Is It So Hard?” Emotive Brand, 18 June 2019. Accessed 28 July 2022.
    Nielson, Megan. “The Basic Tenants of Diplomatic Communication.” Communiqué PR, 22 October 2020. Accessed 23 May 2022
    “Positioning Yourself in the Market.” New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment, 2021. Accessed 19 May 2022.
    Rogelberg, Steven G. “The Surprising Science Behind Successful Remote Meetings.” sloanreview.mit.edu. 21 May 2020. Accessed 19 July 2022.
    “Rule No 5: All Customers/Suppliers Have a Different Value to You.” newdawnpartners.com. Accessed 19 May 2022.

    Bibliography

    Shute, Benjamin. “Supplier Relationship Management: Is Bigger Always Better?” Comprara, 24 May 2015. Accessed 19 May 2022.
    Steele, Paul T. and Brian H. Court. Profitable Purchasing Strategies: A Manager's Guide for Improving Organizational Competitiveness Through the Skills of Purchasing. ‎ McGraw-Hill, 1996.
    “Take the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI).” Kilmann Diagnostics, 2018. Accessed 20 Aug. 2020.
    Tallia, Alfred F. MD, MPH, et al. ”Seven Characteristics of Successful Work Relationships.” Fam Pract Manag. 2006 Jan;13(1):47-50.
    “The Art of Tact and Diplomacy.” skillsyouneed.com. Accessed 23 May 2022.
    “13 Key Traits of Strong Professional Relationships.” success.com. Accessed 4 Feb. 2022.
    Wilson, Fred. “Top 40 Project Management Terms and Concepts of 2022.” nTask, 25 Feb. 2019. Accessed 24 July 2022.

    Staff the Service Desk to Meet Demand

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}490|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 10.0/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $1,900 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 2 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: Service Desk
    • Parent Category Link: /service-desk
    • With increasing complexity of support and demand on service desks, staff are often left feeling overwhelmed and struggling to keep up with ticket volume, resulting in long resolution times and frustrated end users.
    • However, it’s not as simple as hiring more staff to keep up with ticket volume. IT managers must have the data to support their case for increasing resources or even maintaining their current resources in an environment where many executives are looking to reduce headcount.
    • Without changing resources to match demand, IT managers will need to determine how to maximize the use of their resources to deliver better service.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • IT managers are stuck with the difficult task of determining the right number of service desk resources to meet demand to executives who perceive the service desk to be already effective.
    • Service desk managers often don’t have accurate historical data and metrics to justify their headcount, or don’t know where to start to find the data they need.
    • They often then fall prey to the common misperception that there is an industry standard ratio of the ideal number of service desk analysts to users. IT leaders who rely on staffing ratios or industry benchmarks fail to take into account the complexity of their own organization and may make inaccurate resourcing decisions.

    Impact and Result

    • There’s no magic, one-size-fits-all ratio to tell you how many service desk staff you need based on your user base alone. There are many factors that come into play, including the complexity of your environment, user profiles, ticket volume and trends, and maturity and efficiency of your processes.
    • If you don’t have historical data to help inform resourcing needs, start tracking ticket volume trends now so that you can forecast future needs.
    • If your data suggests you don’t need more staff, look to other ways to maximize your time and resources to deliver more efficient service.

    Staff the Service Desk to Meet Demand Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should optimize service desk staffing, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Determine environment and operating model

    Define your business and IT environment, service desk operating model, and existing challenges to inform objectives.

    • Service Desk Staffing Stakeholder Presentation

    2. Determine staffing needs

    Understand why service desk staffing estimates should be based on your unique workload, then complete the Staffing Calculator to estimate your needs.

    • Service Desk Staffing Calculator

    3. Interpret data to plan approach

    Review workload over time to analyze trends and better inform your overall resourcing needs, then plan your next steps to optimize staffing.

    [infographic]

    Design and Implement a Business-Aligned Security Program

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}368|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): N/A
    • member rating average dollars saved: N/A
    • member rating average days saved: N/A
    • Parent Category Name: Security Strategy & Budgeting
    • Parent Category Link: /security-strategy-and-budgeting
    • You need to build a security program that enables business services and secures the technology that makes them possible.
    • Building an effective, business-aligned security program requires that you coordinate many components, including technologies, processes, organizational structures, information flows, and behaviors.
    • The program must prioritize the right capabilities, and support its implementation with clear accountabilities, roles, and responsibilities.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Common security frameworks focus on operational controls rather than business value creation, are difficult to convey to stakeholders, and provide little implementation guidance.
    • A security strategy can provide a snapshot of your program, but it won’t help you modernize or transform it, or align it to meet emerging business requirements.
    • There is no unique, one-size-fits-all security program. Each organization has a distinct character and profile and differs from others in several critical respects.

    Impact and Result

    Tailor your security program according to what makes your organization unique.

    • Analyze critical design factors to determine and refine the scope of your security program and prioritize core program capabilities.
    • Identify program accountabilities, roles, and responsibilities.
    • Build an implementation roadmap to ensure its components work together in a systematic way to meet business requirements.

    Design and Implement a Business-Aligned Security Program Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Design and Implement a Business-Aligned Security Strategy – A step-by-step guide on how to understand what makes your organization unique and design a security program with capabilities that create business value.

    This storyboard will help you lay foundations for your security program that will inform future security program decisions and give your leadership team the information they need to support your success. You will evaluate design factors that make your organization unique, prioritize the security capabilities to suit, and assess the maturity of key security program components including security governance, security strategy, security architecture, service design, and service metrics.

    • Design and Implement a Business-Aligned Security Program Storyboard

    2. Security Program Design Tool – Tailor the security program to what makes your organization unique to ensure business-alignment.

    Use this Excel workbook to evaluate your security program against ten key design factors. The tool will produce a goals cascade that shows the relationship between business and security goals, a prioritized list of security capabilities that align to business requirements, and a list of program accountabilities.

    • Security Program Design Tool

    3. Security Program Design and Implementation Plan – Assess the current state of different security program components, plan next steps, and communicate the outcome to stakeholders.

    This second Excel workbook will help you conduct a gap analysis on key security program components and identify improvement initiatives. You can then use the Security Program Design and Implementation Plan to collect results from the design and implementation tools and draft a communication deck.

    • Security Program Implementation Tool
    • Security Program Design and Implementation Plan

    Infographic

    Workshop: Design and Implement a Business-Aligned Security Program

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Initial Security Program Design

    The Purpose

    Determine the initial design of your security program.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An initial prioritized list of security capabilities that aligns with enterprise strategy and goals.

    Activities

    1.1 Review Info-Tech diagnostic results.

    1.2 Identify project context.

    1.3 Identify enterprise strategy.

    1.4 Identify enterprise goals.

    1.5 Build a goal cascade.

    1.6 Assess the risk profile.

    1.7 Identify IT-related issues.

    1.8 Evaluate initial program design.

    Outputs

    Stakeholder satisfaction with program

    Situation, challenges, opportunities

    Initial set of prioritized security capabilities

    Initial set of prioritized security capabilities

    Initial set of prioritized security capabilities

    Initial set of prioritized security capabilities

    Initial set of prioritized security capabilities

    Initial set of prioritized security capabilities

    2 Refine Security Program Capabilities

    The Purpose

    Refine the design of your security program.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A refined, prioritized list of security capabilities that reflects what makes your organization unique.

    Activities

    2.1 Gauge threat landscape.

    2.2 Identify compliance requirements.

    2.3 Categorize the role of IT.

    2.4 Identify the sourcing model.

    2.5 Identify the IT implementation model.

    2.6 Identify the tech adoption strategy.

    2.7 Refine the scope of the program.

    Outputs

    Refined set of prioritized security capabilities

    Refined set of prioritized security capabilities

    Refined set of prioritized security capabilities

    Refined set of prioritized security capabilities

    Refined set of prioritized security capabilities

    Refined set of prioritized security capabilities

    Refined set of prioritized security capabilities

    3 Security Program Gap Analysis

    The Purpose

    Finalize security program design.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Key accountabilities to support the security program

    Gap analysis to produce an improvement plan

    Activities

    3.1 Identify program accountabilities.

    3.2 Conduct program gap analysis.

    3.3 Prioritize initiatives.

    Outputs

    Documented program accountabilities.

    Security program gap analysis

    Security program gap analysis

    4 Roadmap and Implementation Plan

    The Purpose

    Create and communicate an improvement roadmap for the security program.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Security program design and implementation plan to organize and communicate program improvements.

    Activities

    4.1 Build program roadmap

    4.2 Finalize implementation plan

    4.3 Sponsor check-in

    Outputs

    Roadmap of program improvement initiatives

    Roadmap of program improvement initiatives

    Communication deck for program design and implementation

    Further reading

    Design a Business-Aligned Security Program

    Focus on business value first.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    Business alignment is no accident.

    Michel Hébert

    Security leaders often tout their choice of technical security framework as the first and most important program decision they make. While the right framework can help you take a snapshot of the maturity of your program and produce a quick strategy and roadmap, it won’t help you align, modernize, or transform your program to meet emerging business requirements.

    Common technical security frameworks focus on operational controls rather than business services and value creation. They are difficult to convey to business stakeholders and provide little program management or implementation guidance.

    Focus on business value first, and the security services that enable it. Your organization has its own distinct character and profile. Understand what makes your organization unique, then design and refine the design of your security program to ensure it supports the right capabilities. Next, collaborate with stakeholders to ensure the right accountabilities, roles, and responsibilities are in place to support the implementation of the security program.

    Michel Hébert
    Research Director, Security & Privacy
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Common Obstacles

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    • You need to build a security program that enables business services and secures the technology that makes them possible.
    • Building an effective, business-aligned security program requires that you coordinate many components, including technologies, processes, organizational structures, information flows, and behaviors.
    • The program must prioritize the right capabilities, and support its implementation with clear accountabilities, roles, and responsibilities.
    • Common security frameworks focus on operational controls rather than business value creation, are difficult to convey to stakeholders, and provide little implementation guidance.
    • A security strategy can provide a snapshot of your program, but it won’t help you modernize or transform it, or align it to meet emerging business requirements.
    • There is no unique, one-size-fits-all security program. Each organization has a distinct character and profile and differs from others in several critical respects.

    Tailor your security program according to what makes your organization unique.

    • Analyze critical design factors to determine and refine the design of your security program and prioritize core program capabilities.
    • Identify program accountabilities, roles, and responsibilities.
    • Build an implementation roadmap to ensure its components work together in a systematic way to meet business requirements.

    Info-Tech Insight

    You are a business leader who supports business goals and mitigates risk. Focus first on business value and the security services that enable it, not security controls.

    Your challenge

    The need for a solid and responsive security program has never been greater.

    • You need to build a security program that enables business services and secures the technology that makes them possible.
    • Building an effective, business-aligned security program requires that you coordinate many components, including technologies, processes, organizational structures, information flows, and behaviors.
    • The program must prioritize the right capabilities, and support its implementation with clear accountabilities, roles, and responsibilities.
    • You must communicate effectively with stakeholders to describe the risks the organization faces, their likely impact on organizational goals, and how the security program will mitigate those risks and support the creation of business value.
    • Ransomware is a persistent threat to organizations worldwide across all industries.
    • Cybercriminals deploying ransomware are evolving into a growing and sophisticated criminal ecosystem that will continue to adapt to maximize its profits.

    • Critical infrastructure is increasingly at risk.
    • Malicious agents continue to target critical infrastructure to harm industrial processes and the customers they serve State-sponsored actors are expected to continue to target critical infrastructure to collect information through espionage, pre-position in case of future hostilities, and project state power.

    • Disruptive technologies bring new threats.
    • Malicious actors increasingly deceive or exploit cryptocurrencies, machine learning, and artificial intelligence technologies to support their activities.

    Sources: CCCS (2023), CISA (2023), ENISA (2023)

    Your challenge

    Most security programs are not aligned with the overall business strategy.

    50% Only half of leaders are framing the impact of security threats as a business risk.

    49% Less than half of leaders align security program cost and risk reduction targets with the business.

    57% Most leaders still don’t regularly review security program performance of the business.

    Source: Tenable, 2021

    Common obstacles

    Misalignment is hurting your security program and making you less influential.

    Organizations with misaligned security programs have 48% more security incidents...

    …and the cost of their data breaches are 40% higher than those with aligned programs.

    37% of stakeholders still lack confidence in their security program.

    54% of senior leaders still doubt security gets the goals of the organization.

    Source: Frost & Sullivan, 2019
    Source: Ponemon, 2023

    Common obstacles

    Common security frameworks won’t help you align your program.

    • Common security frameworks focus on operational controls rather than business value creation, are difficult to convey to stakeholders, and provide little implementation guidance.
    • A security strategy based on the right framework can provide a snapshot of your program, but it won’t help you modernize, transform, or align your program to meet emerging business requirements.
    • The lack of guidance leads to a lack of structure in the way security services are designed and managed, which reduces service quality, increases security friction, and reduces business satisfaction.

    There is no unique, one-size-fits-all security program.

    • Each organization has a distinct character and profile and differs from others in several critical respects. The security program for a cloud-first, DevOps environment must emphasize different capabilities and accountabilities than one for an on-premise environment and a traditional implementation model.

    Info-Tech’s approach

    You are a business leader who supports business goals and mitigates risk.

    • Understand what makes your organization unique, then design and refine a security program with capabilities that create business value.
    • Next, collaborate with stakeholders to ensure the right accountabilities, roles, and responsibilities are in place, and build an implementation roadmap to ensure its components work together over time.

    Security needs to evolve as a business strategy.

    • Laying the right foundations for your security program will inform future security program decisions and give your leadership team the information they need to support your success. You can do it in two steps:
      • Evaluate the design factors that make your organization unique and prioritize the security capabilities to suit. Info-Tech’s approach is based on the design process embedded in the latest COBIT framework.
      • Review the key components of your security program, including security governance, security strategy, security architecture, service design, and service metrics.

    If you build it, they will come

    “There's so much focus on better risk management that every leadership team in every organization wants to be part of the solution.

    If you can give them good data about what things they really need to do, they will work to understand it and help you solve the problem.”

    Dan Bowden, CISO, Sentara Healthcare (Tenable)

    Design a Business-Aligned Security Program

    The image contains a screenshot of how to Design a business-aligned security program.


    Choose your own adventure

    This blueprint is ideal for new CISOs and for program modernization initiatives.

    1. New CISO

    “I need to understand the business, prioritize core security capabilities, and identify program accountabilities quickly.”

    2. Program Renewal

    “The business is changing, and the threat landscape is shifting. I am concerned the program is getting stale.”

    Use this blueprint to understand what makes your organization unique:

    1. Prioritize security capabilities.
    2. Identify program accountabilities.
    3. Plan program implementation.

    If you need a deep dive into governance, move on to a security governance and management initiative.

    3. Program Update

    “I am happy with the fundamentals of my security program. I need to assess and improve our security posture.”

    Move on to our guidance on how to Build an Information Security Strategy instead.

    Info-Tech’s methodology for security program design

    Define Scope of
    Security Program

    Refine Scope of
    Security Program

    Finalize Security
    Program Design

    Phase steps

    1.1 Identify enterprise strategy

    1.2 Identify enterprise goals

    1.3 Assess the risk profile

    1.4 Identify IT-related issues

    1.5 Define initial program design

    2.1 Gage threats and compliance

    2.2 Assess IT role and sourcing

    2.3 Assess IT implementation model

    2.4 Assess tech adoption strategy

    2.5 Refine program design

    3.1 Identify program accountabilities

    3.2 Define program target state

    3.3 Build program roadmap

    Phase outcomes

    • Initial security program design
    • Refined security program design
    • Prioritized set of security capabilities
    • Program accountabilities
    • Program gap closure initiatives

    Tools

    Insight Map

    You are a business leader first and a security leader second

    Technical security frameworks are static and focused on operational controls and standards. They belong in your program’s solar system but not at its center. Design your security program with business value and the security services that enable it in mind, not security controls.

    There is no one-size-fits-all security program
    Tailor your security program to your organization’s distinct profile to ensure the program generates value.

    Lay the right foundations to increase engagement
    Map out accountabilities, roles, and responsibilities to ensure the components of your security program work together over time to secure and enable business services.

    If you build it, they will come
    Your executive team wants to be part of the solution. If you give them reliable data for the things they really need to do, they will work to understand and help you solve the problem.

    Blueprint deliverables

    Info-Tech supports project and workshop activities with deliverables to help you accomplish your goals and accelerate your success.

    Security Program Design Tool

    Tailor the security program to what makes your organization unique to ensure alignment.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Security Program Design Tool.

    Security Program Implementation Tool

    Assess the current state of different security program components and plan next steps.



    SecurityProgram Design and Implementation Plan

    Communicate capabilities, accountabilities, and implementation initiatives.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Security Program Design and Implementation Plan.

    Key deliverable

    Security Program Design and Implementation Plan

    The design and implementation plan captures the key insights your work will generate, including:

    • A prioritized set of security capabilities aligned to business requirements.
    • Security program accountabilities.
    • Security program implementation initiatives.

    Blueprint benefits

    IT Benefits

    Business Benefits

    • Laying the right foundations for your security program will:
      • Inform the future security governance, security strategy, security architecture, and service design decisions you need to make.
      • Improve security service design and service quality, reduce security friction, and increase business satisfaction with the security program.
      • Help you give your leadership team the information they need to support your success.
      • Improve the standing of the security program with business leaders.
    • Organizations with a well-aligned security program:
      • Improve security risk management, performance measurement, resource management, and value delivery.
      • Lower rates of security incidents and lower-cost security breaches.
      • Align costs, performance, and risk reduction objectives with business needs.
      • Are more satisfied with their security program.

    Measure the value of using Info-Tech’s approach

    Assess the effectiveness of your security program with a risk-based approach.

    Deliverable

    Challenge

    Security Program Design

    • Prioritized set of security capabilities
    • Program accountabilities
    • Devise and deploy an approach to gather business requirements, identify and prioritize relevant security capabilities, and assign program accountabilities.
    • Cost and Effort : 2 FTEs x 90 days x $130,000/year

    Program Assessment and Implementation Plan

    • Security program assessment
    • Roadmap of gap closure initiatives
    • Devise and deploy an approach to assess the current state of your security program, identify gap closure or improvement initiatives, and build a transformation roadmap.
    • Cost and Effort : 2 FTEs x 90 days x $130,000/year

    Measured Value

    • Using Info-Tech’s best practice methodology will cut the cost and effort in half.
    • Savings: 2 FTEs x 45 days x $130,000/year = $65,000

    Measure the impact of your project

    Use Info-Tech diagnostics before and after the engagement to measure your progress.

    • Info-Tech diagnostics are standardized surveys that produce historical and industry trends against which to benchmark your organization.
    • Run the Security Business Satisfaction and Alignment diagnostic now, and again in twelve months to assess business satisfaction with the security program and measure the impact of your program improvements.
    • Reach out to your account manager or follow the link to deploy the diagnostic and measure your success. Diagnostics are included in your membership.

    Inform this step with Info-Tech diagnostic results

    • Info-Tech diagnostics are standardized surveys that accelerate the process of gathering and analyzing pain point data.
    • Diagnostics also produce historical and industry trends against which to benchmark your organization.
    • Reach out to your account manager or follow the links to deploy some or all these diagnostics to validate your assumptions. Diagnostics are included in your membership.

    Governance & Management Maturity Scorecard
    Understand the maturity of your security program across eight domains.
    Audience: Security Manager

    Security Business Satisfaction and Alignment Report
    Assess the organization’s satisfaction with the security program.
    Audience: Business Leaders

    CIO Business Vision
    Assess the organization’s satisfaction with IT services and identify relevant challenges.
    Audience: Business Leaders

    Executive Brief Case Study

    INDUSTRY: Higher Education

    SOURCE: Interview

    Building a business-aligned security program

    Portland Community College (PCC) is the largest post-secondary institution in Oregon and serves more than 50,000 students each year. The college has a well-established information technology program, which supports its education mission in four main campuses and several smaller centers.

    PCC launched a security program modernization effort to deal with the evolving threat landscape in higher education. The CISO studied the enterprise strategy and goals and reviewed the college’s risk profile and compliance requirements. The exercise helped the organization prioritize security capabilities for the renewal effort and informed the careful assessment of technical controls in the current security program.

    Results

    Laying the right foundations for the security program helped the security function understand how to provide the organization with a clear report of its security posture. The CISO now reports directly to the board of directors and works with stakeholders to align cost, performance, and risk reduction objectives with the needs of the college.

    The security program modernization effort prioritized several critical design factors

    • Enterprise Strategy
    • Enterprise Goals
    • IT Risk Profile
    • IT-Related Issues
    • IT Threat Landscape
    • Compliance Requirements

    Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

    DIY Toolkit

    “Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.”

    Guided Implementation

    “Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.”

    Workshop

    “We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.”

    Consulting

    “Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3

    Call #1:
    Scope requirements, objectives, and specific challenges.

    Call #2:
    Define business context, assess risk profile, and identify existing security issues.

    Define initial design of security program.

    Call #3:
    Evaluate threat landscape and compliance requirements.

    Call #4:
    Analyze the role of IT, the security sourcing model, technology adoption, and implementation models.

    Refine the design of the security program.

    Call #5:
    Identify program accountabilities.

    Call #6:
    Design program target state and draft security program implementation plan.

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

    A typical GI is 4 to 6 calls over the course of 6 months.

    Workshop Overview

    Contact your account representative for more information.
    workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

    Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5

    Initial Security
    Program Design

    Refine Security
    Program Design

    Security Program
    Gap Analysis

    Roadmap and Implementation Plan

    Next Steps and
    Wrap-Up (offsite)

    Activities

    1.1.0 Review Info-Tech diagnostic results

    1.1.1 Identify project context

    1.1.2 Identify enterprise strategy

    1.2.1 Identify enterprise goals

    1.2.2 Build a goals cascade

    1.3 Assess the risk profile

    1.4 Identify IT-related issues

    1.5 Evaluate initial program design

    2.1.1 Gauge threat landscape

    2.1.2 Identify compliance requirements

    2.2.1 Categorize the role of IT

    2.2.2 Identify the sourcing model

    2.3.1 Identify the IT implementation model

    2.4.1 Identify the tech adoption strategy

    2.5.1 Refine the design of the program

    3.1 Identify program accountabilities

    3.2.1 Conduct program gap analysis

    3.2.2 Prioritize initiatives

    3.3.1 Build program roadmap

    3.3.2 Finalize implementation plan

    3.3.3 Sponsor check-in

    4.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days

    4.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps

    Deliverables

    1. Project context
    2. Stakeholder satisfaction feedback on security program
    3. Initial set of prioritized security capabilities
    1. Refined set of prioritized security capabilities
    1. Documented program accountabilities
    2. Security program gap analysis
    1. Roadmap of initiatives
    2. Communication deck for program design and implementation
    1. Completed security program design
    2. Security program design and implementation plan

    Customize your journey

    The security design blueprint pairs well with security governance and security strategy.

    • The prioritized set of security capabilities you develop during the program design project will inform efforts to develop other parts of your security program, like the security governance and management program and the security strategy.
    • Work with your member services director, executive advisor, or technical counselor to scope the journey you need. They will work with you to align the subject matter experts to support your roadmap and workshops.

    Workshop
    Days 1 and 2

    Workshop
    Days 3 and 4

    Security Program Design Factors

    Security Program Gap Analysis or
    Security Governance and Management

    Optimize Applications Release Management

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}406|cart{/j2store}
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    • Parent Category Name: Testing, Deployment & QA
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    • The business demands high service and IT needs to respond. Rapid customer response through efficient release and deployment is critical to maintain high business satisfaction.
    • The lack of process ownership leads to chaotic and uncoordinated releases, resulting in costly rework and poor hand-offs.
    • IT emphasizes tools but release tools and technologies alone will not fix the problem. Tools are integrated into the processes they support – if the process challenges aren’t addressed first, then the tool won’t help.
    • Releases are traditionally executed in silos with limited communication across the entire release pipeline. Culturally, there is little motivation for cross-functional collaboration and holistic process optimization.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Release management is not solely driven by tools. It is about delivering high quality releases on time through accountability and governance aided by the support of tools.
    • Release management is independent of your software development lifecycle (SDLC). Release management practices sit as an agnostic umbrella over your chosen development methodology.
    • Ownership of the entire process is vital. Release managers ensure standards are upheld and the pipeline operates efficiently.

    Impact and Result

    • Acquire release management ownership. Ensure there is appropriate accountability for speed and quality of the releases passing through the entire pipeline. A release manager has oversight over the entire release process and facilitates the necessary communication between business stakeholders and various IT roles.
    • Instill holistic thinking. Release management includes all steps required to push release and change requests to production along with the hand-off to Operations and Support. Increase the transparency and visibility of the entire pipeline to ensure local optimizations do not generate bottlenecks in other areas.
    • Standardize and lay a strong release management foundation. Optimize the key areas where you are experiencing the most pain and continually improve.

    Optimize Applications Release Management Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should optimize release management, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Review your release management objectives

    Assess the current state and define the drivers behind your release management optimizations.

    • Optimize Applications Release Management – Phase 1: Review Your Release Management Objectives
    • Release Management Process Standard Template
    • Release Management Maturity Assessment

    2. Standardize release management

    Design your release processes, program framework, and release change management standards, and define your release management team.

    • Optimize Applications Release Management – Phase 2: Standardize Release Management
    • Release Manager

    3. Roll out release management enhancements

    Create an optimization roadmap that fits your context.

    • Optimize Applications Release Management – Phase 3: Roll Out Release Management Enhancements
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Optimize Applications Release Management

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Review Your Release Management Objectives

    The Purpose

    Reveal the motivators behind the optimization of release management.

    Identify the root causes of current release issues and challenges.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Ensure business alignment of optimization efforts.

    Firm grasp of why teams are facing release issues and the impacts they have on the organization.

    Activities

    1.1 Identify the objectives for application release.

    1.2 Conduct a current state assessment of release practices.

    Outputs

    Release management business objectives and technical drivers

    Current state assessment of release processes, communication flows, and tools and technologies

    2 Standardize Release Management

    The Purpose

    Alleviate current release issues and challenges with best practices.

    Standardize a core set of processes, tools, and roles & responsibilities to achieve consistency, cadence, and transparency.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Repeatable execution of the same set of processes to increase the predictability of release delivery.

    Defined ownership of release management.

    Adaptable and flexible release management practices to changing business and technical environments.

    Activities

    2.1 Strengthen your release process.

    2.2 Coordinate releases with a program framework.

    2.3 Manage release issues with change management practices.

    2.4 Define your release management team.

    Outputs

    Processes accommodating each release type and approach the team is required to complete

    Release calendars and program framework

    Release change management process

    Defined responsibilities and accountabilities of release manager and release management team

    3 Roll Out Release Management Enhancements

    The Purpose

    Define metrics to validate release management improvements.

    Identify the degree of oversight and involvement of the release management team.

    Prioritize optimization roadmap against business needs and effort.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Easy-to-gather metrics to measure success that can be communicated to stakeholders.

    Understanding of how involved release management teams are in enforcing release management standards.

    Practical and achievable optimization roadmap.

    Activities

    3.1 Define your release management metrics.

    3.2 Ensure adherence to standards.

    3.3 Create your optimization roadmap.

    Outputs

    List of metrics to gauge success

    Oversight and reporting structure of release management team

    Release management optimization roadmap

    Embrace the Inevitability of Multicloud

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    • Parent Category Name: Strategy and Organizational Design
    • Parent Category Link: /strategy-and-organizational-design

    It used to be easy: pick your cloud, build out your IT footprint, and get back to business. But the explosion of cloud adoption has also led to an explosion of options for cloud providers, platforms, and deployment options. And that’s just when talking about infrastructure as a service!

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Multicloud isn’t good or bad; it’s inevitable.
    • Embracing multicloud in your organization is an opportunity to gain control while enabling choice. Although it increases complexity for both IT operations and governance, with the right tools and principles in place you can reduce the IT burden and increase business agility at the same time.

    Impact and Result

    • Understand what multicloud is, what it isn’t, and why you need to accept it in your organization.
    • Keep your cloud strategy but adapt your approach and tools.
    • Leverage best practices and principles that will help you keep control of the volatility and complexity that comes with multicloud.

    Embrace the Inevitability of Multicloud Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Embrace the Inevitability of Multicloud Storyboard – A deck that helps you implement best practices for your multicloud strategy.

    Use this research to understand the risks and benefits that come with a multicloud posture.

    • Embrace the Inevitability of Multicloud Storyboard

    Infographic

    Further reading

    Embrace the Inevitability of Multicloud

    The heterogeneous ecosystem is worth it; you just need a cohesive strategy.

    Executive summary

    Your Challenge

    Common Obstacles

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    It used to be easy: pick your cloud, build out your IT footprint, and get back to business. But the explosion of cloud adoption has also led to an explosion of options for cloud providers, platforms, and deployment. And that’s just when talking about infrastructure as a service!

    For many businesses, one of the key benefits of the cloud ecosystem is enabling choice for different users, groups, and projects in the organization. But this means embracing multiple cloud platforms. Is it worth it?

    The reality is that multicloud is inevitable for most organizations, and if it’s not yet a reality for your IT team, it soon will be. This brings new challenges:

    1. How do I decide what platforms and offerings to use where? Is my old cloud strategy obsolete?
    2. How do I identify what I want out of multicloud, and what tools and best practices need to be in place to keep control?

    By defining your end goals, framing solutions based on the type of visibility and features your multicloud footprint needs to deliver, you can enable choice and improve performance, flexibility, and availability.

    1. Understand what multicloud is, what it isn’t, and why you need to accept it in your organization.
    2. Keep your cloud strategy but adapt your approach and tools.
    3. Leverage best practices and principles that will help you keep control of the volatility and complexity that comes with multicloud.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Embracing multicloud in your organization is an opportunity to gain control while enabling choice. Although it increases complexity for both IT operations and governance, with the right tools and principles in place you can reduce the IT burden and increase business agility at the same time.

    Project overview

    Multicloud isn’t good or bad; it’s inevitable

    The reality is multicloud is usually not a choice. For most organizations, the requirement to integrate with partners, subsidiaries, and parent organizations, as well as the need to access key applications in the software-as-a-service ecosystem, means that going multicloud is a matter of when, not if.

    The real question most businesses should ask is not whether to go multicloud, but rather how to land in multicloud with intent and use it to their best advantage.

    Your workloads will guide the way

    One piece of good news is that multicloud doesn’t change the basic principles of a good cloud strategy. In fact, a well-laid-out multicloud approach can make it even easier to put the right workloads in the right place – and then even move them around as needed.

    This flexibility isn’t entirely free, though. It’s important to know how and when to apply this type of portability and balance its benefits against the cost and complexity that come with it.

    Don’t fall in reactively; land on your feet

    Despite the risks that come with the increased scale and complexity of multicloud, it is possible to maintain control, realize the benefits, and even use multicloud as a springboard for leveraging cloud benefits in your business. By adopting best practices and forethought in key areas of multicloud risk, you can hit the ground running.

    Aligning the terms

    Modern organizations have multiple IT footprints. How do we classify different stances?

    01 Hybrid Cloud
    Private cloud and public cloud infrastructure managed as one entity

    02 Multicloud
    Includes multiple distinct public cloud services, or “footprints”

    03 Hybrid IT
    Putting the right workloads in the right places with an overall management framework

    Info-Tech Insight

    • Hybrid cloud is about applying the same service model across multiple deployment models (most commonly public and private clouds).
    • Multicloud is about using multiple cloud offerings irrespective of differences in service model or deployment model.

    Multicloud

    • An approach that includes multiple distinct public cloud services (e.g. AWS EC2 but also Salesforce and M365)
    • Usually defined around a steady state for each workload and footprint
    • Everything in its right place (with portability for events and disasters)
    • NOT everything everywhere all at once
    The image contains the Info-Tech thought model for multicloud.

    Multicloud is inevitable

    The SaaS ecosystem has led organizations to encourage business units to exercise the IT choices that are best for them.

    The multicloud maturity journey

    1. Move a workload to the cloud
    2. Move more workloads to the same cloud
    3. Move the right workloads to the right clouds
    4. Hybrid cloud & multicloud
    5. Integrate cloud and traditional/ on-premises footprints

    Hybrid IT: Aggregate Management, Monitoring, Optimization, Continuous Improvement

    Multicloud is about enabling choice while maintaining oversight

    The broader your footprint, the harder it becomes to manage risks across each environment.

    The image contains a screenshot of a diagram of maintaining oversight with multicloud.

    Managing multicloud risks

    The risks in multicloud are the same as in traditional cloud but amplified by the differences across footprints and providers in your ecosystem.

    • Variations across platforms include:
      • Rules
      • Security
      • Mapping corresponding products and services
    • Training and certifications by platform/provider
    • Managing cost across footprints
    • Complexity of integration
    • Managing compliance across platforms
    • Loss of standardization due to multicloud fragmentation

    Info-Tech Insight

    Don’t be afraid to ask for help! Each cloud platform you adopt in your multicloud posture requires training, knowledge, and execution. If you’re already leveraging an ecosystem of cloud providers, leverage the ecosystem of cloud enablers as needed to help you on your way.

    Despite the risks, multicloud is a springboard

    Increasing flexibility & accelerating integration

    Because multicloud increases the number of platforms and environments available to us, we can
    use it as a way to increase our agility (from both a DevOps and a resource deployment perspective) as well as to provide an answer to the problem of vendor lock-in.

    Multicloud also can be a catalyst for integrating and stitching together resources and services that were previously isolated from each other. Because of the modular design and API architecture prevalent in cloud services, they can be easily consumed and integrated from your various footprints.

    Modernizing data strategy

    While it may seem counterintuitive, a proactive multicloud approach will allow you to regain visibility and control of your entire data ecosystem. Defining your data architecture and policies with an eye to the inevitability of multicloud means you can go beyond just regaining control of data stranded in SaaS and other platforms; you can start to really understand the flows of data and how they affect your business processes for better or worse.

    Move to cloud-native IT & design

    Embracing multicloud is also a great opportunity to embrace the refactoring and digital transformation you’ve been blocked on. Instead of treading water with respect to keeping control of fragmented applications, services, and workloads, a proactive approach to multicloud allows you to embrace open standards built to deliver cloud-native power and portability and to build automations that increase reliability, performance, and cost effectiveness while reducing your total in-house work burden.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Don’t bite off more than you can chew! Especially with IaaS and PaaS services, it’s important to ensure you have the skills and bandwidth to manage and deploy services effectively. It’s better to start with one IaaS platform, master it, and then expand.

    Let your workloads guide the way

    Multicloud is a road to best-of-breed everything


    A screenshot of multiclouds.

    Stick with a workload-level approach

    The principles of cloud strategy don’t change with multicloud! The image contains a screenshot of a workload-level approach.
    If anything, a multicloud approach increases your ability to put the right workloads in the right places, wherever that may be.
    It can also (with some work and tooling) provide even broader options for portability and resilience.

    Multicloud = multiple right places

    Put everything in its right place.

    Just like with any cloud strategy, start with a workload-level approach and figure out the right migration path and landing point for your workload in cloud.

    Understand the other right places!

    Multicloud means for many workloads, especially IaaS- and PaaS-focused ones, you will have multiple footprints you can use for secondary locations as desired for portability, resilience, and high availability (with the right tooling and design).

    Info-Tech Insight

    Portability is always a matter of balancing increased flexibility, availability, and resilience against increased complexity, maintenance effort, and cost. Make sure to understand the requirement for your workloads and apply portability efforts where they make the most sense

    Your management will need to evolve

    Don’t manage multicloud with off-the-rack tools.

    The default dashboards and management tools from most cloud vendors are a great starting point when managing a single cloud. Unfortunately, most of these tools do not extend well to other platforms, which can lead to multiple dashboards for multiple footprints.

    These ultimately lead to an inability to view your multicloud portfolio in aggregate and fragmentation of metrics and management practices across your various platforms. In such a situation maintaining compliance and control of IT can become difficult, if not impossible!

    Unified standards and tools that work across your entire cloud portfolio will help keep you on track, and the best way to realize these is by applying repeatable, open standards across your various environments and usually adopting new software and tools from the ecosystem of multicloud management software platforms available in the market.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Even in multicloud, don’t forget that the raw data available from the vendor’s default dashboards is a critical source of information for optimizing performance, efficiency, and costs.

    Multicloud management tool selection

    The ecosystem is heterogeneous.

    The explosion of cloud platforms and stacks means no single multicloud management tool can provide support for every stack in the private and public cloud ecosystem. This challenge becomes even greater when moving from IaaS/PaaS to addressing the near-infinite number of offerings available in the SaaS market.

    When it comes to selecting the right multicloud management tool, it’s important to keep a few things in mind:

    1. Mapping your requirements to the feature sets for your multicloud management platform is critical.
    2. Depending on your goals and metrics, and the underlying platforms and data you need to collect from them, you may need more than one tool.
    3. Especially when it comes to integrating SaaS into your multicloud tool(s), development or partners may be required.

    Key Features

    • Portability
    • Cost management
    • Automation across vendors
    • Standardization of configuration
    • Security alignment across vendors
    • Unified provisioning and self-service

    Info-Tech Insight

    SaaS always presents a unique challenge for gathering necessary cloud management data. It’s important to understand what data is and isn’t available and how it can be accessed and made available to your multicloud management tools.

    Understand your vendors

    Define what you are looking for as a first step.

    • To best understand your options, you need to understand the focus, features, and support services for each vendor. Depending on your requirements, you may need to adopt more than one tool.
    • Remember that SaaS presents unique challenges in terms of accessing and ingesting data into your management tools. This will generally require development to leverage the provider’s API.
    • Within the following slides, you will find a defined activity with a working template that will create a vendor profile for each vendor.

    As a working example, you can review these vendors on the following slides:

    • VMware CloudHealth
    • ServiceNow ITOM
    • CloudCheckr

    Info-Tech Insight

    Creating vendor profiles will help quickly identify the management tools that meet your multicloud needs.

    Vendor Profile #1

    VMware CloudHealth

    Vendor Summary

    CloudHealth is a VMware management suite that provides visibility into VMware-based as well as public cloud platforms. CloudHealth focuses on providing visibility to costs and governance as well as applying automation and standardization of configuration and performance across cloud platforms.

    URL: cloudhealth.vmware.com

    Supported Platforms

    Supports AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI, VMware

    Feature Sets

    • Portability
    • Cost management
    • Automation across platforms
    • Standardization of configuration
    • Security alignment across platforms
    • Unified provisioning and self-service

    Vendor Profile #2

    ServiceNow ITOM

    Vendor Summary

    ServiceNow IT Operations Management (ITOM) is a module for the ServiceNow platform that allows deep visibility and automated intervention/remediation for resources across multiple public and private cloud platforms. In addition to providing a platform for managing workload portability and costs across multiple cloud platforms, ServiceNow ITOM offers features focused on delivering “proactive digital operations with AIOps.”

    URL: servicenow.com/products/it-operations-management.html

    Supported Platforms

    Supports CloudFormation, ARM, GDM, and Terraform templates. Also provisions virtualized VMware environments.

    Feature Sets

    • Portability
    • Cost management
    • Automation across platforms
    • Standardization of configuration
    • Security alignment across platforms
    • Unified provisioning and self-service

    Vendor Profile #3

    CloudCheckr

    Vendor Summary

    CloudCheckr is a SaaS platform that provides end-to-end cloud management to control cost, ensure security, optimize resources, and enable services. Primarily focused on enabling management of public cloud services, CloudCheckr’s broad platform support and APIs can be used to deliver unified visibility across many multicloud postures.

    URL: cloudcheckr.com

    Supported Platforms

    Supports AWS, Azure, GCP, SAP Hana

    Feature Sets

    • Portability
    • Cost management
    • Automation across platforms
    • Standardization of configuration
    • Security alignment across platforms
    • Unified provisioning and self-service

    Activity

    Understand your vendor options

    This activity involves the following participants:

    • IT strategic direction decision makers
    • Cloud governance team
    • Cloud deployment team
    • Vendor and portfolio management

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Vendor profile template (ppt)

    Info-Tech Insight

    This checkpoint process creates transparency around agreement costs with the business and gives the business an opportunity to reevaluate its requirements for a potentially leaner agreement.

    Create your vendor profiles

    Define what you are looking for and score vendors accordingly.

    1. Create a vendor profile for every vendor of interest.
    2. Leverage our starting list and template to track and record the advantages of each vendor.

    Vendor Profile Template

    The image contains a screenshot of a Vendor Profile Template.

    Land on your feet

    Best practices to hit the ground running in multicloud

    Focus your multicloud posture on SaaS (to start)

    SaaS

    While every service model and deployment model has its place in multicloud, depending on the requirements of the workload and the business, most organizations end up in multicloud because of the wide ecosystem of options available at the SaaS level.

    Enabling the ability to adopt SaaS offerings into your multicloud footprint should be an area of focus for most IT organizations, as it’s the easiest way to deliver business impact (without taking on additional infrastructure work).

    IaaS and PaaS

    Although IaaS and PaaS also have their place in multicloud, the benefits are usually focused more on increased portability and availability rather than on enabling business-led IT.

    Additionally, multicloud at these levels can often be complex and/or costly to implement and maintain. Make sure you understand the cost-benefit for implementing multicloud at this level!

    Where the data sits matters

    With multiple SaaS workloads as well as IaaS and PaaS footprints, one of the biggest challenges to effective multicloud is understanding where any given data is, what needs access to it, and how to stitch it all together.

    In short, you need a strategy to understand how to collect and consolidate data from your multiple footprints.

    Relying solely on the built-in tools and dashboards provided by each provider inevitably leads to data fragmentation – disparate data sets that make it difficult to gain clear, unified visibility into your cloud’s data.

    To address the challenge of fragmented data, many organizations will require a multicloud-capable management platform that can provide access and visibility to data from all sources in a unified way.

    Weigh portability against nativeness

    When it comes to multicloud, cloud-native design is both your enemy and your friend. On one hand, it provides the ability to fully leverage the power and flexibility of your chosen platform to run your workload in the most on-demand, performance-efficient, utility-optimized way possible.

    But it’s important to remember that building cloud-native for one platform directly conflicts with that workload’s portability to other platforms! You need to understand the balance between portability and native effectiveness that works best for each of your workloads.

    Info-Tech Insight

    You can (sort of) have the best of both worlds! While the decision to focus on the cloud-native products, services, and functions from a given cloud platform must be weighed carefully, it’s still a good idea to leverage open standards and architectures for your workloads, as those won’t hamper your portability in the same way.

    Broaden your cost management approach

    Even on singular platforms, cloud cost management is no easy task. In multicloud, this is amplified by the increased scale and scope of providers, products, rates, and units of measure.

    There is no easy solution to this – ultimately the same accountabilities and tasks that apply to good cost management on one cloud also apply to multicloud, just at greater scale and impact.

    The image contains a screenshot of cost management approach.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Evolving your tooling applies to cost management too. While the vendor-provided tools and dashboards for cost control on any given cloud provider’s platform are a good start and a critical source for data, to get a proper holistic view you will usually require multicloud cost management software (and possibly some development work).

    Think about the sky between the clouds

    A key theme in cloud service pricing is “it’s free to come in, but it costs to leave.” This is a critical consideration when designing the inflows and outflows of data, interactions, transactions, and resources among workloads sitting on different platforms and different regions or footprints.

    When defining your multicloud posture, think about what needs to flow between your various clouds and make sure to understand how these flows will affect costs, performance, and throughput of your workloads and the business processes they support.

    • Integration and Interfaces
    • Business Process and Application Flows
    • Inter-cloud Transit Costs

    Mature your management technology

    Automation Is Your Friend

    Managing multicloud is a lot of work. It makes sense to eliminate the most burdensome and error-prone tasks. Automating these tasks also increases the ease and speed of workload portability in most cases.

    Automation and scheduling are also key enablers of standardization – which is critical to managing costs and other risks in multicloud. Create policies that manage and optimize costs, resource utilization, and asset configuration. Use these to reduce the management burden and risk profile.

    Evolve Your Tooling

    Effective multicloud management requires a clear picture of your entire cloud ecosystem across all footprints. This generally isn’t possible using the default tools for any given cloud vendor. Fortunately, there is a wide ecosystem of multicloud tools to help provide you with a unified view.

    The best cloud management tools will not only allow you to get a unified view of your IT operations regardless of where the resources lie but also help you to evaluate your multiple cloud environments in a unified way, providing a level playing field to compare and identify opportunities for improvement.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Embrace openness! Leveraging open standards and technologies doesn’t just ease portability in multicloud; it also helps rationalize telemetry and metrics across platforms, making it easier to achieve a unified management view.

    Multicloud security

    Multicloud security challenges remain focused around managing user and role complexity

    • Fragmentation of identity and access management
    • Controlling access across platforms
    • Increased complexity of roles
    • API security
    • Managing different user types and subscriptions across different service models
    • Managing security best practices across multiple platforms
    • Potential increased attack surface

    Info-Tech Insight

    Don’t reinvent the wheel! Where possible, leverage your existing identity and access management platforms and role-based access control (RBAC) discipline and extend them out to your cloud footprints.

    Don’t fall in reactively!

    1. Multicloud isn’t bad or good.
    2. Put everything the right place; understand the other right places.
    3. Know where your data goes.
    4. Automation is your friend.
    5. Strategy fundamentals don’t change.
    6. Focus on SaaS (to start).
    7. Embrace openness.
    8. Modernize your tools.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Define Your Cloud Vision
    This blueprint covers a workload-level approach to determining cloud migration paths

    10 Secrets for Successful Disaster Recovery in the Cloud
    This research set covers general cloud best practices for implement DR and resilience in the cloud.

    Bibliography

    “7 Best Practices for Multi-Cloud Management.” vmware.com, 29 April 2022. Web.
    Brown, Chalmers. “Six Best Practices For Multi-Cloud Management.” Forbes, 22 Jan. 2019. Web.
    Curless, Tim. “The Risks of Multi-Cloud Outweigh the Benefits.” AHEAD, n.d. Web.
    Tucker, Ryan. “Multicloud Security: Challenges and Solutions.” Megaport, 29 Sept 2022. Web.
    Velimirovic, Andreja. “How to Implement a Multi Cloud Strategy.” pheonixNAP, 23 June 2021. Web.
    “What is a Multi-Cloud Strategy?” vmware.com, n.d. Web.

    Document Business Goals and Capabilities for Your IT Strategy

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    • Parent Category Name: IT Strategy
    • Parent Category Link: /it-strategy
    • As a strategic driver, IT needs to work with the business. Yet, traditionally IT has not worked hand-in-hand with the business. IT does not know what information it needs from the business to execute on its initiatives.
    • A faster time to new investment decisions mean that IT needs a repeatable and efficient process to understand what the business needs.
    • CIOs must execute strategic initiatives to create an IT function that can support the business. Most CIOs fail because of low business support.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Understanding the business context is a must for all strategic IT initiatives. At its core, each strategic IT project requires answers to a specific set of questions regarding the business.
    • An effective CIO understands which part of the business context applies to which strategic IT project and, in turn, what questions to ask to uncover those insights.

    Impact and Result

    • Uncover what IT knows and needs to know about the business context. This is a necessary first step to begin each of Info-Tech’s strategic IT initiatives, which any CIO should complete.
    • Conduct efficient and repeatable business context discovery activities to uncover business context gaps.
    • Document the business context you have uncovered and streamline the process for executing on Info-Tech’s strategic CIO blueprints.

    Document Business Goals and Capabilities for Your IT Strategy Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should define the business context, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand how we can support you in completing key CIO strategic initiatives.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Identify and document the business needs of the organization

    Define the business context needed to complete strategic IT initiatives.

    • Document Business Goals and Capabilities for Your IT Strategy – Storyboard
    • Business Context Discovery Tool
    • Business Context Discovery Record Template
    • PESTLE Analysis Template
    • Strategy Alignment Map Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Document Business Goals and Capabilities for Your IT Strategy

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Identify the Missing Business Context (pre-work)

    The Purpose

    Conduct analysis and facilitate discussions to uncover business needs for IT.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A baseline understanding of what business needs mean for IT

    Activities

    1.1 Define the strategic CIO initiatives our organization will pursue.

    1.2 Complete the Business Context Discovery Tool.

    1.3 Schedule relevant interviews.

    1.4 Select relevant Info-Tech diagnostics to conduct.

    Outputs

    Business context scope

    Completed Business Context Discovery Tool

    Completed Info-Tech diagnostics

    2 Uncover and Document the Missing Context

    The Purpose

    Analyze the outputs from step 1 and uncover the business context gaps.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A thorough understanding of business needs and why IT should pursue certain initiatives

    Activities

    2.1 Conduct group or one-on-one interviews to identify the missing pieces of the business context.

    Outputs

    Documentation of answers to business context gaps

    3 Uncover and Document the Missing Context

    The Purpose

    Analyze the outputs from step 1 and uncover the business context gaps.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A thorough understanding of business needs and why IT should pursue certain initiatives

    Activities

    3.1 Conduct group or one-on-one interviews to identify the missing pieces of the business context.

    Outputs

    Documentation of answers to business context gaps

    4 Review Business Context and Next Steps

    The Purpose

    Review findings and implications for IT’s strategic initiative.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A thorough understanding of business needs and how IT’s strategic initiatives addresses those needs

    Activities

    4.1 Review documented business context with IT team.

    4.2 Discuss next steps for strategic CIO initiative execution.

    Outputs

    Finalized version of the business context

    Secure Your Hybrid Workforce

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    • Parent Category Name: Secure Cloud & Network Architecture
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    • Many IT and security leaders struggle to cope with the challenges associated with an hybrid workforce and how best to secure it.
    • Understanding the main principles of zero trust: never trust, always verify, assume breach, and verify explicitly.
    • How to go about achieving a zero trust framework.
    • Understanding the premise of SASE as it pertains to a hybrid workforce.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Securing your hybrid workforce should be an opportunity to get started on the zero trust journey. Realizing the core features needed to achieve this will assist you determine which of the options is a good fit for your organization.

    Impact and Result

    Every organization's strategy to secure their hybrid workforce should include introducing zero trust principles in certain areas. Our unique approach:

    • Assess the suitability of SASE/SSE and zero trust.
    • Present capabilities and feature benefits.
    • Procure SASE product and/or build a zero trust roadmap.

    Secure Your Hybrid Workforce Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Secure Your Hybrid Workforce Deck – The purpose of the storyboard is to provide a detailed description of the steps involved in securing your hybrid workforce with zero trust.

    The storyboard contains two easy-to-follow steps on securing your hybrid workforce with zero trust, from assessing the suitability of SASE/SSE to taking a step in building a zero trust roadmap.

    • Secure Your Hybrid Workforce – Phases 1-2

    2. Suitability Assessment Tool – A tool to identify whether SASE/SSE or a zero trust roadmap is a better fit for your organization.

    Use this tool to identify your next line of action in securing your hybrid workforce by assessing key components that conforms to the ideals and principles of Zero Trust.

    • Zero Trust - SASE Suitability Assessment Tool

    3. RFP Template – A document to guide you through requesting proposals from vendors.

    Use this document to request proposals from select vendors.

    • Request for Proposal (RFP) Template
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Secure Your Hybrid Workforce

    SASE as a driver to zero trust.

    Analyst Perspective

    Consolidate your security and network.

    Remote connections like VPNs were not designed to be security tools or to have the capacity to handle a large hybrid workforce; hence, organizations are burdened with implementing controls that are perceived to be "security solutions." The COVID-19 pandemic forced a wave of remote work for employees that were not taken into consideration for most VPN implementations, and as a result, the understanding of the traditional network perimeter as we always knew it has shifted to include devices, applications, edges, and the internet. Additionally, remote work is here to stay as recruiting talent in the current market means you must make yourself attractive to potential hires.

    The shift in the network perimeter increases the risks associated with traditional VPN solutions as well as exposing the limitations of the solution. This is where zero trust as a principle introduces a more security-focused strategy that not only mitigates most (if not all) of the risks, but also eliminates limitations, which would enhance the business and improve customer/employee experience.

    There are several ways of achieving zero trust maturity, and one of those is SASE, which consolidates security and networking to better secure your hybrid workforce as implied trust is thrown out of the window and verification of everything becomes the new normal to defend the business.

    This is a picture of Victor Okorie

    Victor Okorie
    Senior Research Analyst, Security and Privacy
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    CISOs are looking to zero trust to fill the gaps associated with their traditional remote setup as well as to build an adaptable security strategy. Some challenges faced include:

    • Understanding the main principles of zero trust: never trust, always verify, assume breach, and verify explicitly.
    • Understanding how to achieve a zero trust framework.
    • Understanding the premise of SASE as it pertains to a hybrid workforce.

    Common Obstacles

    The zero trust journey may seem tedious because of a few obstacles like:

    • Knowing what the principle is all about and the components that align with it.
    • Knowing where to start. Due to the lack of a standardized path for the zero trust journey, going about the journey can be confusing.
    • Not having a uniform definition of what makes up a SASE solution as it is heavily dependent on vendors.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    Info-Tech provides a three-service approach to helping organizations better secure their hybrid workforce.

    • Understand your current, existing technological capabilities and challenges with your hybrid infrastructure, and prioritize those challenges.
    • Gain insight into zero trust and SASE as a mitigation/control/tool to those challenges.
    • Identify the SASE features that are relevant to your needs and a source guide for a SASE vendor.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Securing your hybrid workforce should be an opportunity to get started on the zero trust journey. Realizing the core features needed to achieve this will assist you in determining which of the options is a good fit for your organization.

    Turn your challenges into opportunities

    Hybrid workforce is the new normal

    The pandemic has shown there is no going back to full on-prem work, and as such, security should be looked at differently with various considerations in mind.

    Understand that current hybrid solutions are susceptible to various forms of attack as the threat attack surface area has now expanded with users, devices, applications, locations, and data. The traditional perimeter as we know it has expanded beyond just the corporate network, and as such, it needs a more mature security strategy.

    Onboarding and offboarding have been done remotely, and with some growth recorded, the size of companies has also increased, leading to a scaling issue.

    Employees are now demanding remote work capabilities as part of contract negotiation before accepting a job.

    Attacks have increased far more quickly during the pandemic, and all indications point to them increasing even more.

    Scarce available security personnel in the job market for hire.

    Reality Today

    This image is a circle graph and 67% of it is coloured with the number 67% in the middle of the graph

    The number of breach incidents by identity theft.
    Source: Security Magazine, 2022.

    This image is a circle graph and 78% of it is coloured with the number 78% in the middle of the graph

    IT security teams want to adopt zero trust.
    Source: Cybersecurity Insiders, 2019.

    Reduce the risks of remote work by using zero trust

    $1.07m

    $1.76m

    235

    Increase in breaches related to remote work

    Cost difference in a breach where zero trust is deployed

    Days to identify a breach

    The average cost of a data breach where remote work was a factor rose by $1.07 million in 2021. COVID-19 brought about rapid changes in organizations, and digital transformation changes curbed some of its excesses. Organizations that did not make any digital transformation changes reported a $750,000 higher costs compared to global average.

    The average cost of a breach in an organization with no zero trust deployed was $5.04 million in 2021 compared to the average cost of a breach in an organization with zero trust deployed of $3.28 million. With a difference of $1.76 million, zero trust makes a significant difference.

    Organizations with a remote work adoption rate of 50% took 235 days to identify a breach and 81 days to contain that breach – this is in comparison to the average of 212 days to identify a breach and 75 days to contain that breach.

    Source: IBM, 2021.

    Network + Security = SASE

    What exactly is a SASE product?

    The convergence and consolidation of security and network brought about the formation of secure access service edge (SASE – pronounced like "sassy"). Digital transformation, hybrid workforce, high demand of availability, uninterrupted access for employees, and a host of other factors influenced the need for this convergence that is delivered as a cloud service.

    The capabilities of a SASE solution being delivered are based on certain criteria, such as the identity of the entity (users, devices, applications, data, services, location), real-time context, continuous assessment and verification of risk and "trust" throughout the lifetime of a session, and the security and compliance policies of the organization.

    SASE continuously identifies users and devices, applies security based on policy, and provides secure access to the appropriate and requested application or data regardless of location.

    image contains a list of the SASE Network Features and Security Features. the network Features are: WAN optimization; SD WAN; CDN; Network-as-a-service. The Security Features are: CASB; IDPS; ZTNA/VPN; FWaaS; Browser isolation; DLP; UEBA; Secure web gateway; Sandboxing

    Current Approach

    The traditional perimeter security using the castle and moat approach is depicted in the image here. The security shields valuable resources from external attack; however, it isn't foolproof for all kinds of external attacks. Furthermore, it does not protect those valuable resources from insider threat.

    This security perimeter also allows for lateral movement when it has been breached. Access to these resources is now considered "trusted" solely because it is now behind the wall/perimeter.

    This approach is no longer feasible in our world today where both external and internal threats pose continuous risk and need to be contained.

    Determine the suitability of SASE and zero trust

    The Challenge:

    Complications facing traditional infrastructure

    • Increased hybrid workforce
    • Regulatory compliance
    • Limited Infosec personnel
    • Poor threat detection
    • Increased attack surface

    Common vulnerabilities in traditional infrastructure

    • MITM attack
    • XSS attack
    • Session hijacking
    • Trust-based model
    • IP spoofing
    • Brute force attack
    • Distributed denial of service
    • DNS hijacking
    • Latency issues
    • Lateral movement once connection is established

    TRADITIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

    NETWORK

    SECURITY

    AUTHENTICATION

    IDENTITY

    ACCESS

    • MPLS
    • Corporate Network
    • Antivirus installed
    • Traditional Firewall
    • Intrusion Detection and Prevention System
    • Allow and Deny rules
    • Businesses must respond to consumer requests to:
    • LDAP
    • AAA
    • Immature password complexity
    • Trusted device with improperly managed endpoint protection.
    • Little or no DNS security
    • Web portal (captive)
    • VPN client

    Candidate Solutions

    Proposed benefits of SASE

    • Access is only granted to the requested resource
    • Consolidated network and security as a service
    • Micro-segmentation on application and gateway
    • Adopts a zero trust security posture for all access
    • Managed detection and response
    • Uniform enforcement of policy
    • Distributed denial of service shield

    SASE

    NETWORK

    SECURITY

    AUTHENTICATION

    IDENTITY

    ACCESS

    • Software defined – WAN
    • Content delivery network
    • WAN optimization
    • Network-as-a-service
    • Firewall-as-a-service/NGFW
    • Zero trust network access
    • Endpoint detection & response
    • Secure web gateway
    • Cloud access security broker
    • Data loss prevention
    • Remote browser isolation
    • Multifactor authentication
    • Context-based security policy for authentication
    • Authorization managed with situational awareness and real-time risk analytics
    • Continuous verification throughout an access request lifecycle
    • Zero trust identity on users, devices, applications, and data.
    • Strong password complexity enforced
    • Privilege access management
    • Secure internet access
    • SASE client

    ZERO TRUST

    TENETS OF ZERO TRUST

    ZERO TRUST PILLARS

    • Continuous, dynamic authentication and verification
    • Principle of least privilege
    • Always assume a breach
    • Implement the tenets of zero trust across the following domains of your environment:
      • IDENTITY
      • APPLICATION
      • NETWORK
      • DEVICES
      • DATA

    Proposed benefits of zero trust

    • Identify and protect critical and non-critical resources in accordance with business objectives.
    • Produce initiatives that conform to the ideals of zero trust and are aligned with the corresponding pillars above.
    • Formulate policies to protect resources and aid segmentation.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Securing your hybrid workforce should be an opportunity to get started on the zero trust journey. Realizing the core features needed to achieve this will help you determine which of the options is a good fit for your organization.

    Measure the value of using Info-Tech's approach

    IT and business value

    PHASE 1

    PHASE 2

    Assess the benefits of adopting SASE or zero trust

    Vendors will try to control the narrative in terms of what they can do for you, but it's time for you to control the narrative and identify pain points to IT and the business, and with that, to understand and define what the vendor solution can do for you.

    PHASE 2

    Assess the benefits of adopting SASE or zero trust

    Vendors will try to control the narrative in terms of what they can do for you, but it's time for you to control the narrative and identify pain points to IT and the business, and with that, to understand and define what the vendor solution can do for you.

    Short-term benefits

    • Gain awareness of your zero trust readiness.
    • Embed a zero trust mindset across your architecture.
    • Control the narrative of what SASE brings to your organization.

    Long-term benefits

    • Identified controls to mitigate risks with current architecture while on a zero trust journey.
    • Improved security posture that reduces risk by increasing visibility into threats and user connections.
    • Reduced CapEx and OpEx due to the scalability, low staffing requirements, and improved time to respond to threats using a SASE or SSE solution.

    Determine SASE cost factors

    IT and business value

    Info-Tech Insight

    IT leaders need to examine different areas of their budget and determine how the adoption of a SASE solution could influence several areas of their budget breakdown.

    Determining the SASE cost factors early could accelerate the justification the business needs to move forward in making an informed decision.

    01- Infrastructure

    • Physical security
    • Cabling
    • Power supply and HVAC
    • Hosting

    02- Administration

    • Human hours to analyze logs and threats
    • Human hours to secure infrastructure
    • Fees associated with maintenance

    03- Inbound

    • DPI
    • DDoS
    • Web application firewall
    • VPN concentrators

    04- Outbound

    • IDPS
    • DLP on-prem
    • QoS
    • Sandbox & URL filtering

    04- Data Protection

    • Real-time URL
      insights
    • Threat hunting
    • Data loss prevention

    06- Monitoring

    • Log storage
    • Logging engine
    • Dashboards
    • Managed detection
      and response

    Info-Tech's methodology for securing your hybrid workforce

    1. Current state and future mitigation

    2. Assess the benefits of moving to SASE/zero trust

    Phase Steps

    1.1 Limitations of legacy infrastructure

    1.2 Zero trust principle as a control

    1.3 SASE as a driver of zero trust

    2.1 Sourcing out a SASE/SSE vendor

    2.2 Build a zero trust roadmap

    Phase Outcomes

    Identify and prioritize risks of current infrastructure and several ways to mitigate them.

    RFP template and build a zero trust roadmap.

    Consider several factors needed to protect your growing hybrid workforce and assess your current resource capabilities, solutions, and desire for a more mature security program. The outcome should either address a quick pain point or a long-term roadmap.

    The internet is the new corporate network

    The internet is the new corporate network, which opens the organization up to more risks not protected by the current security stack. Using Info-Tech's methodology of zero trust adoption is a sure way to reduce the attack surface, and SASE is one useful tool to take you on the zero trust journey.

    Current-state risks and future mitigation

    Securing your hybrid workforce via zero trust will inevitably include (but is not limited to) technological products/solutions.

    SASE and SSE features sit as an overlay here as technological solutions that will help on the zero trust journey by aggregating all the disparate solutions required for you to meet zero trust requirements into a single interface. The knowledge and implementation of this helps put things into perspective of where and what our target state is.

    The right solution for the right problem

    It is critical to choose a solution that addresses the security problems you are actually trying to solve.

    Don't allow the solution provider to tell you what you need – rather, start by understanding your capability gaps and then go to market to find the right partner.

    Take advantage of the RFP template to source a SASE or SSE vendor. Additionally, build a zero trust roadmap to develop and strategize initiatives and tasks.

    Blueprint deliverables

    Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:

    Zero Trust and SASE Suitability Tool
    Identify critical and vulnerable DAAS elements to protect and align them to business goals.

    Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool
    Perform a gap analysis between current and target states to build a zero trust roadmap.

    Key deliverable:

    Secure Your Hybrid Workforce With Zero Trust Communication deck
    Present your zero trust strategy in a prepopulated document that summarizes the work you have completed as a part of this blueprint.

    Phase 1

    Current state and future mitigation

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    1.1 Limitations of legacy infrastructure

    1.2 Zero trust principle as a control

    1.3 SASE as a driver of zero trust

    2.1 Sourcing out a SASE/SSE vendor

    2.2 Build a zero trust roadmap

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Introduction to the tool, how to use the input tabs to identify current challenges, technologies being used, and to prioritize the challenges. The prioritized list will highlight existing gaps and eventually be mapped to recommended mitigations in the following phase.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • CISO
    • CSO
    • IT security team
    • IT network team

    Secure Your Hybrid Workforce

    1.1 Limitations of legacy infrastructure

    Traditional security & remote access solutions must be modernized

    Info-Tech Insight
    Traditional security is architected with a perimeter in mind and is poorly suited to the threats in hybrid or distributed environments.

    Ensure you minimize or eliminate weak points on all layers.

    • SECURITY
      • DDoS
      • DNS hijacking
      • Weak VPN protocols
    • IDENTITY
      • One-time verification allowing lateral movement
    • NETWORK
      • Risk perimeter stops at corporate network edge
      • Split tunneling
    • AUTHENTICATION
      • Weak authentication
      • Weak passwords
    • ACCESS
      • Man-in-the-middle attack
      • Cross-site scripting
      • Session hijacking

    1.1.1 For example: traditional VPNs are poorly suited to a hybrid workforce

    There are many limitations that make it difficult for traditional VPNs to adapt to an ever-growing hybrid workforce.

    The listed limitations are tied to associated risks of legacy infrastructure as well as security components that are almost non-existent in a VPN implementation today.

    Scaling

    VPNs were designed for small-scale remote access to corporate network. An increase in the remote workforce will require expensive hardware investment.

    Visibility

    Users and attackers are not restricted to specific network resources, and with an absence of activity logs, they can go undetected.

    Managed detection & response

    Due to the reduction in or lack of visibility, threat detections are poorly managed, and responses are already too late.

    Hardware

    Limited number of locations for VPN hardware to be situated as it can be expensive.

    Hybrid workforce

    The increase in the hybrid workforce requires the risk perimeter to be expanded from the corporate network to devices and applications. VPNs are built for privacy, not security.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Hybrid workforces are here to stay, and adopting a strategy that is adaptable, flexible, simple, and cost-effective is a recommended road to take on the journey to bettering your security and network.

    1.1 Identify risk from legacy infrastructure

    Estimated Time: 1-2 hours

    1. Ensure all vulnerabilities described on slide 17 are removed.
    2. Note any forecasted challenge you think you might have down the line with your current hybrid setup.
    3. Identify any trend that may be of interest to you with regards to your hybrid setup.

    This is a screenshot of the organizational profile table found in the Zero Trust - SASE Suitability Assessment Tool

    Download the Zero Trust - SASE Suitability Assessment Tool

    Input

    • List of key pain points and challenges
    • List of forecasted challenges and trends of interest

    Output

    • Prioritized list of pain points and/or challenges

    Materials

    • Excel tool
    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • CISO
    • InfoSec team
    • IT manager
    • CIO
    • Infrastructure team

    1.2 Zero trust principle as a control

    A zero trust implementation comes with benefits/initiatives that mitigate the challenges identified in earlier activities.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Zero trust/"always verify" is applied to identity, workloads, devices, networks, and data to provide a greater control for risks associated with traditional network architecture.

    Improve IAM maturity

    Zero trust identity and access will lead to a mature IAM process in an organization with the removal of implicit trust.

    Secure your remote access

    With a zero trust network architecture (ZTNA), both the remote and on-prem network access are more secure than the traditional network deployment. The software-defined parameter ensures security on each network access.

    Reduce threat surface area

    With zero trust principle applied on identity, workload, devices, network, and data, the threat surface area which births some of the risks identified earlier will be significantly reduced.

    Improve hybrid workforce

    Scaling, visibility, network throughput, secure connection from anywhere, micro-segmentation, and a host of other benefits to improve your hybrid workforce.

    1.2 SASE as an overlay to zero trust

    Security and network initiatives of a zero trust roadmap converged into a single pane of glass.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Security and network converged into a single pane of glass giving you some of the benefits and initiatives of a zero trust implemented architecture in one package.

    Improve IAM maturity

    The identity-centric nature of SASE solutions helps to improve your IAM maturity as it applies the principle of least privilege. The removal of implicit trust and continuous verification helps foster this more.

    Secure your remote access

    With ZTNA, both the remote and on-prem network access are more secure than the traditional network deployment. The software defined parameter ensures security on each network access.

    Reduce threat surface area

    Secure web gateway, cloud access security broker, domain name system, next-generation firewall, data loss prevention, and ZTNA protect against data leaks, prevent lateral movement, and prevent malicious actors from coming in.

    Improve hybrid workforce

    Reduced costs and complexity of IT, faster user experience, and reduced risk as a result of the scalability, visibility, ease of IT administration, network throughput, secure connection from anywhere, micro-segmentation, and a host of other benefits will surely improve your hybrid workforce.

    Align SASE features to zero trust core capabilities

    Verify Identity

    • Authentication & verification are enforced for each app request or session.
    • Use of multifactor authentication.
    • RBAC/ABAC and principle of least privilege are applied on the identity regardless of user, device, or location.

    Verify Device

    • Device health is checked to ensure device is not compromised or vulnerable.
    • No admin permissions on user devices.
    • Device-based risk assessment is enforced as part of UEBA.

    Verify Access

    • Micro-segmentation built around network, user, device, location and roles.
    • Use of context and content-based policy enforced to the user, application, and device identity.
    • Network access only granted to specified application request and not to the entire network.

    Verify Services

    • Applications and services are checked before access is granted.
    • Connections to the application and services are inspected with the security controls built into the SASE solution.

    Info-Tech Insight

    These features of SASE and zero trust mitigate the risks associated with a traditional VPN and reduce the threat surface area. With security at the core, network optimization is not compromised.

    Security components of SASE

    Otherwise known as security service edge (SSE)

    Security service edge is the convergence of all security services typically found in SASE. At its core, SSE consists of three services which include:

    • Secure web gateway – secure access to the internet and web.
    • Cloud access security broker – secure access to SaaS and cloud applications.
    • Zero trust network access – secure remote access to private applications.

    SSE components are also mitigations or initiatives that make up a zero trust roadmap as they comply with the zero trust principle, and as a result, they sit up there with SASE as an overlay/driver of a zero trust implementation. SSE's benefits are identical to SASE's in that it provides zero trust access, risk reduction, low costs and complexity, and a better user experience. The difference is SSE's sole focus on security services and not the network component.

    SASE

    NETWORK FEATURES

    SECURITY FEATURES

    • WAN optimization
    • SD WAN
    • CDN
    • Network-as-a-service
    • CASB
    • IDPS
    • ZTNA/VPN
    • FWaaS
    • Browser isolation
    • DLP
    • UEBA
    • Secure web gateway
    • Sandboxing

    1.3 Pros & cons of zero trust and SASE

    Zero Trust

    SASE

    Pros

    Cons

    Pros

    Cons

    • Robust IAM process and technologies with role-based access control.
    • Strong and continuous verification of identity of user accounts, devices, data, location, and principle of least privilege applied.
    • Micro-segmentation applied around users, network, devices, roles, and applications to prevent lateral movement.
    • Threat attack surface eliminated, which reduces organizational risks.
    • Protection of data strengthened based on sensitivity and micro-segmentation.
    • Difficult to identify the scope of the zero trust initiative.
    • Requires continuous and ongoing update of access controls.
    • Zero trust journey/process could take years and is prone to being abandoned without commitment from executives.
    • Legacy systems can be hard to replace, which would require all stakeholders to prioritize resource allocation.
    • Can be expensive to implement.
    • Adopts a zero trust security posture for all access requests.
    • Converged and consolidated network and security delivered as a cloud service to the user rather than a single point of enforcement.
    • Centralized visibility of devices, data in transit and at rest, user activities, and threats.
    • Cheaper than a zero trust roadmap implementation.
    • Managed detection and response.
    • The limited knowledge of SASE.
    • No universally agreed upon SASE definition.
    • SASE products are still being developed and are open to vendors' interpretation.
    • Existing vendor relationships could be a hinderance to deployment.
    • Hard to manage MSSPs.

    Understand SASE and zero trust suitability for your needs

    Estimated Time: 1 hour

    Use the dashboard to understand the value assessment of adopting a SASE product or building a zero trust roadmap.

    This is an image of the SASE Suitability Assessment

    This is the image of the Zero Trust Suitability Assessment

    Info-Tech Insight

    This tool will help steer you on a path to take as a form of mitigation/control to some or all the identified challenges.

    Phase 2

    Make a decision and next steps

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    1.1 Limitations of legacy infrastructure

    1.2 Zero trust principle as a control

    1.3 SASE as a driver of zero trust

    2.1 Sourcing out a SASE/SSE vendor

    2.2 Build a zero trust roadmap

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Introduction to the tool activity, how to use the input tabs and considerations to generate an output that could help understand the current state of your hybrid infrastructure and what direction is to be followed next to improve.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • CISO
    • CSO
    • IT security
    • IT network team

    Secure Your Hybrid Workforce

    Step 2.1

    Sourcing out a SASE/SSE vendor

    Activities

    2.1.1 Use the RFP template to request proposal from vendors

    2.1.2 Use SoftwareReviews to compare vendors

    This step involves the following participants:

    • CIO, CISO, IT manager, Infosec team, executives.

    Outcomes of this step

    • Zero Trust Roadmap

    2.1.1 Use the RFP template to request proposal from vendors

    Estimated Time: 1-3 hours

    1. As a group, use the RFP Template to include technical capabilities of your desired SASE product and to request proposals from vendors.
    2. The features that are most important to your organization generated from phase one should be highlighted in the RFP.

    Input

    • List of SASE features
    • Technical capabilities

    Output

    • RFP

    Materials

    • RFP Template

    Participants

    • Security team
    • IT leadership

    Download the RFP Template

    2.1.2 Use SoftwareReviews to compare vendors

    SoftwareReviews

    • The Data Quadrant is a thorough evaluation and ranking of all software in an individual category to compare platforms across multiple dimensions.
    • Vendors are ranked by their Composite Score, based on individual feature evaluations, user satisfaction rankings, vendor capability comparisons, and likeliness to recommend the platform.
    • The Emotional Footprint is a powerful indicator of overall user sentiment toward the relationship with the vendor, capturing data across five dimensions.
    • Vendors are ranked by their Customer Experience (CX) Score, which combines the overall Emotional Footprint rating with a measure of the value delivered by the solution.

    Step 2.2

    Zero trust readiness and roadmap

    Activities

    2.2.1 Assess the maturity of your current zero trust implementation

    2.2.2 Understand business needs and current security projects

    2.2.3 Set target maturity state with timeframe

    This step involves the following participants:

    CIO, CISO, IT manager, Infosec team, executives.

    Outcomes of this step

    Zero Trust Roadmap

    2.2.1 Assess the maturity of your current zero trust implementation

    Estimated Time: 1-3 hours

    • Realizing that zero trust is a journey helps create a better roadmap and implementation. Identify the current controls or solutions in your organization that align with the principle of zero trust.
    • Break down these controls or solutions into different silos (e.g. identity, security, network, data, device, applications, etc.).
    • Determine your zero trust readiness.

    Input

    • List of zero trust controls/solutions
    • Siloed list of zero trust controls/solutions
    • Current state of zero trust maturity

    Output

    • Zero trust readiness and current maturity state

    Materials

    • Zero Trust Security Benefit Assessment tool

    Participants

    • Security team
    • IT leadership

    Download the Zero Trust Security Benefit Assessment tool

    2.2.2 Understand business needs and current security projects

    Estimated Time: 1-3 hours

    1. Identify the business and IT executives, application owners, and board members whose vision aligns with the zero trust journey.
    2. Identify existing projects within security, IT, and the business and highlight interdependencies or how they fit with the zero trust journey.
    3. Build a rough sketch of the roadmap that fits the business needs, current projects and the zero trust journey.

    Input

    • Meetings with stakeholders
    • List of current and future projects

    Output

    • Sketch of zero trust roadmap

    Materials

    • Whiteboard activity

    Participants

    • Security team
    • IT leadership
    • IT ops team
    • Business executives
    • Board members

    Download Zero Trust Protect Surface Mapping Tool

    2.2.3 Set target maturity state with a given timeframe

    Estimated Time: 1-3 hours

    1. With the zero trust readiness, current business, IT and security projects, current maturity state, and sketch of the roadmap, setting a target maturity state within some timeframe is at the top of the list. The target maturity state will include a list of initiatives that could be siloed and confined to a timeframe.
    2. A Gantt chart or graph could be used to complete this task.

    Input

    • Results from previous activity slides

    Output

    • Current state and target state assessment for gap analysis
    • List of initiatives and timeframe

    Materials

    • Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    Participants

    • Security team
    • IT leadership
    • IT ops team
    • Business executives
    • Board members

    Download the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Insights Gained

    • Difference between zero trust as a principle and SASE as a framework
    • Difference between SASE and SSE platforms.
    • Assessment of which path to take in securing your hybrid workforce

    Deliverables Completed

    If you would like additional support, have our analysts guide you through other phases as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Contact your account representative for more information

    workshops@infotech.com

    1-888-670-8889

    Additional Support

    If you would like additional support, have our analysts guide you through other phases as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.

    Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech's historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.

    Contact your account representative for more information.
    workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

    The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:

    This is a screenshot from the Zero Trust - SASE Suitability Assessment Tool

    Zero Trust - SASE Suitability Assessment Tool

    Assess current security capabilities and build a roadmap of tasks and initiatives that close maturity gaps.

    Research Contributors

    • Aaron Shum, Vice President, Security & Privacy
    • Cameron Smith, Research Lead, Security & Privacy
    • Brad Mateski, Zones, Solutions Architect for CyberSecurity
    • Bob Smock, Info-Tech Research Group, Vice President of Consulting
    • Dr. Chase Cunningham, Ericom Software, Chief Strategy Officer
    • John Kindervag, ON2IT Cybersecurity, Senior Vice President, Cybersecurity Strategy and ON2IT Group Fellow
    • John Zhao, Fonterra, Enterprise Security Architect
    • Rongxing Lu, University of New Brunswick, Associate Professor
    • Sumanta Sarkar, University of Warwick, Assistant Professor
    • Tim Malone, J.B. Hunt Transport, Senior Director Information Security
    • Vana Matte, J.B. Hunt Transport, Senior Vice President of Technology Services

    Related Info-Tech Research

    This is a screenshot from Info-Tech's Security Strategy Model

    Build an Information Security Strategy

    Info-Tech has developed a highly effective approach to building an information security strategy – an approach that has been successfully tested and refined for over seven years with hundreds of organizations. This unique approach includes tools for ensuring alignment with business objectives, assessing organizational risk and stakeholder expectations, enabling a comprehensive current state assessment, prioritizing initiatives, and building out a security roadmap.

    This is a screenshot from Info-Tech's research: Determine Your Zero Trust Readiness

    Determine Your Zero Trust Readiness

    IT security was typified by perimeter security. However, the way the world does business has mandated a change to IT security. In response, zero trust is a set of principles that can add flexibility to planning your IT security strategy.

    Use this blueprint to determine your zero trust readiness and understand how zero trust can benefit both security and the business.

    This is a screenshot from Info-Tech's research: Mature Your Identity and Access Management Program

    Mature Your Identity and Access Management Program

    Many organizations are looking to improve their identity and access management (IAM) practices but struggle with where to start and whether all areas of IAM have been considered. This blueprint will help you improve the organization's IAM practices by following our three-phase methodology:

    • Assess identity and access requirements.
    • Identify initiatives using the identity lifecycle.
    • Prioritize initiatives and build a roadmap.

    Bibliography

    "2021 Data Breach Investigations Report." Verizon, 2021. Web.
    "Fortinet Brings Networking and Security to the Cloud" Fortinet, 2 Mar. 2021. Web.
    "A Zero Trust Strategy Has 3 Needs – Identify, Authenticate, and Monitor Users and Devices on and off the Network." Fortinet, 15 July 2021. Web.
    "Applying Zero Trust Principles to Enterprise Mobility." CISA, Mar. 2022. Web.
    "CISA Zero Trust Maturity Model." CISA, Cybersecurity Division, June 2021. Web.
    "Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation Program Overview." CISA, Jan. 2022. Web.
    "Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021 | IBM." IBM, July 2021. Web.
    English, Melanie. "5 Stats That Show The Cost Saving Effect of Zero Trust." Teramind, 29 Sept. 2021. Web.
    Hunter, Steve. "The Five Business Benefits of a Zero Trust Approach to Security." Security Brief - Australia, 19 Aug. 2020. Web.
    "Improve Application Access and Security With Fortinet Zero Trust Network Access." Fortinet, 2 Mar. 2021. Web.
    "Incorporating zero trust Strategies for Secure Network and Application Access." Fortinet, 21 Jul. 2021. Web.
    Jakkal, Vasu. "Zero Trust Adoption Report: How Does Your Organization Compare?" Microsoft, 28 July 2021. Web.
    "Jericho Forum™ Commandments." The Open Group, Jericho Forum, May 2007. Web.
    Schulze, Holger. "2019 Zero Trust Adoption Report." Cybersecurity Insiders, 2019. Web.
    "67% of Organizations Had Identity-Related Data Breaches Last Year." Security Magazine, 22 Aug. 2022. Web.
    United States, Executive Office of the President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. "Executive Order on Improving the Nation's Cybersecurity." The White House, 12 May 2021. Web.

    Generative AI: Market Primer

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}349|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): N/A
    • member rating average dollars saved: N/A
    • member rating average days saved: N/A
    • Parent Category Name: Data Management
    • Parent Category Link: /data-management
    • Much of the organization remains in the dark for understanding what Gen AI is, complicated by ambiguous branding from vendors claiming to provide Gen AI solutions.
    • Searching the market for a Gen AI platform is nearly impossible, owing to the sheer number of vendors.
    • The evaluative criteria for selecting a Gen AI platform are unclear.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • You cannot rush Gen AI selection and implementation. Organizations with (1) FTEs devoted to making Gen AI work (including developers and business intelligence analysts), (2) trustworthy and regularly updated data, and (3) AI governance are just now reaching PoC testing.
    • Gen AI is not a software category – it is an umbrella concept. Gen AI platforms will be built on different foundational models, be trained in different ways, and provide varying modalities. Do not expect Gen AI platforms to be compared against the same parameters in a vendor quadrant.
    • Bad data is the tip of the iceberg for Gen AI risks. While Gen AI success will be heavily reliant on the quality of data it is fine-tuned on, there are independent risks organizations must prepare for, from Gen AI hallucinations and output reliability to infrastructure feasibility and handling high-volume events.
    • Prepare for ongoing instability in the Gen AI market. If your organization is unsure about where to start with Gen AI, the secure route is to examine what your enterprise providers are offering. Use this as a learning platform to confidently navigate which specialized Gen AI provider will be viable for meeting your use cases.

    Impact and Result

    • Consensus on Gen AI scope and key Gen AI capabilities
    • Identification of your readiness to leverage Gen AI applications
    • Agreement on Gen AI evaluative criteria
    • Knowledge of vendor viability

    Generative AI: Market Primer Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Generative AI: Market Primer – Contextualize the marketspace and prepare for generative AI selection.

    Use Info-Tech’s best practices for setting out a selection roadmap and evaluative criteria for narrowing down vendors – both enterprise and specialized providers.

    • Generative AI: Market Primer Storyboard
    • Data Governance Policy
    • AI Governance Storyboard
    • AI Architecture Assessment and Project Planning Tool
    • AI Architecture Assessment and Project Planning Tool – Sample
    • AI Architecture Templates
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Generative AI: Market Primer

    Cut through Gen AI buzzwords to achieve market clarity.

    Analyst Perspective

    The generative AI (Gen AI) marketspace is complex, nascent, and unstable.

    Organizations need to get clear on what Gen AI is, its infrastructural components, and the governance required for successful platform selection.

    Thomas Randall

    The urge to be fast-moving to leverage the potential benefits of Gen AI is understandable. There are plenty of opportunities for Gen AI to enrich an organization’s use cases – from commercial to R&D to entertainment. However, there are requisites an organization needs to get right before Gen AI can be effectively applied. Part of this is ensuring data and AI governance is well established and mature within the organization. The other part is contextualizing Gen AI to know what components of this market the organization needs to invest in.

    Owing to its popularity surge, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has become near synonymous with Gen AI. However, Gen AI is an umbrella concept that encompasses a variety of infrastructural architecture. Organizations need to ask themselves probing questions if they are looking to work with OpenAI: Does ChatGPT rest on the right foundational model for us? Does ChatGPT offer the right modalities to support our organization’s use cases? How much fine-tuning and prompt engineering will we need to perform? Do we require investment in on-premises infrastructure to support significant data processing and high-volume events? And do we require FTEs to enable all this infrastructure?

    Use this market primer to quickly get up to speed on the elements your organization might need to make the most of Gen AI.

    Thomas Randall

    Advisory Director, Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    • Much of the organization remains in the dark for understanding what Gen AI is, complicated by ambiguous branding from vendors claiming to provide Gen AI solutions.
    • Searching the market for a Gen AI platform is near impossible, owing to the sheer number of vendors.
    • The evaluative criteria for selecting a Gen AI platform is unclear.

    Common Obstacles

    • Data governance is immature within the organization. There is no source of truth or regularly updated organizational process assets.
    • AI functionality is not well understood within the organization; there is little AI governance for monitoring and controlling its use.
    • The extent of effort and resources required to make Gen AI a success remains murky.

    Info-Tech's Solution

    This market primer for Gen AI will help you:

    1. Contextualize the Gen AI market: Learn what components of Gen AI an organization should consider to make Gen AI a success.
    2. Prepare for Gen AI selection: Use Info-Tech’s best practices for setting out a selection roadmap and evaluative criteria for narrowing down vendors – both enterprise and specialized providers.

    “We are entering the era of generative AI.
    This is a unique time in our history where the benefits of AI are easily accessible and becoming pervasive with co-pilots emerging in the major business tools we use today. The disruptive capabilities that can potentially drive dramatic benefits also introduces risks that need to be planned for.”

    Bill Wong, Principal Research Director – Data and BI, Info-Tech Research Group

    Who benefits from this project?

    This research is designed for:

    • Senior IT, developers, data staff, and project managers who:
      • Have received a mandate from their executives to begin researching the Gen AI market.
      • Need to quickly get up to speed on the state of the Gen AI market, given no deep prior knowledge of the space.
      • Require an overview of the different components to Gen AI to contextualize how vendor comparisons and selections can be made.
      • Want to gain an understanding of key trends, risks, and evaluative criteria to consider in their selection process.

    This research will help you:

    • Articulate the potential business value of Gen AI to your organization.
    • Establish which high-value use cases could be enriched by Gen AI functionality.
    • Assess vendor viability for enterprise and specialized software providers in the Gen AI marketspace.
    • Collect information on the prerequisites for implementing Gen AI functionality.
    • Develop relevant evaluative criteria to assist differentiating between shortlisted contenders.

    This research will also assist:

    • Executives, business analysts, and procurement teams who are stakeholders in:
      • Contextualizing the landscape for learning opportunities.
      • Gathering and documenting requirements.
      • Building deliverables for software selection projects.
      • Managing vendors, especially managing the relationships with incumbent enterprise software providers.

    This research will help you:

    • Identify examples of how Gen AI applications could be leveraged for your organization’s core use cases.
    • Verify the extent of Gen AI functionality an incumbent enterprise provider has.
    • Validate accuracy of Gen AI language and architecture referenced in project deliverables.

    Insight Summary

    You cannot speedrun Gen AI selection and implementation.

    Organizations with (1) FTEs devoted to making Gen AI work (including developers and business intelligence analysts), (2) trustworthy and regularly updated data, and (3) AI governance are just now reaching PoC testing.

    Gen AI is not a software category – it is an umbrella concept.

    Gen AI platforms will be built on different foundational models, be trained in different ways, and provide varying modalities. Do not expect to compare Gen AI platforms to the same parameters in a vendor quadrant.

    Bad data is the tip of the iceberg for Gen AI risks.

    While Gen AI success will be heavily reliant on the quality of data it is fine-tuned on, there are independent risks organizations must prepare for: from Gen AI hallucinations and output reliability to infrastructure feasibility to handle high-volume events.

    Gen AI use may require changes to sales incentives.

    If you plan to use Gen AI in a commercial setting, review your sales team’s KPIs. They are rewarded for sales velocity; if they are the human-in-the-loop to check for hallucinations, you must change incentives to ensure quality management.

    Prepare for ongoing instability in the Gen AI market.

    If your organization is unsure about where to start with Gen AI, the secure route is to examine what your enterprise providers are offering. Use this as a learning platform to confidently navigate which specialized Gen AI provider will be viable for meeting your use cases.

    Brace for a potential return of on-premises infrastructure to power Gen AI.

    The market trend has been for organizations to move to cloud-based products. Yet, for Gen AI, effective data processing and fine-tuning may call for organizations to invest in on-premises infrastructure (such as more GPUs) to enable their Gen AI to function effectively.

    Info-Tech’s methodology for understanding the Gen AI marketspace

    Phase Steps

    1. Contextualize the Gen AI marketplace

    1. Define Gen AI and its components.
    2. Explore Gen AI trends.
    3. Begin deriving Gen AI initiatives that align with business capabilities.

    2. Prepare for and understand Gen AI platform offerings

    1. Review Gen AI selection best practices and requisites for effective procurement.
    2. Determine evaluative criteria for Gen AI solutions.
    3. Explore Gen AI offerings with enterprise and specialized providers.
    Phase Outcomes
    1. Achieve consensus on Gen AI scope and key Gen AI capabilities.
    2. Identify your readiness to leverage Gen AI applications.
    3. Hand off to Build Your Generative AI Roadmap to complete pre-requisites for selection.
    1. Determine whether deeper data and AI governance is required; if so, hand off to Create an Architecture for AI.
    2. Gain consensus on Gen AI evaluative criteria.
    3. Understand vendor viability.

    Guided Implementation

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    • Call #1: Discover if Gen AI is right for your organization. Understand what a Gen AI platform is and discover the art of the possible.
    • Call #2: To take advantage of Gen AI, perform a business capabilities analysis to begin deriving Gen AI initiatives.
    • Call #3: Explore whether Gen AI initiatives can be achieved either with incumbent enterprise players or via procurement of specialized solutions.
    • Call #4: Evaluate vendors and perform final due diligence.

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

    The Gen AI market evaluation process should be broken into segments:

    1. Gen AI market education with this primer
    2. Structured approach to selection
    3. Evaluation and final due diligence

    Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

    DIY Toolkit

    "Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful"

    Guided Implementation

    "Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track."

    Workshop

    "We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place."

    Consulting

    "Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

    Software selection engagement

    Five advisory calls over a five-week period to accelerate your selection process

    • Receive expert analyst guidance over five weeks (on average) to select and negotiate software.
    • Save money, align stakeholders, speed up the process, and make better decisions.
    • Use a repeatable, formal methodology to improve your application selection process.
    • Get better, faster results guaranteed, included in membership.
    Software selection process timeline. Week 1: Awareness - 1 hour call, Week 2: Education & Discovery - 1 hour call, Week 3: Evaluation - 1 hour call, Week 4: Selection - 1 hour call, Week 5: Negotiation & Configuration - 1 hour call.

    Click here to book your selection engagement.

    Software selection workshops

    40 hours of advisory assistance delivered online.

    Select better software, faster.

    • 40 hours of expert analyst guidance
    • Project and stakeholder management assistance
    • Save money, align stakeholders, speed up the process, and make better decisions
    • Better, faster results guaranteed; 25K standard engagement fee
    Software selection process timeline. Week 1: Awareness - 5 hours of Assistance, Week 2: Education & Discovery - 10 hours of assistance, Week 3: Evaluation - 10 hours of assistance, Week 4: Selection - 10 hours of assistance, Week 5: Negotiation & Configuration - 10 hours of assistance.

    Click here to book your workshop engagement.

    Asset Management

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    • Download01-Title: Asset Management Executive Brief
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    • Parent Category Name: Infra and Operations
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    Asset management has a clear impact on the financials of your company. Clear insights are essential to keep your spending at the right level.

    Asset Management

    Modernize Your Microsoft Licensing for the Cloud Era

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    • Parent Category Name: Licensing
    • Parent Category Link: /licensing
    • Microsoft licensing is complicated. Often, the same software can be licensed a number of ways. It’s difficult to know which edition and licensing model is best.
    • Licensing and features often change with the release of new software versions, compounding the problem by making it difficult to stay current.
    • In tough economic times, IT is asked to reduce capital and operating expenses wherever possible. As one of the top five expense items in most enterprise software budgets, Microsoft licensing is a primary target for cost reduction.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Focus on needs first. Conduct a thorough needs assessment and document the results. Well-documented needs will be your best asset in navigating Microsoft licensing and negotiating your agreement.
    • Beware the bundle. Be aware when purchasing the M365 suite that there is no way out. Negotiating a low price is critical, as all leverage swings to Microsoft once it is on your agreement.
    • If the cloud doesn’t fit, be ready to pay up or start making room. Microsoft has drastically reduced discounting for on-premises products, support has been reduced, and product rights have been limited. If you are planning to remain on premises, be prepared to pay up.

    Impact and Result

    • Understand what your organization needs and what your business requirements are. It’s always easier to purchase more later than try to reduce your spend.
    • Complete cost calculations carefully, as the cloud might end up costing significantly more for the desired feature set. However, in some scenarios, it may be more cost efficient for organizations to license in the cloud.
    • If there are significant barriers to cloud adoption, discuss and document them. You’ll need this documentation in three years when it’s time to renew your agreement.

    Modernize Your Microsoft Licensing for the Cloud Era Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Modernize Your Microsoft Licensing Deck – A deck to help you build a strategy for your Microsoft licensing renewal.

    This storyboard will help you build a strategy for your Microsoft licensing renewal from conducting a thorough needs assessment to examining your licensing position, evaluating Microsoft's licensing options, and negotiations.

    • Modernize Your Microsoft Licensing for the Cloud Era – Phases 1-4

    2. Microsoft Cloud Products Cost Modeler – A tool to model estimated costs for Microsoft's cloud products.

    The Microsoft Cloud Products Cost Modeler will provide a rough estimate of what you can expect to pay for Office 365 or Dynamics CRM licensing, before you enter into negotiations. This is not your final cost, but it will give you an idea.

    • Microsoft Cloud Products Cost Modeler

    3. Microsoft Licensing Purchase Reference Guide - A template to capture licensing stakeholder information, proposed changes to licensing, and negotiation items.

    The Microsoft Licensing Purchase Reference Guide can be used throughout the process of licensing review: from initial meetings to discuss compliance state and planned purchases, to negotiation meetings with resellers. Use it in conjunction with Info-Tech's Microsoft Licensing Effective License Position Template.

    • Microsoft Licensing Purchase Reference Guide

    4. Negotiation Timeline for Microsoft – A template to navigate your negotiations with Microsoft.

    This tool will help you plot out your negotiation timeline, depending on where you are in your contract negotiation process.

  • 6-12 months
  • Less than 3 months
    • Negotiation Timeline for Microsoft – Visio
    • Negotiation Timeline for Microsoft – PDF

    5. Effective Licensing Position Tool – A template to help you create an effective licensing position and determine your compliance position.

    This template helps organizations to determine the difference between the number of software licenses they own and the number of software copies deployed. This is known as the organization’s effective license position (ELP).

    • Effective Licensing Position Tool
    [infographic]

    Infrastructure & Operations Priorities 2022

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    • Parent Category Name: Disruptive & Emerging Technologies
    • Parent Category Link: /disruptive-emerging-technologies
    • The expectation amongst IT professionals for permanent transformational change has gone up 30% year over year. Further, 47% expect a lot of permanent change in 2022.
    • We are experiencing a great rate of change concurrent with a low degree of predictability.
    • How do you translate a general trend into a specific priority you can work on?

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Trends don’t matter but pressure does: Trends can be analyzed based on the pressure they exert (or not) on your I&O practice. Organizing trends into categories based on source makes for a more successful and contextual analysis.
    • Different prioritization is being demanded in 2022. For the foreseeable future prioritization is about drawing a line, below which you can ignore items with a clean conscience.
    • The priorities you choose to advocate for will be how your leadership is evaluated in the upcoming year.

    Impact and Result

    • By reading through this publication, you will begin to address the age-old problem “You don’t know what you don’t know.”
    • More importantly you will have a framework to dive deeper into the trends most relevant to you and your organization.
    • Info-Tech can help you turn your strong opinion into a compelling case for your stakeholders.

    Infrastructure & Operations Priorities 2022 Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Infrastructure & Operations Priorities 2022 – A framework to dive deeper into the trends most relevant to you and your organization

    Discover Info-Tech's four trends for Infrastructure & Operations leaders.

    • Infrastructure & Operations Priorities Report for 2022

    Infographic

    Explore the Secrets of SAP Software Contracts to Optimize Spend and Reduce Compliance Risk

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    • Parent Category Name: Licensing
    • Parent Category Link: /licensing
    • SAP has strict audit practices, which, in combination with 50+ types of user classifications and manual accounting for some licenses, make maintaining compliance difficult.
    • Mapping and matching SAP products to the environment can be highly complex, leading to overspending and an inability to reduce spend later.
    • Beware of indirect access to SAP applications from third-party applications (e.g. Salesforce).
    • Products that have been acquired by SAP may have altered licensing terms that are innocuously referred to in support renewal documents.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Focus on needs first. Conduct a thorough requirements assessment and document the results. Well-documented license needs will be your core asset in navigating SAP licensing and negotiating your agreement.
    • Examine indirect access possibilities. Understanding how in-house or third-party applications may be accessing the SAP software is critical.
    • Know whats in the contract. Each customer agreement is different and there may be terms that are beneficial. Older agreements may provide both benefits and challenges when evaluating your SAP license position.

    Impact and Result

    • Conduct an analysis to remove inactive and duplicate users as multiple logins may exist and could end up costing the organization license fees when audited.
    • Adopt a cyclical approach to reviewing your SAP licensing and create a reference document to track your software needs, planned licensing, and purchase negotiation points.
    • Learn the “SAP way” of conducting business, which includes a best-in-class sales structure, unique contracts and license use policies, and a hyper-aggressive compliance function. Conducting business with SAP is not typical compared to other vendors, and you will need different tools to emerge successfully from a commercial transaction.
    • Manage SAP support and maintenance spend and policies. Once an agreement has been signed, it can be very difficult to decrease spend, as SAP will reprice products if support is dropped.

    Explore the Secrets of SAP Software Contracts to Optimize Spend and Reduce Compliance Risk Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you need to understand and document your SAP licensing strategy, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Establish licensing requirements

    Begin your proactive SAP licensing journey by understanding which information to gather and assessing the current state and gaps.

    • Explore the Secrets of SAP Software Contracts to Optimize Spend and Reduce Compliance Risk – Phase 1: Establish Licensing Requirements
    • SAP License Summary and Analysis Tool

    2. Evaluate licensing options

    Review current licensing models and determine which licensing models will most appropriately fit your environment.

    • Explore the Secrets of SAP Software Contracts to Optimize Spend and Reduce Compliance Risk – Phase 2: Evaluate Licensing Options

    3. Evaluate agreement options

    Review SAP’s contract types and assess which best fit the organization’s licensing needs.

    • Explore the Secrets of SAP Software Contracts to Optimize Spend and Reduce Compliance Risk – Phase 3: Evaluate Agreement Options

    4. Purchase and manage licenses

    Conduct negotiations, purchase licensing, and finalize a licensing management strategy.

    • Explore the Secrets of SAP Software Contracts to Optimize Spend and Reduce Compliance Risk – Phase 4: Purchase and Manage Licenses
    [infographic]

    Maintain an Organized Portfolio

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    • Parent Category Name: Portfolio Management
    • Parent Category Link: /portfolio-management
    • All too often, the portfolio of programs and projects looks more like a random heap than a strategically organized and balanced collection of investments that will drive the business forward.
    • Portfolio managers know that with the right kind of information and the right level of process maturity they can get better results through the portfolio; however, organizations often assume (falsely) that the required level of maturity is out of reach from their current state and perpetually delay improvements.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • The information needed to define clear and usable criteria for organizing the portfolio of programs and projects already exists. Portfolio managers only need to identify the sources of that information and institute processes for regularly reviewing that information in order to define those criteria.
    • Once a portfolio manager has a clear idea of the goals and constraints that shape what ought to be included (or removed) from the portfolio and once these have been translated into clear and usable portfolio criteria, basic portfolio management processes can be instituted to ensure that these criteria are used consistently throughout the various stages of the project lifecycle.
    • Portfolio management frameworks and processes do not need to be built from scratch. Well-known frameworks – such as the one outlined in COBIT 5 APO05 – can be instituted in a way that will allow even low-maturity organizations to start organizing their portfolio.
    • Organizations do not need to grow into portfolio management frameworks to get the benefits of an organized portfolio; instead, they can grow within such frameworks.

    Impact and Result

    • An organized portfolio will ensure that the projects and programs included in it are strategically aligned and can actually be executed within the finite constraints of budgetary and human resource capacity.
    • Portfolio managers are better empowered to make decisions about which projects should be included in the portfolio (and when) and are better empowered to make the very tough decisions about which projects should be removed from the portfolio (i.e. cancelled).
    • Building and maturing a portfolio management framework will more fully integrate the PMO into the broader IT management and governance frameworks, making it a more integral part of strategic decisions and a better business partner in the long run.

    Maintain an Organized Portfolio Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should maintain an organized portfolio of programs and projects, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Assess the current state of the portfolio and PPM processes

    Analyze the current mix of programs and projects in your portfolio and assess the maturity of your current PPM processes.

    • Maintain an Organized Portfolio – Phase 1: Assess the Current State of the Portfolio and PPM Processes
    • Project Portfolio Organizer
    • COBIT APO05 (Manage Portfolio) Alignment Workbook

    2. Enhance portfolio organization through improved PPM criteria and processes

    Enhance and optimize your portfolio management processes to ensure portfolio criteria are clearly defined and consistently applied across the project lifecycle when making decisions about which projects to include or remove from the portfolio.

    • Maintain an Organized Portfolio – Phase 2: Enhance Portfolio Organization Through Improved PPM Criteria and Processes
    • Portfolio Management Standard Operating Procedures

    3. Implement improved portfolio management practices

    Implement your portfolio management improvement initiatives to ensure long-term sustainable adoption of new PPM practices.

    • Maintain an Organized Portfolio – Phase 3: Implement Improved Portfolio Management Practices
    • Portfolio Management Improvement Roadmap Tool
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Maintain an Organized Portfolio

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Assess Portfolio Mix and Portfolio Process Current State

    The Purpose

    Analyze the current mix of the portfolio to determine how to better organize it according to organizational goals and constraints.

    Assess which PPM processes need to be enhanced to better organize the portfolio.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An analysis of the existing portfolio of projects (highlighting areas of concern).

    An analysis of the maturity of current PPM processes and their ability to support the maintenance of an organized portfolio.

    Activities

    1.1 Pre-work: Prepare a complete project list.

    1.2 Define existing portfolio categories, criteria, and targets.

    1.3 Analyze the current portfolio mix.

    1.4 Identify areas of concern with current portfolio mix.

    1.5 Review the six COBIT sub-processes for portfolio management (APO05.01-06).

    1.6 Assess the degree to which these sub-processes have been currently achieved at the organization.

    1.7 Assess the degree to which portfolio-supporting IT governance and management processes exist.

    1.8 Perform a gap analysis.

    Outputs

    Analysis of the current portfolio mix

    Assessment of COBIT alignment and gap analysis.

    2 Define Portfolio Target Mix, Criteria, and Roadmap

    The Purpose

    Define clear and usable portfolio criteria.

    Record/design portfolio management processes that will support the consistent use of portfolio criteria at all stages of the project lifecycle.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Clearly defined and usable portfolio criteria.

    A portfolio management framework that supports the consistent use of the portfolio criteria across all stages of the project lifecycle.

    Activities

    2.1 Identify determinants of the portfolio mix, criteria, and constraints.

    2.2 Define the target mix, portfolio criteria, and portfolio metrics.

    2.3 Identify sources of funding and resourcing.

    2.4 Review and record the portfolio criteria based upon the goals and constraints.

    2.5 Create a PPM improvement roadmap.

    Outputs

    Portfolio criteria

    Portfolio metrics for intake, monitoring, closure, termination, reprioritization, and benefits tracking

    Portfolio Management Improvement Roadmap

    3 Design Improved Portfolio Sub-Processes

    The Purpose

    Ensure that the portfolio criteria are used to guide decision making at each stage of the project lifecycle when making decisions about which projects to include or remove from the portfolio.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Processes that support decision making based upon the portfolio criteria.

    Processes that ensure the portfolio remains consistently organized according to the portfolio criteria.

    Activities

    3.1 Ensure that the metrics used for each sub-process are based upon the standard portfolio criteria.

    3.2 Establish the roles, accountabilities, and responsibilities for each sub-process needing improvement.

    3.3 Outline the workflow for each sub-process needing improvement.

    Outputs

    A RACI chart for each sub-process

    A workflow for each sub-process

    4 Change Impact Analysis and Stakeholder Engagement Plan

    The Purpose

    Ensure that the portfolio management improvement initiatives are sustainably adopted in the long term.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Stakeholder engagement.

    Sustainable long-term adoption of the improved portfolio management practices.

    Activities

    4.1 Conduct a change impact analysis.

    4.2 Create a stakeholder engagement plan.

    Outputs

    Change Impact Analysis

    Stakeholder Engagement Plan

    Completed Portfolio Management SOP

    Build an Application Department Strategy

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    • Parent Category Name: Architecture & Strategy
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    • Application delivery has modernized. There are increasing expectations on departments to deliver on organizational and product objectives with increasing velocity.
    • Application departments produce many diverse, divergent products, applications, and services with expectations of frequent updates and changes based on rapidly changing landscapes

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • There is no such thing as a universal “applications department.” Unlike other domains of IT, there are no widely accepted frameworks that clearly outline universal best practices of application delivery and management.
    • Different software needs and delivery orientations demand a tailored structure and set of processes, especially when managing a mixed portfolio or multiple delivery methods.

    Impact and Result

    Understand what your department’s purpose is through articulating its strategy in three steps:

    • Determining your application department’s values, principles, and orientation.
    • Laying out the goals, objectives, metrics, and priorities of the department.
    • Building a communication plan to communicate your overall department strategy.

    Build an Application Department Strategy Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should build an application department strategy, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Take stock of who you are

    Consider and record your department’s values, principles, orientation, and capabilities.

    • Build an Application Department Strategy – Phase 1: Take Stock of Who You Are
    • Application Department Strategy Supporting Workbook

    2. Articulate your strategy

    Define your department’s strategy through your understanding of your department combined with everything that you do and are working to do.

    • Build an Application Department Strategy – Phase 2: Articulate Your Strategy
    • Application Department Strategy Template

    3. Communicate your strategy

    Communicate your department’s strategy to your key stakeholders.

    • Build an Application Department Strategy – Phase 3: Communicate Your Strategy

    Infographic

    Workshop: Build an Application Department Strategy

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Take Stock of Who You Are

    The Purpose

    Understand what makes up your application department beyond the applications and services provided.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Articulating your guiding principles, values, capabilities, and orientation provides a foundation for expressing your department strategy.

    Activities

    1.1 Identify your team’s values and guiding principles.

    1.2 Define your department’s orientation.

    Outputs

    A summary of your department’s values and guiding principles

    A clear view of your department’s orientation and supporting capabilities

    2 Articulate Your Strategy

    The Purpose

    Lay out all the details that make up your application department strategy.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A completed application department strategy canvas containing everything you need to communicate your strategy.

    Activities

    2.1 Write your application department vision statement.

    2.2 Define your application department goals and metrics.

    2.3 Specify your department capabilities and orientation.

    2.4 Prioritize what is most important to your department.

    Outputs

    Your department vision

    Your department’s goals and metrics that contribute to achieving your department’s vision

    Your department’s capabilities and orientation

    A prioritized roadmap for your department

    3 Communicate Your Strategy

    The Purpose

    Lay out your strategy’s communication plan.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Your application department strategy presentation ready to be presented to your stakeholders.

    Activities

    3.1 Identify your stakeholders.

    3.2 Develop a communication plan.

    3.3 Wrap-up and next steps

    Outputs

    List of prioritized stakeholders you want to communicate with

    A plan for what to communicate to each stakeholder

    Communication is only the first step – what comes next?

    Demystify Oracle Licensing and Optimize Spend

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    • Parent Category Name: Licensing
    • Parent Category Link: /licensing
    • License keys are not needed with optional features accessible upon install. Conducting quarterly checks of the Oracle environment is critical because if products or features are installed, even if they are not actively in use, it constitutes use by Oracle and requires a license.
    • Ambiguous license models and definitions abound: terminology and licensing rules can be vague, making it difficult to purchase licensing even with the best of intentions to keep compliant.
    • Oracle has aggressively started to force new Oracle License and Service Agreements (OLSA) on customers that slightly modify language and remove pre-existing allowances to tilt the contract terms in Oracle's favor.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Focus on needs first. Conduct a thorough requirements assessment and document the results. Well-documented license needs will be your core asset in navigating Oracle licensing and negotiating your agreement.
    • Communicate effectively. Be aware that Oracle will reach out to employees at your organization at various levels. Having your executives on the same page will help send a strong message.
    • Manage the relationship. If Oracle is managing you, there is a high probability you are over paying or providing information that may result in an audit.

    Impact and Result

    • Conducting business with Oracle is not typical compared to other vendors. To emerge successfully from a commercial transaction with Oracle, customers must learn the "Oracle way" of conducting business, which includes a best-in-class sales structure, highly unique contracts and license use policies, and a hyper-aggressive compliance function.
    • Map out the process of how to negotiate from a position of strength, examining terms and conditions, discount percentages, and agreement pitfalls.
    • Develop a strategy that leverages and utilizes an experienced Oracle DBA to gather accurate information, and then optimizes it to mitigate and meet the top challenges.

    Demystify Oracle Licensing and Optimize Spend Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you need to understand and document your Oracle licensing strategy, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Establish licensing requirements

    Begin your proactive Oracle licensing journey by understanding which information to gather and assessing the current state and gaps.

    • Demystify Oracle Licensing and Optimize Spend – Phase 1: Establish Licensing Requirements
    • Oracle Licensing Purchase Reference Guide
    • Oracle Database Inventory Tool
    • Effective Licensing Position Tool
    • RASCI Chart

    2. Evaluate licensing options

    Review current licensing models and determine which licensing models will most appropriately fit your environment.

    • Demystify Oracle Licensing and Optimize Spend – Phase 2: Evaluate Licensing Options

    3. Evaluate agreement options

    Review Oracle’s contract types and assess which best fit the organization’s licensing needs.

    • Demystify Oracle Licensing and Optimize Spend – Phase 3: Evaluate Agreement Options
    • Oracle TCO Calculator

    4. Purchase and manage licenses

    Conduct negotiations, purchase licensing, and finalize a licensing management strategy.

    • Demystify Oracle Licensing and Optimize Spend – Phase 4: Purchase and Manage Licenses
    • Oracle Terms & Conditions Evaluation Tool
    • Controlled Vendor Communications Letter
    • Vendor Communication Management Plan
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Demystify Oracle Licensing and Optimize Spend

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Establish Licensing Requirements

    The Purpose

    Assess current state and align goals; review business feedback

    Interview key stakeholders to define business objectives and drivers

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Have a baseline for requirements

    Assess the current state

    Determine licensing position

    Examine cloud options

    Activities

    1.1 Gather software licensing data

    1.2 Conduct a software inventory

    1.3 Perform manual checks

    1.4 Reconcile licenses

    1.5 Create your Oracle licensing team

    1.6 Meet with stakeholders to discuss the licensing position, cloud offerings, and budget allocation

    Outputs

    Copy of your Oracle License Statement

    Software inventory report from software asset management (SAM) tool

    Oracle Database Inventory Tool

    RASCI Chart

    Oracle Licensing Effective License Position (ELP) Template

    Oracle Licensing Purchase Reference Guide

    2 Evaluate Licensing Options

    The Purpose

    Review licensing options

    Review licensing rules

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understand how licensing works

    Determine if you need software assurance

    Discuss licensing rules, application to current environment.

    Examine cloud licensing

    Understand the importance of documenting changes

    Meet with desktop product owners to determine product strategies

    Activities

    2.1 Review full, limited, restricted, and AST use licenses

    2.2 Calculate license costs

    2.3 Determine which database platform to use

    2.4 Evaluate moving to the cloud

    2.5 Examine disaster recovery strategies

    2.6 Understand purchasing support

    2.7 Meet with stakeholders to discuss the licensing position, cloud offerings, and budget allocation

    Outputs

    Oracle TCO Calculator

    Oracle Licensing Purchase Reference Guide

    3 Evaluate Agreement Options

    The Purpose

    Review contract option types

    Review vendors

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understand why a type of contract is best for you

    Determine if ULA or term agreement is best

    The benefits of other types and when you should change

    Activities

    3.1 Prepare to sign or renew your ULA

    3.2 Decide on an agreement type that nets the maximum benefit

    Outputs

    Type of contract to be used

    Oracle TCO Calculator

    Oracle Licensing Purchase Reference Guide

    4 Purchase and Manage Licenses

    The Purpose

    Finalize the contract

    Prepare negotiation points

    Discuss license management

    Evaluate and develop a roadmap for future licensing

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Negotiation strategies

    Licensing management

    Introduction of SAM

    Leverage the work done on Oracle licensing to get started on SAM

    Activities

    4.1 Control the flow of communication terms and conditions

    4.2 Use Info-Tech’s readiness assessment in preparation for the audit

    4.3 Assign the right people to manage the environment

    4.4 Meet with stakeholders to discuss the licensing position, cloud offerings, and budget allocation

    Outputs

    Controlled Vendor Communications Letter

    Vendor Communication Management Plan

    Oracle Terms & Conditions Evaluation Tool

    RASCI Chart

    Oracle Licensing Purchase Reference Guide

    Close the InfoSec Skills Gap: Develop a Technical Skills Sourcing Plan

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}378|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 7.3/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $10,756 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 9 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: Governance, Risk & Compliance
    • Parent Category Link: /governance-risk-compliance
    • The demand for qualified cybersecurity professionals far exceeds supply. As a result, organizations are struggling to protect their data against the evolving threat landscape.
    • It is a constant challenge to know what skills will be needed in the future, and when and how to acquire them.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Plan for the inevitable. All industries are expected to be affected by the talent gap in the coming years. Plan ahead to address your organization’s future needs.
    • Base skills acquisition decisions on the five key factors to define skill needs. Create an impact scale for the five key factors (data criticality, durability, availability, urgency, and frequency) that reflects your organizational strategy, initiatives, and pressures.
    • A skills gap will always exist to some degree. The threat landscape is constantly changing, and your workforce’s skill sets must evolve as well.

    Impact and Result

    • Organizations must align their security initiatives to talent requirements such that business objectives are achieved and the business is cyber ready.
    • Identify if there are skill gaps in your current workforce.
    • Decide how you’ll acquire needed skills based on characteristics of need for each skill.

    Close the InfoSec Skills Gap: Develop a Technical Skills Sourcing Plan Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should develop a technical skills acquisition strategy, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Identify skill needs for target state

    Identify what skills will be needed in your future state.

    • Close the InfoSec Skills Gap: Develop a Technical Skills Sourcing Plan – Phase 1: Identity Skill Needs for Target State
    • Security Initiative Skills Guide
    • Skills Gap Prioritization Tool

    2. Identify technical skill gaps

    Align role requirements with future initiative skill needs.

    • Close the InfoSec Skills Gap: Develop a Technical Skills Sourcing Plan – Phase 2: Identify Technical Skill Gaps
    • Current Workforce Skills Assessment
    • Technical Skills Workbook
    • Information Security Compliance Manager
    • IT Security Analyst
    • Chief Information Security Officer
    • Security Administrator
    • Security Architect

    3. Develop a sourcing plan for future work roles

    Acquire skills based on the impact of the five key factors.

    • Close the InfoSec Skills Gap: Develop a Skills Sourcing Plan for Future Work Roles – Phase 3: Develop a Sourcing Plan for Future Work Roles
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Close the InfoSec Skills Gap: Develop a Technical Skills Sourcing Plan

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Identify Skill Needs for Target State

    The Purpose

    Determine the skills needed in your workforce and align them to your organization’s security roadmap.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Insight on what skills your organization will need in the future.

    Activities

    1.1 Understand the importance of aligning security initiatives skill needs with workforce requirements.

    1.2 Identify needed skills for future initiatives.

    1.3 Prioritize the initiative skill gaps.

    Outputs

    Security Initiative Skills Guide

    Skills Gap Prioritization Tool

    2 Define Technical Skill Requirements

    The Purpose

    Identify and create technical skill requirements for key work roles that are needed to successfully execute future initiatives.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Increased understanding of the NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework.

    Standardization of technical skill requirements of current and future work roles.

    Activities

    2.1 Assign work roles to the needs of your future environment.

    2.2 Discuss the NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework.

    2.3 Develop technical skill requirements for current and future work roles.

    Outputs

    Skills Gap Prioritization Tool

    Technical Skills Workbook

    Current Workforce Skills Assessment

    3 Acquire Technical Skills

    The Purpose

    Assess your current workforce against their role’s skill requirements.

    Discuss five key factors that aid acquiring skills.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A method to acquire skills in future roles.

    Activities

    3.1 Continue developing technical skill requirements for current and future work roles.

    3.2 Conduct Current Workforce Skills Assessment.

    3.3 Discuss methods of acquiring skills.

    3.4 Develop a plan to acquire skills.

    Outputs

    Technical Skills Workbook

    Current Workforce Skills Assessment

    Current Workforce Skills Assessment

    Technical Skills Workbook

    Current Workforce Skills Assessment

    Technical Skills Workbook

    Current Workforce Skills Assessment

    4 Plan to Execute Action Plan

    The Purpose

    Assist with communicating the state of the skill gap in your organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Strategy on how to acquire skills needs of the organization.

    Activities

    4.1 Review skills acquisition plan.

    4.2 Discuss training and certification opportunities for staff.

    4.3 Discuss next steps for closing the skills gap.

    4.4 Debrief.

    Outputs

    Technical Skills Workbook

    Identify and Build the Data & Analytics Skills Your Organization Needs

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}301|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): N/A
    • member rating average dollars saved: N/A
    • member rating average days saved: N/A
    • Parent Category Name: Data Management
    • Parent Category Link: /data-management

    The rapid technological evolution in platforms, processes, and applications is leading to gaps in the skills needed to manage and use data. Some common obstacles that could prevent you from identifying and building the data & analytics skills your organization needs include:

    • Lack of resources and knowledge to secure professionals with the right mix of D&A skills and right level of experience/skills
    • Lack of well-formulated and robust data strategy
    • Underestimation of the value of soft skills

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Skill deficiency is frequently stated as a roadblock to realizing corporate goals for data & analytics. Soft skills and technical skills are complementary, and data & analytics teams need a combination of both to perform effectively. Identify the essential skills and the gap with current skills that fit your organization’s data strategy to ensure the right skills are available at the right time and minimize pertinent risks.

    Impact and Result

    Follow Info-Tech's advice on the roles and skills needed to support your data & analytics strategic growth objectives and how to execute an actionable plan:

    • Define the skills required for each essential data & analytics role.
    • Identify the roles and skills gaps in alignment with your current data strategy.
    • Establish an action plan to close the gaps and reduce risks.

    Identify and Build the Data & Analytics Skills Your Organization Needs Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Identify and Build the Data & Analytics Skills Your Organization Needs Deck – Use this research to assist you in identifying and building roles and skills that are aligned with the organization’s data strategy.

    To generate business value from data, data leaders must first understand what skills are required to achieve these goals, identify the current skill gaps, and then develop skills development programs to enhance the relevant skills. Use Info-Tech's approach to identify and fill skill gaps to ensure you have the right skills at the right time.

    • Identify and Build the Data & Analytics Skills Your Organization Needs Storyboard

    2. Data & Analytics Skills Assessment and Planning Tool – Use this tool to help you identify the current and required level of competency for data & analytics skills, analyze gaps, and create an actionable plan.

    Start with skills and roles identified as the highest priority through a high-level maturity assessment. From there, use this tool to determine whether the organization’s data & analytics team has the key role, the right combination of skill sets, and the right level competency for each skill. Create an actionable plan to develop skills and fill gaps.

    • Data & Analytics Skills Assessment and Planning Tool
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Identify and Build the Data & Analytics Skills Your Organization Needs

    Blending soft skills with deep technical expertise is essential for building successful data & analytics teams.

    Analyst Perspective

    Blending soft skills with deep technical expertise is essential for building successful data & analytics teams.

    In today's changing environment, data & analytics (D&A) teams have become an essential component, and it is critical for organizations to understand the skill and talent makeup of their D&A workforce. Chief data & analytics officers (CDAOs) or other equivalent data leaders can train current data employees or hire proven talent and quickly address skills gaps.

    While developing technical skills is critical, soft skills are often left underdeveloped, yet lack of such skills is most likely why the data team would face difficulty moving beyond managing technology and into delivering business value.

    Follow Info-Tech's methodology to identify and address skills gaps in today's data workplace. Align D&A skills with your organization's data strategy to ensure that you always have the right skills at the right time.

    Ruyi Sun
    Research Specialist,
    Data & Analytics, and Enterprise Architecture
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    The rapid technological evolution in platforms, processes, and applications is leading to gaps in the skills needed to manage and use data. Some critical challenges organizations with skills deficiencies might face include:

    • Time loss due to delayed progress and reworking of initiatives
    • Poor implementation quality and low productivity
    • Reduced credibility of data leader and data initiatives

    Common Obstacles

    Some common obstacles that could prevent you from identifying and building the data and analytics (D&A) skills your organization needs are:

    • Lack of resources and knowledge to secure professionals with the right mixed D&A skills and the right experience/skill level
    • Lack of well-formulated and robust data strategy
    • Neglecting the value of soft skills and placing all your attention on technical skills

    Info-Tech's Approach

    Follow Info-Tech's guidance on the roles and skills required to support your D&A strategic growth objectives and how to execute an actionable plan:

    • Define skills required for each essential data and analytics role
    • Identify roles and skills gap in alignment with your current data strategy
    • Establish action plan to close the gaps and reduce risks

    Info-Tech Insight

    Skills gaps are a frequently named obstacle to realizing corporate goals for D&A. Soft skills and technical skills are complementary, and a D&A team needs both to perform effectively. Identify the essential skills and the gap with current skills required by your organization's data strategy to ensure the right skill is available at the right time and to minimize applicable risks.

    The rapidly changing environment is impacting the nature of work

    Scarcity of data & analytics (D&A) skills

    • Data is one of the most valuable organizational assets, and regardless of your industry, data remains the key to informed decision making. More than 75% of businesses are looking to adopt technologies like big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence (AI) in the next five years (World Economic Forum, 2023). As organizations pivot in response to industry disruptions and technological advancements, the nature of work is changing, and the demand for data expertise has grown.
    • Despite an increasing need for data expertise, organizations still have trouble securing D&A roles due to inadequate upskilling programs, limited understanding of the skills required, and more (EY, 2022). Notably, scarce D&A skills have been critical. More workers will need at least a base level of D&A skills to adequately perform their jobs.

    Stock image of a data storage center.

    Organizations struggle to remain competitive when skills gaps aren't addressed

    Organizations identify skills gaps as the key barriers preventing industry transformation:

    60% of organizations identify skills gaps as the key barriers preventing business transformation (World Economic Forum, 2023)

    43% of respondents agree the business area with the greatest need to address potential skills gaps is data analytics (McKinsey & Company, 2020)

    Most organizations are not ready to address potential role disruptions and close skills gaps:

    87% of surveyed companies say they currently experience skills gaps or expect them within a few years (McKinsey & Company, 2020)

    28% say their organizations make effective decisions on how to close skills gaps (McKinsey & Company, 2020)

    Neglecting soft skills development impedes CDOs/CDAOs from delivering value

    According to BearingPoint's CDO survey, cultural challenges and limited data literacy are the main roadblocks to a CDO's success. To drill further into the problem and understand the root causes of the two main challenges, conduct a root cause analysis (RCA) using the Five Whys technique.

    Bar Chart of 'Major Roadblocks to the Success of a CDO' with 'Limited data literacy' at the top.
    (Source: BearingPoint, 2020)

    Five Whys RCA

    Problem: Poor data literacy is the top challenge CDOs face when increasing the value of D&A. Why?

    • People that lack data literacy find it difficult to embrace and trust the organization's data insights. Why?
    • Data workers and the business team don't speak the same language. Why?
    • No shared data definition or knowledge is established. Over-extensive data facts do not drive business outcomes. Why?
    • Leaders fail to understand that data literacy is more than technical training, it is about encompassing all aspects of business, IT, and data. Why?
    • A lack of leadership skills prevents leaders from recognizing these connections and the data team needing to develop soft skills.

    Problem: Cultural challenge is one of the biggest obstacles to a CDO's success. Why?

    • Decisions are made from gut instinct instead of data-driven insights, thus affecting business performance. Why?
    • People within the organization do not believe that data drives operational excellence, so they resist change. Why?
    • Companies overestimate the organization's level of data literacy and data maturity. Why?
    • A lack of strategies in change management, continuous improvement & data literacy for data initiatives. Why?
    • A lack of expertise/leaders possessing these relevant soft skills (e.g. change management, etc.).

    As organizations strive to become more data-driven, most conversations around D&A emphasize hard skills. Soft skills like leadership and change management are equally crucial, and deficits there could be the root cause of the data team's inability to demonstrate improved business performance.

    Data cannot be fully leveraged without a cohesive data strategy

    Business strategy and data strategy are no longer separate entities.

    • For any chief data & analytics officer (CDAO) or equivalent data leader, a robust and comprehensive data strategy is the number one tool for generating measurable business value from data. Data leaders should understand what skills are required to achieve these goals, consider the current skills gap, and build development programs to help employees improve those skills.
    • Begin your skills development programs by ensuring you have a data strategy plan prepared. A data strategy should never be formulated independently from the business. Organizations with high data maturity will align such efforts to the needs of the business, making data a major part of the business strategy to achieve data centricity.
    • Refer to Info-Tech's Build a Robust and Comprehensive Data Strategy blueprint to ensure data can be leveraged as a strategic asset of the organization.

    Diagram of 'Data Strategy Maturity' with two arrangements of 'Data Strategy' and 'Business Strategy'. One is 'Aligned', the other is 'Data Centric.'

    Info-Tech Insight

    The process of achieving data centricity requires alignment between the data and business teams, and that requires soft skills.

    Follow Info-Tech's methodology to identify the roles and skills needed to execute a data strategy

    1. Define Key Roles and Skills

      Digital Leadership Skills, Soft Skills, Technical Skills
      Key Output
      • Defined essential competencies, responsibilities for some common data roles
    2. Uncover the Skills Gap

      Data Strategy Alignment, High-Level Data Maturity Assessment, Skills Gap Analysis
      Key Output
      • Data roles and skills aligned with your current data strategy
      • Identified current and target state of data skill sets
    3. Build an Actionable Plan

      Initiative Priority, Skills Growth Feasibility, Hiring Feasibility
      Key Output
      • Identified action plan to address the risk of data skills deficiency

    Info-Tech Insight

    Skills gaps are a frequently named obstacle to realizing corporate goals for D&A. Soft skills and technical skills are complementary, and a D&A team needs both to perform effectively. Identify the essential skills and the gap with current skills that fit your organization's data strategy to ensure the right skill is available at the right time and to minimize applicable risks.

    Research benefits

    Member benefits

    • Reduce time spent defining the target state of skill sets.
    • Gain ability to reassess the feasibility of execution on your data strategy, including resources and timeline.
    • Increase confidence in the data leader's ability to implement a successful skills development program that is aligned with the organization's data strategy, which correlates directly to successful business outcomes.

    Business benefits

    • Reduce time and cost spent hiring key data roles.
    • Increase chance of retaining high-quality data professionals.
    • Reduce time loss for delayed progress and rework of initiatives.
    • Optimize quality of data initiative implementation.
    • Improve data team productivity.

    Insight summary

    Overarching insight

    Skills gaps are a frequently named obstacle to realizing corporate goals for D&A. Soft skills and technical skills are complementary, and a D&A team needs both to perform effectively. Identify the essential skills and the gap with current skills that fit your organization's data strategy to ensure the right skill is available at the right time and to minimize applicable risks.

    Phase 1 insight

    Technological advancements will inevitably require new technical skills, but the most in-demand skills go beyond mastering the newest technologies. Soft skills are essential to data roles as the global workforce navigates the changes of the last few years.

    Phase 2 insight

    Understanding and knowing your organization's data maturity level is a prerequisite to assessing your current skill and determining where you must align in the future.

    Phase 3 insight

    One of the misconceptions that organizations have includes viewing skills development as a one-time effort. This leads to underinvestment in data team skills, risk of falling behind on technological changes, and failure to connect with business partners. Employees must learn to continuously adapt to the changing circumstances of D&A.

    While the program must be agile and dynamic to reflect technological improvements in the development of technical skills, the program should always be anchored in soft skills because data management is fundamentally about interaction, collaboration, and people.

    Tactical insight

    Seeking input and support across your business units can align stakeholders to focus on the right data analytics skills and build a data learning culture.

    Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

    DIY Toolkit

    Guided Implementation

    Workshop

    Consulting

    "Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful." "Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track." "We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place." "Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Guided Implementation

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

    A typical GI is four to six calls over the course of two to three months.

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    Call #1: Understand common data & analytics roles and skills, and your specific objectives and challenges. Call #2: Assess the current data maturity level and competency of skills set. Identify the skills gap. Call #3: Identify the relationship between current initiatives and capabilities. Initialize the corresponding roadmap for the data skills development program.

    Call #4: (follow-up call) Touching base to follow through and ensure that benefits have received.

    Identify and Build the Data & Analytics Skills Your Organization Needs

    Phase 1

    Define Key Roles and Skills

    Define Key Roles and Skills Uncover the Skills Gap Build an Actionable Plan

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • 1.1 Review D&A Skill & Role List in Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Data leads

    Key resources for your data strategy: People

    Having the right role is a key component for executing effective data strategy.

    D&A Common Roles

    • Data Steward
    • Data Custodian
    • Data Owner
    • Data Architect
    • Data Modeler
    • Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) Specialist
    • Database Administrator
    • Data Quality Analyst
    • Security Architect
    • Information Architect
    • System Architect
    • MDM Administrator
    • Data Scientist
    • Data Engineer
    • Data Pipeline Developer
    • Data Integration Architect
    • Business Intelligence Architect
    • Business Intelligence Analyst
    • ML Validator

    AI and ML Specialist is projected to be the fastest-growing occupation in the next five years (World Economic Forum, 2023).

    While tech roles take an average of 62 days to fill, hiring a senior data scientist takes 70.5 days (Workable, 2019). Start your recruitment cycle early for this demand.

    D&A Leader Roles

    • Chief Data Officer (CDO)/Chief Data & Analytics Officer (CDAO)
    • Data Governance Lead
    • Data Management Lead
    • Information Security Lead
    • Data Quality Lead
    • Data Product Manager
    • Master Data Manager
    • Content and Record Manager
    • Data Literacy Manager

    CDOs act as impactful change agents ensuring that the organization's data management disciplines are running effectively and meeting the business' data needs. Only 12.0% of the surveyed organizations reported having a CDO as of 2012. By 2022, this percentage had increased to 73.7% (NewVantage Partners, 2022).

    Sixty-five percent of respondents said lack of data literacy is the top challenge CDOs face today (BearingPoint, 2020). It has become imperative for companies to consider building a data literacy program which will require a dedicated data literacy team.

    Key resources for your data strategy: Skill sets

    Distinguish between the three skills categories.

    • Soft Skills

      Soft skills are described as power skills regarding how you work, such as teamwork, communication, and critical thinking.
    • Digital Leadership Skills

      Not everyone working in the D&A field is expected to perform advanced analytical tasks. To thrive in increasingly data-rich environments, however, every data worker, including leaders, requires a basic technological understanding and skill sets such as AI, data literacy, and data ethics. These are digital leadership skills.
    • Technical Skills

      Technical skills are the practical skills required to complete a specific task. For example, data scientists and data engineers require programming skills to handle and manage vast amounts of data.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Technological advancements will inevitably require new technical skills, but the most in-demand skills go beyond mastering the newest technologies. Soft skills are essential to data roles as the global workforce navigates the changes of the last few years.

    Soft skills aren't just nice to have

    They're a top asset in today's data workplace.

    Leadership

    • Data leaders with strong leadership abilities can influence the organization's strategic execution and direction, support data initiatives, and foster data cultures. Organizations that build and develop leadership potential are 4.2 times more likely to financially outperform those that do not (Udemy, 2022).

    Business Acumen

    • The process of deriving conclusions and insights from data is ultimately utilized to improve business decisions and solve business problems. Possessing business acumen helps provide the business context and perspectives for work within data analytics fields.

    Critical Thinking

    • Critical thinking allows data leaders at every level to objectively assess a problem before making judgment, consider all perspectives and opinions, and be able to make decisions knowing the ultimate impact on results.

    Analytical Thinking

    • Analytical thinking remains the most important skill for workers in 2023 (World Economic Forum, 2023). Data analytics expertise relies heavily on analytical thinking, which is the process of breaking information into basic principles to analyze and understand the logic and concepts.

    Design Thinking & Empathy

    • Design thinking skills help D&A professionals understand and prioritize the end-user experience to better inform results and assist the decision-making process. Organizations with high proficiency in design thinking are twice as likely to be high performing (McLean & Company, 2022).

    Learning Focused

    • The business and data analytics fields continue to evolve rapidly, and the skills, especially technical skills, must keep pace. Learning-focused D&A professionals continuously learn, expanding their knowledge and enhancing their techniques.

    Change Management

    • Change management is essential, especially for data leaders who act as change agents developing and enabling processes and who assist others with adjusting to changes with cultural and procedural factors. Organizations with high change management proficiency are 2.2 times more likely to be high performing (McLean & Company, 2022).

    Resilience

    • Being motivated and adaptable is essential when facing challenges and high-pressure situations. Organizations highly proficient in resilience are 1.8 times more likely to be high performing (McLean & Company, 2022).

    Managing Risk & Governance Mindset

    • Risk management ability is not limited to highly regulated institutions. All data workers must understand risks from the larger organizational perspective and have a holistic governance mindset while achieving their individual goals and making decisions.

    Continuous Improvement

    • Continuously collecting feedback and reflecting on it is the foundation of continuous improvement. To uncover and track the lessons learned and treat them as opportunities, data workers must be able to discover patterns and connections.

    Teamwork & Collaboration

    • Value delivery in a data-centric environment is a team effort, requiring collaboration across the business, IT, and data teams. D&A experts with strong collaborative abilities can successfully work with other teams to achieve shared objectives.

    Communication & Active Listening

    • This includes communicating with relevant stakeholders about timelines and expectations of data projects and associated technology and challenges, paying attention to data consumers, understanding their requirements and needs, and other areas of interest to the organization.

    Technical skills for everyday excellence

    Digital Leadership Skills

    • Technological Literacy
    • Data and AI Literacy
    • Cloud Computing Literacy
    • Data Ethics
    • Data Translation

    Data & Analytics Technical Competencies

    • Data Mining
    • Programming Languages (Python, SQL, R, etc.)
    • Data Analysis and Statistics
    • Computational and Algorithmic Thinking
    • AI/ML Skills (Deep Learning, Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, etc.)
    • Data Visualization and Storytelling
    • Data Profiling
    • Data Modeling & Design
    • Data Pipeline (ETL/ELT) Design & Management
    • Database Design & Management
    • Data Warehouse/Data Lake Design & Management

    1.1 Review D&A Skill & Role List in the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool

    Sample of Tab 2 in the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool.

    Tab 2. Skill & Role List

    Objective: Review the library of skills and roles and customize them as needed to align with your organization's language and specific needs.

    Download the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool

    Identify and Build the Data & Analytics Skills Your Organization Needs

    Phase 2

    Uncover the Skills Gap

    Define Key Roles and Skills Uncover the Skills Gap Build an Actionable Plan

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • 2.1 High-level assessment of your present data management maturity
    • 2.2 Interview business and data leaders to clarify current skills availability
    • 2.3 Use the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool to Identify your skills gaps

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Data leads
    • Business leads and subject matter experts (SMEs)
    • Key business stakeholders

    Identify skills gaps across the organization

    Gaps are not just about assigning people to a role, but whether people have the right skill sets to carry out tasks.

    • Now that you have identified the essential skills and roles in the data workplace, move to Phase 2. This phase will help you understand the required level of competency, assess where the organization stands today, and identify gaps to close.
    • Using the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool, start with areas that are given the highest priority through a high-level maturity assessment. From there, three levels of gaps will be found: whether people are assigned to a particular position, the right combination of D&A skill sets, and the right competency level for each skill.
    • Lack of talent assigned to a position

    • Lack of the right combination of D&A skill sets

    • Lack of appropriate competency level

    Info-Tech Insight

    Understanding your organization's data maturity level is a prerequisite to assessing the skill sets you have today and determining where you need to align in the future.

    2.1 High-level assessment of your present data management maturity

    Identifying and fixing skills gaps takes time, money, and effort. Focus on bridging the gap in high-priority areas.

    Input: Current state capabilities, Use cases (if applicable), Data culture diagnostic survey results (if applicable)
    Output: High-level maturity assessment, Prioritized list of data management focused area
    Materials: Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool (optional), Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool
    Participants: Data leads, Business leads and subject matter experts (SMEs), Key business stakeholders

    Objectives:

    Prioritize these skills and roles based on your current maturity levels and what you intend to accomplish with your data strategy.

    Steps:

    1. (Optional Step) Refer to the Build a Robust and Comprehensive Data Strategy blueprint. You can assess your data maturity level using the following frameworks and methods:
      • Review current data strategy and craft use cases that represent high-value areas that must be addressed for their teams or functions.
      • Use the data culture assessment survey to determine your organization's data maturity level.
    2. (Optional Step) Refer to the Create a Data Management Roadmap blueprint and Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool to dive deep into understanding and assessing capabilities and maturity levels of your organization's data management enablers and understanding your priority areas and specific gaps.
    3. If you have completed Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool, fill out your maturity level scores for each of the data management practices within it - Tab 3 (Current-State Assessment). Skip Tab 4 (High-Level Maturity Assessment).
    4. If you have not yet completed Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool, skip Tab 3 and continue with Tab 4. Assign values 1 to 3 for each capability and enabler.
    5. You can examine your current-state data maturity from a high level in terms of low/mid/high maturity using either Tabs 3 or 4.
    6. Suggested focus areas along the data journey:
      • Low Maturity = Data Strategy, Data Governance, Data Architecture
      • Mid Maturity = Data Literacy, Information Management, BI and Reporting, Data Operations Management, Data Quality Management, Data Security/Risk Management
      • High Maturity = MDM, Data Integration, Data Product and Services, Advanced Analytics (ML & AI Management).

    Download the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool

    2.2 Interview business and data leaders to clarify current skills availability

    1-2 hours per interview

    Input: Sample questions targeting the activities, challenges, and opportunities of each unit
    Output: Identified skills availability
    Materials: Whiteboard/Flip charts, Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool
    Participants: Data leads, Business leads and subject matter experts (SMEs), Key business stakeholders

    Instruction:

    1. Conduct a deep-dive interview with each key data initiative stakeholder (data owners, SMEs, and relevant IT/Business department leads) who can provide insights on the skill sets of their team members, soliciting feedback from business and data leaders about skills and observations of employees as they perform their daily tasks.
    2. Populate a current level of competency for each skill in the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool in Tabs 5 and 6. Having determined your data maturity level, start with the prioritized data management components (e.g. if your organization sits at low data maturity level, start with identifying relevant positions and skills under data governance, data architecture, and data architecture elements).
    3. More detailed instructions on how to utilize the workbook are at the next activity.

    Key interview questions that will help you :

    1. Do you have personnel assigned to the role? What are their primary activities? Do the personnel possess the soft and technical skills noted in the workbook? Are you satisfied with their performance? How would you evaluate their degree of competency on a scale of "vital, important, nice to have, or none"? The following aspects should be considered when making the evaluation:
      • Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Business unit data will show where the organization is challenged and will help identify potential areas for development.
      • Project Management Office: Look at successful and failed projects for trends in team traits and competencies.
      • Performance Reviews: Look for common themes where employees excel or need to improve.
      • Focus Groups: Speak with a cross section of employees to understand their challenges.
    2. What technology is currently used? Are there requirements for new technology to be bought and/or optimized in the future? Will the workforce need to increase their skill level to carry out these activities with the new technology in place?

    Download the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool

    2.3 Use the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool to identify skills gaps

    1-3 hours — Not everyone needs the same skill levels.

    Input: Current skills competency, Stakeholder interview results and findings
    Output: Gap identification and analysis
    Materials: Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool
    Participants: Data leads

    Instruction:

    1. Select your organization's data maturity level in terms of Low/Mid/High in cell A6 for both Tab 5 (Soft Skills Assessment) and Tab 6 (Technical Skills Assessment) to reduce irrelevant rows.
    2. Bring together key business stakeholders (data owners, SMEs, and relevant IT custodians) to determine whether the data role exists in the organization. If yes, assign a current-state value from “vital, important, nice to have, or none” for each skill in the assessment tool. Info-Tech has specified the desired/required target state of each skill set.
    3. Once you've assigned the current-state values, the tool will automatically determine whether there is a gap in skill set.

    Download the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool

    Identify and Build the Data & Analytics Skills Your Organization Needs

    Phase 3

    Build an Actionable Plan

    Define Key Roles and Skills Uncover the Skills Gap Build an Actionable Plan

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • 3.1 Use the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool to build your actionable roadmap

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Data leads
    • Business leads and subject matter experts (SMEs)
    • Key business stakeholders

    Determine next steps and decision points

    There are three types of internal skills development strategies

    • There are three types of internal skills development strategies organizations can use to ensure the right people with the right abilities are placed in the right roles: reskill, upskill, and new hire.
    1. Reskill

      Reskilling involves learning new skills for a different or newly defined position.
    2. Upskill

      Upskilling involves building a higher level of competency in skills to improve the worker's performance in their current role.
    3. New hire

      New hire involves hiring workers who have the essential skills to fill the open position.

    Info-Tech Insight

    One of the misconceptions that organizations have includes viewing skills development as a one-time effort. This leads to underinvestment in data team skills, risk of falling behind on technological changes, and failure to connect with business partners. Employees must learn to continuously adapt to the changing circumstances of D&A. While the program must be agile and dynamic to reflect technological improvements in the development of technical skills, the program should always be anchored in soft skills because data management is fundamentally about interaction, collaboration, and people.

    How to determine when to upskill, reskill, or hire to meet your skills needs

    Reskill

    Reskilling often indicates a change in someone's career path, so this decision requires a goal aligned with both individuals and the organization to establish a mutually beneficial situation.

    When making reskilling decisions, organizations should also consider the relevance of the skill for different positions. For example, data administrators and data architects have similar skill sets, so reskilling is appropriate for these employees.

    Upskill

    Upskilling tends to focus more on the soft skills necessary for more advanced positions. A data strategy lead, for example, might require design thinking training, which enables leaders to think from different perspectives.

    Skill growth feasibility must also be considered. Some technical skills, particularly those involving cutting-edge technologies, require continual learning to maintain operational excellence. For example, a data scientist may require AI/ML skills training to incorporate use of modern automation technology.

    New Hire

    For open positions and skills that are too resource-intensive to reskill or upskill, it makes sense to recruit new employees. Consider, however, time and cost feasibility of hiring. Some positions (e.g. senior data scientist) take longer to fill. To minimize risks, coordinate with your HR department and begin recruiting early.

    Data & Analytics skills training

    There are various learning methods that help employees develop priority competencies to achieve reskilling or upskilling.

    Specific training

    The data team can collaborate with the human resources department to plan and develop internal training sessions aimed at specific skill sets.

    This can also be accomplished through external training providers such as DCAM, which provides training courses on data management and analytics topics.

    Formal education program

    Colleges and universities can equip students with data analytics skills through formal education programs such as MBAs and undergraduate or graduate degrees in Data Science, Machine Learning, and other fields.

    Certification

    Investing time and effort to obtain certifications in the data & analytics field allows data workers to develop skills and gain recognition for continuous learning and self-improvement.

    AWS Data Analytics and Tableau Data Scientist Certification are two popular data analytics certifications.

    Online learning from general providers

    Some companies offer online courses in various subjects. Coursera and DataCamp are two examples of popular providers.

    Partner with a vendor

    The organization can partner with a vendor who brings skills and talents that are not yet available within the organization. Employees can benefit from the collaboration process by familiarizing themselves with the project and enhancing their own skills.

    Support from within your business

    The data team can engage with other departments that have previously done skills development programs, such as Finance and Change & Communications, who may have relevant resources to help you improve your business acumen and change management skills.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Seeking input and support across your business units can align stakeholders to focus on the right data analytics skills and build a data learning culture.

    Data & Analytics skills reinforcement

    Don't assume learners will immediately comprehend new knowledge. Use different methods and approaches to reinforce their development.

    Innovation Space

    • Skills development is not a one-time event, but a continuous process during which innovation should be encouraged. A key aspect of being innovative is having a “fail fast” mentality, which means collecting feedback, recognizing when something isn't working, encouraging experimentation, and taking a different approach with the goal of achieving operational excellence.
    • Human-centered design (HCD) also yields innovative outcomes with a people-first focus. When creating skills development programs for various target groups, organizations should integrate a human-centered approach.

    Commercial Lens

    • Exposing people to a commercial way of thinking can add long-term value by educating people to act in the business' best interest and raising awareness of what other business functions contribute. This includes concepts such as project management, return on investment (ROI), budget alignment, etc.

    Checklists/Rubrics

    • Employees should record what they learn so they can take the time to reflect. A checklist is an effective technique for establishing objectives, allowing measurement of skills development and progress.

    Buddy Program

    • A buddy program helps employees gain and reinforce knowledge and skills they have learned through mutual support and information exchange.

    Align HR programs to support skills integration and talent recruitment

    With a clear idea of skills needs and an executable strategy for training and reinforcing of concepts, HR programs and processes can help the data team foster a learning environment and establish a recruitment plan. The links below will direct you to blueprints produced by McLean & Company, a division of Info-Tech Research Group.

    Workforce Planning

    When integrating the skills of the future into workforce planning, determine the best approach for addressing the identified talent gaps – whether to build, buy, or borrow.

    Integrate the future skills identified into the organization's workforce plan.

    Talent Acquisition

    In cases where employee development is not feasible, the organization's talent acquisition strategy must focus more on buying or borrowing talent. This will impact the TA process. For example, sourcing and screening must be updated to reflect new approaches and skills.

    If you have a talent acquisition strategy, assess how to integrate the new roles/skills into recruiting.

    Competencies/Succession Planning

    Review current organizational core competencies to determine if they need to be modified. New skills will help inform critical roles and competencies required in succession talent pools.

    If no competency framework exists, use McLean & Company's Develop a Comprehensive Competency Framework blueprint.

    Compensation

    Evaluate modified and new roles against the organization's compensation structure. Adjust them as necessary. Look at market data to understand compensation for new roles and skills.

    Reassess your base pay structure according to market data for new roles and skills.

    Learning and Development

    L&D plays a huge role in closing the skills gap. Build L&D opportunities to support development of new skills in employees.

    Design an Impactful Employee Development Program to build the skills employees need in the future.

    3.1 Use the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool to build an actionable plan

    1-3 hours

    Input: Roles and skills required, Key decision points
    Output: Actionable plan
    Materials: Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool
    Participants: Data leads, Business leads and subject matter experts (SMEs), Key business stakeholders

    Instruction:

    1. On Tab 7 (Next Steps & Decision Points), you will find a list of tasks that correspond to roles that where there is a skills gap.
    2. Customize this list of tasks initiatives according to your needs.
    3. The Gantt chart, which will be generated automatically after assigning start and finish dates for each activity, can be used to structure your plan and guarantee that all the main components of skills development are addressed.

    Sample of Tab 7 in the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool.

    Download the Data & Analytics Assessment and Planning Tool

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Sample of the Create a Data Management Roadmap blueprint.

    Create a Data Management Roadmap

    • This blueprint will help you design a data management practice that will allow your organization to use data as a strategic enabler.

    Stock image of a person looking at data dashboards on a tablet.

    Build a Robust and Comprehensive Data Strategy

    • Put a strategy in place to ensure data is available, accessible, well-integrated, secured, of acceptable quality, and suitably visualized to fuel organization-wide decision making. Start treating data as strategic and corporate asset.

    Sample of the Foster Data-Driven Culture With Data Literacy blueprint.

    Foster Data-Driven Culture With Data Literacy

    • By thoughtfully designing a data literacy training program appropriate to the audience's experience, maturity level, and learning style, organizations build a data-driven and engaged culture that helps them unlock their data's full potential and outperform other organizations.

    Research Authors and Contributors

    Authors:

    Name Position Company
    Ruyi Sun Research Specialist Info-Tech Research Group

    Contributors:

    Name Position Company
    Steve Wills Practice Lead Info-Tech Research Group
    Andrea Malick Advisory Director Info-Tech Research Group
    Annabel Lui Principal Advisory Director Info-Tech Research Group
    Sherwick Min Technical Counselor Info-Tech Research Group

    Bibliography

    2022 Workplace Learning Trends Report.” Udemy, 2022. Accessed 20 June 2023.

    Agrawal, Sapana, et al. “Beyond hiring: How companies are reskilling to address talent gaps.” McKinsey & Company, 12 Feb. 2020. Accessed 20 June 2023.

    Bika, Nikoletta. “Key hiring metrics: Useful benchmarks for tech roles.” Workable, 2019. Accessed 20 June 2023.

    Chroust, Tomas. “Chief Data Officer – Leaders of data-driven enterprises.” BearingPoint, 2020. Accessed 20 June 2023.

    “Data and AI Leadership Executive Survey 2022.” NewVantage Partners, Jan 2022. Accessed 20 June 2023.

    Dondi, Marco, et al. “Defining the skills citizens will need in the future world of work.” McKinsey & Company, June 2021. Accessed 20 June 2023.

    Futschek, Gerald. “Algorithmic Thinking: The Key for Understanding Computer Science.” Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 4226, 2006.

    Howard, William, et al. “2022 HR Trends Report.” McLean & Company, 2022. Accessed 20 June 2023.

    “Future of Jobs Report 2023.” World Economic Forum, May 2023. Accessed 20 June 2023.

    Knight, Michelle. “What is Data Ethics?” Dataversity, 19 May 2021. Accessed 20 June 2023.

    Little, Jim, et al. “The CIO Imperative: Is your technology moving fast enough to realize your ambitions?” EY, 22 Apr. 2022. Accessed 20 June 2023.

    “MDM Roles and Responsibilities.” Profisee, April 2019. Accessed 20 June 2023.

    “Reskilling and Upskilling: A Strategic Response to Changing Skill Demands.” TalentGuard, Oct. 2019. Accessed 20 June 2023.

    Southekal, Prashanth. “The Five C's: Soft Skills That Every Data Analytics Professional Should Have.” Forbes, 17 Oct. 2022. Accessed 20 June 2023.

    Key Metrics for Every CIO

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}119|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): N/A
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    • Parent Category Name: Performance Measurement
    • Parent Category Link: /performance-measurement
    • As a CIO, you are inundated with data and information about how your IT organization is performing based on the various IT metrics that exist.
    • The information we receive from metrics is often just that – information. Rarely is it used as a tool to drive the organization forward.
    • CIO metrics need to consider the goals of key stakeholders in the organization.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • The top metrics for CIOs don’t have anything to do with IT.
    • CIOs should measure and monitor metrics that have a direct impact on the business.
    • Be intentional with the metric and number of metrics that you monitor on a regular basis.
    • Be transparent with your stakeholders on what and why you are measuring those specific metrics.

    Impact and Result

    • Measure fewer metrics, but measure those that will have a significant impact on how your deliver value to your organization.
    • Focus on the metrics that you can take action against, rather than simply monitor.
    • Ensure your metrics tie to your top priorities as a CIO.

    Key Metrics for Every CIO Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Key Metrics for Every CIO deck – The top metrics every CIO should measure and act on

    Leverage the top metrics for every CIO to help focus your attention and provide insight into actionable steps.

    • Key Metrics for Every CIO Storyboard
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Key Metrics for Every CIO

    The top six metrics for CIOs – and they have very little to do with IT

    Analyst Perspective

    Measure with intention

    Be the strategic CIO who monitors the right metrics relevant to their priorities – regardless of industry or organization. When CIOs provide a laundry list of metrics they are consistently measuring and monitoring, it demonstrates a few things.

    First, they are probably measuring more metrics than they truly care about or could action. These “standardized” metrics become something measured out of expectation, not intention; therefore, they lose their meaning and value to you as a CIO. Stop spending time on these metrics you will be unable or unwilling to address.

    Secondly, it indicates a lack of trust in the IT leadership team, who can and should be monitoring these commonplace operational measures. An empowered IT leader will understand the responsibility they have to inform the CIO should a metric be derailing from the desired outcome.

    Photo of Brittany Lutes, Senior Research Analyst, Organizational Transformation Practice, Info-Tech Research Group. Brittany Lutes
    Senior Research Analyst
    Organizational Transformation Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    CIOs need to measure a set of specific metrics that:

    • Will support the organization’s vision, their career, and the IT function all in one.
    • Can be used as a tool to make informed decisions and take appropriate actions that will improve the IT function’s ability to deliver value.
    • Consider the influence of critical stakeholders, especially the end customer.
    • Are easily measured at any point in time.
    Common Obstacles

    CIOs often cannot define these metrics because:

    • We confuse the operational metrics IT leaders need to monitor with strategic metrics CIOs need to monitor.
    • Previously monitored metrics did not deliver value.
    • It is hard to decide on a metric that will prove both insightful and easily measurable.
    • We measure metrics without any method or insight on how to take actionable steps forward.
    Info-Tech’s Approach

    For every CIO, there are six areas that should be a focus, no matter your organization or industry. These six priorities will inform the metrics worth measuring:

    • Risk management
    • Delivering on business objectives
    • Customer satisfaction
    • Employee engagement
    • Business leadership relations
    • Managing to a budget

    Info-Tech Insight

    The top metrics for a CIO to measure and monitor have very little to do with IT and everything to do with ensuring the success of the business.

    Your challenge

    CIOs are not using metrics as a personal tool to advance the organization:
    • Metrics should be used as a tool by the CIO to help inform the future actions that will be taken to reach the organization’s strategic vision.
    • As a CIO, you need to have a defined set of metrics that will support your career, the organization, and the IT function you are accountable for.
    • CIO metrics must consider the most important stakeholders across the entire ecosystem of the organization – especially the end customer.
    • The metrics for a CIO are distinctly different from the metrics you use to measure the operational effectiveness of the different IT functions.
    “CIOs are businesspeople first and technology people second.” (Myles Suer, Source: CIO, 2019.)

    Common obstacles

    These barriers make this challenge difficult to address for many CIOs:
    • CIOs often do not measure metrics because they are not aware of what should or needs to be measured.
    • As a result of not wanting to measure the wrong thing, CIOs can often choose to measure nothing at all.
    • Or they get too focused on the operational metrics of their IT organization, leaving the strategic business metrics forgotten.
    • Moreover, narrowing the number of metrics that are being measured down to an actionable number is very difficult.
    • We rely only on physical data sets to help inform the measurements, not considering the qualitative feedback received.
    CIO priorities are business priorities

    46% of CIOs are transforming operations, focused on customer experiences and employee productivity. (Source: Foundry, 2022.)

    Finances (41.3%) and customers (28.1%) remain the top two focuses for CIOs when measuring IT effectiveness. All other focuses combine for the remaining 30.6%. (Source: Journal of Informational Technology Management, 2018.)

    Info-Tech’s approach

    Organizational goals inform CIO metrics

    Diagram with 'CIO Metrics' at the center surrounded by 'Directive Goals', 'Product/Service Goals', 'IT Goals', and 'Operations Goals', each of which are connected to eachother by 'Customers'.

    The Info-Tech difference:
    1. Every CIO has the same set of priorities regardless of their organization or industry given that these metrics are influenced by similar goals of organizations.
    2. CIO metrics are a tool to help inform the actions that will support each core area in reaching their desired goals.
    3. Be mindful of the goals different business units are using to reach the organization’s strategic vision – this includes your own IT goals.
    4. Directly or indirectly, you will always influence the ability to acquire and retain customers for the organization.

    CIO priorities

    MANAGING TO A BUDGET
    Reducing operational costs and increasing strategic IT spend.
    Table centerpiece for CIO Priorities. DELIVERING ON BUSINESS OBJECTIVES
    Aligning IT initiatives to the vision of the organization.
    CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
    Directly and indirectly impacting customer experience.
    EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
    Creating an IT workforce of engaged and purpose-driven people.
    RISK MANAGEMENT
    Actively knowing and mitigating threats to the organization.
    BUSINESS LEADERSHIP RELATONS
    Establishing a network of influential business leaders.

    High-level process flow

    How do we use the CIO metrics?
    Process flow that starts at 'Consider - Identify and analyze CIO priorities', and is followed by 'Select priorities - Identify the top priorities for CIOs (see previous slide)', 'Create a measure - Determine a measure that aligns to each priority', 'Make changes & improvements - Take action to improve the measure and reach the goal you are trying to achieve', 'Demonstrate progress - Use the metrics to demonstrate progress against priorities'. Using priority-based metrics allows you to make incremental improvements that can be measured and reported on, which makes program maturation a natural process.

    Example CIO dashboard

    Example CIO dashboard.
    * Arrow indicates month-over-month trend

    Harness the value of metric data

    Metrics are rarely used accurately as a tool
    • When you have good metrics, you can:
      • Ensure employees are focused on the priorities of the organization
      • Have insight to make better decisions
      • Communicate with the business using language that resonates with each stakeholder
      • Increase the performance of your IT function
      • Continually adapt to meet changing business demands
    • Metrics are tools that quantifiably indicate whether a goal is on track to being achieved (proactive) or if the goal was successfully achieved (retroactive)
    • This is often reflected through two metric types:
      • Leading Metrics: The metric indicates if there are actions that should be taken in the process of achieving a desired outcome.
      • Lagging Metrics: Based on the desired outcome, the metric can indicate where there were successes or failures that supported or prevented the outcome from being achieved.
    • Use the data from the metrics to inform your actions. Do not collect this data if your intent is simply to know the data point. You must be willing to act.
    "The way to make a metric successful is by understanding why you are measuring it." (Jeff Neyland CIO)

    CIOs measure strategic business metrics

    Keep the IT leadership accountable for operational metrics
    • Leveraging the IT leadership team, empower and hold each leader accountable for the operational metrics specific to their functional area
    • As a CIO, focus on the metrics that are going to impact the business. These are often tied to people or stakeholders:
      • The customers who will purchase the product or service
      • The decision makers who will fund IT initiatives
      • The champions of IT value
      • The IT employees who will be driven to succeed
      • The owner of an IT risk event
    • By focusing on these priority areas, you can regularly monitor aspects that will have major business impacts – and be able to address those impacts.
    As a CIO, avoid spending time on operational metrics such as:
    • Time to deliver
    • Time to resolve
    • Project delivery (scope, time, money)
    • Application usage
    • User experiences
    • SLAs
    • Uptime/downtime
    • Resource costs
    • Ticket resolution
    • Number of phishing attempts
    Info-Tech Insight

    While operational metrics are important to your organization, IT leaders should be empowered and responsible for their management.

    SECTION 1

    Actively Managing IT Risks

    Actively manage IT risks

    The impact of IT risks to your organization cannot be ignored any further
    • Few individuals in an organization understand IT risks and can proactively plan for the prevention of those threats, making the CIO the responsible and accountable individual when it comes to IT risks – especially the components that tie into cybersecurity.
    • When the negative impacts of an IT threat event are translated into terms that can be understood and actioned by all in the organization, it increases the likelihood of receiving the sponsorship and funding support necessary.
    • Moreover, risk management can be used as a tool to drive the organization toward its vision state, enabling informed risk decisions.

    Risk management metric:

    Number of critical IT threats that were detected and prevented before impact to the organization.

    Beyond risk prevention
    Organizations that have a clear risk tolerance can use their risk assessments to better inform their decisions.
    Specifically, taking risks that could lead to a high return on investment or other key organizational drivers.

    Protect the organization from more than just cyber threats

    Other risk-related metrics:
    • Percentage of IT risks integrated into the organization’s risk management approach.
    • Number of risk management incidents that were not identified by your organization (and the potential financial impact of those risks).
    • Business satisfaction with IT actions to reduce impact of negative IT risk events.
    • Number of redundant systems removed from the organizations portfolio.
    Action steps to take:
    • Create a risk-aware culture, not just with IT folks. The entire organization needs to understand how IT risks are preventable.
    • Clearly demonstrate the financial and reputational impact of potential IT risks and ensure that this is communicated with decision-makers in the organization.
    • Have a single source of truth to document possible risk events and report prevention tactics to minimize the impact of risks.
    • Use this information to recommend budget changes and help make risk-informed decisions.

    49%

    Investing in Risk

    Heads of IT “cited increasing cybersecurity protections as the top business initiative driving IT investments this year” (Source: Foundry, 2022.)

    SECTION 2

    Delivering on Business Objectives

    Delivering on business objectives

    Deliver on initiatives that bring value to your organization and stop benchmarking
    • CIOs often want to know how they are performing in comparison to their competitors (aka where do you compare in the benchmarking?)
    • While this is a nice to know, it adds zero value in demonstrating that you understand your business, let alone the goals of your business
    • Every organization will have a different set of goals it is striving toward, despite being in the same industry, sector, or market.
    • Measuring your performance against the objectives of the organization prevents CIOs from being more technical than it would do them good.

    Business Objective Alignment Metric:

    Percentage of IT metrics have a direct line of impact to the business goals

    Stop using benchmarks to validate yourself against other organizations. Benchmarking does not provide:
    • Insight into how well that organization performed against their goals.
    • That other organizations goals are likely very different from your own organization's goals.
    • It often aggregates the scores so much; good and bad performers stop being clearly identified.

    Provide a clear line of sight from IT metrics to business goals

    Other business alignment metrics:
    • Number of IT initiatives that have a significant impact on the success of the organization's goals.
    • Number of IT initiatives that exceed the expected value.
    • Positive impact ($) of IT initiatives on driving business innovation.
    Action steps to take:
    • Establish a library or dashboard of all the metrics you are currently measuring as an IT organization, and align each of them to one or more of the business objectives your organization has.
    • Leverage the members of the organization’s executive team to validate they understand how your metric ties to the business objective.
    • Any metric that does not have a clear line of sight should be reconsidered.
    • IT metrics should continue to speak in business terms, not IT terms.

    50%

    CIOs drive the business

    The percentage of CEOs that recognize the CIO as the main driver of the business strategy in the next 2-3 years. (Source: Deloitte, 2020.)

    SECTION 3

    Impact on Customer Satisfaction

    Influencing end-customer satisfaction

    Directly or indirectly, IT influences how satisfied the customer is with their product or service
    • Now more than ever before, IT can positively influence the end-customer’s satisfaction with the product or service they purchase.
    • From operational redundancies to the customer’s interaction with the organization, IT can and should be positively impacting the customer experience.
    • IT leaders who take an interest in the customer demonstrate that they are business-focused individuals and understand the intention of what the organization is seeking to achieve.
    • With the CIO role becoming a strategic one, understanding why a customer would or would not purchase your organization’s product or service stops being a “nice to have.”

    Customer satisfaction metric:

    What is the positive impact ($ or %) of IT initiatives on customer satisfaction?

    Info-Tech Insight

    Be the one to suggest new IT initiatives that will impact the customer experience – stop waiting for other business leaders to make the recommendation.

    Enhance the end-customer experience with I&T

    Other customer satisfaction metrics:
    • Amount of time CIO spends interacting directly with customers.
    • Customer retention rate.
    • Customer attraction rate.
    Action steps to take:
    • Identify the core IT capabilities that support customer experience. Automation? Mobile application? Personal information secured?
    • Suggest an IT-supported or-led initiative that will enhance the customer experience and meet the business goals. Retention? Acquisition? Growth in spend?
    • This is where operational metrics or dashboards can have a real influence on the customer experience. Be mindful of how IT impacts the customer journey.

    41%

    Direct CX interaction

    In 2022, 41% of IT heads were directly interacting with the end customer. (Source: Foundry, 2022.)

    SECTION 4

    Keeping Employees Engaged

    Keeping employees engaged

    This is about more than just an annual engagement survey
    • As a leader, you should always have a finger on the pulse of how engaged your employees are
    • Employee engagement is high when:
      • Employees have a positive disposition to their place of work
      • Employees are committed and willing to contribute to the organization's success
    • Employee engagement comprises three types of drivers: organizational, job, and retention. As CIO, you have a direct impact on all three drivers.
    • Providing employees with a positive work environment where they are empowered to complete activities in line with their desired skillset and tied to a clear purpose can significantly increase employee engagement.

    Employee engagement metric:

    Number of employees who feel empowered to complete purposeful activities related to their job each day

    Engagement leads to increases in:
    • Innovation
    • Productivity
    • Performance
    • Teamwork
    While reducing costs associated with high turnover.

    Employees daily tasks need to have purpose

    Other employee engagement metrics:
    • Tenure of IT employees at the organization.
    • Number of employees who seek out or use a training budget to enhance their knowledge/skills.
    • Degree of autonomy employees feel they have in their work on a daily basis.
    • Number of collaboration tools provided to enable cross-organizational work.
    Action steps to take:
    • If you are not willing to take actionable steps to address engagement, don’t bother asking employees about it.
    • Identify the blockers to empowerment. Common blockers include insufficient team collaboration, bureaucracy, inflexibility, and feeling unsupported and judged.
    • Ensure there is a consistent understanding of what “purposeful” means. Are you talking about “purposeful” to the organization or the individual?
    • Provide more clarity on what the organization’s purpose is and the vision it is driving toward. Just because you understand does not mean the employees do.

    26%

    Act on engagement

    Only 26% of leaders actually think about and act on engagement every single day. (Source: SHRM, 2022.)

    SECTION 5

    Establishing Trusted Business Relationships

    Establishing trusted business partnerships

    Leverage your relationships with other C-suite executives to demonstrate IT’s value
    • Your relationship with other business peers is critical – and, funny enough, it is impacted by the use of good metrics and data.
    • The performance of your IT team will be recognized by other members of the executive leadership team (ELT) and is a direct reflection of you as a leader.
    • A good relationship with the ELT can alleviate issues if concerns about IT staff surface.
      • Of the 85% of IT leaders working on transformational initiatives, only 30% are trying to cultivate an IT/business partnership (Foundry, 2022).
    • Don’t let other members of the organizations ELT overlook you or the value IT has. Build the key relationships that will drive trust and partnerships.

    Business leadership relationship metric:

    Ability to influence business decisions with trusted partners.

    Some key relationships that are worth forming with other C-suite executives right now include:
    • Chief Sustainability Officer
    • Chief Revenue Officer
    • Chief Marketing Officer
    • Chief Data Officer

    Influence business decisions with trusted partners

    Other business relations metrics:
    • The frequency with which peers on the ELT complain about the IT organization to other ELT peers.
    • Percentage of business leaders who trust IT to make the right choices for their accountable areas.
    • Number of projects that are initiated with a desired solution versus problems with no desired solution.
    Action steps to take:
    • From lunch to the boardroom, it is important you make an effort to cultivate relationships with the other members of the ELT.
    • Identify who the most influential members of the ELT are and what their primary goals or objectives are.
    • Follow through on what you promise you will deliver – if you do not know, do not promise it!
    • What will work for one member of the ELT will not work for another – personalize your approach.

    60%

    Enterprise-wide collaboration

    “By 2023, 60% of CIOs will be primarily measured for their ability to co-create new business models and outcomes through extensive enterprise and ecosystem-wide collaboration.” (Source: IDC, 2021.)

    SECTION 6

    Managing to a Budget

    Managing to a budget

    Every CIO needs to be able to spend within budget while increasing their strategic impact
    • From security, to cloud, to innovating the organization's products and services, IT has a lot of initiatives that demand funds and improve the organization.
    • Continuing to demonstrate good use of the budget and driving value for the organization will ensure ongoing recognition in the form of increased money.
    • 29% of CIOs indicated that controlling costs and expense management was a key duty of a functional CIO (Foundry, 2022).
    • Demonstrating the ability to spend within a defined budget is a key way to ensure the business trusts you.
    • Demonstrating an ability to spend within a defined budget and reducing the cost of operational expenses while increasing spend on strategic initiatives ensures the business sees the value in IT.

    Budget management metric:

    Proportion of IT budget that is strategic versus operational.

    Info-Tech Insight

    CIOs need to see their IT function as its own business – budget and spend like a CEO.

    Demonstrate IT’s ability to spend strategically

    Other budget management metrics:
    • Cost required to lead the organization through a digital transformation.
    • Reduction in operational spend due to retiring legacy solutions.
    • Percentage of budget in the run, grow, and transform categories.
    • Amount of money spent keeping the lights on versus investing in new capabilities.

    Action steps to take:

    • Consider opportunities to automate processes and reduce the time/talent required to spend.
    • Identify opportunities and create the time for resources to modernize or even digitize the organization to enable a better delivery of the products or services to the end customer.
    • Review the previous metrics and tie it back to running the business. If customer satisfaction will increase or risk-related threats decrease through an initiative IT is suggesting, you can make the case for increased strategic spend.

    90%

    Direct CX interaction

    Ninety percent of CIOs expect their budget to increase or remain the same in their next fiscal year. (Source: Foundry, 2022.)

    Research contributors and experts

    Photo of Jeff Neyland. Jeff Neyland
    Chief Information Officer – University of Texas at Arlington
    Photo of Brett Trelfa. Brett Trelfa
    SVP and CIO – Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield
    Blank photo template. Lynn Fyhrlund
    Chief Information Officer – Milwaukee County Department of Administrative Services

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Vicki Van Alphen Executive Counselor Ibrahim Abdel-Kader Research Analyst
    Mary Van Leer Executive Counselor Graham Price Executive Counselor
    Jack Hakimian Vice President Research Valence Howden Principal Research Director
    Mike Tweedie CIO Practice Lead Tony Denford Organization Transformation Practice Lead

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Sample of the 'IT Metrics Library'. IT Metrics Library
    • Use this tool to review commonly used KPIs for each practice area
    • Identify KPI owners, data sources, baselines, and targets. It also suggests action and research for low-performing KPIs.
    • Use the "Action Plan" tab to keep track of progress on actions that were identified as part of your KPI review.
    Sample of 'Define Service Desk Metrics That Matter'. Define Service Desk Metrics That Matter
    • Consolidate your metrics and assign context and actions to those currently tracked.
    • Establish tension metrics to see and tell the whole story.
    • Split your metrics for each stakeholder group. Assign proper cadences for measurements as a first step to building an effective dashboard.
    Sample of 'CIO Priorities 2022'. CIO Priorities 2022
    • Understand how to respond to trends affecting your organization.
    • Determine your priorities based on current state and relevant internal factors.
    • Assign the right resources to accomplish your vision.
    • Consider what new challenges outside of your control will demand a response.

    Bibliography

    “Developing and Sustaining Employee Engagement.” SHRM, 2022.

    Dopson, Elise. “KPIs Vs. Metrics: What’s the Difference & How Do You Measure Both?” Databox, 23 Jun. 2021.

    Shirer, Michael, and Sarah Murray. “IDC Unveils Worldwide CIO Agenda 2022 Predictions.” IDC, 27 Oct. 2021.

    Suer, Myles. “The Most Important Metrics to Drive IT as a Business.” CIO, 19 Mar. 2019.

    “The new CIO: Business Savvy.” Deloitte Insights. Deloitte, 2020.

    “2022 State of the CIO: Rebalancing Act: CIO’s Operational Pandemic-Era Innovation.” Foundry, 2022.

    “Why Employee Engagement Matters for Leadership at all Levels.” Walden University, 20 Dec. 2019.

    Zhang, Xihui, et al. “How to Measure IT Effectiveness: The CIO’s Perspective.” Journal of Informational Technology Management, 29(4). 2018.

    Strengthen the SSDLC for Enterprise Mobile Applications

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    • Parent Category Name: Mobile Development
    • Parent Category Link: /mobile-development
    • CEOs see mobile for employees as their top mandate for upcoming technology innovation initiatives, making security a key competency for development.
    • Unsecure mobile applications can cause your employees to question the mobile applications’ integrity for handling sensitive data, limiting uptake.
    • Secure mobile development tends to be an afterthought, where vulnerabilities are tested for post-production rather than during the build process.
    • Developers lack the expertise, processes, and proper tools to effectively enhance applications for mobile security.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Organizations currently react to security issues. Info-Tech recommends a proactive approach to ensure a secure software development life cycle (SSDLC) end-to-end.
    • Organizations currently lack the secure development practices to provide highly secure mobile applications that end users can trust.
    • Enable your developers with five key secure development techniques from Info-Tech’s development toolkit.

    Impact and Result

    • Embed secure development techniques into your SDLC.
    • Create a repeatable process for your developers to continually evaluate and optimize mobile application security for new threats and corresponding mitigation steps.
    • Build capabilities within your team based on Info-Tech’s framework by supporting ongoing security improvements through monitoring and metric analysis.

    Strengthen the SSDLC for Enterprise Mobile Applications Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should adopt secure development techniques for mobile application development, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Assess secure mobile development processes

    Determine the current security landscape of mobile application development.

    • Strengthen the SSDLC for Enterprise Mobile Applications – Phase 1: Assess Secure Mobile Development Practices
    • Systems Architecture Template
    • Mobile Application High-Level Design Requirements Template

    2. Implement and test secure mobile techniques

    Incorporate the various secure development techniques into current development practices.

    • Strengthen the SSDLC for Enterprise Mobile Applications – Phase 2: Implement and Test Secure Mobile Techniques

    3. Monitor and support secure mobile applications

    Create a roadmap for mobile optimization initiatives.

    • Strengthen the SSDLC for Enterprise Mobile Applications – Phase 3: Monitor and Support Secure Mobile Applications
    • Mobile Optimization Roadmap
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Strengthen the SSDLC for Enterprise Mobile Applications

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Assess Your Secure Mobile Development Practices

    The Purpose

    Identification of the triggers of your secure mobile development initiatives.

    Assessment of the security vulnerabilities in your mobile applications from an end-user perspective.

    Identification of the execution of your mobile environment.

    Assessment of the mobile threats and vulnerabilities to your systems architecture.

    Prioritization of your mobile threats.

    Creation of your risk register.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Key opportunity areas where a secure development optimization initiative can provide tangible benefits.

    Identification of security requirements.

    Prioritized list of security threats.

    Initial mobile security risk register created. 

    Activities

    1.1 Establish the triggers of your secure mobile development initiatives.

    1.2 Assess the security vulnerabilities in your mobile applications from an end-user perspective.

    1.3 Understand the execution of your mobile environment with a systems architecture.

    1.4 Assess the mobile threats and vulnerabilities to your systems architecture.

    1.5 Prioritize your mobile threats.

    1.6 Begin building your risk register.

    Outputs

    Mobile Application High-Level Design Requirements Document

    Systems Architecture Diagram

    2 Implement and Test Your Secure Mobile Techniques

    The Purpose

    Discovery of secure development techniques to apply to current development practices.

    Discovery of new user stories from applying secure development techniques.

    Discovery of new test cases from applying secure development techniques.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Areas within your code that can be optimized for improving mobile application security.

    New user stories created in relation to mitigation steps.

    New test cases created in relation to mitigation steps.

    Activities

    2.1 Gauge the state of your secure mobile development practices.

    2.2 Identify the appropriate techniques to fill gaps.

    2.3 Develop user stories from security development gaps identified.

    2.4 Develop test cases from user story gaps identified.

    Outputs

    Mobile Application High-Level Design Requirements Document

    3 Monitor and Support Your Secure Mobile Applications

    The Purpose

    Identification of key metrics used to measure mobile application security issues.

    Identification of secure mobile application and development process optimization initiatives.

    Identification of enablers and blockers of your mobile security optimization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Metrics for measuring application security.

    Modified triaging process for addressing security issues.

    Initiatives for development optimization.

    Enablers and blockers identified for mobile security optimization initiatives.

    Process for developing your mobile optimization roadmap.

    Activities

    3.1 List the metrics that would be gathered to assess the success of your mobile security optimization.

    3.2 Adjust and modify your triaging process to enhance handling of security issues.

    3.3 Brainstorm secure mobile application and development process optimization initiatives.

    3.4 Identify the enablers and blockers of your mobile security optimization.

    3.5 Define your mobile security optimization roadmap.

    Outputs

    Mobile Optimization Roadmap

    Initiate Your Service Management Program

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    • Parent Category Name: Service Management
    • Parent Category Link: /service-management
    • IT organizations continue attempting to implement service management, often based on ITIL, with limited success and without visible value.
    • More than half of service management implementations have failed beyond simply implementing the service desk and the incident, change, and request management processes.
    • Organizational structure, goals, and cultural factors are not considered during service management implementation and improvement.
    • The business lacks engagement and understanding of service management.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Service management is an organizational approach. Focus on producing successful and valuable services and service outcomes for the customers.
    • All areas of the organization are accountable for governing and executing service management. Ensure that you create a service management strategy that improves business outcomes and provides the value and quality expected.

    Impact and Result

    • Identified structure for how your service management model should be run and governed.
    • Identified forces that impact your ability to oversee and drive service management success.
    • Mitigation approach to restraining forces.

    Initiate Your Service Management Program Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read this Executive Brief to understand why service management implementations often fail and why you should establish governance for service management.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Identify the level of oversight you need

    Use Info-Tech’s methodology to establish an effective service management program with proper oversight.

    • Service Management Program Initiation Plan
    [infographic]

    Mentoring for Agile Teams

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    • Parent Category Name: Development
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    • Today’s realities are driving organizations to digitize faster and become more Agile.
    • Most hierarchical, command and control–style organizations are not yet well adapted to using Agile.
    • So-called textbook Agile practices often clash with traditional processes and practices.
    • Members must adapt their Agile practices to accommodate their organizational realities.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • There is no one-size-fits-all approach to Agile. Agile practices need to be adjusted to work in your organization based on a thoughtful diagnosis of the challenges and solutions tailored to the nature of your organization.

    Impact and Result

    • Identify your Agile challenges and success factors (both organization-wide and team-specific).
    • Leverage the power of research and experience to solve key Agile challenges and gain immediate benefits for your project.
    • Your Agile playbook will capture your findings so future projects can benefit from them.

    Mentoring for Agile Teams Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read this Executive Brief to understand how a Agile Mentoring can help your organization to successfully establish Agile practices within your context.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Take the Info-Tech Agile Challenges and Success Factors Survey

    This tool will help you identify where your Agile teams are experiencing the most pain so you can create your Agile challenges hit list.

    • Agile Challenges and Success Factors Survey

    2. Review typical challenges and findings

    While each organization/team will struggle with its own individual challenges, many members find they face similar organizational/systemic challenges when adopting Agile. Review these typical challenges and learn from what other members have discovered.

    • Mentoring for Agile Teams – Typical Findings

    Infographic

    Workshop: Mentoring for Agile Teams

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Take the Agile Challenges and Success Factors Survey

    The Purpose

    Determine whether an Agile playbook is right for you.

    Broadly survey your teams to identify Agile challenges and success factors in your organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Better understanding of common Agile challenges and success factors

    Identification of common Agile challenges and success factors are prevalent in your organization

    Activities

    1.1 Distribute survey and gather results.

    1.2 Consolidate survey results.

    Outputs

    Completed survey responses from across teams/organization

    Consolidated heat map of your Agile challenges and success factors

    2 Identify Your Agile Challenges Hit List

    The Purpose

    Examine consolidated survey results.

    Identify your most pressing challenges.

    Create a hit list of challenges to be resolved.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Identification of the most serious challenges to your Agile transformation

    Attention focused on those challenge areas that are most impacting your Agile teams

    Activities

    2.1 Analyze and discuss your consolidated heat map.

    2.2 Prioritize identified challenges.

    2.3 Select your hit list of challenges to address.

    Outputs

    Your Agile challenges hit list

    3 Problem Solve

    The Purpose

    Address each challenge in your hit list to eliminate or improve it.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Better Agile team performance and effectiveness

    Activities

    3.1 Work with Agile mentor to problem solve each challenge in your hit list.

    3.2 Apply these to your project in real time.

    Outputs

    4 Create Your Agile Playbook

    The Purpose

    Capture the findings and lessons learned while problem solving your hit list.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Strategies and tactics for being successful with Agile in your organization which can be applied to future projects

    Activities

    4.1 For each hit list item, capture the findings and lessons learned in Module 3.

    4.2 Document these in your Agile Playbook.

    Outputs

    Your Agile Playbook deliverable

    Data Quality

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    • Teaser Video Title: Big data after pandemic
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    • Parent Category Name: Data and Business Intelligence
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    Restore trust in your data by aligning your data management approach to the business strategy

    Review and Improve Your IT Policy Library

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    • Parent Category Name: IT Governance, Risk & Compliance
    • Parent Category Link: /it-governance-risk-and-compliance
    • Your policies are out of date, disorganized, and complicated. They don’t reflect current regulations and don’t actually mitigate your organization’s current IT risks.
    • Your policies are difficult to understand, aren’t easy to find, or aren’t well monitored and enforced for compliance. As a result, your employees don’t care about your policies.
    • Policy issues are taking up too much of your time and distracting you from the real issues you need to address.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    A dynamic and streamlined policy approach will:

    1. Right-size policies to address the most critical IT risks.
    2. Clearly lay out a step-by-step process to complete daily tasks in compliance.
    3. Obtain policy adherence without having to be “the police.”

    To accomplish this, the policy writer must engage their audience early to gather input on IT policies, increase policy awareness, and gain buy-in early in the process.

    Impact and Result

    • Develop more effective IT policies. Clearly express your policy goals and objectives, standardize the approach to employee problem solving, and write policies your employees will actually read.
    • Improve risk coverage. Ensure full coverage on the risk landscape, including legal regulations, and establish a method for reporting, documenting, and communicating risks.
    • Improve employee compliance. Empathize with your employees and use policy to educate, train, and enable them instead of restricting them.

    Review and Improve Your IT Policy Library Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how to write better policies that mitigate the risks you care about and get the business to follow them, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Assess

    Assess your risk landscape and design a plan to update your policy network based on your most critical risks.

    • Review and Improve Your IT Policy Library – Phase 1: Assess
    • Policy Management RACI Chart Template
    • Policy Management Tool
    • Policy Action Plan

    2. Draft and implement

    Use input from key stakeholders to write clear, consistent, and concise policies that people will actually read and understand. Then publish them and start generating policy awareness.

    • Review and Improve Your IT Policy Library – Phase 2: Draft and Implement
    • Policy Template
    • Policy Communication Plan Template

    3. Monitor, enforce, revise

    Use your policies to create a compliance culture in your organization, set KPIs, and track policy effectiveness.

    • Review and Improve Your IT Policy Library – Phase 3: Monitor, Enforce, Revise
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Review and Improve Your IT Policy Library

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Establish & Assess

    The Purpose

    Identify the pain points associated with IT policies.

    Establish the policy development process.

    Begin formulating a plan to re-design the policy network.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Establish the policy process.

    Highlight key issues and pain points regarding policy.

    Assign roles and responsibilities.

    Activities

    1.1 Introduce workshop.

    1.2 Identify the current pain points with policy management.

    1.3 Establish high-level goals around policy management.

    1.4 Select metrics to measure achievement of goals.

    1.5 Create an IT policy working group (ITPWG).

    1.6 Define the scope and purpose of the ITPWG.

    Outputs

    List of issues and pain points for policy management

    Set of six to ten goals for policy management

    Baseline and target measured value

    Amended steering committee or ITPWG charter

    Completed RACI chart

    Documented policy development process

    2 Assess Your Risk Landscape & Map Policies to Risks; Create a Policy Action Plan

    The Purpose

    Identify key risks.

    Develop an understanding of which risks are most critical.

    Design a policy network that best mitigates those risks.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Use a risk-driven approach to decide which policies need to be written or updated first.

    Activities

    2.1 Identify risks at a high level.

    2.2 Assess each identified risk scenario on impact and likelihood.

    2.3 Map current and required policies to risks.

    2.4 Assess policy effectiveness.

    2.5 Create a policy action plan.

    2.6 Select policies to be developed during workshop.

    Outputs

    Ranked list of IT’s risk scenarios

    Prioritized list of IT risks (simplified risk register)

    Policy action plan

    3 Develop Policies

    The Purpose

    Outline what key features make a policy effective and write policies that mitigate the most critical IT risks.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Write policies that work and get them approved.

    Activities

    3.1 Define the policy audience, constraints, and in-scope and out-of-scope requirements for a policy.

    3.2 Draft two to four policies

    Outputs

    Drafted policies

    4 Create a Policy Communication and Implementation Plan and Monitor & Reassess the Portfolio

    The Purpose

    Build an understanding of how well the organization’s value creation activities are being supported.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Identify an area or capability that requires improvement.

    Activities

    4.1 Review draft policies and update if necessary.

    4.2 Create a policy communication plan.

    4.3 Select KPIs.

    4.4 Review root-cause analysis techniques.

    Outputs

    Final draft policies

    Policy communications plan

    KPI tracking log

    Enable Organization-Wide Collaboration by Scaling Agile

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    • Parent Category Name: Architecture & Strategy
    • Parent Category Link: /architecture-and-strategy
    • Your organization is realizing benefits from adopting Agile principles and practices in pockets of your organization.
    • You are starting to investigate opportunities to extend Agile beyond these pilot implementations into other areas of the organization. You are looking for a coordinated approach aligned to business priorities.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Not all lessons from a pilot project are transferable. Pilot processes are tailored to a specific project’s scope, team, and tools, and they may not account for the diverse attributes in your organization.
    • Control may be necessary for coordination. More moving parts means enforcing consistent cadences, reporting, and communication is a must if teams are not disciplined or lack good governance.
    • Scale Agile in departments tolerable to change. Incrementally roll Agile out in departments where its principles are accepted (e.g. a culture of continuous improvement, embracing failures as lessons).

    Impact and Result

    • Complete an Agile capability assessment of your pilot functional group to gauge anticipated Agile benefits. Identify the business objectives and the group drivers that are motivating a scaled Agile implementation.
    • Understand the challenges that you may face when scaling Agile. Investigate the root causes of inefficiencies that can derail your scaling initiatives.
    • Brainstorm solutions to your scaling challenges and envision a target state for your growing Agile environment. Your target state will discover new opportunities to drive more business value and eliminate current activities driving down productivity.
    • Coordinate the implementation and execution of scaling Agile initiatives with a Scaling Agile Playbook. This organic and collaborative document will lay out the process, roles, goals, and objectives needed to successfully manage your Agile environment.

    Enable Organization-Wide Collaboration by Scaling Agile Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should scale up Agile, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Gauge readiness to scale up Agile

    Evaluate the readiness of the pilot functional group and Agile development processes to adopt scaled Agile practices.

    • Enable Organization-Wide Collaboration by Scaling Agile – Phase 1: Gauge Readiness to Scale Up Agile
    • Scaling Agile Playbook Template
    • Scrum Development Process Template

    2. Define scaled Agile target state

    Alleviate scaling issues and risks and introduce new opportunities to enhance business value delivery with Agile practices.

    • Enable Organization-Wide Collaboration by Scaling Agile – Phase 2: Define Scaled Agile Target State

    3. Create implementation plan

    Roll out scaling Agile initiatives in a gradual, iterative approach and define the right metrics to demonstrate success.

    • Enable Organization-Wide Collaboration by Scaling Agile – Phase 3: Create Implementation Plan
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Enable Organization-Wide Collaboration by Scaling Agile

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Gauge Your Readiness to Scale Up Agile

    The Purpose

    Identify the business objectives and functional group drivers for adopting Agile practices to gauge the fit of scaling Agile.

    Select the pilot project to demonstrate the value of scaling Agile.

    Review and evaluate your current Agile development process and functional group structure.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of the notable business and functional group gaps that can derail the scaling of Agile.

    Selection of a pilot program that will be used to gather metrics to continuously improve implementation and obtain buy-in for wider rollout.

    Realization of the root causes behind functional group and process issues in the current Agile implementation.

    Activities

    1.1 Assess your pilot functional group

    Outputs

    Fit assessment of functional group to pilot Agile scaling

    Selection of pilot program

    List of critical success factors

    2 Define Your Scaled Agile Target State

    The Purpose

    Think of solutions to address the root causes of current communication and process issues that can derail scaling initiatives.

    Brainstorm opportunities to enhance the delivery of business value to customers.

    Generate a target state for your scaled Agile implementation.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Defined Agile capabilities and services of your functional group.

    Optimized functional group team structure, development process, and program framework to support scaled Agile in your context.

    Identification and accommodation of the risks associated with implementing and executing Agile capabilities.

    Activities

    2.1 Define Agile capabilities at scale

    2.2 Build your scaled Agile target state

    Outputs

    Solutions to scaling issues and opportunities to deliver more business value

    Agile capability map

    Functional group team structure, Agile development process and program framework optimized to support scaled Agile

    Risk assessment of scaling Agile initiatives

    3 Create Your Implementation Plan

    The Purpose

    List metrics to gauge the success of your scaling Agile implementation.

    Define the initiatives to scale Agile in your organization and to prepare for a wider rollout.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Strategic selection of the right metrics to demonstrate the value of scaling Agile initiatives.

    Scaling Agile implementation roadmap based on current resource capacities, task complexities, and business priorities.

    Activities

    3.1 Create your implementation plan

    Outputs

    List of metrics to gauge scaling Agile success

    Scaling Agile implementation roadmap

    Security Priorities 2023

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    • Parent Category Name: Security Strategy & Budgeting
    • Parent Category Link: /security-strategy-and-budgeting
    • Most people still want a hybrid work model but there is a shortage in security workforce to maintain secure remote work, which impacts confidence in the security practice.
    • Pressure of operational excellence drives organizational modernization with the consequence of higher risks of security attacks that impact not only cyber but also physical systems.
    • The number of regulations with stricter requirements and reporting is increasing, along with high sanctions for violations.
    • Accurate assessment of readiness and benefits to adopt next-gen cybersecurity technologies can be difficult. Additionally, regulation often faces challenges to keep up with next-gen cybersecurity technologies implications and risks of adoption, which may not always be explicit.
    • Software is usually produced as part of a supply chain instead in a silo. Thus, a vulnerability in any part of the supply chain can become a threat surface.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Secure remote work still needs to be maintained to facilitate the hybrid work model post pandemic.
    • Despite all the cybersecurity risks, organizations continue modernization plans due to the long-term overall benefits. Hence, we need to secure organization modernization.
    • Organizations should use regulatory changes to improve security practices, instead of treating them as a compliance burden.
    • Next-gen cybersecurity technologies alone are not the silver bullet. A combination of technologies with skilled talent, useful data, and best practices will give a competitive advantage.

    Impact and Result

    • Use this report to help decide your 2023 security priorities by:
      • Collecting and analyzing your own related data, such as your organization 2022 incident reports. Use Info-Tech’s Security Priorities 2023 material for guidance.
      • Identifying your needs and analyzing your capabilities. Use Info-Tech's template to explain the priorities you need to your stakeholders.
      • Determining the next steps. Refer to Info-Tech's recommendations and related research.

    Security Priorities 2023 Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Security Priorities 2023 Report – A report to help decide your 2023 security priorities.

    Each organization is different, so a generic list of security priorities will not be applicable to every organization. Thus, you need to:

  • Collect and analyze your own related data such as your organization 2022 incident reports. Use Info-Tech’s Security Priorities 2023 material for guidance.
  • Identify your needs and analyze your capabilities. Use Info-Tech's template to explain the priorities you need to your stakeholders.
  • Refer to Info-Tech's recommendations and related research for guidance on the next steps.
    • Security Priorities 2023 Report

    Infographic

    Further reading

    Security Priorities 2023

    How we live post pandemic

    Each organization is different, so a generic list of priorities will not be applicable to every organization.

    During 2022, ransomware campaigns declined from quarter to quarter due to the collapse of experienced groups. Several smaller groups are developing to recapture the lost ransomware market. However, ransomware is still the most worrying cyber threat.

    Also in 2022, people returned to normal activities such as traveling and attending sports or music events but not yet to the office. The reasons behind this trend can be many fold, such as employees perceive that work from home (WFH) has positive productivity effects and time flexibility for employees, especially for those with families with younger children. On the other side of the spectrum, some employers perceive that WFH has negative productivity effects and thus are urging employees to return to the office. However, employers also understand the competition to retain skilled workers is harder. Thus, the trend is to have hybrid work where eligible employees can WFH for a certain portion of their work week.

    Besides ransomware and the hybrid work model, in 2022, we saw an evolving threat landscape, regulatory changes, and the potential for a recession by the end of 2023, which can impact how we prioritize cybersecurity this year. Furthermore, organizations are still facing the ongoing issues of insufficient cybersecurity resources and organization modernization.

    This report will explore important security trends, the security priorities that stem from these trends, and how to customize these priorities for your organization.

    In Q2 2022, the median ransom payment was $36,360 (-51% from Q1 2022), a continuation of a downward trend since Q4 2021 when the ransom payment median was $117,116.
    Source: Coveware, 2022

    From January until October 2022, hybrid work grew in almost all industries in Canada especially finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing (+14.7%), public administration and professional services (+11.8%), and scientific and technical services (+10.8%).
    Source: Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey, October 2022; N=3,701

    Hybrid work changes processes and infrastructure

    Investment on remote work due to changes in processes and infrastructure

    As part of our research process for the 2023 Security Priorities Report, we used the results from our State of Hybrid Work in IT Survey, which collected responses between July 10 and July 29, 2022 (total N=745, with n=518 completed surveys). This survey details what changes in processes and IT infrastructure are likely due to hybrid work.

    Process changes to support hybrid work

    A bar graph is depicted with the following dataset: None of the above - 12%; Change management - 29%; Asset management - 34%; Service request support - 41%; Incident management - 42%

    Survey respondents (n=518) were asked what processes had the highest degree of change in response to supporting hybrid work. Incident management is the #1 result and service request support is #2. This is unsurprising considering that remote work changed how people communicate, how they access company assets, and how they connect to the company network and infrastructure.

    Infrastructure changes to support hybrid work

    A bar graph is depicted with the following dataset: Changed queue management and ticketing system(s) - 11%; Changed incident and service request processes - 23%; Addition of chatbots as part of the Service Desk intake process - 29%; Reduced the need for recovery office spaces and alternative work mitigations - 40%; Structure & day-to-day operation of Service Desk - 41%; Updated network architecture - 44%

    For 2023, we believe that hybrid work will remain. The first driver is that employees still prefer to work remotely for certain days of the week. The second driver is the investment from employers on enabling WFH during the pandemic, such as updated network architecture (44%) and the infrastructure and day-to-day operations (41%) as shown on our survey.

    Top cybersecurity concerns and organizational preparedness for them

    Concerns may correspond to readiness.

    In the Info-Tech Research Group 2023 Trends and Priorities Survey of IT professionals, we asked about cybersecurity concerns and the perception about readiness to meet current and future government legislation regarding cybersecurity requirements.

    Cybersecurity issues

    A bar graph is depicted with the following dataset: Cyber risks are not on the radar of the executive leaders or board of directors - 3.19; Organization is not prepared to respond to a cyber attack - 3.08; Supply chain risks related to cyber threats - 3.18; Talent shortages leading to capacity constraints in cyber security - 3.51; New government or industry-imposed regulations - 3.15

    Survey respondents were asked how concerned they are about certain cybersecurity issues from 1 (not concerned at all) to 5 (very concerned). The #1 concern was talent shortages. Other issues with similar concerns included cyber risks not on leadership's radar, supply chain risks, and new regulations (n=507).

    Cybersecurity legislation readiness

    A bar graph is depicted with the following dataset: 1 (Not confident at all) - 2.4%; 2 - 11.2%; 3 - 39.7%; 4 - 33.3%; 5 (Very confident) - 13.4%

    When asked about how confident organizations are about being prepared to meet current and future government legislation regarding cybersecurity requirements, from 1 (not confident at all) to 5 (very confident), the #1 response was 3 (n=499).

    Unsurprisingly, the ever-changing government legislation environment in a world emerging from a pandemic and ongoing wars may not give us the highest confidence.

    We know the concerns and readiness…

    But what is the overall security maturity?

    As part of our research process for the 2023 Security Priorities Report, we reviewed results of completed Info-Tech Research Group Security Governance and Management Benchmark diagnostics (N=912). This report details what we see in our clients' security governance maturity. Setting aside the perception on readiness – what are their actual security maturity levels?

    A bar graph is depicted with the following dataset: Security Culture - 47%; Policy and Process Governance - 47%; Event and Incident Management - 58%; Vulnerability - 57%; Auditing - 52%; Compliance Management - 58%; Risk Analysis - 52%

    Overall, assessed organizations are still scoring low (47%) on Security Culture and Policy and Process Governance. This justifies why most security incidents are still due to gaps in foundational security and security awareness, not lack of advanced controls such as event and incident management (58%).

    And how will the potential recession impact security?

    Organizations are preparing for recession, but opportunities for growth during recession should be well planned too.

    As part of our research process for the 2023 Security Priorities Report, we reviewed the results of the Info-Tech Research Group 2023 Trends and Priorities Survey of IT professionals, which collected responses between August 9 and September 9, 2022 (total N=813 with n=521 completed surveys).

    Expected organizational spending on cybersecurity compared to the previous fiscal year

    A bar graph is depicted with the following dataset: A decrease of more than 10% - 2.2%; A decrease of between 1-10% - 2.6%; About the same - 41.4%; An increase of between 1-10% - 39.6%; An increase of more than 10% - 14.3%

    Keeping the same spending is the #1 result and #2 is increasing spending up to 10%. This is a surprising finding considering the survey was conducted after the middle of 2022 and a recession has been predicted since early 2022 (n=489).

    An infographic titled Cloudy with a Chance of Recession

    Source: Statista, 2022, CC BY-ND

    US recession forecast

    Contingency planning for recessions normally includes tight budgeting; however, it can also include opportunities for growth such as hiring talent who have been laid off by competitors and are difficult to acquire in normal conditions. This can support our previous findings on increasing cybersecurity spending.

    Five Security Priorities for 2023

    This image describes the Five Security Priorities for 2023.

    Maintain Secure Hybrid Work

    PRIORITY 01

    • HOW TO STRATEGICALLY ACQUIRE, RETAIN, OR UPSKILL TALENT TO MAINTAIN SECURE SYSTEMS.

    Executive summary

    Background

    If anything can be learned from COVID-19 pandemic, it is that humans are resilient. We swiftly changed to remote workplaces and adjusted people, processes, and technologies accordingly. We had some hiccups along the way, but overall, we demonstrated that our ability to adjust is amazing.

    The pandemic changed how people work and how and where they choose to work, and most people still want a hybrid work model. However, the number of days for hybrid work itself varies. For example, from our survey in July 2022 (n=516), 55.8% of employees have the option of 2-3 days per week to work offsite, 21.0% for 1 day per week, and 17.8% for 4 days per week.

    Furthermore, the investment (e.g. on infrastructure and networks) to initiate remote work was huge, and the cost doesn't end there, as we need to maintain the secure remote work infrastructure to facilitate the hybrid work model.

    Current situation

    Remote work: A 2022 survey by WFH Research (N=16,451) reports that ~14% of full-time employees are fully remote and ~29% are in a hybrid arrangement as of Summer-Fall 2022.

    Security workforce shortage: A 2022 survey by Bridewell (N=521) reports that 68% of leaders say it has become harder to recruit the right people, impacting organizational ability to secure and monitor systems.

    Confidence in the security practice: A 2022 diagnostic survey by Info-Tech Research Group (N=55) reports that importance may not correspond to confidence; for example, the most important selected cybersecurity area, namely Data Access/Integrity (93.7%), surprisingly has the lowest confidence of the practice (80.5%).

    "WFH doubled every 15 years pre-pandemic. The increase in WFH during the pandemic was equal to 30 years of pre-pandemic growth."

    Source: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2021

    Leaders must do more to increase confidence in the security practice

    Importance may not correspond to confidence

    As part of our research process for the 2023 Security Priorities Report, we analyzed results from the Info-Tech Research Group diagnostics. This report details what we see in our clients' perceived importance of security and their confidence in existing security practices.

    Cybersecurity importance

    A bar graph is depicted with the following dataset: Importance to the Organization - 94.3%; Importance to My Department	92.2%

    Cybersecurity importance areas

    A bar graph is depicted with the following dataset: Mobility (Remote & Mobile Access) - 90.2%; Regulatory Compliance - 90.1%; Desktop Computing - 90.9%; Data Access / Integrity - 93.7%

    Confidence in cybersecurity practice

    A bar graph is depicted with the following dataset: Confidence in the Organization's Overall Security - 79.4%; Confidence in Security for My Department - 79.8%

    Confidence in cybersecurity practice areas

    A bar graph is depicted with the following dataset: Mobility (Remote & Mobile Access) - 75.8%; Regulatory Compliance - 81.5%; Desktop Computing - 80.9%; Data Access / Integrity - 80.5%

    Diagnostics respondents (N=55) were asked about how important security is to their organization or department. Importance to the overall organization is 2.1 percentage points (pp) higher, but confidence in the organization's overall security is slightly lower (-0.4 pp).

    If we break down to security areas, we can see that the most important area, Data Access/Integrity (93.7%), surprisingly has the lowest confidence of the practice: 80.5%. From this data we can conclude that leaders must build a strong cybersecurity workforce to increase confidence in the security practice.

    Use this template to explain the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about.

    Maintain secure hybrid work plan

    Provide a brief value statement for the initiative.

    Build a strong cybersecurity workforce to increase confidence in the security practice to facilitate hybrid work.

    Initiative Description:

    • Description must include what organization will undertake to complete the initiative.
    • Review your security strategy for hybrid work.
    • Identify skills gaps that hinder the successful execution of the hybrid work security strategy.
    • Use the identified skill gaps to define the technical skill requirements for current and future work roles.
    • Conduct a skills assessment on your current workforce to identify employee skill gaps.
    • Decide whether to train, hire, contract, or outsource each skill gap.

    Drivers:

    List initiative drivers.

    • Employees still prefer to WFH for certain days of the week.
    • The investment on WFH during pandemic such as updated network architecture and infrastructure and day-to-day operations.
    • Tech companies' huge layoffs, e.g. Meta laid off more than 11,000 employees.

    Risks:

    List initiative risks and impacts.

    • Unskilled workers lacking certificates or years of experience who are trained and become skilled workers then quit or are hijacked by competitors.
    • Organizational and cultural changes cause friction with work-life balance.
    • Increased attack surface of remote/hybrid workforce.

    Benefits:

    List initiative benefits and align to business benefits or benefits for the stakeholder groups that it impacts.

    • Increase perceived productivity by employees and increase retention.
    • Increase job satisfaction and work-life balance.
    • Hiring talent that has been laid off who are difficult to acquire in normal conditions.

    Related Info-Tech Research:

    Recommended Actions

    1. Identify skill requirements to maintain secure hybrid work

    Review your security strategy for hybrid work.

    Determine the skill needs of your security strategy.

    2. Identify skill gaps

    Identify skills gaps that hinder the successful execution of the hybrid work security strategy.

    Use the identified skill gaps to define the technical skill requirements for work roles.

    3. Decide whether to build or buy skills

    Conduct a skills assessment on your current workforce to identify employee skill gaps.

    Decide whether to train, hire, contract, or outsource each skill gap.

    Source: Close the InfoSec Skills Gap: Develop a Technical Skills Sourcing Plan, Info-Tech

    Secure Organization Modernization

    PRIORITY 02

    • TRENDS SUGGEST MODERNIZATION SUCH AS DIGITAL
      TRANSFORMATION TO THE CLOUD, OPERATIONAL TECHNOLOGY (OT),
      AND THE INTERNET OF THINGS (IOT) IS RISING; ADDRESSING THE RISK
      OF CONVERGING ENVIRONMENTS CAN NO LONGER BE DEFERRED.

    Executive summary

    From computerized milk-handling systems in Wisconsin farms, to automated railway systems in Europe, to Ausgrid's Distribution Network Management System (DNMS) in Australia, to smart cities and beyond; system modernization poses unique challenges to cybersecurity.

    The threats can be safety, such as the trains stopped in Denmark during the last weekend of October 2022 for several hours due to an attack on a third-party IT service provider; economics, such as a cream cheese production shutdown that occurred at the peak of cream cheese demand in October 2021 due to hackers compromising a large cheese manufacturer's plants and distribution centers; and reliability, such as the significant loss of communication for the Ukrainian military, which relied on Viasat's services.

    Despite all the cybersecurity risks, organizations continue modernization plans due to the long-term overall benefits.

    Current situation

    • Pressure of operational excellence: Competitive markets cannot keep pace with demand without modernization. For example, in automated milking systems, the labor time saved from milking can be used to focus on other essential tasks such as the decision-making process.
    • Technology offerings: Technologies are available and affordable such as automated equipment, versatile communication systems, high-performance human machine interaction (HMI), IIoT/Edge integration, and big data analytics.
    • Higher risks of cyberattacks: Modernization enlarges attack surfaces, which are not only cyber but also physical systems. Most incidents indicate that attackers gained access through the IT network, which was followed by infiltration into OT networks.

    IIoT market size is USD 323.62 billion in 2022 and projected to be around USD 1 trillion in 2028.

    Source: Statista,
    March 2022

    Modernization brings new opportunities and new threats

    Higher risks of cyberattacks on Industrial Control System (ICS)

    Target: Australian sewage plant.

    Method: Insider attack. Impact: 265,000 gallons of untreated sewage released.

    Target: Middle East energy companies.

    Method: Shamoon.

    Impact: Overwritten Windows-based systems files.

    Target: German Steel Mill

    Method: Spear-phishing

    Impact: Blast furnace control shutdown failure.

    Target: Middle East Safety Instrumented System (SIS).

    Method: TRISIS/TRITON.

    Impact: Modified safety system ladder logic.

    Target: Viasat's KA-SAT Network.

    Method: AcidRain.

    Impact: Significant loss of communication for the Ukrainian military, which relied on Viasat's services.

    A timeline displaying the years 1903; 2000; 2010; 2012; 2013; 2014; 2018; 2019; 2021; 2022 is displayed.

    Target: Marconi wireless telegraphs presentation. Method: Morse code.

    Impact: Fake message sent "Rats, rats, rats, rats. There was a young fellow of Italy, Who diddled the public quite prettily."

    Target: Iranian uranium enrichment plant.

    Method: Stuxnet.

    Impact: Compromised programmable logic controllers (PLCs).

    Target: ICS supply chain.

    Method: Havex.

    Impact: Remote Access Trojan (RAT) collected information and uploaded data to command-and-control (C&C) servers.

    Target: Ukraine power grid.

    Method: BlackEnergy.

    Impact: Manipulation of HMI View causing 1-6 hour power outages for 230,000 consumers.

    Target: Colonial Pipeline.

    Method: DarkSide ransomware.

    Impact: Compromised billing infrastructure halted the pipeline operation.

    Sources:

    • DOE, 2018
    • CSIS, 2022
    • MIT Technology Review, 2022

    Info-Tech Insight

    Most OT incidents start with attacks against IT networks and then move laterally into the OT environment. Therefore, converging IT and OT security will help protect the entire organization.

    Use this template to explain the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about.

    Secure organization modernization

    Provide a brief value statement for the initiative.

    The systems (OT, IT, IIoT) are evolving now – ensure your security plan has you covered.

    Initiative Description:

    • Description must include what organization will undertake to complete the initiative.
    • Identify the drivers to align with your organization's business objectives.
    • Build your case by leveraging a cost-benefit analysis and update your security strategy.
    • Identify people, process, and technology gaps that hinder the modernization security strategy.
    • Use the identified skill gaps to update risks, policies and procedures, IR, DR, and BCP.
    • Evaluate and enable modernization technology top focus areas and refine security processes.
    • Decide whether to train, hire, contract, or outsource to fill the security workforce gap.

    Drivers:

    List initiative drivers.

    • Pressure of operational excellence
    • Technology offerings
    • Higher risks of cyberattacks

    Risks:

    List initiative risks and impacts.

    • Complex systems with many components to implement and manage require diligent change management.
    • Organizational and cultural changes cause friction between humans and machines.
    • Increased attack surface of cyber and physical systems.

    Benefits:

    List initiative benefits and align to business benefits or benefits for the stakeholder groups that it impacts.

    • Improve service reliability through continuous and real-time operation.
    • Enhance efficiency through operations visibility and transparency.
    • Gain cost savings and efficiency to automate operations of complex and large equipment and instrumentations.

    Related Info-Tech Research:

    Recommended Actions

    1. Identify modernization business cases to secure

    Identify the drivers to align with your organization's business objectives.

    Build your case by leveraging a cost-benefit analysis, and update your security strategy.

    2. Identify gaps

    Identify people, process, and technology gaps that hinder the modernization
    security strategy.

    Use the identified skill gaps to update risks, policies and procedures, IR, DR, and BCP.

    3. Decide whether to build or buy capabilities

    Evaluate and enable modernization technology top focus areas and refine
    security processes.

    Decide whether to train, hire, contract, or outsource to fill the security workforce gap.

    Sources:

    Industrial Control System (ICS) Modernization: Unlock the Value of Automation in Utilities, Info-Tech

    Secure IT-OT Convergence, Info-Tech

    Develop a cost-benefit analysis

    Identify a modernization business case for security.

    Benefits

    Metrics

    Operational Efficiency and Cost Savings

    • Reduction in truck rolls and staff time of manual operations of equipment or instrumentation.
    • Cost reduction in energy usage such as substation power voltage level or water treatment chemical level.

    Improve Reliability and Resilience

    • Reduction in field crew time to identify the outage locations by remotely accessing field equipment to narrow down the
      fault areas.
    • Reduction in outage time impacting customers and avoiding financial penalty in service quality metrics.
    • Improve operating reliability through continuous and real-time trend analysis of equipment performance.

    Energy & Capacity Savings

    • Optimize energy usage of operation to reduce overall operating cost and contribution to organizational net-zero targets.

    Customers & Society Benefits

    • Improve customer safety for essential services such as drinkable water consumption.
    • Improve reliability of services and address service equity issues based on data.

    Cost

    Metrics

    Equipment and Infrastructure

    Upgrade existing security equipment or instrumentation or deploy new, e.g. IPS on Enterprise DMZ and Operations DMZ.

    Implement communication network equipment and labor to install and configure.

    Upgrade or construct server room including cooling/heating, power backup, and server and rack hardware.

    Software and Commission

    The SCADA/HMI software and maintenance fee as well as lifecycle upgrade implementation project cost.

    Labor cost of field commissioning and troubleshooting.

    Integration with security systems, e.g. log management and continuous monitoring.

    Support and Resources

    Cost to hire/outsource security FTEs for ongoing managing and operating security devices, e.g. SOC.

    Cost to hire/outsource IT/OT FTEs to support and troubleshoot systems and its integrations with security systems, e.g. MSSP.

    An example of a cost-benefit analysis for ICS modernization

    Sources:

    Industrial Control System (ICS) Modernization: Unlock the Value of Automation in Utilities, Info-Tech

    Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2021

    IT-OT convergence demands new security approach and solutions

    Identify gaps

    Attack Vectors

    IT

    • User's compromised credentials
    • User's access device, e.g. laptop, smartphone
    • Access method, e.g. denial-of-service to modem, session hijacking, bad data injection

    OT

    • Site operations, e.g. SCADA server, engineering workstation, historian
    • Controls, e.g. SCADA Client, HMI, PLCs, RTUs
    • Process devices, e.g. sensors, actuators, field devices

    Defense Strategies

    • Limit exposure of system information
    • Identify and secure remote access points
    • Restrict tools and scripts
    • Conduct regular security audits
    • Implement a dynamic network environment

    (Control System Defense: Know the Opponent, CISA)

    An example of a high-level architecture of an electric utility's control system and its interaction with IT systems.

    An example of a high-level architecture of an electric utility's control system and its interaction with IT systems.

    Source: ISA-99, 2007

    RESPOND TO REGULATORY CHANGES

    PRIORITY 03

    • GOVERNMENT-ENACTED POLICY CHANGES AND INDUSTRY REGULATORY CHANGES COULD BE A COMPLIANCE BURDEN … OR PREVENT YOUR NEXT SECURITY INCIDENT.

    Executive summary

    Background

    Government-enacted regulatory changes are occurring at an ever-increasing rate these days. As one example, on November 10, 2022, the EU Parliament introduced two EU cybersecurity laws: the Network and Information Security (NIS2) Directive (applicable to organizations located within the EU and organizations outside the EU that are essential within an EU country) and the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA). There are also industry regulatory changes such as PCI DSS v4.0 for the payment sector and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation Critical Infrastructure Protection (NERC CIP) for Bulk Electric Systems (BES).

    Organizations should use regulatory changes as a means to improve security practices, instead of treating them as a compliance burden. As said by lead member of EU Parliament Bart Groothuis on NIS2, "This European directive is going to help around 160,000 entities tighten their grip on security […] It will also enable information sharing with the private sector and partners around the world. If we are being attacked on an industrial scale, we need to respond on an industrial scale."

    Current situation

    Stricter requirements and reporting: Regulations such as NIS2 include provisions for incident response, supply chain security, and encryption and vulnerability disclosure and set tighter cybersecurity obligations for risk management reporting obligations.

    Broader sectors: For example, the original NIS directive covers 19 sectors such as Healthcare, Digital Infrastructure, Transport, and Energy. Meanwhile, the new NIS2 directive increases to 35 sectors by adding other sectors such as providers of public electronic communications networks or services, manufacturing of certain critical products (e.g. pharmaceuticals), food, and digital services.

    High sanctions for violations: For example, Digital Services Act (DSA) includes fines of up to 6% of global turnover and a ban on operating in the EU single market in case of repeated serious breaches.

    Approximately 100 cross-border data flow regulations exist in 2022.

    Source: McKinsey, 2022

    Stricter requirements for payments

    Obligation changes to keep up with emerging threats and technologies

    64 New requirements were added
    A total of 64 requirements have been added to version 4.0 of the PCI DSS.

    13 New requirements become effective March 31, 2024
    The other 51 new requirements are considered best practice until March 31, 2025, at which point they will become effective.

    11 New requirements only for service providers
    11 of the new requirements are applicable only to entities that provide third-party services to merchants.

    Defined roles must be assigned for requirements.

    Focus on periodically assessing and documenting scope.

    Entities may choose a defined approach or a customized approach to requirements.

    An example of new requirements for PCI DSS v4.0

    Source: Prepare for PCI DSS v4.0, Info-Tech

    Use this template to explain the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about.

    Respond to regulatory changes

    Provide a brief value statement for the initiative.

    The compliance obligations are evolving – ensure your security plan has you covered.

    Initiative Description:

    Description must include what organization will undertake to complete the initiative.

    • Identify relevant security and privacy compliance and conformance levels.
    • Identify gaps for updated obligations, and map obligations into control framework.
    • Review, update, and implement policies and strategy.
    • Develop compliance exception process and forms.
    • Develop test scripts.
    • Track status and exceptions

    Drivers:

    List initiative drivers.

    • Pressure of new regulations
    • Governance, risk & compliance (GRC) tool offerings
    • High administrative or criminal penalties of non-compliance

    Risks:

    List initiative risks and impacts.

    • Complex structures and a great number of compliance requirements
    • Restricted budget and lack of skilled workforce for organizations such as local municipalities and small or medium organizations compared to private counterparts
    • Personal liability for some regulations for non-compliance

    Benefits:

    List initiative benefits and align to business benefits or benefits for the stakeholder groups that it impacts.

    • Reduces compliance risk.
    • Reduces complexity within the control environment by using a single framework to align multiple compliance regimes.
    • Reduces costs and efforts related to managing IT audits through planning and preparation.

    Related Info-Tech Research:

    Recommended Actions

    1. Identify compliance obligations

    Identify relevant security and privacy obligations and conformance levels.

    Identify gaps for updated obligations, and map obligations into control framework.

    2. Implement compliance strategy

    Review, update, and implement policies and strategy.

    Develop compliance exception process.

    3. Track and report

    Develop test scripts to check your remediations to ensure they are effective.

    Track and report status and exceptions.

    Sources: Build a Security Compliance Program and Prepare for PCI DSS v4.0, Info-Tech

    Identify relevant security and privacy compliance obligations

    Identify obligations

    # Security Jurisdiction
    1 Network and Information Security (NIS2) Directive European Union (EU) and organizations outside the EU that are essential within an EU country
    2 North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) North American electrical utilities
    3 Executive Order (EO) 14028: Improving the Nation's Cybersecurity, The White House, 2021 United States

    #

    Privacy Jurisdiction
    1 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) EU and EU citizens
    2 Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) Canada
    3 California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) California, USA
    4 Personal Information Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China (PIPL) China

    An example of security and privacy compliance obligations

    How much does it cost to become compliant?

    • It is important to understand the various frameworks and to adhere to the appropriate compliance obligations.
    • Many factors influence the cost of compliance, such as the size of organization, the size of network, and current security readiness.
    • To manage compliance obligations, it is important to use a platform that not only performs internal and external monitoring but also provides third-party vendors (if applicable) with visibility into potential threats in their organization.

    Adopt Next-Generation Cybersecurity Technologies

    PRIORITY 04

    • GOVERNMENTS AND HACKERS ARE RECOGNIZING THE IMPORTANCE OF EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES, SUCH AS ZERO TRUST ARCHITECTURE AND AI-BASED CYBERSECURITY. SO SHOULD YOUR ORGANIZATION.

    Executive summary

    Background

    The cat and mouse game between threat actors and defenders is continuing. The looming question "can defenders do better?" has been answered with rapid development of technology. This includes the automation of threat analysis (signature-based, specification-based, anomaly-based, flow-based, content-based, sandboxing) not only on IT but also on other relevant environments, e.g. IoT, IIoT, and OT based on AI/ML.

    More fundamental approaches such as post-quantum cryptography and zero trust (ZT) are also emerging.
    ZT is a principle, a model, and also an architecture focused on resource protection by always verifying transactions using the least privilege principle. Hopefully in 2023, ZT will be more practical and not just a vendor marketing buzzword.

    Next-gen cybersecurity technologies alone are not a silver bullet. A combination of skilled talent, useful data, and best practices will give a competitive advantage. The key concepts are explainable, transparent, and trustworthy. Furthermore, regulation often faces challenges to keep up with next-gen cybersecurity technologies, especially with the implications and risks of adoption, which may not always be explicit.

    Current situation

    ZT: Performing an accurate assessment of readiness and benefits to adopt ZT can be difficult due to ZT's many components. Thus, an organization needs to develop a ZT roadmap that aligns with organizational goals and focuses on access to data, assets, applications, and services; don't select solutions or vendors too early.

    Post-quantum cryptography: Current cryptographic applications, such as RSA for PKI, rely on factorization. However, algorithms such as Shor's show quantum speedup for factorization, which can break current crypto when sufficient quantum computing devices are available. Thus, threat actors can intercept current encrypted information and store it to decrypt in the future.

    AI-based threat management: AI helps in analyzing and correlating data extremely fast compared to humans. Millions of telemetries, malware samples, raw events, and vulnerability data feed into the AI system, which humans cannot process manually. Furthermore, AI does not get tired in processing this big data, thus avoiding human error and negligence.

    Data breach mitigation cost without AI: USD 6.20 million; and with AI: USD 3.15 million

    Source: IBM, 2022

    Traditional security is not working

    Alert Fatigue

    Too many false alarms and too many events to process. Evolving threat landscapes waste your analysts' valuable time on mundane tasks, such as evidence collection. Meanwhile, only limited time is spared for decisions and conclusions, which results in the fear of missing an incident and alert fatigue.

    Lack of Insight

    To report progress, clear metrics are needed. However, cybersecurity still lacks in this area as the system itself is complex and some systems work in silos. Furthermore, lessons learned are not yet distilled into insights for improving future accuracy.

    Lack of Visibility

    System integration is required to create consistent workflows across the organization and to ensure complete visibility of the threat landscape, risks, and assets. Also, the convergence of OT, IoT, and IT enhances this challenge.

    Source: IBM Security Intelligence, 2020

    A business case for AI-based cybersecurity

    Threat management

    Prevention

    Risk scores are generated by machine learning based on variables such as behavioral patterns and geolocation. Zero trust architecture is combined with machine learning. Asset management leverages visibility using machine learning. Comply with regulations by improving discovery, classification, and protection of data using machine learning. Data security and data privacy services use machine learning for data discovery.

    Detection

    AI, advanced machine learning, and static approaches, such as code file analysis, combine to automatically detect and analyze threats and prevent threats from spreading, assisted by threat intelligence.

    Response

    AI helps in orchestrating security technologies for organizations to reduce the number of security agents installed, which may not talk to each other or, worse, may conflict with each other.

    Recovery

    AI continuously tunes based on lessons learned, such as creating security policies for improving future accuracy. AI also does not get fatigue, and it assists humans in a faster recovery.

    Prevention; Detection; Response; Recovery

    AI has been around since the 1940s, but why is it only gaining traction now? Because supporting technologies are only now available, including faster GPUs for complex computations and cheaper storage for massive volumes of data.

    Use this template to explain the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about.

    Adopt next-gen cybersecurity technologies

    Use this template to explain the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about.

    Develop a practical roadmap that shows the business value of next-gen cybersecurity technologies investment.

    Initiative Description:

    Description must include what organization will undertake to complete the initiative.

    • Identify the stakeholders who will be affected by the next-gen cybersecurity technologies implementation and define responsibilities based on skillsets and the degree of support.
    • Adopt well-established data governance practices for cross-functional teams.
    • Conduct a maturity assessment of key processes and highlight interdependencies.
    • Develop a baseline and periodically review risks, policies and procedures, and business plan.
    • Develop a roadmap and deploy next-gen cybersecurity architecture and controls step by step, working with trusted technology partners.
    • Monitor metrics on effectiveness and efficiency.

    Drivers:

    List initiative drivers.

    • Pressure of attacks by sophisticated threat actors
    • Next-gen cybersecurity technologies tool offerings
    • High cost of traditional security, e.g. longer breach lifecycle

    Risks:

    List initiative risks and impacts.

    • Lack of transparency of the model or bias, leading to non-compliance with policies/regulations
    • Risks related with data quality and inadequate data for model training
    • Adversarial attacks, including, but not limited to, adversarial input and model extraction

    Benefits:

    List initiative benefits and align to business benefits or benefits for the stakeholder groups that it impacts.

    • Reduces the number of alerts, thus reduces alert fatigue.
    • Increases the identification of unknown threats.
    • Leads to faster detection and response.
    • Closes skills gap and increases productivity.

    Related Info-Tech Research:

    Recommended Actions

    1. People

    Identify the stakeholders who will be affected by the next-gen cybersecurity technologies implementation and define responsibilities based on skillsets and the degree of support.

    Adopt well-established data governance practices for cross-functional teams.

    2. Process

    Conduct a maturity assessment of key processes and highlight interdependencies.

    Develop a baseline and periodically review risks, policies and procedures, and business plan.

    3. Technology

    Develop a roadmap and deploy next-gen cybersecurity architecture and controls step by step, working with trusted technology partners.

    Monitor metrics on effectiveness and efficiency.

    Source: Leverage AI in Threat Management (keynote presentation), Info-Tech

    Secure Services and Applications

    PRIORITY 05

    • APIS ARE STILL THE #1 THREAT TO APPLICATION SECURITY.

    Executive summary

    Background

    Software is usually produced as part of a supply chain instead of in silos. A vulnerability in any part of the supply chain can become a threat surface. We have learned this from recent incidents such as Log4j, SolarWinds, and Kaseya where attackers compromised a Virtual System Administrator tool used by managed service providers to attack around 1,500 organizations.

    DevSecOps is a culture and philosophy that unifies development, security, and operations to answer this challenge. DevSecOps shifts security left by automating, as much as possible, development and testing. DevSecOps provides many benefits such as rapid development of secure software and assurance that, prior to formal release and delivery, tests are reliably performed and passed.

    DevSecOps practices can apply to IT, OT, IoT, and other technology environments, for example, by integrating a Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF).

    Current situation

    Secure Software Supply Chain: Logging is a fundamental feature of most software, and recently the use of software components, especially open source, are based on trust. From the Log4j incident we learned that more could be done to improve the supply chain by adopting ZT to identify related components and data flows between systems and to apply the least privilege principle.

    DevSecOps: A software error wiped out wireless services for thousands of Rogers customers across Canada in 2021. Emergency services were also impacted, even though outgoing 911 calls were always accessible. Losing such services could have been avoided, if tests were reliably performed and passed prior to release.

    OT insecure-by-design: In OT, insecurity-by-design is still a norm, which causes many vulnerabilities such as insecure protocols implementation, weak authentication schemes, or insecure firmware updates. Additional challenges are the lack of CVEs or CVE duplication, the lack of Software Bill of Materials (SBOM), and product supply chains issues such as vulnerable products that are certified because of the scoping limitation and emphasis on functional testing.

    Technical causes of cybersecurity incidents in EU critical service providers in 2019-2021 shows: software bug (12%) and faulty software changes/update (9%).

    Source: CIRAS Incident reporting, ENISA (N=1,239)

    Software development keeps evolving

    DOD Maturation of Software Development Best Practices

    Best Practices 30 Years Ago 15 Years Ago Present Day
    Lifecycle Years or Months Months or Weeks Weeks or Days
    Development Process Waterfall Agile DevSecOps
    Architecture Monolithic N-Tier Microservices
    Deployment & Packaging Physical Virtual Container
    Hosting Infrastructure Server Data Center Cloud
    Cybersecurity Posture Firewall + SIEM + Zero Trust

    Best practices in software development are evolving as shown on the diagram to the left. For example, 30 years ago the lifecycle was "Years or Months," while in the present day it is "Weeks or Days."

    These changes also impact security such as the software architecture, which is no longer "Monolithic" but "Microservices" normally built within the supply chain.

    The software supply chain has known integrity attacks that can happen on each part of it. Starting from bad code submitted by a developer, to compromised source control platform (e.g. PHP git server compromised), to compromised build platform (e.g. malicious behavior injected on SolarWinds build), to a compromised package repository where users are deceived into using the bad package by the similarity between the malicious and the original package name.

    Therefore, we must secure each part of the link to avoid attacks on the weakest link.

    Software supply chain guidance

    Secure each part of the link to avoid attacks on the weakest link.

    Guide for Developers

    Guide for Suppliers

    Guide for Customers

    Secure product criteria and management, develop secure code, verify third-party components, harden build environment, and deliver code.

    Define criteria for software security checks, protect software, produce well-secured software, and respond to vulnerabilities.

    Secure procurement and acquisition, secure deployment, and secure software operations.

    Source: "Securing the Software Supply Chain" series, Enduring Security Framework (ESF), 2022

    "Most software today relies on one or more third-party components, yet organizations often have little or no visibility into and understanding of how these software components are developed, integrated, and deployed, as well as the practices used to ensure the components' security."

    Source: NIST – NCCoE, 2022

    Use this template to explain the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about.

    Secure services and applications

    Provide a brief value statement for the initiative.

    Adopt recommended practices for securing the software supply chain.

    Initiative Description:

    Description must include what organization will undertake to complete the initiative.

    • Define and keep security requirements and risk assessments up to date.
    • Require visibility into provenance of product, and require suppliers' self-attestation of security hygiene.
    • Verify distribution infrastructure, product and individual components integrity, and SBOM.
    • Use multi-layered defenses, e.g. ZT for integration and control configuration.
    • Train users on how to detect and report anomalies and when to apply updates to a system.
    • Ensure updates from authorized and authenticated sources and verify the integrity of the updated SBOM.

    Drivers:

    List initiative drivers.

    • Cyberattacks exploit the vulnerabilities of weak software supply chain
    • Increased need to enhance software supply chain security, e.g. under the White House Executive Order (EO) 14028
    • OT insecure-by-design hinders OT modernization

    Risks:

    List initiative risks and impacts.

    Only a few developers and suppliers explicitly address software security in detail.

    Time pressure to deliver functionality over security.

    Lack of security awareness and lack of trained workforce.

    Benefits:

    List initiative benefits and align to business benefits or benefits for the stakeholder groups that it impacts.

    Customers (acquiring organizations) achieve secure acquisition, deployment, and operation of software.

    Developers and suppliers provide software security with minimal vulnerabilities in its releases.

    Automated processes such as automated testing avoid error-prone and labor-intensive manual test cases.

    Related Info-Tech Research:

    Recommended Actions

    1. Procurement and Acquisition

    Define and keep security requirements and risk assessments up to date.

    Perform analysis on current market and supplier solutions and acquire security evaluation.

    Require visibility into provenance of product, and require suppliers' self-attestation of security hygiene

    2. Deployment

    Verify distribution infrastructure, product and individual components integrity, and SBOM.

    Save and store the tests and test environment and review and verify the
    self-attestation mechanism.

    Use multi-layered defenses, e.g. ZT for integration and control configuration.

    3. Software Operations

    Train users on how to detect and report anomalies and when to apply updates to a system.

    Ensure updates from authorized and authenticated sources and verify the integrity of the updated SBOM.

    Apply supply chain risk management (SCRM) operations.

    Source: "Securing the Software Supply Chain" series, Enduring Security Framework (ESF), 2022

    Bibliography

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    Research Contributors and Experts

    Andrew Reese
    Cybersecurity Practice Lead
    Zones

    Ashok Rutthan
    Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
    Massmart

    Chris Weedall
    Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
    Cheshire East Council

    Jeff Kramer
    EVP Digital Transformation and Cybersecurity
    Aprio

    Kris Arthur
    Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
    SEKO Logistics

    Mike Toland
    Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
    Mutual Benefit Group

    Establish an Effective Data Protection Plan

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}504|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.0/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $6,850 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 9 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: Storage & Backup Optimization
    • Parent Category Link: /storage-and-backup-optimization
    • Business requirements can be vague. Not knowing the business needs often results in overspending and overexposure to liability through data hoarding.
    • Backup options are abundant. Disk, tape, or cloud? Each has drawbacks, efficiencies, and cost factors that should be considered.
    • Backup infrastructure is never greenfield. Any organization with a history has been doing backup. Existing software was likely determined by past choices and architecture.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Don’t let failure be your metric.
      The past is not an indication of future performance! Quantify the cost of your data being unavailable to demonstrate value to the business.
    • Stop offloading backup to your most junior staff.
      Data protection should not exist in isolation. Get key leadership involved to ensure you can meet organizational requirements.
    • A lot of data is useless. Neglecting to properly tag and classify data will lead to a costly data protection solution that protects redundant, useless, or outdated data

    Impact and Result

    • Determine the current state of your data protection strategy by identifying the pains and gains of the solution and create a business-facing diagram to present to relevant stakeholders.
    • Quantify the value of data to the business to properly understand the requirements for data protection through a business impact analysis.
    • Identify the attributes and necessary requirements for your data tiers to procure a fit-for-purpose solution.

    Establish an Effective Data Protection Plan Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read this Executive Brief to understand why the business should be involved in your data protection plan, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Define the current state of your data protection plan

    Define the current state of your data protection practices by documenting the backup process and identifying problems and opportunities for the desired state.

    • Establish an Effective Data Protection Plan – Phase 1: Define the Current State of Your Data Protection Plan
    • Data Protection Value Proposition Canvas Template

    2. Conduct a business impact analysis to understand requirements for restoring data

    Understand the business priorities.

    • Establish an Effective Data Protection Plan – Phase 2: Conduct a Business Impact Analysis to Understand Requirements for Restoring Data
    • DRP Business Impact Analysis Tool
    • Legacy DRP Business Impact Analysis Tool
    • Data Protection Recovery Workflow

    3. Propose the future state of your data protection plan

    Determine the desired state.

    • Establish an Effective Data Protection Plan – Phase 3: Propose the Future State of Your Data Protection Plan

    4. Establish proper governance for your data protection plan

    Explore the component of governance required.

    • Establish an Effective Data Protection Plan – Phase 4: Establish Proper Governance for Your Data Protection Plan
    • Data Protection Proposal Template
    [infographic]

    Build Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}72|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 8.9/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $57,297 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 7 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: Cost & Budget Management
    • Parent Category Link: /cost-and-budget-management

    Cost optimization is misunderstood and inadequately tackled. IT departments face:

    • Top-down budget cuts within a narrow time frame
    • Absence of adequate governance: financial, project, data, etc.
    • Long-standing bureaucratic practices slowing down progress
    • Short-term thinking

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Cost optimization is not just about reducing costs. In fact, you should aim to achieve three objectives:

    • Reduce your unwarranted IT spending.
    • Optimize your cost-to-value.
    • Sustain your cost optimization.

    Impact and Result

    • Follow Info-Tech’s approach to develop a 12-month cost optimization roadmap.
    • Develop an IT cost optimization strategy based on your specific circumstances and timeline.
    • Info-Tech’s methodology helps you maintain sustainable cost optimization across IT by focusing on four levers: assets, vendors, project portfolio, and workforce.

    Build Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. IT Cost Optimization Roadmap Deck – A step-by-step methodology to achieve sustainable cost optimization and effectively communicate your strategy to stakeholders.

    This blueprint will help you understand your IT cost optimization mandate, identify your journey, assess your IT spend across four levers, develop your IT cost optimization roadmap, and craft a related communication strategy.

    • Build Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap – Phases 1-4

    2. IT Cost Optimization Workbook – A structured tool to help you document your IT cost optimization goals and outline related initiatives to develop an effective 12-month roadmap.

    This tool guides an IT department in planning and prioritization activities to build an effective IT cost optimization strategy. The outputs include visual charts and a 12-month roadmap to showcase the implementation timelines and potential cost savings.

    • IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    3. IT Cost Optimization Roadmap Samples and Templates – A proactive journey template to help you communicate your IT cost optimization strategy to stakeholders in a clear, concise, and compelling manner.

    This presentation template uses sample data from "Acme Corp" to demonstrate an IT cost optimization strategy following a proactive journey. Use this template to document your final IT cost optimization strategy outputs, including the adopted journey, IT cost optimization goals, related key initiatives, potential cost savings, timelines, and 12-month roadmap.

    • IT Cost Optimization Roadmap Samples and Templates

    Infographic

    Workshop: Build Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Understand Your Mandate & Objectives

    The Purpose

    Determine your organization’s current context and its cost optimization objectives, IT’s corresponding cost optimization journey, and goals.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A business-aligned set of specific IT cost optimization goals.

    Activities

    1.1 Understand your organization’s cost optimization objectives and how this impacts IT.

    1.2 Review potential cost optimization target areas based on your ITFM Benchmarking Report.

    1.3 Identify factors constraining cost optimization options.

    1.4 Set concrete IT cost optimization goals.

    1.5 Identify inputs required for decision making.

    Outputs

    IT cost optimization journey and guiding principles for making corresponding decisions

    2 Outline Initiatives for Vendors & Assets

    The Purpose

    Create a longlist of potential cost optimization initiatives focused on two cost optimization levers: assets and vendors.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A comprehensive list of potential asset- and vendor-focused initiatives including cost savings estimates.

    Activities

    2.1 Identify a longlist of possible initiatives around asset lifecycle management, investment deferral, repurposing, etc., and vendor contract renegotiation, cancelation, etc.

    2.2 Estimate the cost savings of cost optimization initiatives.

    Outputs

    Longlist of potential vendor management and asset optimization IT cost optimization initiatives

    3 Outline Initiatives for Projects & Workforce

    The Purpose

    Create a longlist of potential cost optimization initiatives focused on two cost optimization levers: project portfolio and workforce.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A comprehensive list of potential initiatives focused on project portfolio and workforce including cost savings estimates.

    Activities

    3.1 Identify a longlist of possible initiatives around project priorities, project backlog reduction, project intake restructuring, etc., and workforce productivity, skills, redeployment, etc.

    3.2 Estimate the cost savings of cost optimization initiatives.

    Outputs

    Longlist of possible cost optimization initiatives and their potential cost savings for project portfolio and workforce levers.

    4 Build an IT Cost Optimization Roadmap

    The Purpose

    Develop a visual IT cost optimization roadmap.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A prioritized, business-aligned IT cost optimization roadmap

    Activities

    4.1 Assess feasibility of each initiative (effort and risk profile) given cost optimization goals.

    4.2 Prioritize cost optimization initiatives to create a final shortlist.

    4.3 Fine-tune key information about your final cost optimization initiatives and develop a cost optimization roadmap for proposal.

    Outputs

    Prioritized list of key cost optimization initiatives, descriptions, estimated impact, and roadmap.

    5 Communicate & Execute

    The Purpose

    Develop a communication plan and executive presentation.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A boardroom-ready set of communication materials for gaining buy-in and support for your IT cost optimization roadmap.

    Activities

    5.1 Outline components of a communication plan, including approvers, stakeholders, and governance and management mechanisms to be used.

    5.2 Create an executive presentation.

    5.3 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and post-workshop activities.

    Outputs

    IT cost optimization communication plan and presentation strategy.

    IT Cost Optimization Executive Presentation

    Further reading

    Build Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap

    Improve cost-to-value in a sustainable manner.

    Analyst Perspective

    Optimize your cost sustainably.

    Whether the industry is in an economic downturn, or your business is facing headwinds in the market, pressure to reduce spending across organizations is inevitable. When it comes to the IT organization, it is often handled as a onetime event. Cost optimization is an industry standard term, but it usually translates into cost cutting. How do you manage this challenge given the day-to-day demands placed on IT? Do you apply cost reduction equally across the IT landscape, or do you apply reductions using a targeted approach? How do you balance the business demands regarding innovation with keeping the lights on? What is the best path forward?

    While the situation isn't unique, all too often the IT organization response is too shortsighted.

    By using the Info-Tech methodology and tools, you will be able to develop an IT cost optimization roadmap based on your specific circumstances and timeline.

    A well-thought-out strategy should help you achieve three objectives:

    1. Reduce your unwarranted IT spending.
    2. Optimize your cost-to-value.
    3. Sustain your cost optimization.

    This blueprint will guide you to understand your mandate, identify your cost optimization journey (reactive, proactive, or strategic), and assess your IT spend across four levers (assets, vendors, project portfolio, and workforce).

    Finally, keep in mind that cost optimization is not a project to be completed, but an ongoing process to be exercised.

    Bilal Alberto Saab, Research Director, IT Financial Management

    Bilal Alberto Saab
    Research Director, IT Financial Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Cost optimization is misunderstood and inadequately tackled Common obstacles Follow Info-Tech's approach to develop a 12-month cost optimization roadmap
    • Top-down budget cut within a narrow time frame.
    • Absence of adequate governance: financial, project, data, etc.
    • Long-standing bureaucratic practices slowing down progress.
    • Short-term thinking.
    • Lack of alignment and collaboration among stakeholders: communication and relationships.
    • Absence of a clear plan and adequate process.
    • Lack of knowledge, expertise, and skill set.
    • Inadequate funding and no financial transparency.
    • Poor change management practices.

    Develop an IT cost optimization strategy based on your specific circumstances and timeline.

    Info-Tech's methodology helps you maintain sustainable cost optimization across IT by focusing on four levers:

    1. Assets
    2. Vendors
    3. Project Portfolio
    4. Workforce

    Info-Tech Insight
    Cost optimization is not just about reducing costs. In fact, you should aim to achieve three objectives: (1) reduce your unwarranted IT spending, (2) optimize your cost-to-value, and (3) sustain your cost optimization.

    Your challenge

    IT leaders are often asked to cut costs.

    • Cost management is a long-term challenge. Businesses and IT departments look to have a flexible cost structure focused on maximizing business value while maintaining the ability to adapt to market pressure. However, businesses must also be able to respond to unexpected events.
    • In times of economic downturn, many CEOs and CFOs shift their thinking from growth to value protection. This can force a round of cost cutting across all departments focused on short-term, immediate, and measurable objectives.
    • Many IT departments are then faced with the challenge of meeting cost cutting targets. No one knows exactly how markets will behave, but the effects of rising inflation and increasing interest rates, for example, can manifest very quickly.

    When crisis hits, does IT's hard-won gains around being seen as a partner to the business suddenly disappear and IT becomes just a cost center all over again?

    In times of economic slowdown or downturn, the key challenge of IT leaders is to optimize costs without jeopardizing their strategic and innovative contribution.

    Common obstacles

    The 90% of the budget you keep is more important than the 10% of the budget you cut.

    • While the business responds to fluctuating economic conditions, IT must ensure that its budget remains fully aligned with business strategy and expected business value.
    • However, in the face of sudden pressures, a common tendency is to make quick decisions without fully considering their long-term implications.
    • Avoid costly mistakes with a proactive and strategic mindset. Put in place a well-communicated cost optimization strategy rather than hastily cutting back the biggest line items in your budget.

    How can IT optimize costs to achieve a corporate impact, but not cut so deep that the organization can't take advantage of opportunities to recover and thrive?

    Know how you will strategically optimize IT costs before you are forced to cut cost aggressively in a reactive fashion.

    What is cost optimization?

    It's not just about cutting costs

    • While cost optimization may involve cutting costs, it is more about making smart spend and investment decisions.
    • At its core, cost optimization is a strategic decision-making process that sets out to minimize waste and get the most value for money.
    • Cost optimization encompasses near-term, mid-term, and long-term objectives, all of which are related and build upon one another. It is an accumulative practice, not a onetime exercise.
    • A sound cost optimization practice is inherently flexible, sustainable, and consequence-oriented with the positive goal of generating net benefit for the organization over time.

    Change your mindset ...

    An Info-Tech survey of IT staff reveals that while most agree that cost optimization is an important IT process, nearly 20% fewer of them agree that it's being managed well.

    Chart of cost optimization

    Info-Tech IT Management & Governance Diagnostic, 2022.

    A starting point for cost optimization improvement is adjusting your frame of mind. Know that it's not just about making difficult cuts - in reality, it's a creative pursuit that's about thriving in all circumstances, not just surviving.

    Slow revenue growth expectations generate urgency

    Many IT organizations will be directed to trim costs during turbulent times.

    • Cost optimization implies continuous cost management, which entails long-term strategic initiatives (i.e. organizations and their IT departments seek flexible cost structures and practices focused on maximizing business value while maintaining the ability to adapt to changes in the broader economic environment). However, organizations must also be able to respond to unexpected events.
    • During times of turmoil – poor economic outlook expected to negatively impact an organization's bottom line – CEOs and CFOs think more about survival than growth, driving cost cutting across all departments to create short-term, immediate, and measurable financial benefits.
    • In such situations, many IT departments will be hard-pressed to meet cost cutting targets at short notice. If not planned correctly, with a tunnel vision focus instead of a strategic one, you can end up hurting yourself in the not-so-distant future.

    Build Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap

    Insight summary

    Sustain an optimal cost-to-value ratio across four levers:

    1. Assets
    2. Vendors
    3. Project Portfolio
    4. Workforce

    Cost optimization is not just about reducing costs

    In fact, you should aim to achieve three objectives:
    (1) reduce your unwarranted IT spending, (2) optimize your cost-to-value, and (3) sustain your cost optimization.

    Reduce unwarranted IT spending

    Stop the bleeding or go for quick wins
    Start by reducing waste and bad spending habits while clearly communicating your intentions to your stakeholders – get buy-in.

    Optimize cost-to-value

    Value means tradeoffs
    Pursue value but know that it will lead you to make tradeoffs between cost, performance, and risk.

    Sustain cost optimization

    Think about tomorrow: reduce, reuse, recalibrate, and repeat
    Standardize and automate your cost optimization processes around a proper governance framework. Cost optimization is not a onetime exercise.

    Info-Tech's methodology for building your IT cost optimization roadmap

    Phase 1: Understand Your Mandate & Objectives

    Know where you stand and where you're going.

    Understand your cost optimization mandate within the context of your organization's situation and direction.

    Phase 2: Outline Your Initiatives

    Evaluate many, pick a few.

    Think of all possible cost optimization initiatives across the four optimization levers (Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, and Workforce), but only keep the ones that best help you fulfill your goals.

    Phase 3: Develop Your Roadmap

    Keep one eye on today and the other on tomorrow.

    Prioritize cost optimization initiatives that would help you achieve your near-term objectives first, but don't forget about the medium and long term.

    Phase 4: Communicate and Execute

    Communicate and collaborate - you are not a one-person show.

    Reach out to other business units where necessary. Your success relies on getting buy-in from various stakeholders, especially when cost optimization initiatives impact them in one way or another.

    Blueprint deliverables

    Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:

    IT Cost Optimization Roadmap Samples and Templates
    Templates including an abbreviated executive presentation and a final communication presentation based on a 12-month cost optimization roadmap.

    IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    A workbook generating a 12-month cost optimization roadmap.

    Measure the value of this blueprint

    Maintain an optimal IT cost-to-organization revenue ratio.

    This blueprint will guide you to set cost optimization goals across one to three main objectives, depending on your identified journey (reactive, proactive, or strategic):

    • Reduce unwarranted IT spending.
    • Optimize cost-to value.
    • Sustain cost optimization.

    In phase 1 of this blueprint, we will help you establish your goals to satisfy your organization's needs.

    In phase 3, we will help you develop a game plan and a roadmap for achieving those metrics.

    Once you implement your 12-month roadmap, start tracking the metrics below over the next fiscal year (FY) to assess the effectiveness of undertaken measures.

    Cost Optimization Objective Key Success Metric
    Reduce unwarranted IT spending Decrease IT cost in identified key areas
    Optimize cost-to-value Decrease IT cost per IT employee
    Sustain cost optimization Decrease IT cost-to-organization revenue

    Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

    DIY Toolkit
    "Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful."
    Guided Implementation
    "Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track."
    Workshop
    "We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.
    Consulting
    "Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

    Guided implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4
    Call #1:
    • Identify cost optimization scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.
    • Review and assess cost optimization goals and objectives.
    Call #2:

    Review potential cost optimization initiatives for assets and vendors levers.

    Call #3:

    Assess cost optimization initiatives' cost and feasibility - for assets and vendors levers.

    Call #4:

    Review potential cost optimization initiatives for project portfolio and workforce levers.

    Call #5:

    Assess cost optimization initiatives' cost and feasibility - for project portfolio and workforce levers.

    Call #6:
    • Identify final decision criteria for cost optimization prioritization.
    • Review prioritized cost optimization initiatives and roadmap outputs.
    Call #7:
    • Review the Cost Optimization Communication Plan and IT Cost Optimization Executive Presentation.
    • Discuss next steps.

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

    A typical GI will include multiple calls over the course of one to two months.

    IT cost analysis and optimization workshop overview

    Session 1 Session 2 Session 3 Session 4 Session 5
    Activities Understand Your Mandate and Objectives Outline Initiatives for Assets and Vendors Outline Initiatives for Projects and Workforce Develop an IT Cost Optimization Roadmap Communicate and Execute
    1.1 Understand your organization's cost optimization objectives and how this impacts IT.
    1.2 Review potential cost optimization target areas based on your IT financial management benchmarking report.
    1.3 Identify factors constraining cost optimization options.
    1.4 Set concrete IT cost optimization goals.
    1.5 Identify inputs required for decision making.
    2.1 Identify a longlist of possible initiatives around:
    1. Asset lifecycle management, investment deferral, repurposing, etc.
    2. Vendor contract renegotiation, cancelation, etc.
    2.2 Estimate the cost savings of cost optimization initiatives.
    3.1 Identify a longlist of possible initiatives around:
    1. Project priorities, project backlog reduction, project intake restructuring, etc.
    2. Workforce productivity, skills, redeployment, etc.
    3.2 Estimate the cost savings of cost optimization initiatives.
    4.1 Assess the feasibility of each initiative (effort and risk profile) given cost optimization goals.
    4.2 Prioritize cost optimization initiatives to create a final shortlist.
    4.3 Fine-tune key information about your final cost optimization initiatives and develop a cost optimization roadmap for proposal.
    5.1 Outline components of a communication plan, including approvers, stakeholders, and governance and management mechanisms to be used.
    5.2 Create an executive presentation.
    5.3 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and post-workshop activities.
    Output
    • IT cost optimization journey and guiding principles for making corresponding decisions.
    • Long list of possible cost optimization initiatives and their potential cost savings for assets and vendors levers.
    • Long list of possible cost optimization initiatives and their potential cost savings for project portfolio and workforce levers.
    • Prioritized list of key cost optimization initiatives, descriptions, estimated impact, and roadmap.
    • IT cost optimization communication plan and presentation strategy.

    Contact your account representative for more information.
    workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

    Phase 1

    Understand Your Mandate and Objectives

    Phase 1
    Understand Your Mandate and Objectives

    Phase 2
    Outline Your Cost Optimization Initiatives

    Phase 3
    Develop Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap

    Phase 4
    Communicate and Execute

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Business context and cost optimization journey
    • Cost constraints and parameters
    • Cost optimization goals

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead

    1.1 Gain consensus on the business context and IT cost optimization journey

    60 minutes

    • Using the questions on slide 20, conduct a brief journey assessment to ensure consensus on the direction you are planning to take.
    • Document your findings in the provided template.
    Input Output
    • Understanding business objectives and identifying your IT mandate
    • Determining the cost optimization journey: reactive, proactive, or strategic
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard or flip charts
    • Journey assessment template
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead

    See the next three slides for guidelines and the journey assessment questions and template.

    Distinguishing between three journeys

    By considering business objectives without forgoing your IT mandate.

    Journey Reactive Proactive Strategic
    Description
    • Business objectives are closely tied to cost reduction, forcing cost cutting across IT.
    • Typically occurs during turbulent economic times, when slow revenue growth is expected.
    • Business objectives do not include clear cost optimization initiatives but mandates IT to be fiscally conservative.
    • Typically occurs when economic turbulence is on the horizon and the organization's revenue is stable - executives only have a fiscal discipline guidance.
    • Business objectives do not include clear cost optimization initiatives.
    • Typically occurs when the overall economy is in good shape and the organization is in positive revenue growth territory.
    Main Focus
    • Quick-to-execute measures with few dependencies and concrete impact in response to business urgency and/or executive directive.
    • Enabling the organization to respond to different types and magnitudes of business change in a more planned and controlled manner.
    • Establishing an efficient, agile, sustainable, and strategically aligned cost optimization practice across all stages of the business cycle, regardless of business conditions.

    Questions to help determine your journey

    Business Objectives Business Strategy
    • What are the current business objectives?
    • Are there any stated cost-related objectives? If yes, what cost-related objectives have been stated by organizational leadership, such as cuts, areas of investment, and any targets for both?
    • Does the organization have a business strategy in place?
    • Was the business strategy reviewed or revised recently?
    • What's the business strategy focus for the next 12 months?
    • Are there any cost optimization implications within the current business strategy?
    IT Objectives IT Strategy and Mandate
    • What are your current IT objectives?
    • Are your IT objectives aligned to business objectives?
    • Do you have any IT cost-related objectives? If yes, what are your current IT cost-related objectives?
    • Are your IT cost-related objectives aligned to business objectives?
    • Do you have an IT strategy in place?
    • Is your IT strategy aligned to your organization's business strategy?
    • Do you have a cost optimization mandate? If yes, what is your cost optimization mandate?
    • What's the fiscal guidance and direction in IT?
    Journey
    Agreed-upon journey: reactive, proactive, or strategic.

    Template & Example

    Journey assessment

    Business Objectives Business Strategy
    • The founder's mission around quality persists despite ownership/leadership changes. Reliability and dependability are really important to everyone.
    • Increase visibility and interconnectivity across the supply chain.
    • Increase market share: younger markets and emerging foreign markets.
    • Economic outlook expected to negatively affect the bottom line - will need to trim and protect the core.
    • Grow Gizmo product sales by 10%.
    • Lower production cost of Gizmo product by 5%.
    IT Objectives IT Strategy and Mandate
    • IT/OT convergence, process automation, and modernization are major opportunities to better position the business for the future and introduce more agility into operations and reduce production cost.
    • Very mature and stable production processes with 100% uptime is a priority.
    • Lower IT cost related to Gizmo product.
    • There's no clear cost optimization mandate, but a fiscally conservative budget is recommended.
    Journey
    Agreed-upon journey: proactive.

    1.2 Review internal and external benchmarking reports

    60-90 minutes

    1. Review the IT spend and staffing results, summarized in your Info-Tech IT Spend & Staffing Benchmarking report.
    2. Identify areas where your IT spend is disproportionately high or low in comparison with your industry peers.
    3. Review and document any causes or rationales for high or low spend in each area identified. Do not be specific about any actual optimization targets or actions at this stage - simply make notes.
    4. Start a list of potential cost optimization initiatives to be further analyzed and investigated for feasibility at a later stage (see next slides for guidance, example, and template).
    InputOutput
    • IT Spend & Staffing Benchmarking report
    • A list of potential cost optimization focus areas
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard or flip charts
    • Potential cost optimization initiatives list template
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead

    Info-Tech's approach

    Our IT cost model maps your IT spending and staffing according to four key views, putting IT spend in language that stakeholders across the organization can relate to.

    IT cost model maps

    Template & Example

    Potential cost optimization initiatives list

    Brainstorm and list potential cost optimization initiatives at a macro level.

    Potential Initiative Source Source Contact Notes
    Reduce application maintenance cost Internal Benchmarking Report CIO Based on current year report
    Rationalize software applications Info-Tech IT Benchmarking Report CIO Based on current year report
    Migrate key business applications to the cloud Latest iteration of the IT strategy CIO New IT strategy will be in development concurrent with cost optimization strategy development
    Align job roles to the current IT structure IT org. chart and salaries HR, CIO Based on information of the current year and will likely change in a few months (beginning of a new year)
    Renegotiate the top five vendor contracts up for renewal this year List of IT vendors Procurement office, CIO, IT infrastructure director, IT applications director, IT services manager Based on a list consolidated last week

    Want help with your IT spend transparency and benchmarking efforts?

    Let us fast-track your IT spend journey.

    The path to IT financial management maturity starts with knowing exactly where your money is going. To streamline this effort, Info-Tech offers an IT Spend & Staffing Benchmarking service that provides full transparency into where your money is going without any heavy lifting on your part.

    This unique service features:

    • A client-proven approach to meet your IT spend transparency goals.
    • Spend and staff mapping that reveals business consumption of IT.
    • Industry benchmarking to compare your spending and staffing to that of your peers.
    • Results in a fraction of the time with much less effort than going it alone.
    • Expert review of results and ongoing discussions with Info-Tech analysts.

    If you'd like Info-Tech to pave the way to IT spend transparency, contact your account manager for more information - we're happy to talk anytime.

    1.3 Identify your overarching constraints

    30 minutes

    1. Assess where spend change opportunities are currently limited or nonexistent due to organization edict or policy, industry regulatory requirements, or active contracts. Ask yourself:
      1. Where do IT spend bottlenecks exist and what are they?
      2. What IT spend objectives and practices are absolutely mandatory and nonnegotiable from both a business and an IT perspective?
      3. Are there areas where spend change is possible but would be very difficult to execute due to the stakeholders involved, governance processes, time frames, or another constraining factor?
    2. Identify where reduction or elimination of an IT service would negatively affect required service levels and business continuity or recovery.
    3. List constraints as negotiable or nonnegotiable on the template provided.
    4. Remove areas of focus from your cost optimization scope that land outside achievable parameters, and flag those that are difficult but still possible.
    InputOutput
    • Situational awareness and current state understanding
    • List of negotiable constraints to act on
    • Delimiting the cost optimization scope
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard or flip charts
    • Constraints assessment template
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead

    See the next slides for additional guidance and a constraints assessment template.

    Acknowledge your limitations

    By recognizing your constraints, which will lead you to define your cost optimization scope.

    Constraints Organizational Legal/Regulatory Other
    What An organizational constraint is any work condition that hinders an employee's performance - be it physical, emotional, or otherwise. A legal or regulatory constraint is any law, rule, standard, or regulation - be it industry specific or otherwise - limiting the ability of any stakeholder to get the most out of a certain activity, initiative, or project. Other types of constraints affecting business units.
    Who Collaborate with your IT leaders and business partners to identify all major constraints that would affect cost optimization initiatives.
    How Discussions and information sessions to distinguish between negotiable and nonnegotiable constraints that would thwart cost optimization efforts:
    • Legal/regulatory requirements and related initiatives (past, ongoing, and planned/expected).
      Example: projects cannot be delayed, processes are difficult to simplify, etc.
    • Operational governance - organization policies, processes, methodologies, structure, etc.
      Example: adopting a waterfall model for development instead of an agile one.
    • Financial and accounting practices.
      Example: capital expenditure and operational expenditure classification.
    Challenge Degree to which you can influence certain outcomes within a set time frame:
    • Prioritize negotiating constraints where you can influence the outcome or maximize cost optimization benefits.

    We define a constraint as a restriction controlling the behavior of any of your stakeholders, hence preventing a desired outcome.

    In our context, constraints will determine your playing field: the boundaries of your cost optimization scope.

    Distinguish between constraints

    Negotiable vs. nonnegotiable to delimit your cost optimization scope.

    Distinguish between constraints

    Template & Example

    Constraints assessment

    List high-level limitations that hinder your cost optimization options.

    Nonnegotiable constraints
    Organizational Legal/Regulatory IT/Other
    Prioritization of sales/customer service activities SEC compliance/reporting mandates Production unit incident response service levels
    [Constraint] [Constraint] [Constraint]
    [Constraint] [Constraint] [Constraint]
    [Constraint] [Constraint] [Constraint]
    Negotiable constraints
    Organizational Legal/Regulatory IT/Other
    Core business operations process design Vendor contracts up for near-term renewal Current capital project commitments
    [Constraint] [Constraint] [Constraint]
    [Constraint] [Constraint] [Constraint]
    [Constraint] [Constraint] [Constraint]

    1.4 Establish overarching cost optimization goals

    60-90 minutes

    1. Establish specific IT cost optimization goals. Depending on your journey, step 1.1. You will have one to three overarching cost optimization goals, as follows:
      1. Reactive: Cost-cutting goal to reduce unwarranted IT spending.
      2. Proactive: Cost-to-value optimization goal.
      3. Strategic: Cost optimization sustainability goal.
      Consider amounts and time frames, as well as likely/suitable approaches you plan to employ to achieve these goals.
    2. Document your final cost optimization goals in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook.
    3. Revisit your goals after outlining your initiatives (phase 2) to ensure feasibility depending on your journey.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Situational awareness and current state understanding
    • Defined goals for IT cost optimization
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard or flip charts
    • Set Cost Optimization Goals tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead

    Template & Example

    Document your overarching goals

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Set Optimization Goals Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to document your goals based on your journey:

    Table of Overarching Goals

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    B Dropdown Select the appropriate journey: Reactive, Proactive, or Strategic.
    C Dropdown Select the appropriate cost optimization objective: Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending, Optimize Cost-to-Value, Sustain Cost Optimization.
    D Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending goal is the first priority, followed by Optimize Cost-to-Value, and Sustain Cost Optimization goals, respectively.
    E Text Enter the overarching goal related to each objective.

    Complete the following fields for each goal depending on your journey in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Set Cost Optimization Goals tab.
    2. Identify your journey and objective for each goal.
    3. Document your goal(s).

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    Template & Example

    Break down your goals per quarter

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Set Cost Optimization Goals Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to break down your goals per quarter and track your progress:

    Table break down your goals per quarter

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    F, G, H, I Text Enter the target per quarter: It could be a percentage, dollar amount, or description of the breakdown, depending on the cost optimization goal and objective.

    Complete the following fields for each goal depending on your journey in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Set Cost Optimization Goals tab.
    2. Determine your target per quarter for every goal.
    3. Document your targets.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    1.5 Identify inputs required for decision making

    60-90 minutes

    1. Each of the optimization levers (assets, vendors, project portfolio, and workforce) will require specific and unique sources of information which you will need to collect before moving forward. Examples of important sources of information include:
      1. Latest iteration of the IT strategy.
      2. List of IT assets (hardware, software).
      3. List of IT services or IT service catalog.
      4. List of current and planned IT projects and their resourcing allocations.
      5. List of largest vendor contracts and their key details, such as their expiration/renewal date.
      6. IT department organizational chart and salaries (by role).
    2. Review and analyze each of the documents.
    3. Continue to list potential cost optimization initiatives (step 1.2) to be further analyzed and investigated for feasibility at a later stage.
    InputOutput
    • IT strategy
    • Lists of IT assets, services, and projects
    • Top vendor contracts
    • IT org. chart and salaries
    • Macrolevel list of potential cost optimization initiatives
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Potential cost optimization initiatives list template (slide 24)
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead

    Prepare all pertinent sources of information

    And start drafting your cost optimization laundry list.

    Documents Benchmarking IT Strategy Other Information Sources
    What
    • Review:
      • Your IT spend trend across several years (ideally three to five years): internal benchmarking report.
      • Your IT spend compared to industry peers: external benchmarking report.
    • Analyze your internal and external benchmarking reports across the four views: service, expense, business, and innovation.
    • Review your business aligned IT strategy to identify cost optimization related initiatives.
    • At a later stage, exploit your IT strategy to prioritize cost optimization initiatives as needed.
    • Review your IT organization chart and salaries to determine whether the IT organization structure is optimal, job descriptions are mapped to the desired structure, employee skillsets and salary scale are adequate and aligned to the job description, etc.
    • Compile and examine lists of assets, vendors, projects, and services.
    • Prepare any other information sources you deem meaningful.
    Who Collaborate with your IT leaders and business partners to:
    • Prepare the necessary reports, documents, and required sources of information.
    • Identify potential cost optimization initiatives around areas of improvement.
    How Discussions and information sessions to analyze and deep dive on raw findings.
    Challenge Time to compile and analyze reports without affecting day-to-day operations:
    • Outsource some activities such as external benchmarking to organizations like Info-Tech.
    • Get consulting support on specific reports or tasks through workshops, calls, etc.

    Phase 2

    Outline Your Cost Optimization Initiatives

    Phase 1
    Understand Your Mandate and Objectives

    Phase 2
    Outline Your Cost Optimization Initiatives

    Phase 3
    Develop Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap

    Phase 4
    Communicate and Execute

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • IT cost optimization initiatives
    • IT cost optimization workbook

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • IT asset manager
    • IT infrastructure manager
    • IT vendor management lead
    • PMO lead
    • IT talent management representative
    • Other IT management

    Outline your cost optimization initiatives

    Across Info-Tech's four levers.

    Levers ASSETS VENDORS PROJECT PORTFOLI WORKFORCE
    What
    • Maintain trustworthy data to optimize cost, reduce risk, and improve services in line with business priorities and requirements:
      • Optimize cost: reallocate unused hardware and software, end unneeded service agreements, and manage renewals and audits.
      • Reduce risk: provide comprehensive asset data for security controls development and incident management - manage equipment disposal.
      • Improve IT service: support incident, problem, request, and change management with ITAM data.
    • Examine your vendor contracts and vendor management practices to optimize your expected value from every IT provider you deal with.
    • Treat vendor management as a proactive, cross-functional practice aiming to create value by improving communication, relationships, processes, performance, and ultimately reducing cost.
    • Reassess your project portfolio to maximize total value in line with business objectives and strategy.
    • Reduce resource waste with a strategic approach to project portfolio management:
      • Ensure that approved projects can be completed by aligning intake with real project capacity.
      • Minimize over-allocation of resources by allocating based on the proportion of project vs. non-project work.
      • Forecast future resource requirements by maintaining accurate resource capacity data.
    • Review your strategic workforce plan to identify cost optimization opportunities.
    • Determine capability gaps to train or develop current staff and minimize the need for severance payouts and hiring costs, while providing clear career paths to retain high performers.
    • Link workforce planning with strategic planning to ensure that you have the right people in the right positions, in the right places, at the right time, with the knowledge, skills, and attributes to deliver on strategic business goals.
    Who Collaborate with your IT leaders and business partners to:
    • Prepare the necessary reports, documents, and required sources of information.
    • Determine cost optimization initiatives across the four levers.
    How You will decide on the best course of action depending on your journey.

    Most common cost optimization challenges

    Across Info-Tech's four levers.

    Levers ASSETS VENDORS PROJECT PORTFOLI WORKFORCE
    Challenge
    • Incomplete or inaccurate data, poor processes, inadequate tools, and lack of support across the organization is leading to bad decision making while damaging value.
    • Spending on IT providers is increasing while vendor contract expected value - results, output, performance, solutions, or outcomes - is not realized.
    • Poor planning, conflicting priorities, and resource scarcity is affecting project outcomes, resulting in suboptimal value.
    • Talent shortages, lack of prioritization, and experience in managing an IT workforce is leading to higher costs and a loss in value.
    Solution
    • Develop a sustainable IT asset management (ITAM) strategy aligned with your business priorities.
    • Establish a vendor management initiative (VMI) with a solid foundation to fit your organization's culture, environment, and goals.
    • Create a coherent strategy to maximize the total value that projects deliver as a portfolio, rather than a collection of individual projects.
    • Develop a strategic workforce plan (SWP) to ensure you have the right people in place at the right time.
    Related Info-Tech Research Develop an IT Asset Management Strategy Jump-start Your Vendor Management Initiative Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy Build a Strategic IT Workforce Plan

    2.1 Determine your cost optimization initiatives

    8 hours

    Now that you have identified your journey and understood your constraints:

    1. Review your list of potential cost optimization initiatives and document viable ones in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook.
    2. Think of potential cost optimization initiatives within the four levers: assets, vendors, project portfolio, and workforce. The following slides will help you in this endeavor.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    Input Output
    • Potential cost optimization initiatives list
    • Outline Initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard or flip charts
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • Other IT management - depending on the optimization lever (Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, or Workforce)

    Plan your cost optimization initiatives

    Your initiatives will differ depending on your journey

    In terms of aggressiveness and objectives.

    Plan cost optimization initiatives

    Cost optimization initiatives pertaining to a reactive journey are characterized by aggressive cost reduction.

    On the other hand, cost optimization initiatives within a strategic journey can vary in aggressiveness across objectives.

    2.1.1 Identify asset optimization initiatives

    2 hours

    1. Review the IT asset management strategy if available. Compile a list of all hardware, software, and facility asset costs for delivery of IT services.
    2. Analyze hardware and software assets for opportunities to consolidate, reduce, eliminate, and/or enhance functionality/automation. Look for:
      1. Redundancy or duplication of functionality not necessary for disaster recovery or business continuity purposes.
      2. Low or no-use software.
      3. Homegrown or legacy systems with high maintenance/support burdens.
      4. Multiple, old, or unsupported versions of current-use software.
      5. Opportunities to delay hardware/software refreshes or upgrades.
      6. Cloud/outsourced options.
      7. Instances of unsanctioned shadow IT.
    3. Reassess your in-house asset management processes to see where efficiency and effectiveness could be improved overall.
    4. Document cost optimization initiatives that could be driven by asset optimization objectives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • IT asset management strategy
    • List of current assets including hardware, software, and facilities
    • Outline Initiatives driven by asset optimization objectives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard or flip charts
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • IT asset manager
    • IT infrastructure manager
    • Other IT management

    Example

    Asset optimization

    Some examples to get you started

    Journey Reactive, Proactive, or Strategic Proactive or Strategic Strategic
    Initiatives
    • Validate the license cost of performance optimization.
    • Review the utilization of software/hardware before renewal or purchase of additional hardware or software.
    • Assess new license cost against projects to determine possibility of differing or canceling software.
    • Postpone the purchases of hardware.
    • Extend the life of hardware.
    • Consolidate and reconfigure hardware.
    • Return damaged/malfunctioning hardware under warranty.
    • Consolidate and reconfigure software.
    • Optimize software/hardware functionality.
    • Implement hardware/software standard or policy.
    • Develop an infrastructure management outsourcing strategy.
    • Optimize cloud management: review utilization, licensing, cost, etc.
    • Develop a sustainable IT asset management (ITAM) strategy aligned with your business priorities.
    • Minimize shadow IT by creating a policy and improving the service request process.
    • Develop or assess a cloud strategy for a certain service.
    No initiatives for the reactive journey. No initiatives for the reactive or proactive journeys.
    Objective Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending Optimize Cost-to-Value Sustain Cost Optimization

    Template & Example

    List your objectives and initiatives

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to input your asset optimization initiatives and related objectives:

    List your objectives and initiatives

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    B Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The ID will update once there's an input in column E.
    C Dropdown Select an optimization lever: Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, or Workforce.
    D Dropdown Select an initiative focus from the dropdown list - this will help you think of initiatives.
    E Text Enter your initiative.
    F Text Write a brief description per initiative, providing a cost optimization rationale.
    G Dropdown Select the cost type per initiative: OpEx (operating expenditure) or CapEx (capital expenditure).
    H Dropdown Select 1 of 3 objectives for each initiative: Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending, Optimize Cost-to-Value, or Sustain Cost Optimization.

    List your initiatives in the provided Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Enter all your initiatives driven by the asset optimization lever.
    3. Determine the cost optimization objective per initiative.

    2.1.2 Identify vendor optimization initiatives

    2 hours

    1. Revisit the IT vendor classification if available. Identify all existing vendor contracts up for renewal within the current fiscal year and create an inventory.
    2. Examine your vendor contracts to optimize your expected value from every IT provider you deal with. For each contract:
      1. Identify the business purpose/drivers.
      2. Identify the expiration/renewal date to determine time frames for action.
      3. Determine if there is an opportunity to rightsize, cancel, renegotiate costs/service levels, or postpone renewal/purchase.
      4. Identify integrations and interdependencies with other hardware and software systems to understand scope and impact of potential changes.
    3. Reassess your in-house vendor management processes to see where efficiency and effectiveness could be improved overall.
    4. Document cost optimization initiatives that could be driven by vendor optimization objectives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Vendor classification
    • Vendors contracts
    • Outline Initiatives driven by vendor optimization objectives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard or flip charts
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • IT vendor management lead
    • Other IT management

    Example

    Vendor optimization

    Some examples to get you started.

    Journey Reactive, Proactive, or Strategic Proactive or Strategic Strategic
    Initiatives
    • Renegotiate and rightsize a vendor contract:
      • Cancel vendor/service/type application contract.
      • Renegotiate vendor/service/type contract.
      • Cancel vendor/service/type licenses.
      • Rationalize number of vendor/service/type licenses.
    • Consolidate vendors/resellers with similar services, products and features.
    • Implement a vendor management initiative to maximize value and minimize risk.
    • Consolidate contracts to take advantage of spending power and volume.
    • Set up custom vendor performance metrics.
    • Establish ongoing monitoring of vendor risk (financial, security, etc.).
    No initiatives for the reactive journey. No initiatives for the reactive or proactive journeys.
    Objective Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending Optimize Cost-to-Value Sustain Cost Optimization

    Template & Example

    List your objectives and initiatives

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to input your vendor optimization initiatives and related objectives:

    List your objectives and initiatives

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    B Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The ID will update once there's an input in column E.
    C Dropdown Select an optimization lever: Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, or Workforce.
    D Dropdown Select an initiative focus from the dropdown list - this will help you think of initiatives.
    E Text Enter your initiative.
    F Text Write a brief description per initiative, providing a cost optimization rationale.
    G Dropdown Select the cost type per initiative: OpEx (operating expenditure) or CapEx (capital expenditure).
    H Dropdown Select 1 of 3 objectives for each initiative: Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending, Optimize Cost-to-Value, or Sustain Cost Optimization.

    List your initiatives in the provided Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Enter all your initiatives driven by the vendor optimization lever.
    3. Determine the cost optimization objective per initiative.

    2.1.3 Identify project portfolio optimization initiatives

    2 hours

    1. Review the IT Project Portfolio Strategy if available, and the list of both in-flight and planned projects.
    2. Reassess your project portfolio to maximize total value in line with business objectives and strategy. For each current and pending project on the list, identify a cost optimization initiative, including:
      1. Revisiting, confirming, and documenting actual project rationale with the business in relation to strategic goals.
      2. Rescoping existing projects that are underway.
      3. Accelerating planned or existing projects that enable business cost savings or competitive advantage and revenue growth.
      4. Canceling or postponing projects that are underway or haven't started.
      5. Identifying net-new projects that enhance business capabilities or save business costs.
    3. Reassess your in-house project management and project portfolio management processes to see where efficiency and effectiveness could be improved overall.
    4. Document cost optimization initiatives that could be driven by project portfolio optimization objectives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    Input Output
    • Project Portfolio Management Strategy
    • List of current and pending projects
    • Outline Initiatives driven by project portfolio optimization objectives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    Materials Participants
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • PMO lead
    • Other IT management

    Example

    Project portfolio optimization

    Some examples to get you started.

    Journey Reactive, Proactive, or Strategic Proactive or Strategic Strategic
    Initiatives
    • Cancel projects with no executive sponsor.
    • Cancel projects with unacceptable timelines.
    • Postpone projects where there is a more urgent need for related resources.
    • Rescope projects where a more effective business case has been identified.
    • Freeze projects where scope and resourcing are uncertain.
    • Accelerate projects that enable business cost savings or a competitive advantage with revenue growth.
    • Combine projects that are better managed by realigning project managers and coordinators.
    • Break projects into phases to front-load realized value.
    • Outsource projects with commoditized skillset requirements.
    • Reassess the technology requirements when multiple vendors are involved.
    • Reexamine project rationale with the business in relation to strategic goals.
    • Identify net-new projects that offer improved value in relation to current economics.
    • Reassess the strategic drivers for project spending in the face of shifting priorities.
    • Implement a project portfolio governance function.
    • Introduce a benefits realization discipline in relation to the benefits forecasted during project approval.
    No initiatives for the reactive journey. No initiatives for the reactive or proactive journeys.
    Objective Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending Optimize Cost-to-Value Sustain Cost Optimization

    Template & Example

    List your objectives and initiatives

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to input your project portfolio optimization initiatives and related objectives:

    List your objectives and initiatives

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    B Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The ID will update once there's an input in column E.
    C Dropdown Select an optimization lever: Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, or Workforce.
    D Dropdown Select an initiative focus from the dropdown list - this will help you think of initiatives.
    E Text Enter your initiative.
    F Text Write a brief description per initiative, providing a cost optimization rationale.
    G Dropdown Select the cost type per initiative: OpEx (operating expenditure) or CapEx (capital expenditure).
    H Dropdown Select 1 of 3 objectives for each initiative: Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending, Optimize Cost-to-Value, or Sustain Cost Optimization.

    List your initiatives in the provided Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Enter all your initiatives driven by the project portfolio optimization lever.
    3. Determine the cost optimization objective per initiative.

    2.1.4 Identify workforce optimization initiatives

    2 hours

    1. Review the IT department's strategic workforce plan (SWP) if available, organizational chart, and salaries by role. Do not review IT staffing in terms of named individuals who occupy a given role - focus on functions, roles, and job descriptions.
    2. Determine capability gaps:
      1. Rectify efficiency, effectiveness, and other performance issues.
      2. Train IT staff to enhance or improve skills and effectiveness.
      3. Add roles, skills, or headcount to improve effectiveness.
      4. Integrate teams to improve collaboration and reduce redundancies or break out new ones to increase focus/specialization.
      5. Redesign job roles and responsibilities.
      6. Redeploy/reassign staff to other teams.
      7. Conduct layoff (as a last resort, starting by assessing contractual employees).
    3. Document cost optimization initiatives that could be driven by workforce optimization objectives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Strategic workforce plan (SWP)
    • Organizational charts
    • Staff lists
    • Outline Initiatives driven by workforce optimization objectives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • Talent management representative
    • Other IT management

    Example

    Workforce optimization

    Some examples to get you started.

    Journey Reactive, Proactive, or Strategic Proactive or Strategic Strategic
    Initiatives
    • Defer vacancy, position, or role.
    • Freeze all overnight and unessential IT staff travel.
    • Outsource project/function to free internal resources.
    • Postpone nonessential IT staff training as per training plans.
    • Suspend IT team discretionary spend.
    • Streamline workforce related to department/service (develop the process).
    • Relocate role or function from division or group to division or group.
    • Adjust framework and level assignments.
    • Promote and train employees for a certain objective.
    • Implement a strategic workforce plan (SWP) to ensure you have the right people in place, at the right time.
    • Set up a workforce performance monitoring framework or process to optimize staffing capabilities aligned with business value.
    No initiatives for the reactive journey. No initiatives for the reactive or proactive journeys.
    Objective Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending Optimize Cost-to-Value Sustain Cost Optimization

    Template & Example

    List your objectives and initiatives

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to input your workforce optimization initiatives and related objectives:

    List your objectives and initiatives

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    B Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The ID will update once there's an input in column E.
    C Dropdown Select an optimization lever: Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, or Workforce.
    D Dropdown Select an initiative focus from the dropdown list - this will help you think of initiatives.
    E Text Enter your initiative.
    F Text Write a brief description per initiative, providing a cost optimization rationale.
    G Dropdown Select the cost type per initiative: OpEx (operating expenditure) or CapEx (capital expenditure).
    H Dropdown Select 1 of 3 objectives for each initiative: Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending, Optimize Cost-to-Value, or Sustain Cost Optimization.

    List your initiatives in the provided Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Enter all your initiatives driven by the workforce optimization lever.
    3. Determine the cost optimization objective per initiative.

    2.2 Estimate the cost savings of cost optimization initiatives

    8 hours

    Now that you have identified your initiatives:

    1. Review your cost optimization initiatives per lever (Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, and Workforce).
    2. Determine whether the implementation cost of each of your initiatives is included as part of your budget.
    3. Estimate your cost savings.
    4. Document your assessment in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Potential cost optimization initiatives list
    • Outline Initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard or flip charts
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • Other IT management - depending on the optimization lever (Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, or Workforce)

    2.2.1 Estimate the costs impacting your asset optimization initiatives

    2 hours

    1. Review each asset optimization initiative to estimate cost implications.
    2. Consider implementation cost in terms of your budget, and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). Is the implementation cost of the underlying initiative considered in your current budget? If not, move to the next initiative. You will assess the flagged initiative independently at a later stage if deemed necessary.
    3. Estimate the current cost related to the initiative (including implementation cost), and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). This will be the first of two inputs needed to calculate the initiative's potential cost savings.
    4. Estimate the expected cost, post initiative execution, of the underlying initiative, and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). This will be the second and last input needed to calculate the initiative's potential cost savings.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Asset optimization initiatives
    • Cost and budget information
    • Cost estimates of asset optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • IT asset manager
    • IT infrastructure manager
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Estimate your cost

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete cost estimates for each asset optimization initiative:

    Estimate your cost

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    I Dropdown Select if the implementation cost is considered within your budget or not. If not, the initiative will be flagged to be reviewed, and no further entry is required; move to the next initiative. Implementation cost represents your cost for planning, executing, and monitoring the related initiative.
    J, K Whole Number Input a dollar amount. Current cost represents the yearly cost including implementing the initiative, while the expected cost represents the yearly cost after implementing the initiative.
    L Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The difference between current cost and expected cost.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine if the implementation cost is considered within the budget.
    3. If yes, estimate the current cost, and expected cost of the underlying initiative.

    2.2.2 Estimate the costs impacting your vendor optimization initiatives

    2 hours

    1. Review each vendor optimization initiative to estimate cost implications.
    2. Consider implementation cost in terms of your budget, and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). Is the implementation cost of the underlying initiative considered in your current budget? If not, move to the next initiative. You will assess the flagged initiative independently at a later stage if deemed necessary.
    3. Estimate the current cost related to the initiative (including implementation cost), and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). This will be the first of two inputs needed to calculate the initiative's potential cost savings.
    4. Estimate the expected cost, post initiative execution, of the underlying initiative, and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). This will be the second and last input needed to calculate the initiative's potential cost savings.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Vendor optimization initiatives
    • Cost and budget information
    • Cost estimates of vendor optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • IT vendor management lead
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Estimate your cost

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete cost estimates for each vendor optimization initiative:

    Estimate your cost

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    I Dropdown Select if the implementation cost is considered within your budget or not. If not, the initiative will be flagged to be reviewed, and no further entry is required; move to the next initiative. Implementation cost represents your cost for planning, executing, and monitoring the related initiative.
    J, K Whole Number Input a dollar amount. Current cost represents the yearly cost including implementing the initiative, while the expected cost represents the yearly cost after implementing the initiative.
    L Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The difference between current cost and expected cost.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine if the implementation cost is considered within the budget.
    3. If yes, estimate the current cost, and expected cost of the underlying initiative.

    2.2.3 Estimate the costs impacting your project portfolio optimization initiatives

    2 hours

    1. Review each project portfolio optimization initiative to estimate cost implications.
    2. Consider implementation cost in terms of your budget, and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). Is the implementation cost of the underlying initiative considered in your current budget? If not, move to the next initiative. You will assess the flagged initiative independently at a later stage if deemed necessary.
    3. Estimate the current cost related to the initiative (including implementation cost), and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). This will be the first of two inputs needed to calculate the initiative's potential cost savings.
    4. Estimate the expected cost, post initiative execution, of the underlying initiative, and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). This will be the second and last input needed to calculate the initiative's potential cost savings.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Project portfolio optimization initiatives
    • Cost and budget information
    • Cost estimates of project portfolio optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • PMO lead
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Estimate your cost

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete cost estimates for each project portfolio optimization initiative:

    Estimate your cost

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    I Dropdown Select if the implementation cost is considered within your budget or not. If not, the initiative will be flagged to be reviewed, and no further entry is required; move to the next initiative. Implementation cost represents your cost for planning, executing, and monitoring the related initiative.
    J, K Whole Number Input a dollar amount. Current cost represents the yearly cost including implementing the initiative, while the expected cost represents the yearly cost after implementing the initiative.
    L Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The difference between current cost and expected cost.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine if the implementation cost is considered within the budget.
    3. If yes, estimate the current cost, and expected cost of the underlying initiative.

    2.2.4 Estimate the costs impacting your workforce optimization initiatives

    2 hours

    1. Review each workforce optimization initiative to estimate cost implications.
    2. Consider implementation cost in terms of your budget, and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). Is the implementation cost of the underlying initiative considered in your current budget? If not, move to the next initiative. You will assess the flagged initiative independently at a later stage if deemed necessary.
    3. Estimate the current cost related to the initiative (including implementation cost), and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). This will be the first of two inputs needed to calculate the initiative's potential cost savings.
    4. Estimate the expected cost, post initiative execution, of the underlying initiative, and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). This will be the second and last input needed to calculate the initiative's potential cost savings.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Workforce optimization initiatives
    • Cost and budget information
    • Cost estimates of workforce optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • Talent management representative
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Estimate your cost

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization –i Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete cost estimates for each workforce optimization initiative:

    Estimate your cost

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    I Dropdown Select if the implementation cost is considered within your budget or not. If not, the initiative will be flagged to be reviewed, and no further entry is required; move to the next initiative. Implementation cost represents your cost for planning, executing, and monitoring the related initiative.
    J, K Whole Number Input a dollar amount. Current cost represents the yearly cost including implementing the initiative, while the expected cost represents the yearly cost after implementing the initiative.
    L Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The difference between current cost and expected cost.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine if the implementation cost is considered within the budget.
    3. If yes, estimate the current cost, and expected cost of the underlying initiative.

    Phase 3

    Develop Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap

    Phase 1
    Understand Your Mandate and Objectives

    Phase 2
    Outline Your Cost Optimization Initiatives

    Phase 3
    Develop Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap

    Phase 4
    Communicate and Execute

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • IT cost optimization workbook
    • IT cost optimization roadmap

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • IT asset manager
    • IT infrastructure manager
    • IT vendor management lead
    • PMO lead
    • IT talent management representative
    • Other IT management

    Develop your prioritized and aligned cost optimization roadmap

    The process of developing your roadmap is where you set final cost optimization priorities, conduct a final rationalization to decide what's in and what's out, and document your proposed plan of action.

    First, take a moment to consider if you missed anything. Too often, only the cost cutting elements of the cost optimization equation get attention. Remember that cost optimization also includes making smart investments. Sometimes adding and expanding is better for the business than removing or contracting.

    • Do your proposed initiatives help position the organization to recover quickly if you're dealing with a downturn or recession scenario?
    • Have you fully considered growth or innovation opportunities that will help optimize costs in the long run?

    Feasibility
    Eliminate initiatives from the longlist of potential initiatives that cannot be achieved given the cost optimization goals you determined at the beginning of this exercise.

    Priority
    Rank order the remaining initiatives according to their ability to contribute to goal attainment and dependency relationships with external constraints and one another.

    Action Plan
    Create an overarching visual roadmap that shows how you intend to achieve your cost optimization goals over the short, medium, and long-term.

    3.1 Assess the feasibility of your cost optimization initiatives

    4 hours

    Now that you have identified your initiatives across the four levers and understood the business impacts:

    1. Review each of your cost optimization initiatives and estimate the feasibility in terms of:
      1. Effort required to implement.
      2. Risk: Likelihood of failure and impact on performance.
      3. Approval rights: Within the IT or finance's accountability/domain or not.
    2. Document your assessment in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Cost optimization initiatives
    • Feasibility estimates of cost optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Define Variables tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • Other IT management - depending on the optimization lever (Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, or Workforce)

    3.1.1 Estimate the feasibility of your asset optimization initiatives

    1 hour

    1. Review each asset optimization initiative to estimate feasibility implications.
    2. Start by defining the effort required variables. Think in terms of how many dedicated full-time employees you would need to implement the initiative. Document your definition for each of the three variables (High, Medium, or Low) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). Then, estimate the effort required to implement the related initiative. Consider complexity, scope, and resource availability, before you document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    3. Define your likelihood of failure variables. Think in terms of probability of failure or percent chance the underlying initiative will not succeed. Document your definition for each of the three variables (High, Medium, or Low) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). Then, estimate the likelihood of failure to implement the related initiative, and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    4. Consider the initiative's impact on performance. Would implementing the initiative hinder IT or business performance? If you are on a reactive journey, would it impede business recovery in any way, shape, or form? Document the impact (Positive Impact, No Impact, or Negative Impact) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    5. Determine who is responsible for approving the initiative. Does it fall within your jurisdiction, responsibility, or accountability? If not, it would mean that it might be more difficult to implement the initiative. Document approval rights (within accountability or not within accountability) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    Input Output
    • Asset optimization initiatives
    • Feasibility estimates of asset optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    Materials Participants
    • Define Variables tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • IT asset manager
    • IT infrastructure manager
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Define your feasibility variables

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Define Variables Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to define your feasibility variables for standardization purposes. You can adopt a different definition per optimization lever (Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, and Workforce), or maintain the same one across initiatives, depending on what makes sense for your organization:

    Define your feasibility variables

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    B, G Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The ID will populate automatically.
    C, H Text No entry required. Three variables identified: High, Medium, Low.
    D, E Whole Number Review and input the range of each effort required variable, based on the number of dedicated full-time employees needed to implement an initiative, as it works best for your organization.
    I, J Whole Number Review and input the range of each likelihood of failure variable, based on the probability of failure of an initiative, as it works best for your organization. This example should work for most organizations.

    Define your feasibility variables in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Define Variables tab.
    2. Review and enter the range of each effort required and likelihood of failure variable as you see fit for your organization.

    Template & Example

    Estimate your feasibility

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete feasibility estimates for each asset optimization initiative:

    Estimate your feasibility

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    M Dropdown Select the effort required estimate based on your defined variables. Effort required represents the number of dedicated employees needed to plan, execute, and monitor the underlying initiative, based on the level of maturity and readiness; consider complexity, scope, and resource availability.
    N Dropdown Select the likelihood of failure estimate based on your defined variables. Likelihood of failure represents the probability of failure of the underlying initiative.
    O Dropdown Select the impact on performance estimate related to the implementation of the underlying initiative. Consider the impact on IT and on business (including business recovery if on a reactive journey).
    P Dropdown Select the appropriate approval right related to the underlying initiative. Determine if the initiative's approval falls within your accountability or not.
    Q Text Write a brief description per initiative, providing an impact rationale and identifying the approver where possible.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the appropriate effort required to implement the underlying initiative.
    3. Identify the risk of each initiative: likelihood of failure and impact on performance.
    4. Choose the adequate approval right classification for each initiative.

    3.1.2 Estimate the feasibility of your vendor optimization initiatives

    1 hour

    1. Review each vendor optimization initiative to estimate feasibility implications, along with previously defined variables (see slides 64 and 65).
    2. Consider the initiative's impact on performance. Would implementing the initiative hinder IT or business performance? If you are on a reactive journey, would it impede business recovery in any way, shape, or form? Document the impact (Positive Impact, No Impact, or Negative Impact) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    3. Determine who is responsible for approving the initiative. Does it fall within your jurisdiction, responsibility, or accountability? If not, it would mean that it might be more difficult to implement the initiative. Document approval rights (within accountability or not within accountability) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Vendor optimization initiatives
    • Feasibility estimates of vendor optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Define Variables tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • IT vendor management lead
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Estimate your feasibility

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete feasibility estimates for each vendor optimization initiative:

    Estimate your feasibility

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    M Dropdown Select the effort required estimate based on your defined variables. Effort required represents the number of dedicated employees needed to plan, execute, and monitor the underlying initiative, based on the level of maturity and readiness; consider complexity, scope, and resource availability.
    N Dropdown Select the likelihood of failure estimate based on your defined variables. Likelihood of failure represents the probability of failure of the underlying initiative.
    O Dropdown Select the impact on performance estimate related to the implementation of the underlying initiative. Consider the impact on IT and on business (including business recovery if on a reactive journey).
    P Dropdown Select the appropriate approval right related to the underlying initiative. Determine if the initiative's approval falls within your accountability or not.
    Q Text Write a brief description per initiative, providing an impact rationale and identifying the approver where possible.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the appropriate effort required to implement the underlying initiative.
    3. Identify the risk of each initiative: likelihood of failure and impact on performance.
    4. Choose the adequate approval right classification for each initiative.

    3.1.3 Estimate the feasibility of your project portfolio optimization initiatives

    1 hour

    1. Review each project portfolio optimization initiative to estimate feasibility implications, along with previously defined variables (see slides 64 and 65).
    2. Consider the initiative's impact on performance. Would implementing the initiative hinder IT or business performance? If you are on a reactive journey, would it impede business recovery in any way, shape, or form? Document the impact (Positive Impact, No Impact, or Negative Impact) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    3. Determine who is responsible for approving the initiative. Does it fall within your jurisdiction, responsibility, or accountability? If not, it would mean that it might be more difficult to implement the initiative. Document approval rights (within accountability or not within accountability) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Project portfolio optimization initiatives
    • Feasibility estimates of vendor optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Define Variables tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • PMO lead
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Estimate your feasibility

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete feasibility estimates for each project portfolio optimization initiative:

    Estimate your feasibility

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    M Dropdown Select the effort required estimate based on your defined variables. Effort required represents the number of dedicated employees needed to plan, execute, and monitor the underlying initiative, based on the level of maturity and readiness; consider complexity, scope, and resource availability.
    N Dropdown Select the likelihood of failure estimate based on your defined variables. Likelihood of failure represents the probability of failure of the underlying initiative.
    O Dropdown Select the impact on performance estimate related to the implementation of the underlying initiative. Consider the impact on IT and on business (including business recovery if on a reactive journey).
    P Dropdown Select the appropriate approval right related to the underlying initiative. Determine if the initiative's approval falls within your accountability or not.
    Q Text Write a brief description per initiative, providing an impact rationale and identifying the approver where possible.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the appropriate effort required to implement the underlying initiative.
    3. Identify the risk of each initiative: likelihood of failure and impact on performance.
    4. Choose the adequate approval right classification for each initiative.

    3.1.4 Estimate the feasibility of your workforce optimization initiatives

    1 hour

    1. Review each workforce optimization initiative to estimate feasibility implications, along with previously defined variables (see slides 64 and 65).
    2. Consider the initiative's impact on performance. Would implementing the initiative hinder IT or business performance? If you are on a reactive journey, would it impede business recovery in any way, shape, or form? Document the impact (Positive Impact, No Impact, or Negative Impact) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    3. Determine who is responsible for approving the initiative. Does it fall within your jurisdiction, responsibility, or accountability? If not, it would mean that it might be more difficult to implement the initiative. Document approval rights (within accountability or not within accountability) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Workforce optimization initiatives
    • Feasibility estimates of workforce optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Define Variables tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • Talent management representative
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Estimate your feasibility

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete feasibility estimates for each workforce optimization initiative:

    Estimate your feasibility

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    M Dropdown Select the effort required estimate based on your defined variables. Effort required represents the number of dedicated employees needed to plan, execute, and monitor the underlying initiative, based on the level of maturity and readiness; consider complexity, scope, and resource availability.
    N Dropdown Select the likelihood of failure estimate based on your defined variables. Likelihood of failure represents the probability of failure of the underlying initiative.
    O Dropdown Select the impact on performance estimate related to the implementation of the underlying initiative. Consider the impact on IT and on business (including business recovery if on a reactive journey).
    P Dropdown Select the appropriate approval right related to the underlying initiative. Determine if the initiative's approval falls within your accountability or not.
    Q Text Write a brief description per initiative, providing an impact rationale and identifying the approver where possible.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the appropriate effort required to implement the underlying initiative.
    3. Identify the risk of each initiative: likelihood of failure and impact on performance.
    4. Choose the adequate approval right classification for each initiative.

    3.2 Prioritize cost optimization initiatives to create a final shortlist

    4 hours

    Now that you have your cost and feasibility for each cost optimization initiative:

    1. Review each of your cost optimization initiatives and estimate the time and priority by considering:
      1. Preliminary priority assessment based on your cost and feasibility input.
      2. Time frame: start and end date of each initiative.
      3. Current budget cycle: time remaining in the current budget cycle and potential cost savings in this fiscal year.
    2. Determine the final priority of the initiative and decide whether you want to include it in your 12-month roadmap.
    3. Document your assessment in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Cost optimization initiatives
    • Time and priority estimates of cost optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Define Priority Threshold tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • Other IT management - depending on the optimization lever (Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, or Workforce)

    3.2.1 Prioritize your asset optimization initiatives

    1 hour

    1. Review each asset optimization initiative to set the priority.
    2. Validate your cost and feasibility estimates and consider the automated evaluation, in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook, providing you with a preliminary priority based on your cost and feasibility estimates (see next slides).
    3. Revisit your overarching goals (step 1.4) as you will assess the time it will take you to complete your initiatives and prioritize accordingly.
    4. Determine your start and end date for each initiative based on your journey, objectives, and overarching goals. Consider the urgency of each initiative. Document the quarter and year for your start and end dates in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    5. Identify the time remaining in your current budget cycle after the completion of each initiative to get a cost savings estimate for the current fiscal year. Document the number of remaining quarters (0, 1, 2, 3, or 4) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    6. Decide on the priority of each initiative (High, Medium, or Low), and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    7. Revisit the priority decision after prioritizing all your initiatives and determine which ones to include in your 12-month roadmap; consider the number of initiatives you can tackle at the same time within a 12-month period. Document your final decision (Yes or No) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Asset optimization initiatives
    • Time and priority estimates of cost optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Define Priority Threshold tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • IT asset manager
    • IT infrastructure manager
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Understand your priority assessment

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how the preliminary priority assessment is assigned, for each asset optimization initiative, noting that columns Q to X are hidden automatic calculations and should not be touched:

    Understand your priority assessment

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    R Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Rank of estimate cost savings (per year) in ascending order (higher cost savings implies a higher rank).
    S Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Cost Savings Score on a scale of 1 to 3, where the top third in Cost Savings Rank are assigned a score of 1, the bottom third a score of 3, and in between a score of 2, noting that negative cost savings would imply a -1 score.
    T Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Cost Score adds 1 to the Cost Savings Score if the underlying initiative is within the budget.
    U, V, W Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. A score on a scale of 1 to 3 based on input of columns M, N, and O, where Low or Positive Impact is assigned a score of 3, Medium or No Impact a score of 2, and High or Negative Impact a score of 1.
    X Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. The rounding of the average of columns U, V, and W, adding 1 to the result if the initiative's approval falls within your accountability (column P).
    Y Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. The sum of columns T and X, adding 3 for Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending, and 1 to Optimize Cost-to-value (column H).
    Z Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Preliminary priority assessment based on the Define Priority Threshold worksheet (hidden, see next slide).

    Review the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Validate cost and feasibility estimates (columns I to P previously filled - steps 2.2 and 3.1) driving the Priority Score and Preliminary Priority Assessment.

    Template & Example

    Priority threshold rationale

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Define Priority Threshold Worksheet

    Refer to the screenshot of the Define Priority Threshold worksheet below to understand the rationale behind the priority score and priority level:

    Priority threshold rationale

    Template & Example

    Estimate your timeline

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete timeline estimates for each asset optimization initiative:

    Estimate your timeline

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    AA, AC Dropdown Select the quarter(s) in which you plan to begin and complete your initiative.
    AB, AD Dropdown Select the year(s) in which you plan to begin and complete your initiative.
    AE Dropdown Select the number of remaining quarters, in the current fiscal year, after you complete the initiative (0 to 4); based on columns AA to AD.
    AF Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Estimate of cost savings in the current fiscal year, based on the remaining quarters after implementation. The entry in column AE is divided by 4, and the result is multiplied by the related estimated cost savings per year (entry in column L).
    AG Dropdown Select if cost savings after the implementation of the underlying initiative will be permanent or temporary.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the appropriate quarter and year to start and complete the initiative.
    3. Identify the time remaining in your current budget cycle after the completion of the initiative.

    Template & Example

    Make your final decisions

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to assign the final priority for each asset optimization initiative, and include it in your 12-month roadmap:

    Make your final decisions

    Column ID Row ID Input Type Guidelines
    AH - Dropdown Select your final priority decision after reviewing the preliminary priority assessment (column Z) and timeline estimates (columns AA to AG).
    AI - Dropdown Select whether you want to include the initiative in your 12-month roadmap (Yes or No).
    AK, AL 5 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The total number of initiatives you decided to include in your 12-month roadmap; based on column AI when Yes is selected.
    AK, AL 6 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Total estimated cost savings per year after the initiative's completion; based on column L when included in the 12-month roadmap (column AI when Yes is selected)
    AK, AL 7 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Total estimated cost savings in the current fiscal year; based on column AF when included in the 12-month roadmap (column AI when Yes is selected)
    • Estimated cost savings per year refer to cost savings fully realized by the end of the upcoming fiscal year, following the initiatives' implementation.
    • Estimated cost savings in the current budget cycle, refer to cost savings partially realized in the current fiscal year, after the initiatives' implementation.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the final priority of the initiative.
    3. Decide whether you want to include the initiative in your 12-month roadmap.

    3.2.2 Prioritize your vendor optimization initiatives

    1 hour

    1. Review each vendor optimization initiative to set the priority.
    2. Validate your cost and feasibility estimates and consider the automated evaluation, in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook, providing you with a preliminary priority based on your cost and feasibility estimates (see next slides).
    3. Revisit your overarching goals (step 1.4) as you will assess the time it will take you to complete your initiatives and prioritize accordingly.
    4. Determine your start and end date for each initiative based on your journey, objectives, and overarching goals. Consider the urgency of each initiative. Document the quarter and year for your start and end dates in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    5. Identify the time remaining in your current budget cycle after the completion of each initiative to get a cost savings estimate for the current fiscal year. Document the number of remaining quarters (0, 1, 2, 3, or 4) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    6. Decide on the priority of each initiative (High, Medium, or Low), and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    7. Revisit the priority decision after prioritizing all your initiatives and determine which ones to include in your 12-month roadmap; consider the number of initiatives you can tackle at the same time within a 12-month period. Document your final decision (Yes or No) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    Input Output
    • Vendor optimization initiatives
    • Time and priority estimates of cost optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    Materials Participants
    • Define Priority Threshold tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • IT vendor management lead
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Understand your priority assessment

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how the preliminary priority assessment is assigned, for each vendor optimization initiative, noting that columns Q to X are hidden automatic calculations and should not be touched:

    Understand your priority assessment

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    R Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Rank of estimate cost savings (per year) in ascending order (higher cost savings implies a higher rank).
    S Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Cost Savings Score on a scale of 1 to 3, where the top third in Cost Savings Rank are assigned a score of 1, the bottom third a score of 3, and in between a score of 2, noting that negative cost savings would imply a -1 score.
    T Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Cost Score adds 1 to the Cost Savings Score if the underlying initiative is within the budget.
    U, V, W Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. A score on a scale of 1 to 3 based on input of columns M, N, and O, where Low or Positive Impact is assigned a score of 3, Medium or No Impact a score of 2, and High or Negative Impact a score of 1.
    X Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. The rounding of the average of columns U, V, and W, adding 1 to the result if the initiative's approval falls within your accountability (column P).
    Y Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. The sum of columns T and X, adding 3 for Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending, and 1 to Optimize Cost-to-Value (column H).
    Z Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Preliminary priority assessment based on the Define Priority Threshold worksheet (hidden, see next slide).

    Review the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Validate cost and feasibility estimates (columns I to P previously filled - steps 2.2 and 3.1) driving the Priority Score and Preliminary Priority Assessment.

    Template & Example

    Priority Threshold Rationale

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Define Priority Threshold Worksheet

    Refer to the screenshot of the Define Priority Threshold worksheet below to understand the rationale behind the Priority Score and Priority Level:

    Priority Threshold Rationale

    Template & Example

    Estimate your timeline

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete timeline estimates for each vendor optimization initiative:

    Estimate your timeline

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    AA, AC Dropdown Select the quarter(s) in which you plan to begin and complete your initiative.
    AB, AD Dropdown Select the year(s) in which you plan to begin and complete your initiative.
    AE Dropdown Select the number of remaining quarters, in the current fiscal year, after you complete the initiative (0 to 4); based on columns AA to AD.
    AF Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Estimate of cost savings in the current fiscal year, based on the remaining quarters after implementation. The entry in column AE is divided by 4, and the result is multiplied by the related estimated cost savings per year (entry in column L).
    AG Dropdown Select if cost savings after the implementation of the underlying initiative will be Permanent or Temporary.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the appropriate quarter and year to start and complete the initiative.
    3. Identify the time remaining in your current budget cycle after the completion of the initiative.

    Template & Example

    Make your final decisions

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to assign the final priority for each vendor optimization initiative, and include it in your 12-month roadmap:

    Make your final decisions

    Column ID Row ID Input Type Guidelines
    AH - Dropdown Select your final priority decision after reviewing the preliminary priority assessment (column Z) and timeline estimates (columns AA to AG).
    AI - Dropdown Select whether you want to include the initiative in your 12-month roadmap (Yes or No).
    AK, AL 5 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The total number of initiatives you decided to include in your 12-month roadmap; based on column AI when Yes is selected.
    AK, AL 6 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Total estimated cost savings per year after the initiative's completion; based on column L when included in the 12-month roadmap (column AI when Yes is selected)
    AK, AL 7 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Total estimated cost savings in the current fiscal year; based on column AF when included in the 12-month roadmap (column AI when Yes is selected)
    • Estimated cost savings per year refer to cost savings fully realized by the end of the upcoming fiscal year, following the initiatives' implementation.
    • Estimated cost savings in the current budget cycle, refer to cost savings partially realized in the current fiscal year, after the initiatives' implementation.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the final priority of the initiative.
    3. Decide whether you want to include the initiative in your 12-month roadmap.

    3.2.3 Prioritize your project portfolio optimization initiatives

    1 hour

    1. Review each project portfolio optimization initiative to set the priority.
    2. Validate your cost and feasibility estimates and consider the automated evaluation, in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook, providing you with a preliminary priority based on your cost and feasibility estimates (see next slides).
    3. Revisit your overarching goals (step 1.4) as you will assess the time it will take you to complete your initiatives and prioritize accordingly.
    4. Determine your start and end date for each initiative based on your journey, objectives, and overarching goals. Consider the urgency of each initiative. Document the quarter and year for your start and end dates in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    5. Identify the time remaining in your current budget cycle after the completion of each initiative to get a cost savings estimate for the current fiscal year. Document the number of remaining quarters (0, 1, 2, 3, or 4) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    6. Decide on the priority of each initiative (High, Medium, or Low), and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    7. Revisit the priority decision after prioritizing all your initiatives and determine which ones to include in your 12-month roadmap; consider the number of initiatives you can tackle at the same time within a 12-month period. Document your final decision (Yes or No) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Project portfolio optimization initiatives
    • Time and priority estimates of cost optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Define Priority Threshold tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • PMO lead
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Understand your priority assessment

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how the preliminary priority assessment is assigned, for each project portfolio optimization initiative, noting that columns Q to X are hidden automatic calculations and should not be touched:

    Understand your priority assessment

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    R Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Rank of Estimate Cost Savings (per year) in ascending order (higher cost savings implies a higher rank).
    S Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Cost Savings Score on a scale of 1 to 3, where the top third in Cost Savings Rank are assigned a score of 1, the bottom third a score of 3, and in between a score of 2, noting that negative cost savings would imply a -1 score.
    T Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Cost Score adds 1 to the Cost Savings Score if the underlying initiative is within the budget.
    U, V, W Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. A score on a scale of 1 to 3 based on input of columns M, N, and O, where Low or Positive Impact is assigned a score of 3, Medium or No Impact a score of 2, and High or Negative Impact a score of 1.
    X Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. The rounding of the average of columns U, V, and W, adding 1 to the result if the initiative's approval falls within your accountability (column P).
    Y Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. The sum of columns T and X, adding 3 for Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending, and 1 to Optimize Cost-to-Value (column H).
    Z Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Preliminary Priority Assessment based on the Define Priority Threshold worksheet (hidden, see next slide).

    Review the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Validate cost and feasibility estimates (columns I to P previously filled - steps 2.2 and 3.1) driving the Priority Score and Preliminary Priority Assessment.

    Template & Example

    Priority Threshold Rationale

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Define Priority Threshold Worksheet

    Refer to the screenshot of the Define Priority Threshold worksheet below to understand the rationale behind the Priority Score and Priority Level:

    Priority threshold rationale

    Template & Example

    Estimate your timeline

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete timeline estimates for each project portfolio optimization initiative:

    Estimate your timeline

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    AA, AC Dropdown Select the quarter(s) in which you plan to begin and complete your initiative.
    AB, AD Dropdown Select the year(s) in which you plan to begin and complete your initiative.
    AE Dropdown Select the number of remaining quarters, in the current fiscal year, after you complete the initiative (0 to 4); based on columns AA to AD.
    AF Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Estimate of cost savings in the current fiscal year, based on the remaining quarters after implementation. The entry in column AE is divided by 4, and the result is multiplied by the related estimated cost savings per year (entry in column L).
    AG Dropdown Select if cost savings after the implementation of the underlying initiative will be Permanent or Temporary.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the appropriate quarter and year to start and complete the initiative.
    3. Identify the time remaining in your current budget cycle after the completion of the initiative.

    Template & Example

    Make your final decisions

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to assign the final priority for each project portfolio optimization initiative and include it in your 12-month roadmap:

    Make your final decisions

    Column ID Row ID Input Type Guidelines
    AH - Dropdown Select your final priority decision after reviewing the preliminary priority assessment (column Z) and timeline estimates (columns AA to AG).
    AI - Dropdown Select whether you want to include the initiative in your 12-month roadmap (Yes or No).
    AK, AL 5 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The total number of initiatives you decided to include in your 12-month roadmap; based on column AI when Yes is selected.
    AK, AL 6 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Total estimated cost savings per year after the initiative's completion; based on column L when included in the 12-month roadmap (column AI when Yes is selected)
    AK, AL 7 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Total estimated cost savings in the current fiscal year; based on column AF when included in the 12-month roadmap (column AI when Yes is selected)
    • Estimated cost savings per year refer to cost savings fully realized by the end of the upcoming fiscal year, following the initiatives' implementation.
    • Estimated cost savings in the current budget cycle, refer to cost savings partially realized in the current fiscal year, after the initiatives' implementation.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the final priority of the initiative.
    3. Decide whether you want to include the initiative in your 12-month roadmap.

    3.2.4 Prioritize your workforce optimization initiatives

    1 hour

    1. Review each workforce optimization initiative to set the priority.
    2. Validate your cost and feasibility estimates and consider the automated evaluation, in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook, providing you with a preliminary priority based on your cost and feasibility estimates (see next slides).
    3. Revisit your overarching goals (step 1.4) as you will assess the time it will take you to complete your initiatives and prioritize accordingly.
    4. Determine your start and end date for each initiative based on your journey, objectives, and overarching goals. Consider the urgency of each initiative. Document the quarter and year for your start and end dates in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    5. Identify the time remaining in your current budget cycle after the completion of each initiative to get a cost savings estimate for the current fiscal year. Document the number of remaining quarters (0, 1, 2, 3, or 4) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    6. Decide on the priority of each initiative (High, Medium, or Low), and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    7. Revisit the priority decision after prioritizing all your initiatives and determine which ones to include in your 12-month roadmap; consider the number of initiatives you can tackle at the same time within a 12-month period. Document your final decision (Yes or No) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Workforce optimization initiatives
    • Time and priority estimates of cost optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Define Priority Threshold tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • Talent management representative
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Understand your priority assessment

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how the preliminary priority assessment is assigned, for each workforce optimization initiative, noting that columns Q to X are hidden automatic calculations and should not be touched:

    Understand your priority assessment

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    R Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Rank of Estimate Cost Savings (per year) in ascending order (higher cost savings implies a higher rank).
    S Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Cost Savings Score on a scale of 1 to 3, where the top third in Cost Savings Rank are assigned a score of 1, the bottom third a score of 3, and in between a score of 2, noting that negative cost savings would imply a -1 score.
    T Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Cost Score adds 1 to the Cost Savings Score if the underlying initiative is within the budget.
    U, V, W Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. A score on a scale of 1 to 3 based on input of columns M, N, and O, where Low or Positive Impact is assigned a score of 3, Medium or No Impact a score of 2, and High or Negative Impact a score of 1.
    X Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. The rounding of the average of columns U, V, and W, adding 1 to the result if the initiative's approval falls within your accountability (column P).
    Y Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. The sum of columns T and X, adding 3 for Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending, and 1 to Optimize Cost-to-Value (column H).
    Z Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Preliminary Priority Assessment based on the Define Priority Threshold worksheet (hidden, see next slide).

    Review the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Validate cost and feasibility estimates (columns I to P previously filled - steps 2.2 and 3.1) driving the Priority Score and Preliminary Priority Assessment.

    Template & Example

    Priority Threshold Rationale

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Define Priority Threshold

    Refer to the screenshot of the Define Priority Threshold worksheet below to understand the rationale behind the Priority Score and Priority Level:

    Priority Threshold Rationale

    Template & Example

    Estimate your timeline

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete timeline estimates for each workforce optimization initiative:

    Estimate your timeline

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    AA, AC Dropdown Select the quarter(s) in which you plan to begin and complete your initiative.
    AB, AD Dropdown Select the year(s) in which you plan to begin and complete your initiative.
    AE Dropdown Select the number of remaining quarters, in the current fiscal year, after you complete the initiative (0 to 4); based on columns AA to AD.
    AF Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Estimate of cost savings in the current fiscal year, based on the remaining quarters after implementation. The entry in column AE is divided by 4, and the result is multiplied by the related estimated cost savings per year (entry in column L).
    AG Dropdown Select if cost savings after the implementation of the underlying initiative will be Permanent or Temporary.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the appropriate quarter and year to start and complete the initiative.
    3. Identify the time remaining in your current budget cycle after the completion of the initiative.

    Template & Example

    Make your final decisions

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to assign the final priority for each workforce optimization initiative, and include it in your 12-month roadmap:

    Make your final decisions

    Column ID Row ID Input Type Guidelines
    AH - Dropdown Select your final priority decision after reviewing the preliminary priority assessment (column Z) and timeline estimates (columns AA to AG).
    AI - Dropdown Select whether you want to include the initiative in your 12-month roadmap (Yes or No).
    AK, AL 5 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The total number of initiatives you decided to include in your 12-month roadmap; based on column AI when Yes is selected.
    AK, AL 6 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Total estimated cost savings per year after the initiative's completion; based on column L when included in the 12-month roadmap (column AI when Yes is selected)
    AK, AL 7 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Total estimated cost savings in the current fiscal year; based on column AF when included in the 12-month roadmap (column AI when Yes is selected)
    • Estimated cost savings per year refer to cost savings fully realized by the end of the upcoming fiscal year, following the initiatives' implementation.
    • Estimated cost savings in the current budget cycle, refer to cost savings partially realized in the current fiscal year, after the initiatives' implementation.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the final priority of the initiative.
    3. Decide whether you want to include the initiative in your 12-month roadmap.

    3.3 Develop your cost optimization roadmap

    1 hour

    1. Conduct a final evaluation of your timeline, priority decision, and initiatives you wish to include in your 12-month roadmap. Do they make sense, are they achievable, and do they all contribute individually and collectively to reaching your cost optimization goals?
    2. Review your 12-month roadmap outputs in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    3. Make adjustments to your 12-month roadmap by adding or removing initiatives as you deem necessary (step 3.2).
    4. Document your final roadmap - including initiatives and relative time frames for execution - in the IT Cost Optimization Roadmap templates provided (see slide 97). The 12-month roadmap outputs from the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slide) can facilitate this task.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    Input Output
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook, output from previous steps
    • IT Cost Optimization Roadmap
    Materials Participants
    • Outline Initiatives Charts tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Diagram Results tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • List Results tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Timeline Result tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT financial lead
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Potential Cost Savings Per Year

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Outline Initiatives Charts Worksheet

    Refer to the example below on charts depicting different views of estimated cost savings per year across the four optimization levers (Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, and Workforce) that could help you in your assessment and decision making.

    Potential cost savings per year

    From the Excel Workbook, after completing your potential initiatives and filling all related entries in the Outline Initiatives tab:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives Charts tab.
    2. Review each of the charts.
    3. Navigate back to the Outline Initiatives tab to examine, drill down, and amend individual initiative entries or final decisions as you deem necessary.

    Template & Example

    12-month Roadmap Outputs

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Diagram Results, List Results, and Timeline Result Worksheets

    Refer to the example below depicting different roadmap output that could help you in presentations, assessment, and decision making.

    12-month Roadmap Outputs

    From the Excel Workbook:

    1. Navigate to the Diagram Results tab. This bubble diagram represent cost optimization initiatives by objective where each bubble size is determined by its estimated cost saving per year.
    2. Navigate to the List Results tab. You will find a list of the cost optimizations initiatives you've chosen to include in your roadmap and related charts.
    3. Navigate to the Timeline Result tab. This Gantt chart is a timeline view of the cost optimizations initiatives you've chosen to include in your roadmap.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    IT cost optimization roadmap

    Phase 4

    Communicate and Execute

    Phase 1
    Understand Your Mandate and Objectives

    Phase 2
    Outline Your Cost Optimization Initiatives

    Phase 3
    Develop Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap

    Phase 4
    Communicate and Execute

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Cost optimization communication plan
    • Cost optimization executive presentation

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • PMO lead
    • Other IT management

    Build Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap

    4.1 Build the communication plan

    45 to 60 minutes

    1. Use the Cost Optimization Communication Plan templates and guidance on the following slides.
    2. Complete the template to develop your communication plan for your cost optimization proposal and initiatives. At a minimum, it should include:
      1. Steps for preparing and presenting your proposal to decision-makers, sponsors, and other stakeholders, including named presenters and points of contact in IT.
      2. Checkpoints for communication throughout the execution of each initiative and the cost optimization roadmap overall, including target audiences, accountabilities, modes and methods of communication, type/scope of information to be communicated at each checkpoint, and any decision/approval steps.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Cost optimization roadmap
    • Completed draft of the Cost Optimization Communication Plan
    MaterialsParticipants
    • IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • IT Cost Optimization Roadmap
    • Info-Tech's Cost Optimization Communication Plan template
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT financial lead
    • Other IT management

    Understand a communication strategy's purpose

    Put as much effort into developing your communication strategy as you would into planning and executing the cost optimization initiatives themselves. Don't skip this part.

    Your communication strategy has two major components ...

    1. A tactical plan for how and when you'll communicate with stakeholders about your proposals, activities, and progress toward meeting cost optimization goals.
    2. An executive or board presentation that outlines your final proposed cost optimization initiatives, their respective business cases, and resources/support required with the goal of gaining approval to execute.

    Your communication strategy will need to ...

    • Provide answers to the "What's in it for me?" question from all impacted stakeholders.
    • Roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities before, during, and after initiatives are completed.
    • Descriptions and high-level information about dates, deliverables, and impacts of the specific changes being made.

    You will also develop more detailed operational and project plans for each initiative. IT will use these plans to manage and track the execution of individual initiatives when the time comes.

    Template & Example

    Document the overall what and why of your planned communications

    Component Purpose Context Key Messages Intended Outcomes
    Definition Description of the topic and why you're communicating with this specific audience right now. Background information about the broader situation and how you got to where you are today. The main points you want your target audience to hear/read, absorb, and remember. What you hope you and your audience will get at the end of the communication or effort.
    Our Language
    • IT is proposing an organization-wide array of initiatives in order to reduce IT costs. We are seeking your approval and support to carry out these initiatives.
    • [Purpose]
    • The economy is in active downturn and may become a full recession.
    • IT is anticipating mandatory cost reductions and has opted to take a proactive position.
    • We used an analytical framework to look at all areas of the organization to identify and prioritize IT cost-reduction opportunities.
    • [Context]
    • IT is being proactive.
    • IT is sensitive to the business.
    • IT needs your support.
    • IT is committed to keeping you informed at every step.
    • IT wants to position the organization for rapid recovery when the economy improves.
    • [Message]
    • Buy-in, approval, and ongoing support for cost optimization initiatives proposed.
    • Update on the status of specific initiatives, including what's happened, progress, and what's coming next.
    • [Outcome]

    Template & Example

    Next, note the who, how, and when of your communication plan

    Stakeholder/Approver Initiatives Impact Format Time frame Messenger
    CEO
    • Reduce number of Minitab licenses
    • Defer hiring of new data architecture position
    • Cancel VR simulation project
    Indefinitely delays current strategic projects Monthly meeting discussion Last Wednesday of every month starting Oct. 26, FY1 CIO, IT data analytics project lead, IT VR project lead
    IT Steering Committee
    • Adjust service level framework and level assignments
    • Postpone purchases for network modernization
    • Postpone workstation/laptop upgrades for non-production functions
    • Outsource data analytics project
    Nearly all of these initiatives are enterprise-wide or affect multiple departments. Varying direct and indirect impacts will need to be independently communicated for each initiative if approved by the ITS.

    Formal presentation at quarterly ITS meetings

    Monthly progress updates via email bulletin

    Approval presentation: Oct. 31, FY1

    Quarterly updates: Jan. 31, Apr. 28, and Jul. 28, FY2

    CIO, IT service director, IT infrastructure director, IT data analytics project lead
    VP of Sales
    • Pause Salesforce view redesign project
    Delays new sales tool efficiency improvement. Meeting discussion Nov. FY1 CIO, IT Salesforce view redesign project lead
    [Name/Title/Group]
    • [Initiative]
    • [Initiative]
    [Impact statement] [Format] [Date/Period] [Name/Title]
    [Name/Title/Group]
    • [Initiative]
    • [Initiative]
    [Impact statement] [Format] [Date/Period] [Name/Title]
    [Name/Title/Group]
    • [Initiative]
    • [Initiative]
    [Impact statement] [Format] [Date/Period] [Name/Title]

    4.2 Build the executive presentation

    45-60 minutes

    1. Download Info-Tech's IT Cost Optimization Roadmap Samples and Templates.
    2. Update the content with the outputs of your cost optimization roadmap and data/graph elements from the IT Cost Optimization Workbook. Refer to your organization's standards and norms for executive-level presentations and adapt accordingly.

    Download IT Cost Optimization Roadmap Samples and Templates

    Input Output
    • IT Cost Optimization Roadmap
    • IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Completed draft of the IT Cost Optimization Executive Presentation
    Materials Participants
    • IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • IT Cost Optimization Roadmap Samples and Templates
    • CIO/IT directors
    • IT financial lead
    • Other IT management

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Congratulations! You now have an IT cost optimization strategy and a communication plan.

    Throughout this blueprint, you have:

    1. Identified your IT mandate and cost optimization journey.
    2. Outlined your initiatives across the four levers (assets, vendors, project portfolio, and workforce).
    3. Put together a 12-month IT cost optimization roadmap.
    4. Developed a communication strategy and crafted an executive presentation - your initial step to communicate and discuss IT cost optimization initiatives with your key stakeholders.

    What's next?

    Communicate with your stakeholders, then follow your internal project policies and procedures to get the necessary approvals as required. Once obtained, you can start the execution and implementation of your IT cost optimization strategy.

    If you would like additional support, have our analysts guide you through other phases as part of an Info-Tech workshop.

    Contact your account representative for more information.

    workshops@infotech.com
    1-888-670-8889

    Research Contributors and Experts

    Jennifer Perrier, Principal Research Director, IT Financial Management

    Jennifer Perrier
    Principal Research Director, IT Financial Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Jack Hakimian, Senior Vice President, Research Development

    Jack Hakimian
    Senior Vice President, Research Development
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Graham Price, Senior Executive Counselor, Executive Services

    Graham Price
    Senior Executive Counselor, Executive Services
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Travis Duncan, Research Director, Project & Portfolio Management

    Travis Duncan
    Research Director, Project & Portfolio Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Dave Kish, Practice Lead, IT Financial Management

    Dave Kish
    Practice Lead, IT Financial Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Baird Miller, PhD, Senior Executive Advisor, Executive Services

    Baird Miller, PhD
    Senior Executive Advisor, Executive Services
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Other Research Contributors and Experts

    Monica Braun
    Research Director, IT Financial Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Sandi Conrad
    Principal Advisory Director, Infrastructure & Operations
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Phil Bode
    Principal Advisory Director, Vendor Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Donna Glidden
    Advisory Director, Vendor Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Barry Cousins
    Distinguished Analyst & Research Fellow
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Andrew Sharp
    Research Director, Infrastructure & Operations Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Frank Sewell
    Advisory Director, Vendor Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Achieve IT Spend & Staffing Transparency
    Most CIOs, CFOs, and business function leaders don't enjoy a shared vocabulary when it comes to talking about technology spend. As a result, truly meaningful conversations about where and how to spend technology funds in support of business goals are rare. Enable these important conversations by transparently mapping your IT spend data against four key stakeholder views.

    Reduce Shadow IT With a Service Request Catalog
    As the business gets more innovative to solve its problems, IT finds itself in reactive mode, dealing with software bloat, managing surprise SaaS renewals, and having to integrate products that they didn't know were purchased. To solve this, IT needs to focus on service and visibility to counter Shadow IT.

    Bibliography

    "A Short Guide to Structured Cost Reduction." National Audit Office, 18 June 2010. Web.

    "IT Cost Savings: A Guide to Application Rationalization." LeanIX, 2021. Web.

    Jouravlev, Roman. "Service Financial Management: ITIL 4 Practice Guide." Axelos, 30 April 2020. Web.

    Leinwand, Paul, and Vinay Couto. "How to Cut Costs More Strategically." Harvard Business Review, March 2017. Web.

    "Role & Influence of the Technology Decision-Maker 2022." Foundry, 2022. Web.

    "State of the CIO 2022." CIO, 2022. Web.

    "The Definitive Guide to IT Cost Optimization." LeanIX, n.d. Web.

    "Understand the Principles of Cost Optimization." Google Cloud, n.d. Web.

    Service Desk

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    The service desk is typically the first point of contact for clients and staff who need something. Make sure your team is engaged, involved, knowledgeable, and gives excellent customer service.

    Passwordless Authentication

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    • Stakeholders believe that passwords are still good enough.
    • You don’t know how the vendor products match to the capabilities you need to offer.
    • What do you need to test when you prototype these new technologies?
    • What associated processes/IT domains will be impacted or need to be considered?

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Passwordless is the right direction even if it’s not your final destination.

    Impact and Result

    • Be able to handle objections from those who believe passwords are still “fine.”
    • Prioritize the capabilities you need to offer the enterprise, and match them to products/features you can buy from vendors.
    • Integrate passwordless initiatives with other key functions (cloud, IDaM, app rationalization, etc.).

    Passwordless Authentication Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Passwordless Authentication – Know when you’ve been beaten!

    Back in 2004 we were promised "the end of passwords" – why, then, are we still struggling with them today?

    • Passwordless Authentication Storyboard
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Passwordless Authentication

    Know when you've been beaten!

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    • The IT world is an increasingly dangerous place.
    • Every year literally billions of credentials are compromised and exposed on the internet.
    • The average employee has between 27 and 191 passwords to manage.
    • The line between business persona and personal persona has been blurred into irrelevancy.
    • You need a method of authenticating users that is up to these challenges

    Common Obstacles

    • Legacy systems aside (wouldn't that be nice) this still won't be easy.
    • Social inertia – passwords worked before, so surely, they can still work today! Besides, users don't want to change.
    • Analysis paralysis – I don't want to get this wrong! How do I choose something that is going to be at the core of my infrastructure for the next 10 years?
    • Identity management – how can you fix authentication when people have multiple usernames?

    Info-Tech's Approach

    • Inaction is not an option.
    • Most commercial, off-the-shelf apps are moving to a SaaS model, so start your efforts with them.
    • Your existing vendors already have technologies you are underusing or ignoring – stop that!
    • Your users want this change – they just might not know it yet…
    • Much like zero trust network access, the journey is more important than the destination. Incremental steps on the path toward passwordless authentication will still yield significant benefits.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Users have been burdened with unrealistic expectations when it comes to their part in maintaining enterprise security. Given the massive rise in the threat landscape, it is time for Infrastructure to adopt a user-experience-based approach if we want to move the needle on improving security posture.

    Password Security Fallacy

    "If you buy the premise…you buy the bit."
    Johnny Carson

    We've had plenty of time to see this coming.

    Why haven't we done something?

    • Passwords are a 1970s construct.
    • End-users are complexity averse.
    • Credentials are leaked all the time.
    • New technologies will defeat even the most complex passwords.

    Build the case, both to business stakeholders and end users, that "password" is not a synonym for "security."

    Be ready for some objection handling!

    This is an image of Bill Gates and Gavin Jancke at the 2004 RSA Conference in San Francisco, CA

    Image courtesy of Microsoft

    RSA Conference, 2004
    San Francisco, CA

    "There is no doubt that over time, people are going to rely less and less on passwords. People use the same password on different systems, they write them down and they just don't meet the challenge for anything you really want to secure."
    Bill Gates

    What about "strong" passwords?

    There has been a password arms race going on since 1988

    A massive worm attack against ARPANET prompted the initial research into password strength

    Password strength can be expressed as a function of randomness or entropy. The greater the entropy the harder for an attacker to guess the password.

    This is an image of Table 1 from Google Cloud Solutions Architects.  it shows the number of bits of entropy for a number of Charsets.

    Table: Modern password security for users
    Ian Maddox and Kyle Moschetto, Google Cloud Solutions Architects

    From this research, increasing password complexity (length, special characters, etc.) became the "best practice" to secure critical systems.

    How many passwords??

    XKCD Comic #936 (published in 2011)

    This is an image of XKCD Comic # 936.

    Image courtesy of Randall Munroe XKCD Comics (CC BY-NC 2.5)

    It turns out that humans however are really bad at remembering complex passwords.

    An Intel study (2016) suggested that the average enterprise employee needed to remember 27 passwords. A more recent study from LastPass puts that number closer to 191.

    PEBKAC
    Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair

    Increasing entropy is the wrong way to fight this battle – which is good because we'd lose anyway.

    Over the course of a single year, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley identified and tracked nearly 2 billion compromised credentials.

    3.8 million were obtained via social engineering, another 788K from keyloggers. That's approx. 250,000 clear text credentials harvested every week!

    The entirety of the password ecosystem has significant vulnerabilities in multiple areas:

    • Unencrypted server- and client-side storage
    • Sharing
    • Reuse
    • Phishing
    • Keylogging
    • Question-based resets

    Even the 36M encrypted credentials compromised every week are just going to be stored and cracked later.

    Source: Google, University of California, Berkeley, International Computer Science Institute

     data-verified=22B hash/s">

    Image courtesy of NVIDIA, NVIDIA Grace

    • Current GPUs (2021) have 200+ times more cracking power than CPU systems.

    <8h 2040-bit RSA Key

    Image: IBM Quantum System One (CES 2020) by IBM Research is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

    • Quantum computing can smash current encryption methods.
    • Google engineers have demonstrated techniques that reduce the number of qubits required from 1B to a mere 20 million

    Enabling Technologies

    "Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world."
    Archimedes

    Technology gives us (too many) options

    The time to prototype is NOW!

    Chances are you are already paying for one or more of these technologies from a current vendor:

    • SSO, password managers
    • Conditional access
    • Multifactor
    • Hardware tokens
    • Biometrics
    • PINs

    Address all three factors of authentication

    • Something the user knows
    • Something the user has
    • Something the user is

    Global Market of $12.8B
    ~16.7% CAGR
    Source: Report Linker, 2022.

    Focus your prototype efforts in four key testing areas

    • Deployment
    • User adoption/training
    • Architecture (points of failure)
    • Disaster recovery

    Three factors for positive identification

    Passwordless technologies focus on alternate authentication factors to supplement or replace shared secrets.

    Knows: A secret shared between the user and the system; Has: A token possessed by the user and identifiable as unique by the system; Is: A distinctive and repeatable attribute of the user sampled by the system

    Something you know

    Shared secrets have well-known significant modern-day problems, but only when used in isolation. For end users, consider time-limited single use options, password managers, rate-limited login attempts, and reset rather than retrieval requests. On the system side, never forget strong cryptographic hashing along with a side of salt and pepper when storing passwords.

    Something you have

    A token (now known as a cryptographic identification device) such as a pass card, fob, smartphone, or USB key that is expected to be physically under the control of the user and is uniquely identifiable by the system. Easily decoupled in the event the token is lost, but potentially expensive and time-consuming to reprovision.

    Something you are or do

    Commonly referred to as biometrics, there are two primary classes. The first is measurable physical characteristics of the user such as a fingerprint, facial image, or retinal scan. The second class is a series of behavioral traits such as expected location, time of day, or device. These traits can be linked together in a conditional access policy.

    Unlike other authentication factors, biometrics DO NOT provide for exact matches and instead rely on a confidence interval. A balance must be struck against the user experience of false negatives and the security risk of a false positive.

    Prototype testing criteria

    Deployment

    Does the solution support the full variety of end-user devices you have in use?

    Can the solution be configured with your existing single sign-on or central identity broker?

    User Experience

    Users already want a better experience than passwords.

    What new behavior are you expecting (compelling) from the user?

    How often and under what conditions will that behavior occur?

    Architecture

    Where are the points of failure in the solution?

    Consider technical elements like session thresholds for reauthorization, but also elements like automation and self-service.

    Disaster Recovery

    Understand the exact responsibilities Infra&Ops have in the event of a system or user failure.

    As many solutions are based in the public cloud, manage stakeholder expectations accordingly.

    Next Steps

    "Move the goalposts…and declare victory."
    Informal Fallacy (yet very effective…)

    It is more a direction than a destination…

    Get the easy wins in the bank and then lay the groundwork for the long campaign ahead.

    You're not going to get to a passwordless world overnight. You might not even get there for many years. But an agile approach to the journey ensures you will realize value every step of the way:

    • Start in the cloud:
    • Choose a single sign-on platform such as Azure Active Directory, Okta, Auth0, AWS IAM, TruSONA, HYPR, or others. Document Your Cloud Strategy.
    • Integrate the SaaS applications from your portfolio with your chosen platform.
    • Establish visibility and rationalize identity management:
      • Accounts with elevated privileges present the most risk – evaluate your authentication factors for these accounts first.
      • There is elegance (and deployment success) in Simplifying Identity & Access Management.
    • Pay your tech debt:

    Fast IDentity Online (2) is now part of the web's DNA and is critical for digital transformation

    • IoT
    • Anywhere remote work
    • Government identity services
    • Digital wallets

    Bibliography

    "Backup Vs. Archiving: Know the Difference." Open-E. Accessed 05 Mar 2022.Web.
    G, Denis. "How to Build Retention Policy." MSP360, Jan 3, 2020. Accessed 10 Mar 2022.
    Ipsen, Adam. "Archive Vs. Backup: What's the Difference? A Definition Guide." BackupAssist, 28 Mar 2017. Accessed 04 Mar 2022.
    Kang, Soo. "Mitigating the Expense of E-Discovery; Recognizing the Difference Between Back-Ups and Archived Data." Zasio Enterprises, 08 Oct 2015. Accessed 3 Mar 2022.
    Mayer, Alex. "The 3-2-1 Backup Rule – An Efficient Data Protection Strategy." Naviko. Accessed 12 Mar 2022.
    Steel, Amber. "LastPass Reveals 8 Truths about Passwords in the New Password Exposé." LastPass Blog, 1 Nov. 2017. Web.
    "The Global Passwordless Authentication Market Size Is Estimated to Be USD 12.79 Billion in 2021 and Is Predicted to Reach USD 53.64 Billion by 2030 With a CAGR of 16.7% From 2022-2030." Report Linker, 9 June 2022. Web.
    "What Is Data-Archiving?" Proofpoint. Accessed 07 Mar 2022.

    Identify the Components of Your Cloud Security Architecture

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    • Parent Category Name: Security Strategy & Budgeting
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    • Leveraging the cloud introduces IT professionals to a new world that they are tasked with securing. Consumers do not know what security services they need and when to implement them.
    • With many cloud vendors proposing to share the security responsibility, it can be a challenge for organizations to develop a clear understanding of how they can best secure their data off premises.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Your cloud security architecture needs to be strategic, realistic, and based on risk. The NIST approach to cloud security is to include everything security into your cloud architecture to be deemed secure. However, you can still have a robust and secure cloud architecture by using a risk-based approach to identify the necessary controls and mitigating services for your environment.
    • The cloud is not the right choice for everyone. You’re not as unique as you think. Start with a reference model that is based on your risks and business attributes and optimize it from there.
    • Your responsibility doesn’t end at the vendor. Even if you outsource your security services to your vendors, you will still have security responsibilities to address.
    • Don’t boil the ocean; do what is realistic for your enterprise. Your cloud security architecture should be based on securing your most critical assets. Use our reference model to determine a launch point.
    • A successful strategy is holistic. Controlling for cloud risks comes from knowing what the risks are. Consider the full spectrum of security, including both processes and technologies.

    Impact and Result

    • The business is adopting a cloud environment and it must be secured, which includes:
      • Ensuring business data cannot be leaked or stolen.
      • Maintaining the privacy of data and other information.
      • Securing the network connection points.
      • Knowing the risks associated with the cloud and mitigating those risks with the appropriate services.
    • This blueprint and associated tools are scalable for all types of organizations within various industry sectors. It allows them to know what types of risk they are facing and what security services are strongly recommended to mitigate those risks.

    Identify the Components of Your Cloud Security Architecture Research & Tools

    Start Here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should create a cloud security architecture with security at the forefront, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Cloud security alignment analysis

    Explore how the cloud changes and whether your enterprise is ready for the shift to the cloud.

    • Identify the Components of Your Cloud Security Architecture – Phase 1: Cloud Security Alignment Analysis
    • Cloud Security Architecture Workbook

    2. Business-critical workload analysis

    Analyze the workloads that will migrated to the cloud. Consider the various domains of security in the cloud, considering the cloud’s unique risks and challenges as they pertain to your workloads.

    • Identify the Components of Your Cloud Security Architecture – Phase 2: Business-Critical Workload Analysis

    3. Cloud security architecture mapping

    Map your risks to services in a reference model from which to build a robust launch point for your architecture.

    • Identify the Components of Your Cloud Security Architecture – Phase 3: Cloud Security Architecture Mapping
    • Cloud Security Architecture Archive Document
    • Cloud Security Architecture Reference Model (Visio)
    • Cloud Security Architecture Reference Model (PDF)

    4. Cloud security strategy planning

    Map your risks to services in a reference architecture to build a robust roadmap from.

    • Identify the Components of Your Cloud Security Architecture – Phase 4: Cloud Security Strategy Planning
    • Cloud Security Architecture Communication Deck

    Infographic

    Workshop: Identify the Components of Your Cloud Security Architecture

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Cloud Security Alignment Analysis

    The Purpose

    Understand your suitability and associated risks with your workloads as they are deployed into the cloud.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An understanding of the organization’s readiness and optimal service level for cloud security.

    Activities

    1.1 Workload Deployment Plan

    1.2 Cloud Suitability Questionnaire

    1.3 Cloud Risk Assessment

    1.4 Cloud Suitability Analysis

    Outputs

    Workload deployment plan

    Determined the suitability of the cloud for your workloads

    Risk assessment of the associated workloads

    Overview of cloud suitability

    2 Business-Critical Workload Analysis

    The Purpose

    Explore your business-critical workloads and the associated controls and mitigating services to secure them.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Address NIST 800-53 security controls and the appropriate security services that can mitigate the risks appropriately.

    Activities

    2.1 “A” Environment Analysis

    2.2 “B” Environment Analysis

    2.3 “C” Environment Analysis

    2.4 Prioritized Security Controls

    2.5 Effort and Risk Dashboard Overview

    Outputs

    NIST 800-53 control mappings and relevancy

    NIST 800-53 control mappings and relevancy

    NIST 800-53 control mappings and relevancy

    Prioritized security controls based on risk and environmental makeup

    Mitigating security services for controls

    Effort and Risk Dashboard

    3 Cloud Security Architecture Mapping

    The Purpose

    Identify security services to mitigate challenges posed by the cloud in various areas of security.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Comprehensive list of security services, and their applicability to your network environment. Documentation of your “current” state of cloud security.

    Activities

    3.1 Cloud Security Control Mapping

    3.2 Cloud Security Architecture Reference Model Mapping

    Outputs

    1. Cloud Security Architecture Archive Document to codify and document each of the associated controls and their risk levels to security services

    2. Mapping of the codified controls onto Info-Tech’s Cloud Security Architecture Reference Model for clear security prioritization

    4 Cloud Security Strategy Planning

    The Purpose

    Prepare a communication deck for executive stakeholders to socialize them to the state of your cloud security initiatives and where you still have to go.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A roadmap for improving security in the cloud.

    Activities

    4.1 Cloud Security Strategy Considerations

    4.2 Cloud Security Architecture Communication Deck

    Outputs

    Consider the additional security considerations of the cloud for preparation in the communication deck.

    Codify all your results into an easily communicable communication deck with a clear pathway for progression and implementation of security services to mitigate cloud risks.

    External Compliance

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    • Parent Category Name: Security and Risk
    • Parent Category Link: /security-and-risk
    Take Control of Compliance Improvement to Conquer Every Audit

    Make the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis

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    • Parent Category Name: Requirements & Design
    • Parent Category Link: /requirements-and-design
    • It can be difficult to secure alignment between the many lines of business, IT included, in your organization.
    • Historically, we have drawn a dividing line between IT and "the business.”
    • The reality of organizational politics and stakeholder bias means that, with selection and prioritization, sometimes the highest value option is dismissed to make way for the loudest voice’s option.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Enterprise business analysis can help you stop the debate between IT and “the business,” as it sees everyone as part of the business. It can effectively break down silos, support the development of holistic strategies to address internal and external risks, and remove the bias and politics in decision making all too common in organizations.
    • The business analyst is the only role that can connect the strategic with the tactical, the systems, and the operations and do so objectively. It is the one source to show how people, process, and technology connect and relate, and the most skilled can remove bias and politics from their lens of view.
    • Maturity can’t be rushed. Build your enterprise business analysis program on a solid foundation of leading and consistent business analysis practices to secure buy-in and have a program that is sustainable in the long term.

    Impact and Result

    Let’s make the case for enterprise business analysis!

    • Organizations that have higher business analysis maturity and deploy enterprise analysis deliver better quality outcomes, with higher value, lower cost, and higher user satisfaction.
    • Business analysts should be contributing at the strategic level, as they need to understand multiple horizons simultaneously and be able to zoom in and out as the context calls for it. Business analysts aren’t only for projects.

    Make the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Make the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis Storyboard – Take your business analysis from tactics to strategy.

    • Make the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis Storyboard

    2. Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis Template – Make the case for enterprise business analysis.

    • Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Make the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis

    Putting the strategic and tactical puzzle together.

    Analyst Perspective

    We commonly recognize the value of effective business analysis at a project or tactical level. A good business analysis professional can support the business by identifying its needs and recommending solutions to address them.
    Now, wouldn't it be great if we could do the same thing at a higher level?
    Enterprise (or strategic) business analysis is all about seeing that bigger picture, an approach that makes any business analysis professional a highly valuable contributor to their organization. It focuses on the enterprise, not a specific project or line of business.
    Leading the business analysis effort at an enterprise level ensures that your business is not only doing things right, but also doing the right things; aligned with the strategic vision of your organization to improve the way decisions are made, options are analyzed, and successful results are realized.

    Vincent Mirabelli

    Vincent Mirabelli
    Principal Research Director, Applications Delivery and Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    • Difficulty properly aligning between the many lines of business in your organization.
    • Historically, we have drawn a dividing line between IT and the business.
    • The reality of organizational politics and stakeholder bias means that, with selection and prioritization, sometimes the highest value option is dismissed in favor of the loudest voice.

    Common Obstacles

    • Difficulty aligning an ever-changing backlog of projects, products, and services while simultaneously managing risks, external threats, and stakeholder expectations.
    • Many organizations have never heard of enterprise business analysis and only see the importance of business analysts at the project and delivery level.
    • Business analysis professionals rarely do enough to advocate for a seat at the strategic tables in their organizations.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    Let's make the case for enterprise business analysis!

    • Organizations that have higher business analysis maturity and deploy enterprise business analysis deliver better quality outcomes with higher value, lower cost, and higher user satisfaction.
    • Business analysts aren't only for projects. They should contribute at the strategic level, since they need to understand multiple horizons simultaneously and be able to zoom in and out as the context requires.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Enterprise business analysis can help you reframe the debate between IT and the business, since it sees everyone as part of the business. It can effectively break down silos, support the development of holistic strategies to address internal and external risks, and remove bias and politics from decision making.

    Phase 1

    Build the case for enterprise business analysis

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    1.1 Define enterprise business analysis

    1.2 Identify your pains and opportunities

    2.1 Set your vision

    2.2 Define your roadmap and next steps

    2.3 Complete your executive communications deck

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • 1.1.1 Discuss how business analysis is used in our organization
    • 1.1.2 Discuss your disconnects between strategy and tactics
    • 1.2.1 Identify your pains and opportunities

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    How business analysis supports our success today

    Delivering value at the tactical level

    Effective business analysis helps guide an organization through improvements to processes, products, and services. Business analysts "straddle the line between IT and the business to help bridge the gap and improve efficiency" in an organization (CIO, 2019).
    They are most heavily involved in:

    • Defining needs
    • Modeling concepts, processes, and solutions
    • Conducting analysis
    • Maintaining and managing requirements
    • Managing stakeholders
    • Monitoring progress
    • Doing business analysis planning
    • Conducting elicitation

    In a survey, business analysts indicated that of their total working time, they spend 31% performing business analysis planning and 41% performing elicitation and analysis (PMI, 2017).

    By including a business analyst in a project, organizations benefit by:
    (IAG, 2009)

    87%

    Reduced time overspending

    75%

    Prevented budget overspending

    78%

    Reduction in missed functionality

    1.1.1 Discuss how business analysis is used in your organization

    15-30 minutes

    1. Gather the appropriate stakeholders to discuss their knowledge, experience, and perspectives on business analysis. This should relate to their experience and not a future or aspirational usage.
    2. Have a team member facilitate the session.
    3. Brainstorm and document all shared thoughts and perspectives.
    4. Synthesize those thoughts and perspectives and record the results for the group to review and discuss.
    5. Transfer the results to the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Input

    • Stakeholder knowledge and experience

    Output

    • A shared understanding of how your organization leverages its business analysis function

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip charts
    • Collaborative whiteboard
    • Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Participants

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Executives and leadership are satisfied with IT when there is alignment between tactics and goals

    Info-Tech's CIO Business Vision Survey data highlights the importance of IT projects in supporting the business to achieve its strategic goals.

    However, Info-Tech's CEO-CIO Alignment Survey (N=124) data indicates that CEOs perceive IT as poorly aligned with the business' strategic goals.

    Info-Tech's CIO-CEO Alignment Diagnostics

    43%

    of CEOs believe that business goals are going unsupported by IT.

    60%

    of CEOs believe that IT must improve understanding of business goals.

    80%

    of CIOs/CEOs are misaligned on the target role of IT.

    30%

    of business stakeholders support their IT departments.

    Addressing problems solely with tactics does not always have the desired effect

    94%

    Source: "Out of the Crisis", Deming (via Harvard Business Review)

    According to famed management and quality thought leader and pioneer W. Edwards Deming, 94% of issues in the workplace are systemic cause significant organizational pain.

    Yet we continue to address them on the surface, rather than acknowledge how ingrained they are in our culture, systems, and processes.

    For example, we:

    • Create workarounds to address process and solution constraints
    • Expect that poor (or lack of ) leadership can be addressed in a course or seminar
    • Expect that "going Agile" will resolve our problems, and that decision making, governance, and organizational alignment will happen organically.

    Band-aid solutions rarely have the desired effect, particularly in the long-term.

    Our solutions should likewise focus on the systemic/macro environment. We can do this via projects, products and services, but those don't always address the larger issues.

    If we take the work our business analysis currently does in defining needs and solutions, and elevate this to the strategic level, the results can be impactful.

    Many organizations would benefit from enhancing their business analysis maturity

    The often-overlooked strategic value of the role comes with maturing your practices.

    Only 18% of organizations have mature (optimized or established) business analysis practices.

    With that higher level of maturity comes increased levels of capability, efficiency, and effectiveness in delivering value to people, processes, and technology. Through such efforts, they're better equipped and able to connect the strategy of their organization to the projects, processes, and products they deliver.

    They shift focus from "figuring business analysis out" to truly unleashing its potential, with business analysts contributing in strategic and tactical ways.

    an image showing the following data: Optimized- 5; Established- 13; Improving- 37; Starting- 25; Ad hoc- 21

    (Adapted from PMI, 2017)

    Info-Tech Insight

    Business analysts are best suited to connect the strategic with the tactical, the systems, and the operations. They maintain the most objective lens regarding how people, process, and technology connect and relate, and the most skilled of them can remove bias and politics from their perspective.

    1.1.2 Discuss your disconnects between strategy and tactics

    30-60 minutes

      1. Gather the appropriate stakeholders to discuss their knowledge, experience, and perspectives regarding failures that resulted from disconnects between strategy and tactics.
      2. Have a team member facilitate the session.
      3. Brainstorm and document all shared thoughts and perspectives.
      4. Synthesize those thoughts and perspectives and record the results.
      5. Transfer the results to the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template.

    Input

    • Stakeholder knowledge and experience

    Output

    • A shared understanding and list of failures due to disconnects between strategy and tactics

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip charts
    • Collaborative whiteboard
    • Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Participants

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Defining enterprise business analysis

    Terms may change, but the function remains the same.

    Enterprise business analysis (sometimes referred to as strategy analysis) "…focuses on defining the future and transition states needed to address the business need, and the work required is defined both by that need and the scope of the solution space. It covers strategic thinking in business analysis, as well as the discovery or imagining of possible solutions that will enable the enterprise to create greater value for stakeholders and/or capture more value for itself."
    (Source: "Business Analysis Body of Knowledge," v3)

    Define the function of enterprise business analysis

    This is a competitive advantage for mature organizations.

    Organizations with high-performing business analysis programs experience an enhanced alignment between strategy and operations. This contributes to improved organizational performance. We see this in financial (69% vs. 45%) and strategic performance (66% vs. 21%), also organizational agility (40% vs. 14%) and management of operational projects (62% vs. 29%). (PMI, 2017)

    When comparing enterprise with traditional business analysis, we see stark differences in the size and scope of their view, where they operate, and the role they play in organizational decision making.

    Enterprise Traditional
    Decision making Guides and influences Executes
    Time horizon 2-10 years 0-2 years
    Focus Strategy, connecting the strategic to the operational Operational, optimizing how business is done, and keeping the lights on
    Domain

    Whole organization

    Broader marketplace

    Only stakeholder lines of business relevant to the current project, product or service
    Organizational Level Executive/Leadership Project

    (Adapted from Schulich School of Business)

    Info-Tech Insight

    Maturity can't be rushed. Build your enterprise business analysis program on a solid foundation of leading and consistent business analysis practices to secure buy-in and have a program that is sustainable in the long term.

    An image showing the percentages of high- and low- maturity organizations, for the following categories: Financial performance; Strategy implementation; Organizational agility; Management of projects.

    (Adapted from PMI, 2017)

    How enterprise business analysis is used to improve organizations

    The biggest sources of project failure include:

    • Wrong (or poor) requirements
    • Unrealistic (or incomplete) business case
    • Lack of appropriate governance and oversight
    • Poor implementation
    • Poor benefits management
    • Environmental changes

    Source: MindTools.com, 2023.

    Enterprise business analysis addresses these sources and more.

    It brings a holistic view of the organization, improving collaboration and decision making across the many lines of business, effectively breaking down silos.

    In addition to ensuring we're doing the right things, not just doing things right in the form of improved requirements and more accurate business cases, or ensuring return on investment (ROI) and monitoring the broader landscape, enterprise business analysis also supports:

    • Reduced rework and waste
    • Understanding and improving operations
    • Making well-informed decisions through improved objectivity/reduced bias
    • Identifying new opportunities for growth and expansion
    • Identifying and mitigating risk
    • Eliminating projects and initiatives that do not support organizational goals or objectives
    • A career-pathing option for business analysts

    Identify your pains and opportunities

    There are many considerations in enterprise business analysis.

    Pains, gains, threats, and opportunities can come at your organization from anywhere. Be it a new product launch, an international expansion, or a new competitor, it can be challenging to keep up.

    This is where an enterprise business analyst can be the most helpful.

    By keeping a pulse on the external and internal environments, they can support growth, manage risks, and view your organization through multiple lenses and perspectives to get a single, complete picture.

    External

    Internal

    Identifying competitive forces

    In the global environment

    Organizational strengths and weaknesses

    • Monitoring and maintaining your competitive advantage.
    • Understanding trends, risks and threats in your business domain, and how they affect your organization.
    • Benchmarking performance against like and unlike organizations, to realize where you stand and set a baseline for continuous improvement and business development.
    • Leveraging tools and techniques to scan the broader landscape on an ongoing basis. Using PESTLE analysis, they can monitor the political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors that impact when, where, how, and with who you conduct your business and IT operations.
    • Supporting alignment between a portfolio or program of projects and initiatives.
    • Improving alignment between the various lines of business, who often lack full visibility outside of their silo, and can find themselves clashing over time, resources, and attention from leaders.
    • Improving solutions and outcomes through objective option selection.

    1.2.1 Identify your pains and opportunities

    30-60 minutes

    1. As a group, generate a list of the current pains and opportunities facing your organization. You can focus on a particular type (competitive, market, or internal) or leave it open. You can also focus on pains or opportunities separately, or simultaneously.
    2. Have a team member facilitate the session.
    3. Record the results for the group to review, discuss, and prioritize.
      1. Discuss the impact and likelihood of each item. This can be formally ranked and quantified if there is data to support the item or leveraging the wisdom of the group.
      2. Prioritize the top three to five items of each type, as agreed by the group, and document the results.
    4. Transfer the results to the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template.

    Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Input

    • Attendee knowledge
    • Supporting data, if available

    Output

    • A list of identified organizational pains and opportunities that has been prioritized by the group

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip charts
    • Collaborative whiteboard
    • Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Participants

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    Phase 2

    Prepare the foundations for your enterprise business analysis program

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    1.1 Define enterprise business analysis

    1.2 Identify your pains and opportunities

    2.1 Set your vision

    2.2 Define your roadmap and next steps

    2.3 Complete your executive communications deck

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • 2.1.1 Define your vision and goals
    • 2.1.2 Identify your enterprise business analysis inventory
    • 2.2.1 Now, Next, Later

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    Set your vision

    Your vision becomes your "north star," guiding your journey and decisions.

    When thinking about a vision statement for enterprise business analysis, think about:

    • Who are we doing this for? Who will benefit?
    • What do our business partners need? What do our customers need?
    • What value do we provide them? How can we best support them?
    • Why is this special/different from how we usually do business?

    Always remember: Your goal is not your vision!

    Not knowing the difference will prevent you from both dreaming big and achieving your dream.

    Your vision represents where you want to go. It's what you want to do.

    Your goals represent how you want to achieve your vision.

    • They are a key element of operationalizing your vision.
    • Your strategy, initiatives, and features will align with one or more goals.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Your vision shouldn't be so far out that it doesn't feel real, nor so short term that it gets bogged down in details. Finding balance will take some trial and error and will be different depending on your organization.

    2.1.1 Define your vision and goals

    1-2 hours

    1. Gather the appropriate stakeholders to discuss their vision for enterprise business analysis. It should address the questions used in framing your vision statement.
    2. Have a team member facilitate the session.
    3. Review your current organizational vision and goals.
    4. Discuss and document all shared thoughts and perspectives on how enterprise business analysis can align with the organizational vision.
    5. Synthesize those thoughts and perspectives to create a vision statement.
    6. Transfer the results to the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template.

    Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Input

    • Stakeholder vision, knowledge, and experience
    • Current organizational vision and goals

    Output

    • A documented vision and goals for your enterprise business analysis program

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip charts
    • Collaborative whiteboard
    • Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Participants

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    Components of successful enterprise business analysis programs

    Ensure you're off to the best start by examining where you are and where you want to go.

    Training

    • Do the current team members have the right level of training?
    • Can we easily obtain training to close any gaps?

    Competencies and capabilities

    • Do our business analysts have the right skills, attributes, and behaviors to be successful?

    Structure and alignment

    • Would the organizational culture support enterprise business analysis (EBA)?
    • How might we structure the EBA unit to maximize effectiveness?
    • How can we best support the organization's goals and objectives?

    Methods and processes

    • How do we plan on managing the work to be done?
    • Can we define our processes and workflows?

    Tools, techniques, and templates

    • Do we have the most effective tools, techniques, and templates?

    Governance

    • How will we make decisions?
    • How will the program be managed?

    2.1.2 Identify your enterprise business analysis inventory

    30-60 minutes

    1. Gather the appropriate stakeholders to discuss the current business analysis assets, which could be leveraged for enterprise business analysis. This includes people, processes, and technologies which cover skills, knowledge, resources, experience, knowledge, and competencies. Focus on what the organization currently has, and not what it needs.
    2. Have a team member facilitate the session.
    3. Record the results for the group to review and discuss.
    4. Transfer the results to the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template.

    Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Input

    • Your current business analysis assets and resources Stakeholder knowledge and experience

    Output

    • A list of assets and resources to enable enterprise business analysis

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip charts
    • Collaborative whiteboard
    • Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Participants

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    Define your roadmap and next steps

    What do we have? What do we need?

    From completing the enterprise business analysis inventory, you will have a comprehensive list of all available assets.

    The next question is, how can this be leveraged to start building for the future?

    To operationalize enterprise business analysis, consider:

    • What do we still need to do?
    • How important are the identified gaps? Can we still operate?
    • What decisions do we need to make?
    • What stakeholders do we need to involve? Have we engaged them all?

    Lay out your roadmap

    Taking steps to mature your enterprise business analysis practice.

    The Now, Next, Later technique is a method for prioritizing and planning improvements or tasks. This involves breaking down a list of tasks or improvements into three categories:

    • Now tasks are those that must be completed immediately. These tasks are usually urgent or critical, and they must be completed to keep the project or organization running smoothly.
    • Next tasks are those that should be completed soon. These tasks are not as critical as Now tasks, but they are still important and should be tackled relatively soon.
    • Later tasks are those that can be completed later. These tasks are less critical and can be deferred without causing major problems.

    By using this technique, you can prioritize and plan the most important tasks, while allowing the flexibility to adjust as necessary.

    This technique also helps clarify what must be done first vs. what can wait. This prioritizes the most important things while keeping track of what must be done next, maintaining a smooth development/improvement process.

    An image of the now - next - later roadmap technique.

    2.2.1 Now, Next, Later

    1-2 hours

    1. Use the list of items created in 2.1.2 (Identify your enterprise business analysis inventory). Add any you feel are missing during this exercise.
    2. Have a team member facilitate the session.
    3. In the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template, categorize these items according to Now, Next and Later, where:
      1. Now = Critically important items that may require little effort to complete. These must be done within the next six months.
      2. Next = Important items that may require more effort or depend on other factors. These must be done in six to twelve months.
      3. Later = Less important items that may require significant effort to complete. These must be done at some point within twelve months.

    Ultimately, the choice of priority and timing is yours. Recognize that items may change categories as new information arises.

    Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Input

    • Your enterprise business analysis inventory and gaps
    • Stakeholder knowledge and experience

    Output

    • A prioritized list of items to enable enterprise business analysis

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip charts
    • Collaborative whiteboard
    • Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Participants

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    2.3 Complete your executive communication deck

    Use the results of your completed exercises to build your executive communication slide deck, to make the case for enterprise business analysis

    Slide Header Associated Exercise Rationale
    Pains and opportunities

    1.1.2 Discuss your disconnects between strategy and tactics

    1.2.1 Identify your pains and opportunities

    This helps build the case for enterprise business analysis (EBA), leveraging the existing pains felt in the organization. This will draw the connection for your stakeholders.
    Our vision and goals 2.1.1 Define your vision and goals Defines where you want to go and what effort will be required.
    What is enterprise business analysis

    1.1.1 How is BA being used in our organization today?
    Pre-populated supporting content

    Defines the discipline of EBA and how it can support and mature your organization.
    Expected benefits Pre-populated supporting content What's in it for us? This section helps answer that question. What benefits can we expect, and is this worth the investment of time and effort?
    Making this a reality 2.1.2 Identify your EBA inventory Identifies what the organization presently has that makes the effort easier. It doesn't feel as daunting if there are existing people, processes, and technologies in place and in use today.
    Next steps 2.2.1 Now, Next, Later A prioritized list of action items. This will demonstrate the work involved, but broken down over time, into smaller, more manageable pieces.

    Track metrics

    Track metrics throughout the project to keep stakeholders informed.

    As the project nears completion:

    1. You will have better-aligned and more satisfied stakeholders.
    2. You will see fewer projects and initiatives that don't align with the organizational goals and objectives.
    3. There will be a reduction in costs attributed to misaligned projects and initiatives (as mentioned in #2) and the opportunity to allocate valuable time and resources to other, higher-value work.
    Metric Description Target Improvement/Reduction
    Improved stakeholder satisfaction Lines of business and previously siloed departments/divisions will be more satisfied with time spent on solution involvement and outcomes. 10% year 1, 20% year 2
    Reduction in misaligned/non-priority project work Reduction in projects, products, and services with no clear alignment to organizational goals. With that, resource costs can be allocated to other, higher-value solutions. 10% year 1, 25% year 2
    Improved delivery agility/lead time With improved alignment comes reduced conflict and political infighting. As a result, the velocity of solution delivery will increase. 10%

    Bibliography

    Bossert, Oliver and Björn Münstermann. "Business's 'It's not my problem' IT problem." McKinsey Digital. 30 March, 2023.
    Brule, Glenn R. "The Lay of the Land: Enterprise Analysis." Modern Analyst.
    "Business Analysis: Leading Organizations to Better Outcomes." Project Management Institute (PMI), 2017
    Corporate Finance Institute. "Strategic Analysis." Updated 14 March 2023
    IAG Consulting. Business Analysis Benchmark Report, 2009.
    International Institute of Business Analysis. "A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge" (BABOK Guide) version 3.
    Mirabelli, Vincent. "Business Analysis Foundations: Enterprise" LinkedIn Learning, February 2022.
    - - "Essential Techniques in Enterprise Analysis" LinkedIn Learning, September 2022.
    - - "The Essentials of Enterprise Analysis" Love the Process Academy. May 2020.
    - - "The Value of Enterprise Analysis." VincentMirabelli.com
    Praslova, Ludmila N. "Today's Most Critical Workplace Challenges Are About Systems." Harvard Business Review. 10 January 2023.
    Pratt, Mary K. and Sarah K. White. "What is a business analyst? A key role for business-IT efficiency." CIO. 17 April, 2019.
    Project Management Institute. "Business Analysis: Leading Organizations to Better Outcomes." October 2017.
    Sali, Sema. "The Importance of Strategic Business Analysis in Successful Project Outcomes." International Institute of Business Analysis. 26 May 2022.
    - - "What Does Enterprise Analysis Look Like? Objectives and Key Results." International Institute of Business Analysis. 02 June 2022.
    Shaker, Kareem. "Why do projects really fail?" Project Management Institute, PM Network. July 2010.
    "Strategic Analysis: Definition, Types and Benefits" Voxco. 25 February 2022.
    "The Difference Between Enterprise Analysis and Business Analysis." Schulich School of Business, Executive Education Center. 24 September 2018 (Updated June 2022)
    "Why Do Projects Fail: Learning How to Avoid Project Failure." MindTools.com. Accessed 24 April 2023.

    Streamline Application Maintenance

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    • Parent Category Name: Maintenance
    • Parent Category Link: /maintenance
    • Application maintenance teams are accountable for the various requests and incidents coming from a variety business and technical sources. The sheer volume and variety of requests create unmanageable backlogs.
    • The increasing complexity and reliance on technology within the business has set unrealistic expectations on maintenance teams. Stakeholders expect teams to accommodate maintenance without impact on project schedules.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Improving maintenance’s focus and attention may mean doing less but more valuable work. Teams need to be realistic about what can be committed and be prepared to justify why certain requests have to be pushed down the backlog (e.g. lack of business value, high risks).
    • Maintenance must be treated like any other development activity. The same intake and prioritization practices and quality standards must be upheld, and best practices followed.

    Impact and Result

    • Justify the necessity of streamlined maintenance. Gain a grounded understanding of stakeholder objectives and concerns, and validate their achievability against the current state of the people, process, and technologies involved in application maintenance.
    • Strengthen triaging and prioritization practices. Obtain a holistic picture of the business and technical impacts, risks, and urgencies of each accepted maintenance requests in order to justify its prioritization and relevance within your backlog. Identify opportunities to bundle requests together or integrate them within project commitments to ensure completion.
    • Establish and govern a repeatable process. Develop a maintenance process with well-defined stage gates, quality controls, and roles and responsibilities, and instill development best practices to improve the success of delivery.

    Streamline Application Maintenance Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our Executive Brief to understand the common struggles found in application maintenance, their root causes, and the Info-Tech methodology to overcoming these hurdles.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Understand your maintenance priorities

    Understand the stakeholder priorities driving changes in your application maintenance practice.

    • Streamline Application Maintenance – Phase 1: Assess the Current Maintenance Landscape
    • Application Maintenance Operating Model Template
    • Application Maintenance Resource Capacity Assessment
    • Application Maintenance Maturity Assessment

    2. Instill maintenance governance

    Identify the appropriate level of governance and enforcement to ensure accountability and quality standards are upheld across maintenance practices.

    • Streamline Application Maintenance – Phase 2: Develop a Maintenance Release Schedule

    3. Enhance triaging and prioritization practices

    Build a maintenance triage and prioritization scheme that accommodates business and IT risks and urgencies.

    • Streamline Application Maintenance – Phase 3: Optimize Maintenance Capabilities

    4. Streamline maintenance delivery

    Define and enforce quality standards in maintenance activities and build a high degree of transparency to readily address delivery challenges.

    • Streamline Application Maintenance – Phase 4: Streamline Maintenance Delivery
    • Application Maintenance Business Case Presentation Document
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Streamline Application Maintenance

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Understand Your Maintenance Priorities

    The Purpose

    Understand the business and IT stakeholder priorities driving the success of your application maintenance practice.

    Understand any current issues that are affecting your maintenance practice.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Awareness of business and IT priorities.

    An understanding of the maturity of your maintenance practices and identification of issues to alleviate.

    Activities

    1.1 Define priorities for enhanced maintenance practices.

    1.2 Conduct a current state assessment of your application maintenance practices.

    Outputs

    List of business and technical priorities

    List of the root-cause issues, constraints, and opportunities of current maintenance practice

    2 Instill Maintenance Governance

    The Purpose

    Define the processes, roles, and points of communication across all maintenance activities.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An in-depth understanding of all maintenance activities and what they require to function effectively.

    Activities

    2.1 Modify your maintenance process.

    2.2 Define your maintenance roles and responsibilities.

    Outputs

    Application maintenance process flow

    List of metrics to gauge success

    Maintenance roles and responsibilities

    Maintenance communication flow

    3 Enhance Triaging and Prioritization Practices

    The Purpose

    Understand in greater detail the process and people involved in receiving and triaging a request.

    Define your criteria for value, impact, and urgency, and understand how these fit into a prioritization scheme.

    Understand backlog management and release planning tactics to accommodate maintenance.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An understanding of the stakeholders needed to assess and approve requests.

    The criteria used to build a tailored prioritization scheme.

    Tactics for efficient use of resources and ideal timing of the delivery of changes.

    A process that ensures maintenance teams are always working on tasks that are valuable to the business.

    Activities

    3.1 Review your maintenance intake process.

    3.2 Define a request prioritization scheme.

    3.3 Create a set of practices to manage your backlog and release plans.

    Outputs

    Understanding of the maintenance request intake process

    Approach to assess the impact, urgency, and severity of requests for prioritization

    List of backlog management grooming and release planning practices

    4 Streamline Maintenance Delivery

    The Purpose

    Understand how to apply development best practices and quality standards to application maintenance.

    Learn the methods for monitoring and visualizing maintenance work.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An understanding of quality standards and the scenarios for where they apply.

    The tactics to monitor and visualize maintenance work.

    Streamlined maintenance delivery process with best practices.

    Activities

    4.1 Define approach to monitor maintenance work.

    4.2 Define application quality attributes.

    4.3 Discuss best practices to enhance maintenance development and deployment.

    Outputs

    Taskboard structure and rules

    Definition of application quality attributes with user scenarios

    List of best practices to streamline maintenance development and deployment

    5 Finalize Your Maintenance Practice

    The Purpose

    Create a target state built from appropriate metrics and attainable goals.

    Consider the required items and steps for the implementation of your optimization initiatives.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A realistic target state for your optimized application maintenance practice.

    A well-defined and structured roadmap for the implementation of your optimization initiatives.

    Activities

    5.1 Refine your target state maintenance practices.

    5.2 Develop a roadmap to achieve your target state.

    Outputs

    Finalized application maintenance process document

    Roadmap of initiatives to achieve your target state

    Migrate to Office 365 Now

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    • Parent Category Name: End-User Computing Applications
    • Parent Category Link: /end-user-computing-applications
    • As Microsoft continues to push Office 365, the transition to Office 365 has likely already been decided, but uncertainty surrounds the starting point and the best path forward.
    • The lack of a clear migration process that considers all the relevant risks and opportunities creates significant ambiguity around an Office 365 migration.
    • As organizations migrate to Office 365, the change in Office’s licensing structure presents obscurity in spending that could cost the business tens of thousands of unnecessary dollars spent if not approached strategically.
    • The fear of overlooking risks regarding the cloud, data, and existing infrastructure threatens to place IT in a position of project paralysis.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Many businesses are opting for a one-size-fits-all licensing strategy. Without selecting licensing to suit actual user needs, you will oversupply users and overspend on licensing.
    • Jumping into an Office 365 migration project without careful thought of the risks of a cloud migration will lead to project halt and interruption. Intentionally plan in order to expose risk to develop project foresight for a smooth migration.
    • A migration to Office 365 represents a significant change in the way users interact with Office. Be careful not to forget about the user as you take on the project. Engage the users consistently for a smooth transition.

    Impact and Result

    • Start by evaluating the business, users, and infrastructure requirements to ensure that all needs are clearly defined and the best fit-for-purpose migration plan can be decided on.
    • Assess the underlying risk associated with a migration to the cloud and build mitigation strategies to counter risk or impending issues and identify project interruptions before they happen.
    • Build a roadmap through a logical step-by-step process to outline major milestones and develop a communication plan to engage users throughout the migration. Demonstrate IT’s due diligence by relaying the project findings and results back to the business using Info-Tech’s Office 365 migration plan.

    Migrate to Office 365 Now Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should migrate to Office 365 now, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Evaluate requirements and licensing

    Evaluate the business, user, and infrastructure requirements to ensure that all needs are clearly defined and the best fit-for-purpose migration plan can be decided on.

    • Migrate to Office 365 Now – Phase 1: Evaluate Requirements and Licensing
    • Office 365 Migration Plan Report
    • Office 365 Migration Workbook

    2. Mitigate key risks of the cloud

    Expose key cloud risks across five major areas and build mitigation strategies to counter risk and gain foresight for migration.

    • Migrate to Office 365 Now – Phase 2: Mitigate Key Risks of the Cloud

    3. Build the roadmap

    Outline major milestones of migration and build the communication plan to transition users smoothly. Complete the Office 365 migration plan report to present to business stakeholders.

    • Migrate to Office 365 Now – Phase 3: Build the Roadmap
    • End-User Engagement Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Migrate to Office 365 Now

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Evaluate Office 365 License Needs

    The Purpose

    Review corporate and project goals.

    Review and prioritize relevant services and applications to shape the migration path.

    Review Office 365 license models.

    Profile end users to rightsize licensing.

    Estimate dollar impact of new licensing model.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Corporate goals for Office 365.

    Prioritized migration path of applications.

    Decision on user licensing structure.

    Projected cost of licensing.

    Activities

    1.1 Outline corporate and project goals to paint the starting line.

    1.2 Review and prioritize services.

    1.3 Rightsize licensing.

    Outputs

    Clear goals and metrics for migration

    Prioritized list of applications

    Effective licensing structure

    2 Assess Value, Readiness, and Risks

    The Purpose

    Conduct value and readiness assessment of current on-premises services.

    Identify and evaluate risks and challenges.

    Assess IT’s readiness to own and manage Office 365.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Completed value and readiness assessment.

    Current targets for service and deployment models.

    List of perceived risks according to five major risk areas.

    Assessed IT’s readiness to own and manage Office 365.

    Established go/caution/stop for elected Office 365 services.

    Activities

    2.1 Assess value and readiness.

    2.2 Identify key risks.

    2.3 Identify changes in IT skills and roles.

    Outputs

    Cloud service appropriateness assessment

    Completed risk register

    Reorganization of IT roles

    3 Mitigate Risks

    The Purpose

    Review Office 365 risks and discuss mitigation strategies.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Completed risks and mitigation strategies report.

    Activities

    3.1 Build mitigation strategies.

    3.2 Identify key service requests.

    3.3 Build workflows.

    Outputs

    Defined roles and responsibilities

    Assigned decision rights

    List of staffing gaps

    4 Build the Roadmap

    The Purpose

    Build a timeline of major milestones.

    Plan and prioritize projects to bridge gaps.

    Build a communication plan.

    Review Office 365 strategy and roadmap.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Milestone roadmap.

    Critical path of milestone actions.

    Communication plan.

    Executive report.

    Activities

    4.1 Outline major milestones.

    4.2 Finalize roadmap.

    4.3 Build and refine the communication plan.

    Outputs

    Roadmap plotted projects, decisions, mitigations, and user engagements

    Finalized roadmap across timeline

    Communication and training plan

    Bring Visibility to Your Day-to-Day Projects

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    • Parent Category Name: Portfolio Management
    • Parent Category Link: /portfolio-management
    • As an IT leader, you are responsible for getting new things done while keeping the old things running. These “new things” can come in many forms, e.g. service requests, incidents, and officially sanctioned PMO projects, as well as a category of “unofficial” projects that have been initiated through other channels.
    • These unofficial projects get called many things by different organizations (e.g. level 0 projects,BAU projects, non-PMO projects, day-to-day projects), but they all have the similar characteristics: they are smaller and less complex than larger projects or officially sanctioned projects; they are larger and more risky than operational tasks or incidents; and they are focused on the needs of a specific functional unit and tend to stay within those units to get done.
    • Because these day-to-day projects are small, emergent, team-specific, operationally vital, yet generally perceived as being strategically unimportant, top-level leadership has a limited understanding of them when they are approving and prioritizing major projects. As a result, they approve projects with no insight into how your team’s capacity is already stretched thin by existing demands.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Senior leadership cannot contrast the priority of things that are undocumented. As an IT leader, you need to ensure day-to-day projects receive the appropriate amount of documentation without drowning your team in a process that the types of project don’t warrant.
    • Don’t bleed your project capacity dry by leaving the back door open. When executive oversight took over the strategic portfolio, we assumed they’d resource those projects as a priority. Instead, they focused on “alignment,” “strategic vision,” and “go to market” while failing to secure and defend the resource capacity needed. To focus on the big stuff, you need to sweat the small stuff.

    Impact and Result

    • Develop a method to consistently identify and triage day-to-day projects across functional teams in a standard and repeatable way.
    • Establish a way to balance and prioritize the operational necessity of day-to-day projects against the strategic value of major projects.
    • Build a repeatable process to document and report where the time goes across all given pockets of demand your team faces.

    Bring Visibility to Your Day-to-Day Projects Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should put more portfolio management structure around your day-to-day projects, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Uncover your organization’s hidden pockets of day-to-day projects

    Define an organizational standard for identifying day-to-day projects and triaging them in relation to other categories of projects.

    • Bring Visibility to Your Day-to-Day Projects – Phase 1: Uncover Your Organization’s Hidden Pockets of Day-to-Day Projects
    • Day-to-Day Project Definition Tool
    • Day-to-Day Project Supply/Demand Calculator

    2. Establish ongoing day-to-day project visibility

    Build a process for maintaining reliable day-to-day project supply and demand data.

    • Bring Visibility to Your Day-to-Day Projects – Phase 2: Establish Ongoing Day-to-Day Project Visibility
    • Day-to-Day Project Process Document
    • Day-to-Day Project Intake and Prioritization Tool
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Bring Visibility to Your Day-to-Day Projects

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Analyze the Current State of Day-to-Day Projects

    The Purpose

    Assess the current state of project portfolio management and establish a realistic target state for the management of day-to-day projects.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Realistic and well-informed workshop goals.

    Activities

    1.1 Begin with introductions and workshop expectations activity.

    1.2 Perform PPM SWOT analysis.

    1.3 Assess pain points and analyze root causes.

    Outputs

    Realistic workshop goals and expectations

    PPM SWOT analysis

    Root cause analysis

    2 Establish Portfolio Baselines for Day-to-Day Projects

    The Purpose

    Establish a standard set of baselines for day-to-day projects that will help them to be identified and managed in the same way across different functional teams.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Standardization of project definitions and project value assessments across different functional teams.

    Activities

    2.1 Formalize the definition of a day-to-day project and establish project levels.

    2.2 Develop a project value scorecard for day-to-day projects.

    2.3 Analyze the capacity footprint of day-to-day projects.

    Outputs

    Project identification matrix

    Project value scorecard

    A capacity overview to inform baselines

    3 Build a Target State Process for Day-to-Day Projects

    The Purpose

    Establish a target state process for tracking and monitoring day-to-day projects at the portfolio level.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Standardization of how day-to-day projects are managed and reported on across different functional teams.

    Activities

    3.1 Map current state workflows for the intake and resource management practices (small and large projects).

    3.2 Perform a right-wrong-missing-confusing analysis.

    3.3 Draft a target state process for the initiation of day-to-day projects and for capacity planning.

    Outputs

    Current state workflows

    Right-wrong-missing-confusing analysis

    Target state workflows

    4 Prepare to Implement Your New Processes

    The Purpose

    Start to plan the implementation of your new processes for the portfolio management of day-to-day projects.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An implementation plan, complete with communication plans, timelines, and goals.

    Activities

    4.1 Perform a change impact and stakeholder management analysis.

    4.2 Perform a start-stop-continue activity.

    4.3 Define an implementation roadmap.

    Outputs

    Change impact and stakeholder analyses

    Start-stop-continue retrospective

    Implementation roadmap

    Agile Enterprise Architecture Operating Model

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    • Parent Category Name: Strategy & Operating Model
    • Parent Category Link: /strategy-and-operating-model

    Establish an enterprise architecture practice that:

    • Leverages an operating model that promotes/supports agility within the organization.
    • Embraces business, data, application, and technology architectures in an optimal mix.
    • Is Agile in itself and will be sustainable and reactive to business needs, staying relevant and “profitable” – continuously delivering business value.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Use your business and EA strategy and design principles to right-size standardized operating models to fit your EA organization’s needs.
    • You need to define a sound set of design principles before commencing with the design of your EA organization.
    • The EA operating model structure should be rigid but pliable enough to fit the needs of the stakeholders it provides services to.
    • A phased approach and a good communication strategy is key to the success of the new EA organization.
    • Start with one group and work out the hurdles before rolling it out organization-wide.
    • Make sure that you communicate regularly on wins but also on hurdles and how to overcome them.

    Impact and Result

    • The organization design approach proposed will aim to provide twofold agility: the ability to stretch and shrink depending on business requirements and the promotion of agility in architecture delivery.
    • By recognizing that agility comes in different flavors, organizations using more traditional design patterns will also benefit from the approach advocated by this blueprint.

    Agile Enterprise Architecture Operating Model Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out create an Agile EA operating model to execute the EA function, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Design your EA operating model

    You need to define a sound set of design principles before commencing with the design of your EA organization.

    • Agile EA Operating Model Communication Deck
    • Agile EA Operating Model Workbook
    • Business Architect
    • Application Architect
    • Data Architect
    • Enterprise Architect

    2. Define your EA organizational structure

    The EA operating model structure should be rigid but pliable enough to fit the needs of the stakeholders it provide services to.

    • EA Views Taxonomy
    • EA Operating Model Template
    • Architecture Board Charter Template
    • EA Policy Template
    • EA Compliance Waiver Form Template

    3. Implement the EA operating model

    A phased approach and a good communications strategy are key to the success of the new EA organization.

    • EA Roadmap
    • EA Communication Plan Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Agile Enterprise Architecture Operating Model

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 EA Function Design

    The Purpose

    Identify how EA looks within the organization and ensure all the necessary skills are accounted for within the function.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    EA is designed to be the most appropriately placed and structured for the organization.

    Activities

    1.1 Place the EA department.

    1.2 Define roles for each team member.

    1.3 Find internal and external talent.

    1.4 Create job descriptions with required proficiencies.

    Outputs

    EA organization design

    Role-based skills and competencies

    Talent acquisition strategy

    Job descriptions

    2 EA Engagement Model

    The Purpose

    Create a thorough engagement model to interact with stakeholders.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An understanding of each process within the engagement model.

    Create stakeholder interaction cards to plan your conversations.

    Activities

    2.1 Define each engagement process for your organization.

    2.2 Document stakeholder interactions.

    Outputs

    EA Operating Model Template

    EA Stakeholder Engagement Model Template

    3 EA Governance

    The Purpose

    Develop EA boards, alongside a charter and policies to effectively govern the function.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Governance that aids the EA function instead of being a bureaucratic obstacle.

    Adherence to governace.

    Activities

    3.1 Outline the architecture review process.

    3.2 Position the architecture review board.

    3.3 Create a committee charter.

    3.4 Make effective governance policy.

    Outputs

    Architecture Board Charter Template

    EA Policy Template

    4 Architecture Development Framework

    The Purpose

    Create an operating model that is influenced by universal standards including TOGAF, Zachmans, and DoDAF.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A thoroughly articulated development framework.

    Understanding of the views that influence each domain.

    Activities

    4.1 Tailor an architecture development framework to your organizational context.

    Outputs

    EA Operating Model Template

    Enterprise Architecture Views Taxonomy

    5 Operational Plan

    The Purpose

    Create a change management and communication plan or roadmap to execute the operating model.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Build a plan that takes change management and communication into consideration to achieve the wanted benefits of an EA program.

    Effectively execute the roadmap.

    Activities

    5.1 Create a sponsorship action plan.

    5.2 Outline a communication plan.

    5.3 Execute a communication roadmap.

    Outputs

    Sponsorship Action Plan

    EA Communication Plan Template

    EA Roadmap

    Communicate Any IT Initiative

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    • Parent Category Name: Lead
    • Parent Category Link: /lead

    IT communications are often considered ineffective and unengaging. This is demonstrated by the:

    • Lack of expectation that IT should communicate well. Why develop a skill that no one expects IT to deliver on?
    • Failure to recognize the importance of communication to engage employees and communicate ideas.
    • Perception that communication is a broadcast not a continuous dialogue.
    • Inability to create, monitor, and manage feedback mechanisms.
    • Overreliance on data as the main method of communication instead of as evidence to support a broader narrative.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Don't make data your star. It is a supporting character. People can argue about the collection methods or interpretation of the data, but they cannot argue with the story you share.
    • Messages are also non-verbal. Practice using your voice and body to set the right tone and impact your audience.
    • Recognize that communications are essential even in highly technical IT environments.
    • Measure if the communication is being received and resulting in the desired outcome. If not, modify what and how the message is being expressed.

    Impact and Result

    • Develop an actionable plan to deliver consistent, timely messaging for all audiences.
    • Compose and deliver meaningful messages.
    • Consistently deliver the right information and the right time to the right stakeholders.

    Communicate Any IT Initiative Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Communicate Any IT Initiative Deck – A step-by-step document that walks you through how to plan, compose, and deliver communications to any stakeholder up, down, or across the organization.

    This blueprint not only provides the tools and techniques for planning, composing, and delivering effective communications, but also walks you through practical exercises. Practice and perfect your communication, composition, and delivery skills for any IT initiative.

    • Communicate Any IT Initiative – Phases 1-3

    2. Communicate Any IT Initiative Facilitation Deck – A step-by-step communications workshop deck suitable for any workshop with a communication component.

    Communication concepts and exercises that teach you how to plan, compose, and deliver effective communications. The deck includes practical tools, techniques, and skills practice.

    • Communicate Any IT Initiative Facilitation Deck

    3. Communications Planner – An communications plan template that includes a section to define a change, a communications plan, communications calendars, and a pitch composition exercise.

    This communications planner is a tool that accompanies the Effective IT Communications blueprint and the Communicate Any IT Initiative Facilitation Deck so that you can plan your communications, view your deliverables, and compose your pitch all in one document.

    • Communications Planner Tool

    4. Stakeholder Analysis Tool – A tool to help ensure that all stakeholders are identified and none are missed.

    A tool for identifying stakeholders and conducting an analysis to understand their degree of influence or impact.

    • Stakeholder Management Analysis Tool
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Communicate Any IT Initiative

    Plan, compose, and deliver communications that engage your audience.

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge Common Obstacles Info-Tech’s Approach
    Communicating about your initiative is when the work really begins. Many organizations struggle with:
    • Knowing what target audiences need to be communicated with.
    • Communicating the same message consistently and clearly across target audiences.
    • Communicating to target audiences at the right times.
    • Selecting a channel that will be most effective for the message and practicing to deliver that message.
    Some of the challenges IT faces when it comes to communicating its initiatives includes:
    • Not being given the opportunity or time to practice composing or delivering communications.
    • Coordinating the communications of this initiative with other initiative communications.
    • Forgetting to communicate with key stakeholders.
    Choosing not to communicate because we do not know how it’s leading to initiative failures and lack of adoption by impacted parties.
    For every IT initiative you have going forward, focus on following these three steps:
    1. Create a plan of action around who, what, how, and when communications will take place.
    2. Compose an easy-to-understand pitch for each stakeholder audience.
    3. Practice delivering the message in an authentic and clear manner.
    By following these steps, you will ensure that your audience always understands and feels ready to engage with you.

    Info-Tech Insight
    Every IT employee can be a great communicator; it just takes a few consistent steps, the right tools, and a dedication to practicing communicating your message.

    Info-Tech’s approach

    Effective communications is not a broadcast but a dialogue between communicator and audience in a continuous feedback loop.

    Continuous Feedback Loop

    The Info-Tech difference:

    1. The skills needed to communicate effectively as a front-line employee or CIO are the same. It’s important to begin the development of these skills from the beginning of one's career.
    2. Time is a non-renewable resource. Any communication needs to be considered valuable and engaging by the audience or they will be unforgiving.
    3. Don't make data your star. It is a supporting character. People can argue about the collection methods or interpretation of the data, but they cannot argue about the story you share.

    Poor communication can lead to dissatisfied stakeholders

    27.8% of organizations are not satisfied with IT communications.

    25.8% of business stakeholders are not satisfied with IT communications.

    Source: Info-Tech Diagnostic Programs; n=34,345 business stakeholders within 604 organizations

    The bottom line? Stakeholders for any initiative need to be communicated with often and well. When stakeholders become dissatisfied with IT’s communication, it can lead to an overall decrease in satisfaction with IT.

    Good IT initiative communications can be leverage

    • IT risk mitigation and technology initiative funding are dependent on critical stakeholders comprehending the risk impact and initiative benefit in easy-to-understand terms.
    • IT employees need clear and direct information to feel empowered and accountable to do their jobs well.
    • End users who have a good experience engaging in communications with IT employees have an overall increase in satisfaction with IT.
    • Continuously demonstrating IT’s value to the organization comes when those initiatives are clearly aligned to overall objectives – don’t assume this alignment is being made.
    • Communication prevents assumptions and further miscommunication from happening among IT employees who are usually impacted and fear change the most.

    “Nothing gets done properly if it's not communicated well.”
    -- Nastaran Bisheban, CTO KFC Canada

    Approach to communications

    Introduction
    Review effective communications.

    Plan
    Plan your communications using a strategic tool.

    Compose
    Create your own message.

    Deliver
    Practice delivering your own message.

    Info-Tech’s methodology for effective IT communications

    1. Plan Strategic Communications 2. Compose a Compelling Message 3. Deliver Messages Effectively
    Step Activities
    1. Define the Change
    2. Determine Target Audience
    3. Communication Outcomes
    4. Clarify the Key Message(s)
    5. Identify the Owner and Messenger(s)
    6. Select the Right Channels
    7. Establish a Frequency and Time Frame
    8. Obtain Feedback and Improve
    9. Finalize the Calendar
    1. Craft a Pitch
    2. Revise the Pitch
    1. Deliver Your Pitch
    2. Refine and Deliver Again
    Step Outcomes Establish an easy-to-read view of the key communications that need to take place related to your initiative or change. Practice writing a pitch that conveys the message in a compelling and easy-to-understand way. Practice delivering the pitch. Ensure there is authenticity in the delivery while still maintaining the audience’s attention.

    This blueprint can support communication about any IT initiative

    • Strategy or roadmap
    • Major transformational change
    • System integration
    • Process changes
    • Service changes
    • New solution rollouts
    • Organizational restructuring

    We recommend considering this blueprint a natural add-on to any completed Info-Tech blueprint, whether it is completed in the DIY fashion or through a Guided Implementation or workshop.

    Key deliverable:

    Communication Planner
    A single place to plan and compose all communications related to your IT initiative.

    Blueprint deliverables

    Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals.

    Facilitation Guide
    A step-by-step guide to help your IT organization develop a communication plan and practice composing and delivering key messages.

    Stakeholder Analysis
    An ability to assess all stakeholders based on impact, influence, and involvement.

    Workshop Overview

    MorningAfternoon
    ActivitiesPlan Strategic Communications for Your Initiative
    1. Define the Change
    2. Determine Target Audience
    3. Communication Outcomes
    4. Clarify the Key Message(s)
    5. Identify the Owner and Messenger(s)
    6. Select the Right Channels
    7. Establish a Frequency and Time Frame
    8. Obtain Feedback and Improve
    9. Finalize the Calendar
    Compose and Deliver a Compelling Message
    1. Craft a Pitch
    2. Revise the Pitch
    3. Deliver Your Pitch
    4. Refine and Deliver Again
    Deliverables
    1. Communication planner with weekly, monthly, and yearly calendar views to ensure consistent and ongoing engagement with every target audience member
    1. Crafted pitches that can be used for communicating the initiative to different stakeholders
    2. Skills and ability to deliver messages more effectively

    Contact your account representative for more information.
    workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

    Key KPIs for communication with any stakeholder

    Measuring communication is hard; use these to determine effectiveness:

    Goal Key Performance Indicator (KPI) Related Resource
    Obtain board buy-in for IT strategic initiatives. X% of IT initiatives that were approved to be funded.
    Number of times that technical initiatives were asked to be explained further.
    Using our Board Presentation Review
    Ensure stakeholders feel engaged during initiatives. X% of business leadership satisfied with the statement “IT communicates with your group effectively.” Using the CIO Business Vision Diagnostic
    End users know what IT initiatives are going to impact the products or services they use. X% of end users that are satisfied with communications around changing services or applications. Using the End-User Satisfaction Survey
    Project stakeholders receive sufficient communication throughout the initiative. X% overall satisfaction with the quality of the project communications. Using the PPM Customer Satisfaction Diagnostic
    Employees are empowered to perform on IT initiatives. X% satisfaction employees have with statement “I have all the resources and information I need to do a great job.” Using the Employee Engagement Diagnostic Program

    Phase 1

    Plan Strategic Communications

    Activities
    1.1 Define the Change
    1.2 Determine Target Audience
    1.3 Communication Outcomes
    1.4 Clarify the Key Message(s)
    1.5 Identify the Owner and Messenger(s)
    1.6 Select the Right Channels
    1.7 Establish a Frequency and Time Frame
    1.8 Obtain Feedback and Improve
    1.9 Finalize the Calendar

    Communicate Any IT Initiative Effectively
    Phase1 > Phase 2 > Phase 3

    This step involves the following participants:
    Varies based on those who would be relevant to your initiative.

    Outcomes of this step
    Create an easy-to-follow communications plan to ensure that the right message is sent to the right audience using the right medium and frequency.

    What is an IT change?

    Before communicating, understand the degree of change.

    Incremental Change:
    • Changes made to improve current processes or systems (e.g. optimizing current technology).
    Transitional Change:
    • Changes that involve dismantling old systems and/or processes in favor of new ones (e.g. new product or services added).
    Transformational Change:
    • Significant change in organizational strategy or culture resulting in substantial shift in direction.
    Examples:
    • New or changed policy
    • Switching from on-premises to cloud-first infrastructure
    • Implementing ransomware risk controls
    • Implementing a learning & development plan
    Examples:
    • Moving to an insourced or outsourced service desk
    • Developing a BI & analytics function
    • Integrating risk into organization risk
    • Developing a strategy (technology, architecture, security, data, service, infrastructure, application)
    Examples:
    • Organizational redesign
    • Acquisition or merger of another organization
    • Implementing a digital strategy
    • A new CEO or board taking over the organization's direction

    Consider the various impacts of the change

    Invest time at the start of the project to develop a detailed understanding of the impact of the change. This will help to create a plan that will simplify the change and save time in the end. Evaluate the impact from a people, process, and technology perspective.

    Leverage a design thinking principle: Empathize with the stakeholder – what will change?

    People

    • Team structure
    • Reporting structure
    • Career paths
    • Job skills
    • Responsibilities
    • Company vision/mission
    • Number of FTE
    • Culture
    • Training required

    Process

    • Budget
    • Work location
    • Daily workflow
    • Working conditions
    • Work hours
    • Reward structure
    • Required number of completed tasks
    • Training required

    Technology

    • Required tools
    • Required policies
    • Required systems
    • Training required

    1.1 Define the change

    30 minutes

    1. While different stakeholders will be impacted by the change differently, it’s important to be able to describe what the change is at a higher level.
    2. Have everyone take eight minutes to jot down what the change is and why it is happening in one to two sentences. Tab 2 of the Communication Planner Tool can also be used to house the different ideas.
    3. Present the change statements to one another.
    4. By leveraging one of the examples or consolidating many examples, as a group document:
      • What is the change?
      • Why is it happening?
    5. The goal is to ensure that all individuals involved in establishing or implementing the change have the same understanding.
    Input Output
    • Individual ideas about what change is occurring and why.
    • A single statement that reflects the change occurring and the rationale for why the change is needed.
    Materials Participants
    • Communication Planner Tool
    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard
    • Varies based on those who would be relevant to your initiative.

    Download the Communication Planner Tool

    Ensure effective communication by focusing on four key elements

    Audience
    Stakeholders (either groups or individuals) who will receive the communication.

    Message
    Information communicated to impacted stakeholders. Must be rooted in a purpose or intent.

    Messenger
    Person who delivers the communication to the audience. The communicator and owner are two different things.

    Channel
    Method or channel used to communicate to the audience.

    Identify the target audience

    The target audience always includes groups and individuals who are directly impacted by the change and may also include those who are change adjacent.

    Define the target audience: Identify which stakeholders will be the target audience of communications related to the initiative. Stakeholders can be single individuals (CFO) or groups (Applications Team).

    Stakeholders to consider:

    • Who is sponsoring the initiative?
    • Who benefits from the initiative?
    • Who loses from the initiative?
    • Who can make approvals?
    • Who controls resources?
    • Who has specialist skills?
    • Who implements the changes?
    • Who will be adversely affected by potential environmental and social impacts in areas of influence that are affected by what you are doing?
    • At which stage will stakeholders be most affected (e.g. procurement, implementation, operations, decommissioning)?
    • Will other stakeholders emerge as the phases are started and completed?

    1.2a Determine target audience

    20 minutes

    1. Consider all the potential individuals or groups of individuals who will be impacted or can influence the outcome of the initiative.
    2. On tab 3 of the Communication Planner Tool, list each of the stakeholders who will be part of the target audience. If in person, use sticky notes to define the target audiences. The individuals or group of individuals that make up the target audience are all the people who require being communicated with before, during, or after the initiative.
    3. As you list each target audience, consider how they perceive IT. This perception could impact how you choose to communicate with the stakeholder(s).
    InputOutput
    • The change
    • Why the change is needed
    • A list of individuals or group of individuals that will be communicated with.
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Communication Planner Tool
    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard
    • Varies based on those who would be relevant to your initiative.

    Download the Communication Planner Tool

    1.2b Conduct a stakeholder analysis (optional)

    1 hour

    1. For each stakeholder identified as a part of the target audience, conduct an analysis to understand their degree of influence or impact.
    2. Based on the stakeholder, the influence or impact of the change, initiative, etc. can inform the type and way of communicating.
    3. This is a great activity for those who are unsure how to frame communications for each stakeholder identified as a target audience.
    InputOutput
    • The change
    • Why the change is needed
    • A list of individuals or group of individuals that will be communicated with
    • The degree of influence or impact each target audience stakeholder has.
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Communication Planner Tool
    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard
    • Varies based on those who would be relevant to your initiative.

    Download the Stakeholder Management Analysis Tool

    Determine the desired outcome of communicating with each audience

    For each target audience, there will be an overall goal on why they need to be communicated with. This outcome or purpose is often dependent on the type of influence the stakeholder wields within the organization as well as the type of impact the change or initiative will have. Depending on the target audience, consider each of the communication outcomes listed below.

    Communicating Across the Organization Communicating Up to Board or Executives Communicating Within IT
    • Obtain buy-in
    • Obtain approval
    • Obtain funding
    • Demonstrate alignment to organization objectives
    • Reduce concerns about risk
    • Demonstrate alignment to organization objectives
    • Demonstrate alignment to individual departments or functions
    • Obtain other departments’ buy-in
    • Inform about a crisis
    • Inform about the IT change
    • Obtain adoption related to the change
    • Obtain buy-in
    • Inform about the IT change
    • Create a training plan
    • Inform about department changes
    • Inform about organization changes
    • Inform about a crisis
    • Obtain adoption related to the change
    • Distribute key messages to change agents

    1.3 Communication outcomes

    30 minutes

    1. For each stakeholder, there may be one or more reasons why you need to communicate with them. On tab 3 of the Communication Planner Tool or on a whiteboard, begin to identify the objective or outcome your team is seeking by engaging in each target audience.
    2. As you move through the communication outcomes, it could result in more than one outcome for each target audience.
    3. Ensure there is one line for each target audience desired communication outcome. Many stakeholders might need to be communicated with for several reasons. If using the Communication Planner Tool, add the target audience name in column C for as many different communication outcomes there are in column D related to that stakeholder.
    InputOutput
    • The change
    • A list of individuals or group of individuals that will be communicated with
    • Outcome or objective of communicating with each stakeholder
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Communication Planner Tool
    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard
    • Varies based on those who would be relevant to your initiative.

    Download the Communication Planner Tool

    Establish and define key messages based on organizational objectives

    What are key messages?
    • Key messages guide all internal communications to ensure they are consistent, unified, and straightforward.
    • Distill key messages down from organizational objectives and use them to reinforce the organization’s strategic direction. Key messages should inspire employees to act in a way that will help the organization reach its objectives.
    How to establish key messages: Ground key messages in organizational strategy and culture. These should be the first places you look to determine the organization’s key messages:
    • Refer to organizational strategy documents. What needs to be reinforced in internal communications to ensure the organization can achieve its strategy? This is a key message.
    • Look at the organization’s values. How do values guide how work should be done? Do employees need to behave in a certain way or keep a certain value top of mind? This is a key message.

    Key messages should be clear, concise, and consistent (Porter, 2014). The intent is to convey important information in a way that is relatable and memorable, to promote reinforcement, and ultimately, to drive action.

    Info-Tech Insight
    Empathizing with the audience is key to anticipating and addressing objections as well as identifying benefits. Customize messaging based on audience attributes such as work model (e.g. hybrid), anticipated objections, what's in it for me? (WIIFM), and specific expectations.

    1.4 Clarify the key messages

    25 minutes

    1. Divide the number of communication lines up equally amongst the participants.
    2. Based on the outcome expected from engaging that target audience in communications, define one to five key messages that should be expressed.
    3. The key messages should highlight benefits anticipated, concerns anticipated, details about the change, and plan of action or next steps. The goal here is to ensure the target audience is included in the communication process.
    4. The key messages should be focused on how the target audience receives a consistent message, especially if different communication messengers are involved.
    5. Document the key messages on tab 3 of the Communication Planner Tool.
    InputOutput
    • The change
    • Target audience
    • Communication outcomes
    • Key messages to support a consistent approach
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Communication Planner Tool
    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard
    • Varies based on those who would be relevant to your initiative.

    Download the Communication Planner Tool

    Understand to how to identify appropriate messengers

    Messages must be communicated by a variety of individuals across the organization. Select the messenger depending on the message characteristics (e.g. audience, message, medium). The same messenger can be used for a variety of messages across different mediums.

    Personal impact messages should be delivered by an employee's direct supervisor.

    Organizational impact messages and rationale should be delivered by senior leaders in the affected areas.

    Chart Preferred Messenger for Change Messages

    Recent research by Prosci found employees prefer to hear personal messages from their direct manager and organizational messages from the executive leadership team.

    Fifty percent of respondents indicated the CEO as the preferred messenger for organizational change messages.

    Select the appropriate messenger

    For each audience, message, and medium, review whether the message is personal or organizational to determine which messengers are best.

    The number and seniority of messengers involved depends on the size of the change:

    • Incremental change
      • Personal messages from direct supervisors
      • Organizational messages from a leader in the audience’s function or the direct supervisor
    • Transitional change
      • Personal messages from direct supervisors or function leaders
      • Organizational messages from a leader in the audience’s function or the C suite
    • Transformational change
      • Personal messages from direct supervisors or function leaders
      • Organizational messages from the CEO or C-suite
      • Cascading messages are critical in this type of change because all levels of the organization will be involved

    Communication owner vs. messenger

    Communication Owner

    Single person
    Accountable for the communication message and activities
    Oversees that the communication does not contradict other communications
    Validates the key messages to be made

    Communication Messenger(s)

    Single person or many people
    Responsible for delivering the intended message
    Engages the target audience in the communication
    Ensures the key messages are made in a consistent and clear manner

    1.5 Identify the owner and messenger(s)

    30 minutes

    1. For every communication, there needs to be a single owner. This is the person who approves the communication and will be accountable for the communication
    2. The messenger(s) can be several individuals or a single individual depending on the target audience and desired outcome being sought through the communications.
    3. Identify the person or role who will be accountable for the communication and document this in the Communication Planner Tool.
    4. Identify the person(s) or role(s) who will be responsible for delivering the communication and engaging the target audience and document this in the Communication Planner Tool.
    Input Output
    • Individual ideas about what change is occurring and why.
    • A single statement that reflects the change occurring and the rationale for why the change is needed.
    Materials Participants
    • Communication Planner Tool
    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard
    • Varies based on those who would be relevant to your initiative.

    Download the Communication Planner Tool

    Review appropriate channel for different types of messages

    Communication channels are in-person, paper-based, or tech-enabled. Provide communicators with guidance on which mediums to use in different situations.

    First question: Should the communication be delivered in-person or not?
    Types of channels In-Person Paper-Based or Tech-Enabled
    Questions to consider
    • How is your message likely to be received? Is the message primarily negative?
    • Will the message prompt a lot of dialogue or questions? Will it require significant context or clarification?
    Note: Messages that are important, complex, or negative must be delivered in person. This allows the sender to provide context, clarify questions, and collect feedback.
    • Use paper-based and tech-enabled communications to provide reminders or updates.
    • When deciding which of the two to use, think about your audience: do they have regular access to a computer?
    Two-way interaction Supplement in-person communications with paper-based or tech-enabled communications to provide follow-up and consistency (Government of Nova Scotia). Tech-enabled communications allow the sender to deliver messages when they do not co-locate with the receiver. That said, make sure paper-based communications are provided to those without regular access to a computer.

    Consider accessibility when communicating change – not all employees will have access to the same mediums. To ensure inclusivity, strategically plan which mediums to use to reach the entire audience.

    Select communication channels

    Medium Description Key Messages When to Use
    One-on-One Meetings Individual meetings between managers and their direct reports to ensure they understand the change, can express any concerns, and obtain feedback or recommendations.
    • How the change will impact the employee, what they can expect throughout the change, how they can get support, what the timelines are, etc.
    • Requests for feedback.
    • Responses to feedback.
    • Most applicable for personal messages throughout all stages of change.
    • When real-time feedback is needed.
    • To understand the change’s impact on each employee, understand their emotional reactions and provide support.
    • After a change has been announced and continuing at a regular cadence until after the change has been implemented. Frequency of meetings will vary by employee over the course of the change.
    Team Meeting A meeting of a work unit or department. Can be virtual, in person, or a combination. Led by the work unit or department head/manager.
    • How the change will impact the team – how work gets done, who they work with, etc.
    • Available timelines regarding the change.
    • Support available throughout the change.
    • Most applicable for personal messages throughout all change stages.
    • When real-time communication is needed to keep everyone on the same page and provide an opportunity to ask questions (essential for buy-in).
    • To announce a small change or after a larger change announcement. Continue frequently until the end of adoption, with time reserved for ad hoc meetings.
    Email Electronic communication sent to the audience’s company emails, or in the absence of that, to their personal emails.
    • Overarching details and timelines.
    • Short, easy-to-digest pieces of information that either provide a summary of what to expect or describe actions employees need to take.
    • Applicable for both personal and organizational messages, depending on the messenger. Send personal messages in separate emails from organizational messages.
    • To communicate key details quickly and to a distributed workforce.
    • To reinforce or reiterate information that has been shared in person. Can be used broadly or target specific employees/groups.

    Select communication channels

    Medium Description Key Messages When to Use
    Town Hall Virtual or in-person meeting where senior leadership shares information with a wide audience about the change and answers questions.
    • Messaging that is applicable to a large audience.
    • The strategic decisions of senior leadership.
    • Highlight positive initiative outcomes.
    • Recognize employee efforts.
    • Report on engagement.
    • Most applicable for organizational messages to launch a change or between milestones in a long-term or complex change.
    • To enable senior leaders to explain strategic decisions to employees.
    • To allow employees to ask questions and provide feedback.
    • When support of senior leadership is critical to change success.
    Roadshow A series of meetings where senior leadership or the change champion travels to different geographic locations to hold town halls adapted to each location’s audience.
    • Why the change is happening, when the change is happening, who will be impacted, expectations, and key points of contact.
    • Most applicable for organizational messages to launch a change and between milestones during a long-term, large, or complex change.
    • For a change impacting several locations.
    • When face time with senior leadership is critical to developing understanding and adoption of the change. Satellite locations can often feel forgotten. A roadshow provides access to senior leadership and lends the credibility of the leader to the change.
    • To enable live two-way communication between employees and leadership.

    Select communication channels

    Medium Description Key Messages When to Use
    Intranet An internal company website that a large number of employees can access at any time.
    • Information that has already been communicated to the audience before, so they can access it at any time.
    • FAQs and/or general details about the change (e.g. milestones).
    • Most applicable for organizational messages.
    • To post relevant documentation so the audience can access it whenever they need it.
    • To enable consistency in answers to common questions.
    Training Scheduled blocks of time for the team to learn new skills and behaviors needed to successfully adapt to the change.
    • Reinforce the need for change and the benefits the change will have.
    • Most applicable for organizational messages during the implementation stage.
    • To reduce anxiety over change initiatives, improve buy-in, and increase adoption by helping employees develop skills and behaviors needed to perform effectively.
    Video Message A prerecorded short video clip designed for either simultaneous broadcast or just-in-time viewing. Can be sent over email or mobile or uploaded to a company portal/intranet.
    • Positive messaging to convey enthusiasm for the change.
    • Details about why the organization is changing and what the benefits will be, updates on major milestone achievements, etc.
    • Most applicable for organizational messages, used on a limited basis at any point during the change.
    • Effective when the message needs to appear more personal by putting a face to the message and when it can be presented in a condensed time frame.
    • When a message needs to be delivered consistently across a variety of employees, locations, and time zones.
    • To provide updates and recognize key achievements.

    Select communication channels

    Medium Description Key Messages When to Use
    Shift Turnover Meeting A meeting between teams or departments when a shift changes over; sometimes called a shift report. Used to communicate any relevant information from the outgoing shift to the incoming shift members.
    • Details related to the activities performed during the shift.
    • Most applicable for personal impact messages during the implementation stage to reinforce information shared using other communication mediums.
    • Where change directly impacts role expectations or performance so teams hear the same message at the same time.
    Company Newsletter Electronic or hardcopy newsletter published by the company. Contains timely updates on company information.
    • Overarching change details.
    • Information that has already been communicated through other mediums.
    • Varies with the change stage and newsletter frequency.
    • Most applicable for organizational messages throughout the change.
    • When the change implementation is expected to be lengthy and audiences need to be kept updated.
    • To celebrate change successes and milestone achievements.
    Sign/Poster Digital or paper-based sign, graphic, or image. Includes posters, screensavers, etc.
    • Positive messaging to convey enthusiasm for the change.
    • Key dates and activities.
    • Key contacts.
    • Most applicable for organizational messages throughout the change.
    • As visual reminders in common, highly visible locations (e.g. a company bulletin board, elevator TV monitors).

    1.6 Select the right channels

    20 minutes

    1. Consider the different channels that were described and presented on the previous five slides. Each channel has element(s) to it that will allow it to be more beneficial based on the communication target audience, outcome, and messenger.
    2. Evenly assign the number of communication rows on tab 3 of the Communication Planner Tool and input the channel that should be used.
    3. Consider if the channel will:
      • Obtain the desired outcome of the communication.
      • Be completed by the messenger(s) defined.
      • Support the target audience in understanding the key messages.
    4. If any target audience communication requires several channels, add additional rows to the planner on TAB 3.
    InputOutput
    • Target audience
    • Communication outcome
    • Communication messenger(s)
    • The right channel selected to support the desired communication outcome.
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Communication Planner Tool
    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard
    • Varies based on those who would be relevant to your initiative.

    Download the Communication Planner Tool

    Define the communication time frame based on the initiative

    Communication occurs during four of the five stages of an initiative:

    01 Identify and prioritize 02 Prepare for initiative 03 Create a communication plan 04 Implement change 05 Sustain the desired outcome
    Before During After
    • Communication begins with sponsors and the project team.
    • Set general expectations with project team and sponsors.
    • Outline the communication plan for the remaining stages.
    • Set specific expectations with each stakeholder group.
    • Implement the communication plan.
    • Use feedback loops to determine updates or changes to communications.
    • Communication continues as required after the change.
    • Feedback loops continue until change becomes business as usual.
    Where communication needs to happen

    Don’t forget: Cascade messages down through the organization to ensure those who need to deliver messages have time to internalize the change before communicating it to others. Include a mix of personal and organizational messages, but where possible, separate personal and organizational content into different communications.

    Establish a frequency that aligns to the desired communication outcome

    Successful communications are frequent communications.

    • The cadence of a communication is highly dependent on the objective of the communication.
    • Each target requires a different frequency as well:
      • Board Presentations > four times a year is a good frequency
      • Executive Leadership > monthly frequency
      • Organizationally > annually and when necessary
      • Organization Crises > daily, if not hourly
      • IT Initiatives and Projects > weekly
      • IT Teams > weekly, if not daily

    Tech Team Frequency for Discussing Goals

    “When goals are talked about weekly, teams are nearly 3X more likely to feel confident hitting them.”
    – Hypercontext, 2022

    Info-Tech Insight
    Communications made once will always fail. Ensure there is a frequency appropriate for every communication — or do not expect the desired outcome.

    1.7 Establish a frequency and time frame

    30 minutes

    1. For each row in tab 3, determine how frequently that communication needs to take place and when that communication needs to be completed by.
      • Frequency: How often the communication will be delivered to the audience (e.g. one-time, monthly, as needed).
      • Time frame: When the communication will be delivered to the audience (e.g. a planned period or a specific date).
    2. When selecting the time frame, consider what dependencies need to take place prior to that communication. For example, IT employees should not be communicated with on anything that has not yet been approved by the CEO. Also consider when other communications might be taking place so the message is not lost in the noise.
    3. For frequency, the only time that a communication needs to take place once is when presenting up to senior leaders of the organization. And even then it will sometimes require more than one conversation. Be mindful of this.
    InputOutput
    • The change
    • Target audience
    • Communication outcome
    • Communication channel
    • Frequency and time frame of the communication
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Communication Planner Tool
    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard
    • Varies based on those who would be relevant to your initiative.

    Download the Communication Planner Tool

    First, ensure feedback mechanisms are in place

    Soliciting and acting on feedback involves employees in the decision-making process and demonstrates to them that their contributions matter.

    Prior to the strategy rollout, make sure you have also established feedback mechanisms to collect feedback on both the messages delivered and how they were delivered. Some ways to collect feedback include:

    • Evaluating intranet comments and interactions (likes, etc.) if this function is enabled.
    • Measuring comprehension and satisfaction through surveys and polls.
    • Looking for themes in the feedback and questions employees bring forward to managers during in-person briefings.

    Feedback Mechanisms:

    • CIO Business Vision Survey
    • Engagement Surveys
    • Focus Groups
    • Suggestion Boxes
    • Team Meetings
    • Random Sampling
    • Informal Feedback
    • Direct Feedback
    • Audience Body Language
    • Repeating the Message Back

    Select metrics to measure progress on key results

    There are two types of metrics that can be used to measure the impact of an internal communications strategy and progress toward strategy goals. These metrics are used to measure both outputs and outcomes.

    Select metrics measuring both:
    Tactical Effectiveness (Outputs) Strategic Effectiveness (Outcomes)
    • Open rate
    • Click-through rate
    • Employee sentiment
    • Participation rates
    • Physical distractions
    • Shift in behavior
    • Manager capability to communicate
    • Organizational ability to meet goals
    • Engagement
    • Turnover

    Pyramid of metrics to measure process on key results

    1.8 Obtain feedback and improve

    20 minutes

    1. Evenly distribute the number of rows in the communication plan to all those involved. Consider a metric that would help inform whether the communication outcome was achieved.
    2. For each row, identify a feedback mechanism (slide 38) that could be used to enable the collection and confirm a successful outcome.
    3. Come back as a group and validate the feedback mechanisms selected.
    4. The important aspect here is not just to measure if the desired outcome was achieved. However, if the desired outcome is not achieved, consider what you might do to change or enable better communication to that target audience.
    5. Every communication can be better. Feedback, whether it is tactical or strategic, will help inform methods to improve future communication activities.
    InputOutput
    • Communication outcome
    • Target audience
    • Communication channel
    • A mechanism to measure communication feedback and adjust future communications when necessary.
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Communication Planner Tool
    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard
    • Varies based on those who would be relevant to your initiative.

    Download the Communication Planner Tool

    Example of internal communications survey

    Use and modify the questions below when building an internal communications survey. Use a Likert scale to gauge responses.

    1. I am satisfied with the communications at our organization.
    2. I am kept fully informed of news and updates relevant to our organization.
    3. I receive information that is relevant to me on a regular basis.
    4. I have the information I need to do my job.
    5. I know where to go to find the information I am looking for.
    6. My manager communicates with me in-person on a regular basis.
    7. I feel I can believe the information I receive from the company.
    8. I feel heard by senior leaders and know that they have received my feedback.
    9. The content and information that I receive is interesting to me.

    Create an easy-to-read approach to communication

    Example of an easy-to-read approach to communication

    1.9 Finalize the calendar

    2 hours

    1. Once the information on tabs 2 and 3 of the Communication Planner Tool has been completed, start to organize the information in an easy-to-read view.
    2. Using the annual, monthly, and weekly calendar views on tabs 3 to 5, begin to formalize the dates of when communications will take place.
    3. Following the instructions on each tab, complete one or all of the views of the communication plan. Remember, the stakeholder that makes up the target audience needs to be considered and whether this communication will overlap with any other communications.
    InputOutput
    • Communication Plan on tab 2
    • Yearly, monthly, and weekly communication calendars
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Communication Planner Tool
    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard
    • Varies based on those who would be relevant to your initiative.

    Download the Communication Planner Tool

    Phase 2

    Compose a Compelling Message

    Activities

    2.1 Craft a Pitch
    2.2 Revise the Pitch

    This step involves the following participants:
    Varies based on those who would be relevant to your initiative.

    Outcomes of this step
    Ability to create a clear, concise, and consistent message using best practices and a pitch framework.

    Communication Any IT Initiative Effectively

    Phase 1 > Phase 2 > Phase 3

    Include all the following pieces in your message for an effective communication

    Pieces needed in your message for effective communication

    Info-Tech Insight
    Time is a non-renewable resource. The message crafted must be considered a value-add communication to your audience.

    Enable good communication with these components

    Be Consistent Be Clear
    • The core message must be consistent regardless of audience, channel, or medium.
    • Test your communication with your team or colleagues to obtain feedback before delivering to a broader audience.
    • A lack of consistency can be interpreted as an attempt at deception. This can hurt credibility and trust.
    • Say what you mean and mean what you say.
    • Choice of language is important: “Do you think this is a good idea? I think we could really benefit from your insights and experience here.” Or do you mean: “I think we should do this. I need you to do this to make it happen.”
    • Don’t use jargon.
    Be Relevant Be Concise
    • Talk about what matters to the stakeholder.
    • Talk about what matters to the initiative.
    • Tailor the details of the message to each stakeholder’s specific concerns.
    • IT thinks in processes but stakeholders only care about results: talk in terms of results.
    • IT wants to be understood, but this does not matter to stakeholders. Think: “what’s in it for them?”
    • Communicate truthfully; do not make false promises or hide bad news.
    • Keep communication short and to the point so key messages are not lost in the noise.
    • There is a risk of diluting your key message if you include too many other details.
    • If you provide more information than necessary, the clarity and consistency of the message can be lost.

    Draft the core messages to communicate

    Draft core messages communicating information consistent with the high-level communications plan. This includes the overall goal of communications, key messaging, specifics related to the change action, and customizations for each audience. It’s also important to:

    1. Hook your audience: Use a compelling introduction that ensures your target audience cares about the message. Use a statistic or another piece of information that presents the problem in a unique way.
    2. Demonstrate you can help: Let the audience know that based on the unique problem you can help. There is value to engaging and working with you further.
    3. Repeat messages several times and through several messengers and mediums throughout the change stages to ensure all audience members receive and understand the details.
    4. Write for the ear: Use concise and clear sentences, avoid technological language, and when you speak it aloud ensure it sounds like how you would normally speak.
    5. Keep messaging positive but realistic. Avoid continually telling stakeholders that “change is hard.” Instead, communicate messages around change success to positively prime the audience’s mindset (Harvard Business Review).
    6. Communicate what is meaningfully unchanged. Not everything will be impacted by the change. To help reduce fears, include information about meaningful aspects of employees’ work that will not be changing (e.g. employees are moving to report to a new manager on a new team, but the job responsibilities are staying the same).
    7. Finish with a call to action: Your concluding statement should not be a thank-you but a call to action that ignites how your audience will behave after the communication.

    Components of a good pitch

    Key Components of a Good Pitch
    Purpose of the pitch What are you asking for? What is the desired outcome of the conversation? What three things do you want the audience to take away?
    Speak to what matters to them Who is your audience and what are their biggest challenges today? What do they care? What is the “so what”? Humanize it. Start with an example of a real person.
    Sell the improvement How is your solution going to solve that problem? Is your solution a pain killer or vitamin?
    Show real value How will your solution create real value? How can that be measured? Give an example.
    Discuss potential fears Identify and alleviate fears the stakeholder may have in working with you. Think about what they think now and what you want them to think.
    Have a call to action Identify what your ask is. What are you looking for from the stakeholder? Listen and respond.
    Follow up with a thank-you Did you ensure that the participants’ time was respected and appreciated? Be genuine and sincere.

    Key questions to answer with change communication

    To effectively communicate change, answer questions before they’re asked, whenever possible. To do this, outline at each stage of the change process what’s happening next for the audience and answer other anticipated questions. Pair key questions with core messages in change communications.

    Examples of key questions by change stage include:

    What is changing?
    When is the change expected?
    Who will be championing the change?
    What are the change expectations?
    Will I have input into how the change is happening?
    What’s happening next?
    Why are we changing?
    Why is the change happening now?
    What are the risks of not changing?
    What will be new?
    What’s in it for me?
    What training will be available?
    Who will be impacted?
    How will I be impacted?
    How will my team be impacted?
    What’s happening next?
    Who should I contact with questions or concerns?
    How will I be updated?
    How can I access more information?
    Will the previous process be available throughout the new process implementation?
    What needs to be done and what needs to stop to succeed?
    Will I be measured on this change?
    What’s happening next?
    How can I access more information?
    Will this change be added to key performance indicators?
    How did the change implementation go?
    What’s happening next?
    Before change During change After change
    Prepare for change Create change action and communication plan Implement change Sustain the change

    2.1 Craft a pitch

    20 minutes

    1. Using the set of stakeholders identified in activity 1.2, every participant takes one stakeholder.
    2. Open tab 7 of the Communication Planner Tool or use a piece of paper and create a communication message specific to that stakeholder.
    3. Select a topic from your workshop or use something you are passionate about.
    4. Consider the pitch components as a way to create your pitch. Remember to use what you have learned from the planning and composing sections of this training (in bold).
    5. Compose a three-minute pitch that you will deliver to your audience member.
    InputOutput
    • Individual ideas about what change is occurring and why.
    • A single statement that reflects the change occurring and the rationale for why the change is needed.
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Communication Planner Tool
    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard
    • Varies based on those who would be relevant to your initiative.

    Download the Communication Planner Tool

    Communication Composition Checklist

    • Did you open the communication with a statistic or other memorable piece of information?
    • Is the topic being communicated in a compelling way that engages the target audience?
    • Are there statistics or data to support the story?
    • Are the statistics and data clear so they cannot be conveyed in any other way than their intended method?
    • Are you writing in clear and concise sentences?
    • Are you avoiding any technical jargon?
    • Is the message only focused on what needs to be said? Have you removed all unnecessary components?
    • Is the content organized in priority order? Could you adapt if the presentation time is shortened?
    • Is the way the communication is written sound like how you would speak normally? Are you writing for the ear?
    • Do you have a clear call to action that the audience will be asked to complete at the end?
    • Does your communication encourage discussion with the target audience? Is the audience a part of the solution?

    2.2 Revise the pitch

    10 minutes

    1. Review the pitch that was created in activity 2.1.
    2. Consider what could be done to make the pitch better:
      • Concise: Identify opportunities to remove unnecessary information.
      • Clear: It uses only terms or language the target audience would understand.
      • Relevant: It matters to the target audience and the problems they face.
      • Consistent: The message could be repeated across audiences.
    3. Validate that when you say the pitch out loud, it sounds like something you would say normally when communicating with other people.
    4. Make updates to the pitch and get ready to present.
    Input Output
    • Individual ideas about what change is occurring and why.
    • A single statement that reflects the change occurring and the rationale for why the change is needed.
    Materials Participants
    • Communication Planner Tool
    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard
    • Varies based on those who would be relevant to your initiative.

    Download the Communication Planner Tool

    Phase 3

    Deliver Messages Effectively

    Activities
    3.1 Deliver Your Pitch
    3.2 Refine and Deliver Again

    This step involves the following participants:
    Varies based on those who would be relevant to your initiative.

    Outcomes of this step
    Ability to deliver the pitch in a manner that is clear and would be understood by the specific stakeholder the pitch is intended for.

    Communicate Any IT Initiative Effectively

    Phase 1 > Phase 2 > Phase 3

    Hone presentation skills before meeting with key stakeholders

    Using voice and body

    Think about the message you are trying to convey and how your body can support that delivery. Hands, stance, and frame all have an impact on what might be conveyed.

    If you want your audience to lean in and be eager about your next point, consider using a pause or softer voice and volume.

    Be professional and confident

    State the main points of your presentation confidently. While this should be obvious, it is essential. Your audience should be able to clearly see that you believe the points you are stating.

    Present in a way that is genuine to you and your voice. Whether you have an energetic personality or a calm and composed personality, the presentation should be authentic to you.

    Connect with your audience

    Look each member of the audience in the eye at least once during your presentation. Avoid looking at the ceiling, the back wall, or the floor. Your audience should feel engaged – this is essential to keeping their attention.

    Avoid reading from your slides. If there is text on a slide, paraphrase it while maintaining eye contact.

    Info-Tech Insight
    You are responsible for the response of your audience. If they aren’t engaged, it is on you as the communicator.

    Use clear slides that avoid distracting the audience

    Which slide will be better to present?

    Sample A:

    Sample A

    Sample B:

    Sample B

    3.1 Deliver your pitch

    20 minutes

    1. Take ten minutes to think about how to deliver your pitch. Where will you emphasize words, speak louder, softer, lean in, stand tall, make eye contact, etc.?
    2. Group into pairs. One person is the speaker and the other the audience.
    3. Set a timer on your phone or watch.
    4. Speaker:
      1. Take a few seconds to center yourself and prepare to deliver your pitch.
      2. Deliver your pitch to Person 2. Don’t forget to use your body language and your voice to deliver.
    5. Audience:
      1. Repeats ideas back to Person 1. Are the ideas correct? Are you convinced?
      2. Identifies who the audience is. Are they correct?
    6. Reverse roles and repeat.
    7. Discuss and provide feedback to one another.
    InputOutput
    • Written pitch
    • Best practices for delivering
    • An ability to deliver the pitch in a clear and concise manner that could be understood by the intended stakeholder.
    • Feedback from person 2.
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Pitch framework
    • Communications Plan Tool
    • Piece of paper
    • Varies based on those who would be relevant to your initiative.

    Communication Delivery Checklist

    • Are the slides clean so the audience can focus on your speaking and not on reading the context-heavy slide?
    • Have you practiced delivering the communication to team members or coaches?
    • Have you practiced delivering the communication to someone with little to no technology background?
    • Are you making yourself open to feedback and improvement opportunities?
    • If the communication is derailed from your plan, are you prepared to handle that change?
    • Can you deliver the communication without reading your notes word for word?
    • Have you adapted your voice throughout the communication to highlight specific components you want the audience to focus on?
    • Are you presenting in a way that is genuine to you and your personality?
    • Can you communicate the message within the time allotted?
    • Are you moving in an appropriate manner based on your communication (e.g. toward the screen, across the stage, hand gestures).

    3.2 Refine and deliver again

    1 hour

    1. Go back to what you wrote as your pitch and take ten minutes to eliminate more information to get the pitch down to two minutes based on the feedback from your original partner.
    2. Repeat the last exercise where you deliver your pitch; however, deliver it to the larger group this time.
    3. Focus on ways to adjust body language and voice to make the message more compelling.
    4. Identify if your audience is telling you anything with their body language (e.g. leaning in, leaning back). Use this to adjust as you are presenting.
    5. Have the group provide additional feedback on what was effective about the message and opportunities to further improve the message.
    InputOutput
    • Three-minute pitch
    • Feedback from first delivery
    • An ability to deliver the pitch in a clear and concise manner that could be understood by the intended stakeholder.
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Pitch framework
    • Communications Plan Tool
    • Piece of paper
    • Varies based on those who would be relevant to your initiative.

    Info-Tech Insight
    Whether the CIO or a service desk technician, delivering a presentation is a fear for every role in IT. Prepare your communication to help overcome the fears that are within your control.

    Research Contributors and Experts

    Anuja Agrawal, National Communications Director, PwC

    Anuja Agrawal
    National Communications Director
    PwC

    Anuja is an accomplished global communications professional, with extensive experience in the insurance, banking, financial, and professional services industry in Asia, the US, and Canada. She is currently the National Communications Director at PwC Canada. Her prior work experience includes communication leadership roles at Deutsche Bank, GE, Aviva, and Veritas. Anuja works closely with senior business leaders and key stakeholders to deliver measurable results and effective change and culture building programs. Anuja has experience in both internal and external communications, including strategic leadership communication, employee engagement, PR and media management, digital and social media, M&A/change and crisis management. Anuja believes in leveraging digital tools and technology-enabled solutions combined with in-person engagement to help improve the quality of dialogue and increase interactive communication within the organization to help build an inclusive culture of belonging.

    Nastaran Bisheban, Chief Technology Officer, KFC Canada

    Nastaran Bisheban
    Chief Technology Officer
    KFC Canada

    A passionate technologist and seasoned transformational leader. A software engineer and computer scientist by education, a certified Project Manager that holds an MBA in Leadership with Honors and Distinction from University of Liverpool. A public speaker on various disciplines of technology and data strategy with a Harvard Business School executive leadership program training to round it all. Challenges status quo and conventional practices; is an advocate for taking calculated risk and following the principle of continuous improvement. With multiple computer software and project management publications she is a strategic mentor and board member on various non-profit organizations. Nastaran sees the world as a better place only when everyone has a seat at the table and is an active advocate for diversity and inclusion.

    Heidi Davidson, Co-founder & CEO, Galvanize Worldwide and Galvanize On Demand

    Heidi Davidson
    Co-founder & CEO
    Galvanize Worldwide and Galvanize On Demand

    Dr. Heidi Davidson is the Co-Founder and CEO of Galvanize Worldwide, the largest distributed network of marketing and communications experts in the world. She also is the Co-Founder and CEO of Galvanize On Demand, a tech platform that matches marketing and communications freelancers with client projects. Now with 167 active experts, the Galvanize team delivers startup advisory work, outsourced marketing, training, and crisis communications to organizations of all sizes. Before Galvanize, Heidi spent four years as part of the turnaround team at BlackBerry as the Chief Communications Officer and SVP of Corporate Marketing, where she helped the company move from a device manufacturer to a security software provider.

    Eli Gladstone, Co-founder, Speaker Labs

    Eli Gladstone
    Co-Founder
    Speaker Labs

    Eli is a Co-Founder of Speaker Labs. He has spent over 6 years helping countless individuals overcome their public speaking fears and communicate with clarity and confidence. When he's not coaching others on how to build and deliver the perfect presentation, you'll probably find him reading some weird books, teaching his kids how to ski or play tennis, or trying to develop a good enough jumpshot to avoid being a liability on the basketball court.

    Francisco Mahfuz, Keynote Speaker & Storytelling Coach

    Francisco Mahfuz
    Keynote Speaker & Storytelling Coach

    Francisco Mahfuz has been telling stories in front of audiences for a decade, and even became a National Champion of public speaking. Today, Francisco is a keynote speaker and storytelling coach and offers communication training to individuals and international organisations, and has worked with organisations like Pepsi, HP, the United Nations, Santander and Cornell University. He's the author of Bare: A Guide to Brutally Honest Public Speaking, the host of The Storypowers Podcast, and he’s been part of the IESE MBA communications course since 2020. He's received a BA in English Literature from Birkbeck University in London.

    Sarah Shortreed, EVP & CTO, ATCO Ltd.

    Sarah Shortreed
    EVP & CTO
    ATCO Ltd.

    Sarah Shortreed is ATCO’s Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. Her responsibilities include leading ATCO’s Information Technology (IT) function as it continues to drive agility and collaboration throughout ATCO’s global businesses and expanding and enhancing its enterprise IT strategy, including establishing ATCO’s technology roadmap for the future. Ms. Shortreed's skill and expertise are drawn from her more than 30-year career that spans many industries and includes executive roles in business consulting, complex multi-stakeholder programs, operations, sales, customer relationship management and product management. She was recently the Chief Information Officer at Bruce Power and has previously worked at BlackBerry, IBM and Union Gas. She sits on the Board of Governors for the University of Western Ontario and is the current Chair of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) Committee at the Conference Board of Canada.

    Eric Silverberg, Co-Founder Speaker Labs

    Eric Silverberg
    Co-Founder
    Speaker Labs

    Eric is a Co-Founder of Speaker Labs and has helped thousands of people build their public speaking confidence and become more dynamic and engaging communicators. When he's not running workshops to help people grow in their careers, there's a good chance you'll find him with his wife and dog, drinking Diet Coke and rewatching iconic episodes of the reality TV show Survivor! He's such a die-hard fan, that you'll probably see him playing the game one day.

    Stephanie Stewart, Communications Officer & DR Coordinator, Info Security Services Simon Fraser University

    Stephanie Stewart
    Communications Officer & DR Coordinator
    Info Security Services Simon Fraser University

    Steve Strout, President, Miovision Technologies

    Steve Strout
    President
    Miovision Technologies

    Mr. Strout is a recognized and experienced technology leader with extensive experience in delivering value. He has successfully led business and technology transformations by leveraging many dozens of complex global SFDC, Oracle and/or SAP projects. He is especially adept at leading what some call “Project Rescues” – saving people’s careers where projects have gone awry; always driving "on-time and on-budget.“ Mr. Strout is the current President of Miovision Technologies and the former CEO and board member of the Americas’ SAP Users’ Group (ASUG). His wealth of practical knowledge comes from 30 years of extensive experience in many CxO and executive roles at some prestigious organizations such as Vonage, Sabre, BlackBerry, Shred-it, The Thomson Corporation (now Thomson Reuters) and Morris Communications. Served on Boards including Customer Advisory Boards of Apple, AgriSource Data, Dell, Edgewise, EMC, LogiSense, Socrates.ai, Spiro Carbon Group, and Unifi.

    Info-Tech Research Group Contributors:
    Sanchia Benedict, Research Lead
    Koula Bouloukos, Production Manager
    Antony Chan, Executive Counsellor
    Janice Clatterbuck, Executive Counsellor
    Ahmed Jowar, Research Specialist
    Dave Kish, Practice Lead
    Nick Kozlo, Senior Research Analyst
    Heather Leier Murray, Senior Research Analyst
    Amanda Mathieson, Research Director
    Carlene McCubbin, Practice Lead
    Joe Meier, Executive Counsellor
    Andy Neill, AVP, Research
    Thomas Randall, Research Director

    Plus an additional two contributors who wish to remain anonymous.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Boardroom Presentation Review

    • You will come away with a clear, concise, and compelling board presentation that IT leaders can feel confident presenting in front of their board of directors.
    • Add improvements to your current board presentation in terms of visual appeal and logical flow to ensure it resonates with your board of directors.
    • Leverage a best-of-breed presentation template.

    Build a Better Manager

    • Management skills training is needed, but organizations are struggling to provide training that makes a long-term difference in the skills managers actually use in their day to day.
    • Many training programs are ineffective because they offer the wrong content, deliver it in a way that is not memorable, and are not aligned with the IT department’s business objectives.

    Crisis Communication Guides

    During a crisis it is important to communicate to employees through messages that convey calm and are transparent and tailored to your audience. Use the Crisis Communication Guides to:

    • Draft a communication strategy.
    • Tailor messages to your audience.
    • Draft employee crisis communications.

    Use this guide to equip leadership to communicate in times of crisis.

    Bibliography

    Gallo, Carmine. "How Great Leaders Communicate." Harvard Business Review. 23 November 2022.

    Gallup. State of the American Workplace Report. Washington, D.C.: Gallup, 6 February 2020.

    Guthrie, Georgina. “Why Good Internal Communications Matter Now More than Ever.” Nulab. 15 Dec. 2021.

    Hypercontext. “The State of High Performing Teams in Tech 2022.” Hypercontext. 2022.

    Lambden, Duncan. “The Importance of Effective Workplace Communication – Statistics for 2022.” Expert Market. 13 June 2022.

    McCreary, Gale & WikiHow. “How to Measure the Effectiveness of Communication: 14 Steps.” WikiHow.

    Nowak, Marcin. “Top 7 Communication Problems in the Workplace.” MIT Enterprise Forum CEE, 2021.

    Nunn, Philip. “Messaging That Works: A Unique Framework to Maximize Communication Success.” iabc.

    Picincu, Andra. “How to Measure Effective Communications.” Small Business Chron. 12 January 2021.

    Price. David A. “Pixar Story Rules.”

    Prosci. “Best Practices in Change Management 2020 Edition.” Prosci, 2020.

    Roberts, Dan. “How CIOs Become Visionary Communicators.” CIO, 2019.

    Schlesinger, Mark. “Why building effective communication skill in IT is incredibly important.”

    Skills Framework for the Information Age, “Mapping SFIA Levels of Responsibilities to Behavioural Factors.” Skills Framework for the Information Age, 2021.

    St. James, Halina. Talk It Out. Podium, 2005.

    TeamState. “Communication in the Workplace Statistics: Importance and Effectiveness in 2022.” TeamStage, 2022.

    Walters, Katlin. “Top 5 Ways to Measure Internal Communication.” Intranet Connections, 30 May 2019.

    Select an EA Tool Based on Business and User Need

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    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 10.0/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $62,999 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 18 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: Architecture Domains
    • Parent Category Link: /architecture-domains
    • A mature EA function is increasingly becoming an organizational priority to drive innovation, provide insight, and define digital capabilities.
    • Proliferation of digital technology has increased complexity, straining the EA function to deliver insights.
    • An EA tool increases the efficiency with which the EA function can deliver insights, but a large number of organizations have not a selected an EA tool that suits their needs.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • EA tool value largely comes from tying organizational context and requirements to the selection process.
    • Organizations that have selected an EA tool often fail to have it adopted and show its true value. To ensure successful adoption and value delivery, the EA tool selection process must account for the needs of business stakeholders and tool users.

    Impact and Result

    • Link the need for the EA tool to your organization’s EA value proposition. The connection enables the EA tool to address the future needs of stakeholders and the design style of the EA team.
    • Use Info-Tech’s EA Solution Recommendation Tool to create a shortlist of EA tools that is suited to the preferences of the organization.
    • Gather additional information on the shortlist of EA tool vendors to narrow down the selection using the EA Tool Request for Information Template.

    Select an EA Tool Based on Business and User Need Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should procure an EA tool in the digital age, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    • Select an EA Tool Based on Business and User Need – Executive Brief
    • Select an EA Tool Based on Business and User Need – Phases 1-3

    1. Make the case

    Decide if an EA tool is needed in your organization and define the requirements of EA tool users.

    • Select an EA Tool Based on Business and User Need – Phase 1: Make the Case
    • EA Value Proposition Template
    • EA Tool User Requirements Template

    2. Shortlist EA tools

    Determine your organization’s preferences in terms of product capabilities and vendor characteristics.

    • Select an EA Tool Based on Business and User Need – Phase 2: Shortlist EA Tools
    • EA Solution Recommendation Tool

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    Gather information on shortlisted vendors and make your final decision.

    • Select an EA Tool Based on Business and User Need – Phase 3: Select and Communicate the Process
    • EA Tool Request for Information Template
    • EA Tool Demo Script Template
    • Request for Proposal (RFP) Template
    • EA Tool Selection Process Template
    [infographic]

    2024 Tech Trends

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    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 10
    • Parent Category Name: Innovation
    • Parent Category Link: /improve-your-core-processes/strategy-and-governance/innovation

    AI has revolutionized the landscape, placing the spotlight firmly on the generative enterprise.

    The far-reaching impact of generative AI across various sectors presents fresh prospects for organizations to capitalize on and novel challenges to address as they chart their path for the future. AI is more than just a fancy auto-complete. At this point it may look like that, but do not underestimate the evolutive power.

    In this year's Tech Trends report, we explore three key developments to capitalize on these opportunities and three strategies to minimize potential risks.

    Generative AI will take the lead.

    As AI transforms industries and business processes, IT and business leaders must adopt a deliberate and strategic approach across six key domains to ensure their success.

    Seize Opportunities:

    • Business models driven by AI
    • Automation of back-office functions
    • Advancements in spatial computing

    Mitigate Risks:

    • Ethical and responsible AI practices
    • Incorporating security from the outset
    • Ensuring digital sovereignty

    Performance Measurement

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    • member rating average days saved: 23
    • Parent Category Name: Strategy and Governance
    • Parent Category Link: /strategy-and-governance
    Reinforce service orientation in your IT organization through IT metrics that make value-driven behavior happen..

    Extend Agile Practices Beyond IT

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    • Parent Category Name: Architecture & Strategy
    • Parent Category Link: /architecture-and-strategy
    • Your organization has started to realize benefits from adopting Agile principles and practices. However, these advances are contained within your IT organization.
    • You are seeking to extend Agile development beyond IT into other areas of the organization. You are looking for a coordinated approach aligned to business priorities.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Not all lessons from scaling Agile to IT are transferable. IT Agile scaling processes are tailored to IT’s scope, team, and tools, which may not account for diverse attributes within your organization.
    • Control may be necessary for coordination. With increased time-to-value, enforcing consistent cadences, reporting, and communication is a must if teams are not disciplined or lack good governance.
    • Extend Agile in departments tolerant to change. Incrementally roll out Agile in departments where its principles are accepted (e.g. a culture that embraces failures as lessons).

    Impact and Result

    • Complete an assessment of your prior efforts to scale Agile across IT to gauge successful, consistent adoption. Identify the business objectives and the group drivers that are motivating the extension of Agile to the business.
    • Understand the challenges that you may face when extending Agile to business partners. Investigate the root causes of existing issues that can derail your efforts.
    • Ideate solutions to your scaling challenges and envision a target state for your growing Agile environment. Your target state should realize new opportunities to drive more business value and eliminate current activities driving down productivity.
    • Coordinate the implementation and execution of your scaling Agile initiatives with an implementation action plan. This collaborative document will lay out the process, roles, goals, and objectives needed to successfully manage your Agile environment.

    Extend Agile Practices Beyond IT Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should extend Agile practices to improve product delivery, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Assess your readiness to scale agile vertically

    Assess your readiness to scale Agile vertically by identifying and mitigating potential Agile maturity gaps remaining after scaling Agile across your IT organization.

    • Extend Agile Practices Beyond IT – Phase 1: Assess Your Readiness to Scale Agile Vertically
    • Agile Maturity Assessment Tool

    2. Establish an enterprise scaled agile framework

    Complete an overview of various scaled Agile models to help you develop your own customized delivery framework.

    • Extend Agile Practices Beyond IT – Phase 2: Establish an Enterprise Scaled Agile Framework
    • Framework Selection Tool

    3. Create your implementation action plan

    Determine the effort and steps required to implement your extended delivery framework.

    • Extend Agile Practices Beyond IT – Phase 3: Create Your Implementation Action Plan
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Extend Agile Practices Beyond IT

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Assess Current State of Agile Maturity

    The Purpose

    Assess your readiness to scale Agile vertically.

    Identify and mitigate potential Agile maturity gaps remaining after scaling Agile across your IT organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    IT Agile maturity gaps identified and mitigated to ensure successful extension of Agile to the business

    Activities

    1.1 Characterize your Agile implementation using the CLAIM model.

    1.2 Assess the maturity of your Agile teams and organization.

    Outputs

    Maturity gaps identified with mitigation requirements

    2 Establish an Enterprise Scaled Agile Framework

    The Purpose

    Complete a review of scaled Agile models to help you develop your own customized delivery framework.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A customized Agile delivery framework

    Activities

    2.1 Explore various scaled frameworks.

    2.2 Select an appropriate scaled framework for your enterprise.

    2.3 Define the future state of your team and the communication structure of your functional business group.

    Outputs

    Blended framework delivery model

    Identification of team and communication structure impacts resulting from the new framework

    3 Create Your Implementation Action Plan

    The Purpose

    Create your implementation action plan for the new Agile delivery framework.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A clearly defined action plan

    Activities

    3.1 Define your value drivers.

    3.2 Brainstorm the initiatives that must be completed to achieve your target state.

    3.3 Estimate the effort of your Agile initiatives.

    3.4 Define your Agile implementation action plan.

    Outputs

    List of target state initiatives

    Estimation of effort to achieve target state

    An implementation action plan

    Develop and Deploy Security Policies

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    • Parent Category Name: Governance, Risk & Compliance
    • Parent Category Link: /governance-risk-compliance
    • Employees are not paying attention to policies. Awareness and understanding of what the security policy’s purpose is, how it benefits the organization, and the importance of compliance are overlooked when policies are distributed.
    • Informal, un-rationalized, ad hoc policies do not explicitly outline responsibilities, are rarely comprehensive, and are difficult to implement, revise, and maintain.
    • Data breaches are still on the rise and security policies are not shaping good employee behavior or security-conscious practices.
    • Adhering to security policies is rarely a priority to users as compliance often feels like an interference to daily workflow. For a lot of organizations, security policies are not having the desired effect.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Creating good policies is only half the solution. Having a great policy management lifecycle will keep your policies current, effective, and compliant.
    • Policies must be reasonable, auditable, enforceable, and measurable. If the policy items don’t meet these requirements, users can’t be expected to adhere to them. Focus on developing policies to be quantified and qualified for them to be relevant.

    Impact and Result

    • Save time and money using the templates provided to create your own customized security policies mapped to the Info-Tech framework, which incorporates multiple industry best-practice frameworks (NIST, ISO, SOC2SEC, CIS, PCI, HIPAA).

    Develop and Deploy Security Policies Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Develop and Deploy Security Policies Deck – A step-by-step guide to help you build, implement, and assess your security policy program.

    Our systematic approach will ensure that all identified areas of security have an associated policy.

  • Develop the security policy program.
  • Develop and implement the policy suite.
  • Communicate the security policy program.
  • Measure the security policy program.
    • Develop and Deploy Security Policies – Phases 1-4

    2. Security Policy Prioritization Tool – A structured tool to help your organization prioritize your policy suite to ensure that you are addressing the most important policies first.

    The Security Policy Prioritization Tool assesses the policy suite on policy importance, ease to implement, and ease to enforce. The output of this tool is your prioritized list of policies based on our policy framework.

    • Security Policy Prioritization Tool

    3. Security Policy Assessment Tool – A structured tool to assess the effectiveness of policies within your organization and determine recommended actions for remediation.

    The Security Policy Assessment Tool assesses the policy suite on policy coverage, communication, adherence, alignment, and overlap. The output of this tool is a checklist of remediation actions for each individual policy.

    • Security Policy Assessment Tool

    4. Security Policy Lifecycle Template – A customizable lifecycle template to manage your security policy initiatives.

    The Lifecycle Template includes sections on security vision, security mission, strategic security and policy objectives, policy design, roles and responsibilities for developing security policies, and organizational responsibilities.

    • Security Policy Lifecycle Template

    5. Policy Suite Templates – A best-of-breed templates suite mapped to the Info-Tech framework you can customize to reflect your organizational requirements and acquire approval.

    Use Info-Tech's security policy templates, which incorporate multiple industry best-practice frameworks (NIST, ISO, SOC2SEC, CIS, PCI, HIPAA), to ensure that your policies are clear, concise, and consistent.

    • Acceptable Use of Technology Policy Template
    • Application Security Policy Template
    • Asset Management Policy Template
    • Backup and Recovery Policy Template
    • Cloud Security Policy Template
    • Compliance and Audit Management Policy Template
    • Data Security Policy Template
    • Endpoint Security Policy Template
    • Human Resource Security Policy Template
    • Identity and Access Management Policy Template
    • Information Security Policy Template
    • Network and Communications Security Policy Template
    • Physical and Environmental Security Policy Template
    • Security Awareness and Training Policy Template
    • Security Incident Management Policy Template
    • Security Risk Management Policy Template
    • Security Threat Detection Policy Template
    • System Configuration and Change Management Policy Template
    • Vulnerability Management Policy Template

    6. Policy Communication Plan Template – A template to help you plan your approach for publishing and communicating your policy updates across the entire organization.

    This template helps you consider the budget time for communications, identify all stakeholders, and avoid scheduling communications in competition with one another.

    • Policy Communication Plan Template

    7. Security Awareness and Training Program Development Tool – A tool to help you identify initiatives to develop your security awareness and training program.

    Use this tool to first identify the initiatives that can grow your program, then as a roadmap tool for tracking progress of completion for those initiatives.

    • Security Awareness and Training Program Development Tool

    Infographic

    Workshop: Develop and Deploy Security Policies

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Define the Security Policy Program

    The Purpose

    Define the security policy development program.

    Formalize a governing security policy lifecycle.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding the current state of policies within your organization.

    Prioritizing list of security policies for your organization.

    Being able to defend policies written based on business requirements and overarching security needs.

    Leveraging an executive champion to help policy adoption across the organization.

    Formalizing the roles, responsibilities, and overall mission of the program.

    Activities

    1.1 Understand the current state of policies.

    1.2 Align your security policies to the Info-Tech framework for compliance.

    1.3 Understand the relationship between policies and other documents.

    1.4 Prioritize the development of security policies.

    1.5 Discuss strategies to leverage stakeholder support.

    1.6 Plan to communicate with all stakeholders.

    1.7 Develop the security policy lifecycle.

    Outputs

    Security Policy Prioritization Tool

    Security Policy Prioritization Tool

    Security Policy Lifecycle Template

    2 Develop the Security Policy Suite

    The Purpose

    Develop a comprehensive suite of security policies that are relevant to the needs of the organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Time, effort, and money saved by developing formally documented security policies with input from Info-Tech’s subject-matter experts.

    Activities

    2.1 Discuss the risks and drivers your organization faces that must be addressed by policies.

    2.2 Develop and customize security policies.

    2.3 Develop a plan to gather feedback from users.

    2.4 Discuss a plan to submit policies for approval.

    Outputs

    Understanding of the risks and drivers that will influence policy development.

    Up to 14 customized security policies (dependent on need and time).

    3 Implement Security Policy Program

    The Purpose

    Ensure policies and requirements are communicated with end users, along with steps to comply with the new security policies.

    Improve compliance and accountability with security policies.

    Plan for regular review and maintenance of the security policy program.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Streamlined communication of the policies to users.

    Improved end user compliance with policy guidelines and be better prepared for audits.

    Incorporate security policies into daily schedule, eliminating disturbances to productivity and efficiency.

    Activities

    3.1 Plan the communication strategy of new policies.

    3.2 Discuss myPolicies to automate management and implementation.

    3.3 Incorporate policies and processes into your security awareness and training program.

    3.4 Assess the effectiveness of security policies.

    3.5 Understand the need for regular review and update.

    Outputs

    Policy Communication Plan Template

    Understanding of how myPolicies can help policy management and implementation.

    Security Awareness and Training Program Development Tool

    Security Policy Assessment Tool

    Action plan to regularly review and update the policies.

    Further reading

    Develop and Deploy Security Policies

    Enhance your overall security posture with a defensible and prescriptive policy suite.

    Analyst Perspective

    A policy lifecycle can be the secret sauce to managing your policies.

    A policy for policy’s sake is useless if it isn’t being used to ensure proper processes are followed. A policy should exist for more than just checking a requirement box. Policies need to be quantified, qualified, and enforced for them to be relevant.

    Policies should be developed based on the use cases that enable the business to run securely and smoothly. Ensure they are aligned with the corporate culture. Rather than introducing hindrances to daily operations, policies should reflect security practices that support business goals and protection.

    No published framework is going to be a perfect fit for any organization, so take the time to compare business operations and culture with security requirements to determine which ones apply to keep your organization secure.

    Photo of Danny Hammond, Research Analyst, Security, Risk, Privacy & Compliance Practice, Info-Tech Research Group. Danny Hammond
    Research Analyst
    Security, Risk, Privacy & Compliance Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge
    • Security breaches are damaging and costly. Trying to prevent and respond to them without robust, enforceable policies makes a difficult situation even harder to handle.
    • Informal, un-rationalized, ad hoc policies are ineffective because they do not explicitly outline responsibilities and compliance requirements, and they are rarely comprehensive.
    • Without a strong lifecycle to keep policies up to date and easy to use, end users will ignore or work around poorly understood policies.
    • Time and money is wasted dealing with preventable security issues that should be pre-emptively addressed in a comprehensive corporate security policy program.
    Common Obstacles

    InfoSec leaders will struggle to craft the right set of policies without knowing what the organization actually needs, such as:

    • The security policies needed to safeguard infrastructure and resources.
    • The scope the security policies will cover within the organization.
    • The current compliance and regulatory obligations based on location and industry.
    InfoSec leaders must understand the business environment and end-user needs before they can select security policies that fit.
    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Info-Tech’s Develop and Deploy Security Policies takes a multi-faceted approach to the problem that incorporates foundational technical elements, compliance considerations, and supporting processes:

    • Assess what security policies currently exist within the organization and consider additional secure policies.
    • Develop a policy lifecycle that will define the needs, develop required documentation, and implement, communicate, and measure your policy program.
    • Draft a set of security policies mapped to the Info-Tech framework, which incorporates multiple industry best-practice frameworks (NIST, ISO, SOC2SEC, CIS, PCI, HIPAA).

    Info-Tech Insight

    Creating good policies is only half the solution. Having a great policy management lifecycle will keep your policies current, effective, and compliant.

    Your Challenge

    This research is designed to help organizations design a program to develop and deploy security policies

    • A security policy is a formal document that outlines the required behavior and security controls in place to protect corporate assets.
    • The development of policy documents is an ambitious task, but the real challenge comes with communication and enforcement.
    • A good security policy allows employees to know what is required of them and allows management to monitor and audit security practices against a standard policy.
    • Unless the policies are effectively communicated, enforced, and updated, employees won’t know what’s required of them and will not comply with essential standards, making the policies powerless.
    • Without a good policy lifecycle in place, it can be challenging to illustrate the key steps and decisions involved in creating and managing a policy.

    The problem with security policies

    29% Of IT workers say it's just too hard and time consuming to track and enforce.

    25% Of IT workers say they don’t enforce security policies universally.

    20% Of workers don’t follow company security policies all the time.

    (Source: Security Magazine, 2020)

    Common obstacles

    The problem with security policies isn’t development; rather, it’s the communication, enforcement, and maintenance of them.

    • Employees are not paying attention to policies. Awareness and understanding of what the security policy’s purpose is, how it benefits the organization, and the importance of compliance are overlooked when policies are distributed.
    • Informal, un-rationalized, ad hoc policies do not explicitly outline responsibilities, are rarely comprehensive, and are difficult to implement, revise, and maintain.
    • Date breaches are still on the rise and security policies are not shaping good employee behavior or security-conscious practices.
    • Adhering to security policies is rarely a priority to users as compliance often feels like an interference to daily workflow. For a lot of organizations, security policies are not having the desired effect.
    Bar chart of the 'Average cost of a data breach' in years '2019-20', '20-21', and '21-22'.
    (Source: IBM, 2022 Cost of a Data Breach; n=537)

    Reaching an all-time high, the cost of a data breach averaged US$4.35 million in 2022. This figure represents a 2.6% increase from last year, when the average cost of a breach was US$4.24 million. The average cost has climbed 12.7% since 2020.

    Info-Tech’s approach

    The right policy for the right audience. Generate a roadmap to guide the order of policy development based on organizational policy requirements and the target audience.

    Actions

    1. Develop policy lifecycle
    2. Identify compliance requirements
    3. Understand which policies need to be developed, maintained, or decommissioned
    I. Define Security Policy Program

    a) Security policy program lifecycle template

    b) Policy prioritization tool
    Clockwise cycle arrows at the centre of the table. II. Develop & Implement Policy Suite

    a) Policy template set

    Policies must be reasonable, auditable, enforceable, and measurable. Policy items that meet these requirements will have a higher level of adherence. Focus on efficiently creating policies using pre-developed templates that are mapped to multiple compliance frameworks.

    Actions

    1. Differentiate between policies, procedures, standards, and guidelines
    2. Draft policies from templates
    3. Review policies, including completeness
    4. Approve policies
    Gaining feedback on policy compliance is important for updates and adaptation, where necessary, as well as monitoring policy alignment to business objectives.

    Actions

    1. Enforce policies
    2. Measure policy effectiveness
    IV. Measure Policy Program

    a) Security policy tracking tool

    III. Communicate Policy Program

    a) Security policy awareness & training tool

    b) Policy communication plan template
    Awareness and training on security policies should be targeted and must be relevant to the employees’ jobs. Employees will be more attentive and willing to incorporate what they learn if they feel that awareness and training material was specifically designed to help them.

    Actions

    1. Identify any changes in the regulatory and compliance environment
    2. Include policy awareness in awareness and training programs
    3. Disseminate policies
    Build trust in your policy program by involving stakeholder participation through the entire policy lifecycle.

    Blueprint benefits

    IT/InfoSec Benefits

    • Reduces complexity within the policy creation process by using a single framework to align multiple compliance regimes.
    • Introduces a roadmap to clearly educate employees on the do’s and don’ts of IT usage within the organization.
    • Reduces costs and efforts related to managing IT security and other IT-related threats.

    Business Benefits

    • Identifies and develops security policies that are essential to your organization’s objectives.
    • Integrates security into corporate culture while maximizing compliance and effectiveness of security policies.
    • Reduces security policy compliance risk.

    Key deliverable:

    Security Policy Templates

    Templates for policies that can be used to map policy statements to multiple compliance frameworks.

    Sample of Security Policy Templates.

    Blueprint deliverables

    Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:

    Security Policy Prioritization Tool

    The Info-Tech Security Policy Prioritization Tool will help you determine which security policies to work on first.
    Sample of the Security Policy Prioritization Tool.
    Sample of the Security Policy Assessment Tool.

    Security Policy Assessment Tool

    Info-Tech's Security Policy Assessment Tool helps ensure that your policies provide adequate coverage for your organization's security requirements.

    Measure the value of this blueprint

    Phase

    Purpose

    Measured Value

    Define Security Policy Program Understand the value in formal security policies and determine which policies to prepare to update, eliminate, or add to your current suite. Time, value, and resources saved with guidance and templates:
    1 FTE*3 days*$80,000/year = $1,152
    Time, value, and resources saved using our recommendations and tools:
    1 FTE*2 days*$80,000/year = $768
    Develop and Implement the Policy Suite Select from an extensive policy template offering and customize the policies you need to optimize or add to your own policy program. Time, value, and resources saved using our templates:
    1 consultant*15 days*$150/hour = $21,600 (if starting from scratch)
    Communicate Security Policy Program Use Info-Tech’s methodology and best practices to ensure proper communication, training, and awareness. Time, value, and resources saved using our training and awareness resources:
    1 FTE*1.5 days*$80,000/year = $408
    Measure Security Policy Program Use Info-Tech’s custom toolkits for continuous tracking and review of your policy suite. Time, value, and resources saved by using our enforcement recommendations:
    2 FTEs*5 days*$160,000/year combined = $3,840
    Time, value, and resources saved by using our recommendations rather than an external consultant:
    1 consultant*5 days*$150/hour = $7,200

    After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve.

    Overall Impact

    9.5 /10

    Overall Average $ Saved

    $29,015

    Overall Average Days Saved

    25

    Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

    DIY Toolkit

    Guided Implementation

    Workshop

    Consulting

    "Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful." "Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track." "We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place." "Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Guided Implementation

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

    A typical GI is six to ten calls over the course of two to four months.

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    Phase 4

    Call #1: Scope security policy requirements, objectives, and any specific challenges.

    Call #2: Review policy lifecycle; prioritize policy development.

    Call #3: Customize the policy templates.

    Call #4: Gather feedback on policies and get approval.

    Call #5: Communicate the security policy program.

    Call #6: Develop policy training and awareness programs.

    Call #7: Track policies and exceptions.

    Workshop Overview

    Contact your account representative for more information.
    workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889
    Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
    Define the security policy program
    Develop the security policy suite
    Develop the security policy suite
    Implement security policy program
    Finalize deliverables and next steps
    Activities

    1.1 Understand the current state of policies.

    1.2 Align your security policies to the Info-Tech framework for compliance.

    1.3 Understand the relationship between policies and other documents.

    1.4 Prioritize the development of security policies.

    1.5 Discuss strategies to leverage stakeholder support.

    1.6 Plan to communicate with all stakeholders.

    1.7 Develop the security policy lifecycle.

    2.1 Discuss the risks and drivers your organization faces that must be addressed by policies.

    2.2 Develop and customize security policies.

    2.1 Discuss the risks and drivers your organization faces that must be addressed by policies (continued).

    2.2 Develop and customize security policies (continued).

    2.3 Develop a plan to gather feedback from users.

    2.4 Discuss a plan to submit policies for approval.

    3.1 Plan the communication strategy for new policies.

    3.2 Discuss myPolicies to automate management and implementation.

    3.3 Incorporate policies into your security awareness and training program.

    3.4 Assess the effectiveness of policies.

    3.5 Understand the need for regular review and update.

    4.1 Review customized lifecycle and policy templates.

    4.2 Discuss the plan for policy roll out.

    4.3 Schedule follow-up Guided Implementation calls.

    Deliverables
    1. Security Policy Prioritization Tool
    2. Security Policy Lifecycle
    1. Security Policies (approx. 9)
    1. Security Policies (approx. 9)
    1. Policy Communication Plan
    2. Security Awareness and Training Program Development Tool
    3. Security Policy Assessment Tool
    1. All deliverables finalized

    Develop and Deploy Security Policies

    Phase 1

    Define the Security Policy Program

    Phase 1

    1.1 Understand the current state

    1.2 Align your security policies to the Info-Tech framework

    1.3 Document your policy hierarchy

    1.4 Prioritize development of security policies

    1.5 Leverage stakeholders

    1.6 Develop the policy lifecycle

    Phase 2

    2.1 Customize policy templates

    2.2 Gather feedback from users on policy feasibility

    2.3 Submit policies to upper management for approval

    Phase 3

    3.1 Understand the need for communicating policies

    3.2 Use myPolicies to automate the management of your security policies

    3.3 Design, build, and implement your communications plan

    3.4 Incorporate policies and processes into your training and awareness programs

    Phase 4

    4.1 Assess the state of security policies

    4.2 Identify triggers for regular policy review and update

    4.3 Develop an action plan to update policies

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Understand the current state of your organization’s security policies.
    • Align your security policies to the Info-Tech framework for compliance.
    • Prioritize the development of your security policies.
    • Leverage key stakeholders to champion the policy initiative.
    • Inform all relevant stakeholders of the upcoming policy program.
    • Develop the security policy lifecycle.

    1.1 Understand the current state of policies

    Scenario 1: You have existing policies

    1. Use the Security Policy Prioritization Tool to identify any gaps between the policies you already have and those recommended based on your changing business needs.
    2. As your organization undergoes changes, be sure to incorporate new requirements in the existing policies.
    3. Sometimes, you may have more specific procedures for a domain’s individual security aspects instead of high-level policies.
    4. Group current policies into the domains and use the policy templates to create overarching policies where there are none and improve upon existing high-level policies.

    Scenario 2: You are starting from scratch

    1. To get started on new policies, use the Security Policy Prioritization Tool to identify the policies Info-Tech recommends based on your business needs. See the full list of templates in the Appendix to ensure that all relevant topics are addressed.
    2. Whether you’re starting from scratch or have incomplete/ad hoc policies, use Info-Tech’s policy templates to formalize and standardize security requirements for end users.
    Info-Tech Insight

    Policies are living, evolving documents that require regular review and update, so even if you have policies already written, you’re not done with them.

    1.2 Align your security policies to the Info-Tech framework for compliance

    You have an opportunity to improve your employee alignment and satisfaction, improve organizational agility, and obtain high policy adherence. This is achieved by translating your corporate culture into a policy-based compliance culture.

    Align your security policies to the Info-Tech Security Framework by using Info-Tech’s policy templates.

    Info-Tech’s security framework uses a best-of-breed approach to leverage and align with most major security standards, including:
    • ISO 27001/27002
    • COBIT
    • Center for Internet Security (CIS) Critical Controls
    • NIST Cybersecurity Framework
    • NIST SP 800-53
    • NIST SP 800-171

    Info-Tech Security Framework

    Info-Tech Security Framework with policies grouped into categories which are then grouped into 'Governance' and 'Management'.

    1.3 Document your policy hierarchy

    Structuring policy components at different levels allows for efficient changes and direct communication depending on what information is needed.

    Policy hierarchy pyramid with 'Security Policy Lifecycle' on top, then 'Security Policies', then 'IT and/or Supporting Documentation'.

    Defines the cycle for the security policy program and what must be done but not how to do it. Aligns the business, security program, and policies.
    Addresses the “what,” “who,” “when,” and “where.”

    Defines high-level overarching concepts of security within the organization, including the scope, purpose, and objectives of policies.
    Addresses the high-level “what” and “why.”
    Changes when business objectives change.

    Defines enterprise/technology – specific, detailed guidelines on how to adhere to policies.
    Addresses the “how.”
    Changes when technology and processes change.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Design separate policies for different areas of focus. Policies that are written as single, monolithic documents are resistant to change. A hierarchical top-level document supported by subordinate policies and/or procedures can be more rapidly revised as circumstances change.

    1.3.1 Understand the relationship between policies and other documents

    Policy:
    • Provides emphasis and sets direction.
    • Standards, guidelines, and procedures must be developed to support an overarching policy.
    Arrows stemming from the above list, connecting to the three lists below.

    Standard:

    • Specifies uniform method of support for policy.
    • Compliance is mandatory.
    • Includes process, frameworks, methodologies, and technology.
    Two-way horizontal arrow.

    Procedure:

    • Step-by-step instructions to perform desired actions.
    Two-way horizontal arrow.

    Guideline:

    Recommended actions to consider in absence of an applicable standard, to support a policy.
    This model is adapted from a framework developed by CISA (Certified Information Systems Auditor).

    Supporting Documentation

    Considerations for standards

    Standards. These support policies by being much more specific and outlining key steps or processes that are necessary to meet certain requirements within a policy document. Ideally standards should be based on policy statements with a target of detailing the requirements that show how the organization will implement developed policies.

    If policies describe what needs to happen, then standards explain how it will happen.

    A good example is an email policy that states that emails must be encrypted; this policy can be supported by a standard such as Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption that specifically ensures that all email communication is encrypted for messages “in transit” from one secure email server that has TLS enabled to another.

    There are numerous security standards available that support security policies/programs based on the kind of systems and controls that an organization would like to put in place. A good selection of supporting standards can go a long way to further protect users, data, and other organizational assets
    Key Policies Example Associated Standards
    Access Control Policy
    • Password Management User Standard
    • Account Auditing Standard
    Data Security Policy
    • Cryptography Standard
    • Data Classification Standard
    • Data Handling Standard
    • Data Retention Standard
    Incident Response Policy
    • Incident Response Plan
    Network Security Policy
    • Wireless Connectivity Standard
    • Firewall Configuration Standard
    • Network Monitoring Standard
    Vendor Management Policy
    • Vendor Risk Management Standard
    • Third-Party Access Control Standard
    Application Security Policy
    • Application Security Standard

    1.4 Prioritize development of security policies

    The Info-Tech Security Policy Prioritization Tool will help you determine which security policies to work on first.
    • The tool allows you to prioritize your policies based on:
      • Importance: How relevant is this policy to organizational security?
      • Ease to implement: What is the effort, time, and resources required to write, review, approve, and distribute the policy?
      • Ease to enforce: How much effort, time, and resources are required to enforce the policy?
    • Additionally, the weighting or priority of each variable of prioritization can be adjusted.

    Align policies to recent security concerns. If your organization has recently experienced a breach, it may be crucial to highlight corresponding policies as immediately necessary.

    Info-Tech Insight

    If you have an existing policy that aligns with one of the Info-Tech recommended templates weight Ease to Implement and Ease to Enforce as HIGH (4-5). This will decrease the priority of these policies.

    Sample of the Security Policy Prioritization Tool.

    Download the Security Policy Prioritization Tool

    1.5 Leverage stakeholders to champion policies

    Info-Tech Insight

    While management support is essential to initiating a strong security posture, allow employees to provide input on the development of security policies. This cooperation will lead to easier incorporation of the policies into the daily routines of workers, with less resistance. The security team will be less of a police force and more of a partner.

    Executive champion

    Identify an executive champion who will ensure that the security program and the security policies are supported.

    Focus on risk and protection

    Security can be viewed as an interference, but the business is likely more responsive to the concepts of risk and protection because it can apply to overall business operations and a revenue-generating mandate.

    Communicate policy initiatives

    Inform stakeholders of the policy initiative as security policies are only effective if they support the business requirements and user input is crucial for developing a strong security culture.

    Current security landscape

    Leveraging the current security landscape can be a useful mechanism to drive policy buy-in from stakeholders.

    Management buy-in

    This is key to policy acceptance; it indicates that policies are accurate, align with the business, and are to be upheld, that funds will be made available, and that all employees will be equally accountable.

    Establish a Sustainable ESG Reporting Program

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    • Parent Category Name: IT Governance, Risk & Compliance
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    Consistent, high-quality disclosure of ESG practices is the means by which organizations can demonstrate they are acting responsibly and in the best interest of their customers and society. Organizations may struggle with these challenges when implementing an ESG reporting program:

    • Narrowing down ESG efforts to material ESG issues
    • Building a sustainable reporting framework
    • Assessing and solving for data gaps and data quality issues
    • Being aware of the tools and best practices available to support regulatory and performance reporting

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • A tactical approach to ESG reporting will backfire. The reality of climate change and investor emphasis is not going away. For long-term success, organizations need to design an ESG reporting program that is flexible, interoperable, and digital.
    • Implementing a robust reporting program takes time. Start early, remain focused, and make plans to continually improve data quality and collection and performance metrics.
    • The “G” in ESG may not be capturing the limelight under ESG legislation yet, but there are key factors within the governance component that are under the regulatory microscope, including data, cybersecurity, fraud, and diversity and inclusion. Be sure you stay on top of these issues and include performance metrics in your internal and external reporting frameworks.

    Impact and Result

    • Successful organizations recognize that transparent ESG disclosure is necessary for long-term corporate performance.
    • Taking the time up front to design a robust and proactive ESG reporting program will pay off in the long run.
    • Future-proof your ESG reporting program by leveraging new tools, technologies, and software applications.

    Establish a Sustainable ESG Reporting Program Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Establish a Sustainable ESG Reporting Program Storyboard – A comprehensive framework to define an ESG reporting program that supports your ESG goals and reporting requirements.

    This storyboard provides a three-phased approach to establishing a comprehensive ESG reporting framework to drive sustainable corporate performance. It will help you identify what to report, understand how to implement your reporting program, and review in-house and external software and tooling options.

    • Establish a Sustainable ESG Reporting Program Storyboard

    2. ESG Reporting Workbook – A tool to document decisions, rationale, and implications of key activities to support your ESG reporting program.

    The workbook allows IT and business leaders to document decisions as they work through the steps to establish a comprehensive ESG reporting framework.

    • ESG Reporting Workbook

    3. ESG Reporting Implementation Plan – A tool to document tasks required to deliver and address gaps in your ESG reporting program.

    This planning tool guides IT and business leaders in planning, prioritizing, and addressing gaps to build an ESG reporting program.

    • ESG Reporting Implementation Plan Template

    4. ESG Reporting Presentation Template – A guide to communicate your ESG reporting approach to internal stakeholders.

    Use this template to create a presentation that explains the drivers behind the strategy, communicates metrics, demonstrates gaps and costs, and lays out the timeline for the implementation plan.

    • ESG Reporting Presentation Template

    Infographic

    Workshop: Establish a Sustainable ESG Reporting Program

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Determine Material ESG Factors

    The Purpose

    Determine material ESG factors.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Learn how to identify your key stakeholders and material ESG risks.

    Activities

    1.1 Create a list of stakeholders and applicable ESG factors.

    1.2 Create a materiality map.

    Outputs

    List of stakeholders and applicable ESG factors

    Materiality map

    2 Define Performance and Reporting Metrics

    The Purpose

    Define performance and reporting metrics.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Align your ESG strategy with key performance metrics.

    Activities

    2.1 Create a list of SMART metrics.

    2.2 Create a list of reporting obligations.

    Outputs

    SMART metrics

    List of reporting obligations

    3 Assess Data and Implementation Gaps

    The Purpose

    Assess data and implementation gaps.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Surface data and technology gaps.

    Activities

    3.1 Create a list of high-priority data gaps.

    3.2 Summarize high-level implementation considerations.

    Outputs

    List of high-priority data gaps

    Summary of high-level implementation considerations

    4 Consider Software and Tooling Options

    The Purpose

    Select software and tooling options and develop implementation plan.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Complete your roadmap and internal communication document.

    Activities

    4.1 Review tooling and technology options.

    4.2 Prepare ESG reporting implementation plan.

    4.3 Prepare the ESG reporting program presentation.

    Outputs

    Selected tooling and technology

    ESG reporting implementation plan

    ESG reporting strategy presentation

    Further reading

    Establish a Sustainable ESG Reporting Program

    Strengthen corporate performance by implementing a holistic and proactive reporting approach.

    Analyst Perspective

    The shift toward stakeholder capitalism cannot be pinned on one thing; rather, it is a convergence of forces that has reshaped attitudes toward the corporation. Investor attention on responsible investing has pushed corporations to give greater weight to the achievement of corporate goals beyond financial performance.

    Reacting to the new investor paradigm and to the wider systemic risk to the financial system of climate change, global regulators have rapidly mobilized toward mandatory climate-related disclosure.

    IT will be instrumental in meeting the immediate regulatory mandate, but their role is much more far-reaching. IT has a role to play at the leadership table shaping strategy and assisting the organization to deliver on purpose-driven goals.

    Delivering high-quality, relevant, and consistent disclosure is the key to unlocking and driving sustainable corporate performance. IT leaders should not underestimate the influence they have in selecting the right technology and data model to support ESG reporting and ultimately support top-line growth.

    Photo of Yaz Palanichamy

    Yaz Palanichamy
    Senior Research Analyst
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Photo of Donna Bales

    Donna Bales
    Principal Research Director
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Your organization needs to define a ESG reporting strategy that is driven by corporate purpose.

    Climate-related disclosure mandates are imminent; you need to prepare for them by building a sustainable reporting program now.

    There are many technologies available to support your ESG program plans. How do you choose the one that is right for your organization?

    Common Obstacles

    Knowing how to narrow down ESG efforts to material ESG issues for your organization.

    Understanding the key steps to build a sustainable ESG reporting program.

    Assessing and solving for data gaps and data quality issues.

    Being aware of the tools and best practices available to support regulatory and performance reporting.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Learn best-practice approaches to develop and adopt an ESG reporting program approach to suit your organization’s unique needs.

    Understand the key features, tooling options, and vendors in the ESG software market.

    Learn through analyst insights, case studies, and software reviews on best-practice approaches and tool options.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Implementing a robust reporting program takes time. Start early, remain focused, and plan to continually improve data quality and collection and performance metrics

    Putting “E,” “S,” and “G” in context

    Corporate sustainability depends on managing ESG factors well

    Environmental, social, and governance are the components of a sustainability framework that is used to understand and measure how an organization impacts or is affected by society as a whole.

    Human activities, particularly fossil fuel burning since the middle of the twentieth century, have increased greenhouse gas concentration, resulting in observable changes to the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere. The “E” in ESG relates to the positive and negative impacts an organization may have on the environment, such as the energy it takes in and the waste it discharges.

    The “S” in ESG is the most ambiguous component in the framework, as social impact relates not only to risks but also to prosocial behavior. It’s the most difficult to measure but can have significant financial and reputational impact on corporations if material and poorly managed.

    The “G” in ESG is foundational to the realization of “S” and “E.” It encompasses how well an organization integrates these considerations into the business and how well the organization engages with key stakeholders, receives feedback, and is transparent with its intentions.

    A diagram that shows common examples of ESG issues.

    The impact of ESG factors on investment decisions

    Alleviate Investment Risk

    Organizational Reputation: Seventy-four percent of those surveyed were concerned that failing to improve their corporate ESG performance would negatively impact their organization’s branding and overall reputation in the market (Intelex, 2022).

    Ethical Business Compliance: Adherence to well-defined codes of business conduct and implementation of anti-corruption and anti-bribery practices is a great way to distinguish between organizations with good/poor governance intentions.

    Shifting Consumer Preferences: ESG metrics can also largely influence consumer preferences in buying behavior intentions. Research from McKinsey shows that “upward of 70 percent” of consumers surveyed on purchases in multiple industries said they would pay an additional 5 percent for a green product if it met the same performance standards as a nongreen alternative (McKinsey, 2019).

    Responsible Supply Chain Management: The successful alignment of ESG criteria with supply chain operations can lead to several benefits (e.g. producing more sustainable product offerings, maintaining constructive relationships with more sustainability-focused suppliers).

    Environmental Stewardship: The growing climate crisis has forced companies of all sizes to rethink how they plan their corporate environmental sustainability practices.

    Compliance With Regulatory Guidelines: An increasing emphasis on regulations surrounding ESG disclosure rates may result in some institutional investors taking a more proactive stance toward ESG-related initiatives.

    Sustaining Competitive Advantage: Given today’s globalized economy, many businesses are constantly confronted with environmental issues (e.g. water scarcity, air pollution) as well as social problems (e.g. workplace wellness issues). Thus, investment in ESG factors is simply a part of maintaining competitive advantage.

    Leaders increasingly see ESG as a competitive differentiator

    The perceived importance of ESG has dramatically increased from 2020 to 2023

    A diagram that shows the perceived importance of ESG in 2020 and 2023.

    In a survey commissioned by Schneider Electric, researchers categorized the relative importance of ESG planning initiatives for global IT business leaders. ESG was largely identified as a critical factor in sustaining competitive advantage against competitors and maintaining positive investor/public relations.
    Source: S&P Market Intelligence, 2020; N=825 IT decision makers

    “74% of finance leaders say investors increasingly use nonfinancial information in their decision-making.”
    Source: EY, 2020

    Regulatory pressure to report on carbon emission is building globally

    The Evolving Regulatory Landscape

    Canada

    • Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) NI 51-107 Disclosure of Climate-related Matters

    United States

    • Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) 33-11042 – The Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors
    • SEC 33-11038 Cybersecurity Risk Management, Strategy, Governance, and Incident Disclosure
    • Nasdaq Board Diversity Rule (5605(f))

    Europe

    • European Commission Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR)
    • European Commission EU Supply Chain Act
    • The German Supply Chain Act (GSCA)
    • Financial Conduct Authority UK Proposal (DP 21/4) Sustainability Disclosure Requirements and investment labels
    • UK Modern Slavery Act, 2015

    New Zealand

    • The Financial Sector (Climate-related Disclosures and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2021

    Accurate ESG reporting will be critical to meet regulatory requirements

    ESG reporting is the disclosure of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data via qualitative and quantitative reports.

    It is how organizations make their sustainability commitments and strategies transparent to stakeholders.

    For investors it provides visibility into a company's ESG activities, enabling them to align investments to their values and avoid companies that cause damage to the environment or are offside on social and governance issues.

    Despite the growing practice of ESG reporting, reporting standards and frameworks are still evolving and the regulatory approach for climate-related disclosure is inconsistent across jurisdictions, making it challenging for organizations to develop a robust reporting program.

    “Environmental, social and governance (ESG) commitments are at the core a data problem.”

    Source: EY, 2022

    However, organizations will struggle to meet reporting requirements

    An image that shows 2 charts: How accurately can your organization report on the impact of its ESG Initiatives; and More specifically, if it was required to do so, how accurately could your organization report on its carbon footprint.

    Despite the commitment to support an ESG Initiative, less than a quarter of IT professionals say their organization can accurately report on the impact of its ESG initiatives, and 44% say their reporting on impacts is not accurate.

    Reporting accuracy was even worse for reporting on carbon footprint with 46% saying their organization could not report on its carbon footprint accurately. This despite most IT professionals saying they are working to support environmental mandates.

    Global sustainability rankings based on ESG dimensions

    Global Country Sustainability Ranking Map

    An image of Global Country Sustainability Ranking Map, with a score of 0 to 10.

    Country Sustainability Scores (CSR) as of October 2021
    Scores range from 1 (poor) to 10 (best)
    Source: Robeco, 2021

    ESG Performance Rankings From Select Countries

    Top ESG and sustainability performer

    Finland has ranked consistently as a leading sustainability performer in recent years. Finland's strongest ESG pillar is the environment, and its environmental ranking of 9.63/10 is the highest out of all 150 countries.

    Significant score deteriorations

    Brazil, France, and India are among the countries whose ESG score rankings have deteriorated significantly in the past three years.

    Increasing political tensions and risks as well as aftershock effects of the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g. high inequality and insufficient access to healthcare and education) have severely impacted Brazil’s performance across the governance and social pillars of the ESG framework, ultimately causing its overall ESG score to drop to a CSR value of 5.31.

    Largest gains and losses in ESG scores

    Canada has received worse scores for corruption, political risk, income inequality, and poverty over the past three years.

    Taiwan has seen its rankings improve in terms of overall ESG scores. Government effectiveness, innovation, a strong semiconductor manufacturing market presence, and stronger governance initiatives have been sufficient to compensate for a setback in income and economic inequality.

    Source: Robeco, 2021

    Establish a Sustainable Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Reporting Program

    A diagram of establishing a sustainable ESG reporting program.

    Blueprint benefits

    Business Benefits

    • Clarity on technical and organizational gaps in the organization’s ability to deliver ESG reporting strategy.
    • Transparency on the breadth of the change program, internal capabilities needed, and accountable owners.
    • Reduced likelihood of liability.
    • Improved corporate performance and top-line growth.
    • Confidence that the organization is delivering high-quality, comprehensive ESG disclosure.

    IT Benefits

    • Understanding of IT’s role as strategic enabler for delivering high-quality ESG disclosure and sustainable corporate performance.
    • Transparency on primary data gaps and technology and tools needed to support the ESG reporting strategy.
    • Clear direction of material ESG risks and how to prioritize implementation efforts.
    • Awareness of tool selection options.

    Blueprint deliverables

    Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:

    Photo of Executive Presentation.

    Key deliverable: Executive Presentation

    Leverage this presentation deck to improve corporate performance by implementing a holistic and proactive ESG reporting program.

    Photo of Workbook

    Workbook

    As you work through the activities, use this workbook to document decisions and rationale and to sketch your materiality map.

    Photo of Implementation Plan

    Implementation Plan

    Use this implementation plan to address organizational, technology, and tooling gaps.

    Photo of RFP Template

    RFP Template

    Leverage Info-Tech’s RFP Template to source vendors to fill technology gaps.

    Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

    DIY Toolkit
    "Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful."

    Guided Implementation
    "Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track."

    Workshop
    "We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place."

    Consulting
    "Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

    Guided Implementation

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

    A typical GI is 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    A diagram that shows Guided Implementation in 3 phases.

    Workshop Overview

    Day 1

    Day 2

    Day 3

    Day 4

    Day 5

    Activities

    Determine Material ESG Factors

    1.1 Review ESG drivers.
    1.2 Identify key stakeholders and what drives their behavior.
    1.3 Discuss materiality frameworks options and select baseline model.
    1.4 Identify material risks and combine and categorize risks.
    1.5 Map material risks on materiality assessment map.

    Define Performance and Reporting Metrics

    2.1 Understand common program metrics for each ESG component.
    2.2 Consider and select program metrics.
    2.3 Discuss ESG risk metrics.
    2.4 Develop SMART metrics.
    2.5 Surface regulatory reporting obligations.

    Assess Data and Implementation Gaps

    3.1 Assess magnitude and prioritize data gaps.
    3.2 Discuss high-level implementation considerations and organizational gaps.

    Software and Tooling Options

    4.1 Review technology options.
    4.2 Brainstorm technology and tooling options and the feasibility of implementing.
    4.3 Prepare implementation plan.
    4.4 Draft ESG reporting program communication.
    4.5 Optional – Review software selection options.

    Next Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)

    5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days.
    5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.

    Deliverables

    1. Customized list of key stakeholders and material ESG risks
    2. Materiality assessment map

    1. SMART metrics
    2. List of regulatory reporting obligations

    1. High-priority data gaps
    2. High-level implementation considerations

    1. Technology and tooling opportunities
    2. Implementation Plan
    3. ESG Reporting Communication

    1. ESG Reporting Workbook
    2. Implementation Plan

    Contact your account representative for more information.
    workshops@infotech.com
    1-888-670-8889

    Phase 1

    Explore ESG Reporting

    A diagram that shows phase 1 to 3 of establishing ESG reporting program.

    This phase will walk you through the following:

    • Define key stakeholders and material ESG factors.
    • Identify material ESG issues.
    • Develop SMART program metrics.
    • List reporting obligations.
    • Surface high-level data gaps.
    • Record high-level implementation considerations.

    This phase involves the following participants: CIO, CCO, CSO, business leaders, legal, marketing and communications, head of ESG reporting, and any dedicated ESG team members

    Practical steps for ESG disclosure

    Measuring and tracking incremental change among dimensions such as carbon emissions reporting, governance, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) requires organizations to acquire, analyze, and synthesize data from beyond their internal organizational ecosystems

    A diagram that shows 5 steps of identify, assess, implement, report & communicate, and monitor & improve.

    1.1 Ensure your reporting requirements are comprehensive

    A diagram of reporting lifecycle.

    This section will walk you through some key considerations for establishing your ESG reporting strategy. The first step in this process is to identify the scope of your reporting program.

    Defining the scope of your reporting program

    1. Stakeholder requirements: When developing a reporting program consider all your stakeholder needs as well as how they want to consume the information.
    2. Materiality assessment: Conduct a materiality assessment to identify the material ESG issues most critical to your organization. Organizations will need to report material risks to internal and external stakeholders.
    3. Purpose-driven goals: Your ESG reporting must include metrics to measure performance against your purpose-driven strategy.
    4. Regulatory requirements & industry: Work with your compliance and legal teams to understand which reporting requirements apply. Don’t forget requirements under the “S” and “G” components. Some jurisdictions require DEI reporting, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the US recently announced cybersecurity disclosure of board expertise and management oversight practices.

    Factor 1: Stakeholder requirements

    Work with key stakeholders to determine what to report

    A diagram that shows internal and external stakeholders.

    Evaluate your stakeholder landscape

    Consider each of these areas of the ESG Stakeholder Wheel and identify your stakeholders. Once stakeholders are identified, consider how the ESG factors might be perceived by delving into the ESG factors that matter to each stakeholder and what drives their behavior.

    A diagram of ESG impact, including materiality assessment, interviews, benchmark verses competitors, metrics and trend analysis.

    Determine ESG impact on stakeholders

    Review materiality assessment frameworks for your industry to surface ESG factors for your segment and stakeholder group(s).

    Perform research and analysis of the competition and stakeholder trends, patterns, and behavior

    Support your findings with stakeholder interviews.

    Stakeholders will prioritize ESG differently. Understanding their commitment is a critical success factor.

    Many of your stakeholders care about ESG commitments…

    27%: Support for social and environmental proposals at shareholder meetings of US companies rose to 27% in 2020 (up from 21% in 2017).
    Source: Sustainable Investments Institute, 2020.

    79%: of investors consider ESG risks and opportunities an important factor in investment decision making.
    Source: “Global Investor Survey,” PwC, 2021.

    ...Yet

    33%: of survey respondents cited that a lack of attention or support from senior leadership was one of the major barriers preventing their companies from making any progress on ESG issues.
    Source: “Consumer Intelligence Survey,” PwC, 2021.

    Info-Tech Insight

    To succeed with ESG reporting it is essential to understand who we hold ourselves accountable to and to focus ESG efforts in areas with the optimal balance between people, the planet, and profits

    Activity 1: Define stakeholders

    Input: Internal documentation (e.g. strategy, annual reports), ESG Stakeholder Wheel
    Output: List of key stakeholders and applicable ESG factors
    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, ESG Reporting Workbook
    Participants: Chief Sustainability Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, Head of ESG Reporting, Business leaders

    2 hours

    1. Using the ESG Stakeholder Wheel as a baseline, consider the breadth of your organization’s value chain and write down all your stakeholders.
    2. Discuss what drives their behavior. Be as detailed as you can be. For example, if it’s a consumer, delve into their age group and the factors that may drive their behavior.
    3. List the ESG factors that may be important to each stakeholder.
    4. Write down the communication channels you expect to use to communicate ESG information to this stakeholder group.
    5. Rate the priority of this stakeholder to your organization.
    6. Record this information in ESG Reporting Workbook.
    7. Optional – consider testing the results with a targeted survey.

    Download the ESG Reporting Workbook

    Activity 1: Example

    An example of activity 1 (defining stakeholders)

    Factor 2: Materiality assessments

    Conduct a materiality assessment to inform company strategy and establish targets and metrics for risk and performance reporting

    The concept of materiality as it relates to ESG is the process of gaining different perspectives on ESG issues and risks that may have significant impact (both positive and negative) on or relevance to company performance.

    The objective of a materiality assessment is to identify material ESG issues most critical to your organization by looking at a broad range of social and environmental factors. Its purpose is to narrow strategic focus and enable an organization to assess the impact of financial and non-financial risks aggregately.

    It helps to make the case for ESG action and strategy, assess financial impact, get ahead of long-term risks, and inform communication strategies.

    Organizations can use assessment tools from Sustainalytics or GRI, SASB Standards, or guidance and benchmarking information from industry associations to help assess ESG risks .

    An image of materiality matrix to understand ESG exposure

    Info-Tech Insight

    The materiality assessment informs your risk management approach. Material ESG risks identified should be integrated into your organization’s risk reporting framework.

    Supplement your materiality assessment with stakeholder interviews

    A diagram that shows steps of stakeholder interviews.

    How you communicate the results of your ESG assessment may vary depending on whether you’re communicating to internal or external stakeholders and their communication delivery preferences.

    Using the results from your materiality assessment, narrow down your key stakeholders list. Enhance your strategy for disclosure and performance measurement through direct and indirect stakeholder engagement.

    Decide on the most suitable format to reach out to these stakeholders. Smaller groups lend themselves to interviews and forums, while surveys and questionnaires work well for larger groups.

    Develop relevant questions tailored to your company and the industry and geography you are in.

    Once you receive the results, decide how and when you will communicate them.

    Determine how they will be used to inform your strategy.

    Steps to determine material ESG factors

    Step 1

    Select framework

    A diagram of framework

    Review reporting frameworks and any industry guidance and select a baseline reporting framework to begin your materiality assessment.

    Step 2

    Begin to narrow down

    A diagram of narrowing down stakeholders

    Work with stakeholders to narrow down your list to a shortlist of high-priority material ESG issues.

    Step 3

    Consolidate and group

    A diagram of ESG grouping

    Group ESG issues under ESG components, your company’s strategic goals, or the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

    Step 4

    Rate the risks of ESG factors

    A diagram of rating the risks of ESG factors

    Assign an impact and likelihood scale for each risk and assign your risk threshold.

    Step 5

    Map

    A diagram of material map

    Use a material map framework such as GRI or SASB or Info-Tech’s materiality map to visualize your material ESG risks.

    Materiality assessment

    The materiality assessment is a strategic tool used to help identify, refine, and assess the numerous ESG issues in the context of your organization.

    There is no universally accepted approach to materiality assessments. Although the concept of materiality is often embedded within a reporting standard, your approach to conducting the materiality assessment does not need to link to a specific reporting standard. Rather, it can be used as a baseline to develop your own.

    To arrive at the appropriate outcome for your organization, careful consideration is needed to tailor the materiality assessment to meet your organization’s objectives.

    When defining the scope of your materiality assessment consider:

    • Your corporate ESG purpose and sustainability strategy
    • Your audience and what drives their behavior
    • The relevance of the ESG issues to your organization. Do they impact strategy? Increase risk?
    • The boundaries of your materiality assessment (e.g. regions or business departments, supply chains it will cover)
    • Whether you want to assess from a double materiality perspective

    A diagram of framework

    Consider your stakeholders and your industry when selecting your materiality assessment tool – this will ensure you provide relevant disclosure information to the stakeholders that need it.

    Double materiality is an extension of the financial concept of materiality and considers the broader impact of an organization on the world at large – particularly to people and climate.

    Prioritize and categorize

    A diagram of narrowing down stakeholders

    Using internal information (e.g. strategy, surveys) and external information (e.g. competitors, industry best practices), create a longlist of ESG issues.

    Discuss and narrow down the list. Be sure to consider opportunities – not just material risks!

    A diagram of ESG grouping

    Group the issues under ESG components or defined strategic goals for your organization. Another option is to use the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals to categorize.

    Differentiate ESG factors that you already measure and report.

    The benefit of clustering is that it shows related topics and how they may positively or negatively influence one another.

    Internal risk disclosure should not be overlooked

    Bank of America estimates ESG disputes have cost S&P companies more than $600 billion in market capitalization in the last seven years alone.

    ESG risks are good predictors of future risks and are therefore key inputs to ensure long-term corporate success.

    Regardless of the size of your organization, it’s important to build resilience against ESG risks.

    To protect an organization against an ESG incident and potential liability risk, ESG risks should be treated like any other risk type and incorporated into risk management and internal reporting practices, including climate scenario analysis.

    Some regulated entities will be required to meet climate-related financial disclosure expectations, and sound risk management practices will be prescribed through regulatory guidance. However, all organizations should instill sound risk practices.

    ESG risk management done right will help protect against ESG mishaps that can be expensive and damaging while demonstrating commitment to stakeholders that have influence over all corporate performance.

    Source: GreenBiz, 2022.

    A diagram of risk landscape.

    IT has a role to play to provide the underlying data and technology to support good risk decisions.

    Visualize your material risks

    Leverage industry frameworks or use Info-Tech’s materiality map to visualize your material ESG risks.

    GRI’s Materiality Matrix

    A photo of GRI’s Materiality Matrix

    SASB’s Materiality Map

    A photo of SASB’s Materiality Map

    Info-Tech’s Materiality Map

    A diagram of material map

    Activity 2: Materiality assessment

    Input: ESG corporate purpose or any current ESG metrics; Customer satisfaction or employee engagement surveys; Materiality assessment tools from SASB, Sustainalytics, GRI, or industry frameworks; Outputs from stakeholder outreach/surveys
    Output: Materiality map, a list of material ESG issues
    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, ESG Reporting Workbook
    Participants: Chief Sustainability Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, Head of ESG Reporting, Business leaders, Participants from marketing and communications

    2-3 hour

    1. Begin by reviewing various materiality assessment frameworks to agree on a baseline framework. This will help to narrow down a list of topics that are relevant to your company and industry.
    2. As a group, discuss the potential impact and start listing material issues. At first the list will be long, but the group will work collectively to prioritize and consolidate the list.
    3. Begin to combine and categorize the results by aligning them to your ESG purpose and strategic pillars.
    4. Treat each ESG issue as a risk and map against the likelihood and impact of the risk.
    5. Map the topics on your materiality map. Most of the materiality assessment tools have materiality maps – you may choose to use their map.
    6. Record this information in the ESG Reporting Workbook.

    Download the ESG Reporting Workbook

    Case Study: Novartis

    Logo of Novartis

    • INDUSTRY: Pharmaceuticals
    • SOURCE: Novartis, 2022

    Novartis, a leading global healthcare company based in Switzerland, stands out as a leader in providing medical consultancy services to address the evolving needs of patients worldwide. As such, its purpose is to use science and technologically innovative solutions to address some of society’s most debilitating, challenging, and ethically significant healthcare issues.

    The application of Novartis’ materiality assessment process in understanding critical ESG topics important to their shareholders, stakeholder groups, and society at large enables the company to better quantify references to its ESG sustainability metrics.

    Novartis applies its materiality assessment process to better understand relevant issues affecting its underlying business operations across its entire value chain. Overall, employing Novartis’s materiality assessment process helps the company to better manage its societal, environmental, and economic impacts, thus engaging in more socially responsible governance practices.

    Novartis’ materiality assessment is a multitiered process that includes three major elements:

    1. Identifying key stakeholders, which involves a holistic analysis of internal colleagues and external stakeholders.
    2. Collecting quantitative feedback and asking relevant stakeholders to rank a set of issues (e.g. climate change governance, workplace culture, occupational health and safety) and rate how well Novartis performs across each of those identified issues.
    3. Eliciting qualitative insights by coordinating interviews and workshops with survey participants to better understand why the issues brought up during survey sessions were perceived as important.

    Results

    In 2021, Novartis had completed its most recent materiality assessment. From this engagement, both internal and external stakeholders had ranked as important eight clusters that Novartis is impacting on from an economic, societal, and environmental standpoint. The top four clusters were patient health and safety, access to healthcare, innovation, and ethical business practices.

    Factor 3: ESG program goals

    Incorporate ESG performance metrics that support your ESG strategy

    Another benefit of the materiality assessment is that it helps to make the case for ESG action and provides key information for developing a purpose-led strategy.

    An internal ESG strategy should drive toward company-specific goals such as green-house gas emission targets, use of carbon neutral technologies, focus on reusable products, or investment in DEI programs.

    Most organizations focus on incremental goals of reducing negative impacts to existing operations or improving the value to existing stakeholders rather than transformative goals.

    Yet, a strategy that is authentic and aligned with key stakeholders and long-term goals will bring sustainable value.

    The strategy must be supported by an accountability and performance measurement framework such as SMART metrics.

    A fulsome reporting strategy should include performance metrics

    A photo of SMART metrics: Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, Time-bound.

    Activity 3: SMART metrics

    Input: ESG corporate purpose or any current ESG metrics, Outputs from activities 1 and 2, Internally defined metrics (i.e. risk metrics or internal reporting requirements)
    Output: SMART metrics
    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, ESG Reporting Workbook
    Participants: Chief Sustainability Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, Chief Risk officer/Risk leaders, Head of ESG Reporting, Business leaders, Participants from marketing and communications

    1-2 hours

    1. Document a list of appropriate metrics to assess the success of your ESG program.
    2. Use the sample metrics listed in the table on the next slide as a starting point.
    3. Fill in the chart to indicate the:
      1. Name of the success metric
      2. Method for measuring success
      3. Baseline measurement
      4. Target measurement
      5. Actual measurements at various points throughout the process of improving the risk management program
      6. A deadline for each metric to meet the target measurement
    4. Record this information in the ESG Reporting Workbook.

    Download the ESG Reporting Workbook

    Sample ESG metrics

    Leverage industry resources to help define applicable metrics

    Environmental

    • Greenhouse gas emissions – total corporate
    • Carbon footprint – percent emitted and trend
    • Percentage of air and water pollution
    • Renewable energy share per facility
    • Percentage of recycled material in a product
    • Ratio of energy saved to actual use
    • Waste creation by weight
    • Circular transition indicators

    Social

    • Rates of injury
    • Lost time incident rate
    • Proportion of spend on local suppliers
    • Entry-level wage vs. local minimum wage
    • Percentage of management who identify with specific identity groups (i.e. gender and ethnic diversity)
    • Percentage of suppliers screened for accordance to ESG vs. total number of suppliers
    • Consumer responsiveness

    Governance

    • Annual CEO compensation compared to median
    • Percentage of employees trained in conflict-of-interest policy
    • Number of data breaches using personally identifiable information (PII)
    • Number of incidents relating to management corruption
    • Percentage of risks with mitigation plans in place

    Activity 3: Develop SMART project metrics

    1-3 hours

    Attach metrics to your goals to gauge the success of the ESG program.

    Sample Metrics

    An image of sample metrics

    Factor 4: Regulatory reporting obligations

    Identify your reporting obligations

    High-level overview of reporting requirements:

    An image of high-level reporting requirements in Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, and the US.

    Refer to your legal and compliance team for the most up-to-date and comprehensive requirements.

    The focus of regulators is to move to mandatory reporting of material climate-related financial information.

    There is some alignment to the TCFD* framework, but there is a lack of standardization in terms of scope across jurisdictions.
    *TCFD is the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures.

    Activity 4: Regulatory obligations

    Input: Corporate strategy documents; Compliance registry or internal governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) tool
    Output: A list of regulatory obligations
    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, ESG Reporting Workbook
    Participants: Chief Sustainability Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, Chief Legal Officer, Head of ESG Reporting, Business leaders

    1-2 hours

    1. Begin by listing the jurisdictions in which you operate or plan to operate.
    2. For each jurisdiction, list any known current or future regulatory requirements. Consider all ESG components.
    3. Log whether the requirements are mandatory or voluntary and the deadline to report.
    4. Write any details about reporting framework; for example, if a reporting framework such as TCFD is prescribed.
    5. Record this information in the ESG Reporting Workbook.

    Download the ESG Reporting Workbook

    1.2 Assess impact and weigh options

    A diagram of reporting lifecycle.

    Once the scope of your ESG reporting framework has been identified, further assessment is needed to determine program direction and to understand and respond to organizational impact.

    Key factors for further assessment and decisions include

    1. Reporting framework options. Consider mandated reporting frameworks and any industry standards when deciding your baseline reporting framework. Strive to have a common reporting methodology that serves all your reporting needs: regulatory, corporate, shareholders, risk reporting, etc.
    2. Perform gap analysis. The gap analysis will reveal areas where data may need to be sourced or where tools or external assistance may be needed to help deliver your reporting strategy.
    3. Organizational impact and readiness. The gap analysis will help to determine whether your current operating model can support the reporting program or whether additional resources, tools, or infrastructure will be needed.

    1.2.1 Decide on baseline reporting framework

    1. Determine the appropriate reporting framework for your organization

    Reporting standards are available to enable relevant, high-quality, and comparable information. It’s the job of the reporting entity to decide on the most suitable framework for their organization.

    The most established standard for sustainability reporting is the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), which has supported sustainability reporting for over 20 years.

    The Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) was created by the Financial Stability Board to align ESG disclosure with financial reporting. Many global regulators support this framework.

    The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) is developing high-quality, understandable, and enforceable global standards using the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) as a baseline. It is good practice to use SASB Standards until the ISSB standards are available.

    2. Decide which rating agencies you will use and why they are important

    ESG ratings are provided by third-party agencies and are increasingly being used for financing and transparency to investors. ESG ratings provide both qualitative and quantitative information.

    However, there are multiple providers, so organizations need to consider which ones are the most important and how many they want to use.

    Some of the most popular rating agencies include Sustainalytics, MSCI, Bloomberg, Moody's, S&P Global, and CDP.

    Reference Appendix Below

    1.2.2 Determine data gaps

    The ESG reporting mandate is built on the assumption of consistent, good-quality data

    To meet ESG objectives, corporations are challenged with collecting non-financial data from across functional business and geographical locations and from their supplier base and supply chains.

    One of the biggest impediments to ESG implementation is the lack of high-quality data and of mature processes and tools to support data collection.

    An important step for delivering reporting requirements is to perform a gap analysis early on to surface gaps in the primary data needed to deliver your reporting strategy.

    The output of this exercise will also inform and help prioritize implementation, as it may show that new data sets need to be sourced or tools purchased to collect and aggregate data.

    Conduct a gap analysis to determine gaps in primary data

    A diagram of gap analysis to determine gaps in primary data.

    Activity 5: Gap analysis

    Input: Business (ESG) strategy, Data inventory (if exists), Output from Activity 1: Key stakeholders, Output from Activity 2: Materiality map, Output of Activity 3: SMART metrics, Output of Activity 4: Regulatory obligations
    Output: List of high-priority data gaps
    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, ESG Reporting Workbook
    Participants: Chief Sustainability Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, Chief Legal Officer, Head of ESG Reporting, Business leaders, Data analysts

    1-3 hours

    1. Using the outputs from activities 1-4, list your organization’s ESG issues in order of priority. You may choose to develop your priority list by stakeholder group or by material risks.
    2. List any defined SMART metric from Activity 3.
    3. Evaluate data availability and quality of the data (if existing) as well as any impediments to sourcing the data.
    4. Make note if this is a common datapoint, i.e. would you disclose this data in more than one report?
    5. Record this information in the ESG Reporting Workbook.

    Download the ESG Reporting Workbook

    1.3 Take a holistic implementation approach

    Currently, 84 percent of businesses don’t integrate their ESG performance with financial and risk management reporting.

    Source: “2023 Canadian ESG Reporting Insights,” PwC.

    A diagram of reporting lifecycle.

    When implementing an ESG reporting framework, it is important not to implement in silos but to take a strategic approach that considers the evolving nature of ESG and the link to value creation and sound decision making.

    Key implementation considerations include

    1. Setting clear metrics and targets. Key performance indicators (KPIs) and key risk indicators (KRIs) are used to measure ESG factor performance. It’s essential that they are relevant and are constructed using high-quality data. Your performance metrics should be continually assessed and adapted as your ESG program evolves.
    2. Data challenges. Without good-quality data it is impossible to accurately measure ESG performance, generate actionable insights on ESG performance and risk, and provide informative metrics to investors and other stakeholders. Design your data model to be flexible and digital where possible to enable data interoperability.
    3. Architectural approach. IT will play a key role in the design of your reporting framework, including the decision on whether to build, buy, or deliver a hybrid solution. Every organization will build their reporting program to suit their unique needs; however, taking a holistic and proactive approach will support and sustain your strategy long term.

    1.3.1 Metrics and targets for climate-related disclosure

    “The future of sustainability reporting is digital – and tagged.”
    Source: “XBRL Is Coming,” Novisto, 2022.

    In the last few years, global regulators have proposed or effected legislation requiring public companies to disclose climate-related information.

    Yet according to Info-Tech’s 2023 Trends and Priorities survey, most IT professionals expect to support environmental mandates but are not prepared to accurately report on their organization’s carbon footprint.

    IT groups have a critical role to play in helping organizations develop strategic plans to meet ESG goals, measure performance, monitor risks, and deliver on disclosure requirements.

    To future-proof your reporting structure, your data should be readable by humans and machines.

    eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) tagging is mandated in several jurisdictions for financial reporting, and several reporting frameworks are adopting XBRL for sustainability reporting so that non-financial and financial disclosure frameworks are aligned.

    Example environmental metrics

    • Amount of scope 1, 2, or 3 GHG emissions
    • Total energy consumption
    • Total water consumption
    • Progress toward net zero emission
    • Percentage of recycled material in a product

    1.3.1 Metrics and targets for social disclosure

    “59% of businesses only talk about their positive performance, missing opportunities to build trust with stakeholders through balanced and verifiable ESG reporting.”
    Source: “2023 Canadian ESG Reporting Insights,” PwC.

    To date, regulatory focus has been on climate-related disclosure, although we are beginning to see signals in Europe and the UK that they are turning their attention to social issues.

    Social reporting focuses on the socioeconomic impacts of an organization’s initiatives or activities on society (indirect or direct).

    The “social” component of ESG can be the most difficult to quantify, but if left unmonitored it can leave your organization open to litigation from consumers, employees, and activists.

    Although organizations have been disclosing mandated metrics such as occupational health and safety and non-mandated activities such as community involvement for years, the scope of reporting is typically narrow and hard to measure in financial terms.

    This is now changing with the recognition by companies of the value of social reporting to brand image, traceability, and overall corporate performance.

    Example social metrics

    • Rate of injury
    • Lost time incident rate
    • Proportion of spend on local suppliers
    • Entry-level wage versus local minimum wage
    • Percentage of management within specific identity groups (i.e. gender and ethnic diversity)
    • Number of workers impacted by discrimination

    Case Study: McDonald’s Corporation (MCD)

    Logo of McDonald’s

    • INDUSTRY: Food service retailer
    • SOURCE: RBC Capital Markets, 2021; McDonald’s, 2019

    McDonald’s Corporation is the leading global food service retailer. Its purpose is not only providing burgers to dinner tables around the world but also serving its communities, customers, crew, farmers, franchisees, and suppliers alike. As such, not only is the company committed to having a positive impact on communities and in maintaining the growth and success of the McDonald's system, but it is also committed to conducting its business operations in a way that is mindful of its ESG commitments.

    An image of McDonald’s Better Together

    McDonald’s Better Together: Gender Balance & Diversity strategy and Women in Tech initiative

    In 2019, MCD launched its Better Together: Gender Balance & Diversity strategy as part of a commitment to improving the representation and visibility of women at all levels of the corporate structure by 2023.

    In conjunction with the Better Together strategy, MCD piloted a “Women in Tech” initiative through its education and tuition assistance program, Archways to Opportunity. The initiative enabled women from company-owned restaurants and participating franchisee restaurants to learn skills in areas such as data science, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence. MCD partnered with Microsoft and Colorado Technical University to carry out the initiative (McDonald’s, 2019).

    Both initiatives directly correlate to the “S” of the ESG framework, as the benefits of gender-diverse leadership continue to be paramount in assessing the core strengths of a company’s overreaching ESG portfolio. Hence, public companies will continue to face pressure from investors to act in accordance with these social initiatives.

    Results

    MCD’s Better Together and Women in Tech programs ultimately helped improve recruitment and retention rates among its female employee base. After the initialization of the gender balance and diversification strategy, McDonald’s signed on to the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles to help accelerate global efforts in addressing the gender disparity problem.

    1.3.1 Metrics and targets for governance disclosure

    Do not lose sight of regulatory requirements

    Strong governance is foundational element of a ESG program, yet governance reporting is nascent and is often embedded in umbrella legislation pertaining to a particular risk factor.

    A good example of this is the recent proposal by the Securities and Exchange Commission in the US (CFR Parts 229, 232, 239, 240, and 249, Cybersecurity Risk Management, Strategy, Governance, and Incident Disclosure), which will require public companies to:

    • Disclosure of board oversight of cyber risk.
    • Disclose management’s role in managing and accessing cybersecurity-related risks.

    The "G” component includes more than traditional governance factors and acts as a catch-all for other important ESG factors such as fraud, cybersecurity, and data hygiene. Make sure you understand how risk may manifest in your organization and put safeguards in place.

    Example governance metrics

    • Annual CEO compensation compared to median
    • Percentage of employees trained in conflict-of-interest policy
    • Completed number of supplier assessments
    • Number of data breaches using PII
    • Number of material cybersecurity breaches

    Info-Tech Insight

    The "G" in ESG may not be capturing the limelight under ESG legislation yet, but there are key governance factors that are that are under regulatory radar, including data, cybersecurity, fraud, and DEI. Be sure you stay on top of these issues and include performance metrics into your internal and external reporting frameworks.

    1.3.2 Conquering data management challenges

    48% of investment decision makers, including 58% of institutional investors, say companies’ self-reported ESG performance data is “much more important” than companies’ conventional financial data when informing their investment decisions (Benchmark ESG, 2021).

    Due to the nascent nature of climate-related reporting, data challenges such as the availability, usability, comparability, and workflow integration surface early in the ESG program journey when sourcing and organizing data:

    • It is challenging to collect non-financial data across functional business and geographical locations and from supplier base and supply chains.
    • The lack of common standards leads to comparability challenges, hindering confidence in the outputs.

    In addition to good, reliable inputs, organizations need to have the infrastructure to access new data sets and convert raw data into actionable insights.

    The establishment of data model and workflow processes to track data lineage is essential to support an ESG program. To be successful, it is critical that flexibility, scalability, and transparency exist in the architectural design. Data architecture must scale to capture rapidly growing volumes of unstructured raw data with the associated file formats.

    A photo of conceptual model for data lineage.

    Download Info-Tech’s Create and Manage Enterprise Data Models blueprint

    1.3.3 Reporting architecture

    CIOs play an important part in formulating the agenda and discourse surrounding baseline ESG reporting initiatives

    Building and operating an ESG program requires the execution of a large number of complex tasks.

    IT leaders have an important role to play in selecting the right technology approach to support a long-term strategy that will sustain and grow corporate performance.

    The decision to buy a vendor solution or build capabilities in-house will largely depend on your organization’s ESG ambitions and the maturity of in-house business and IT capabilities.

    For large, heavily regulated entities an integrated platform for ESG reporting can provide organizations with improved risk management and internal controls.

    Example considerations when deciding to meet ESG reporting obligations in-house

    • Size and type of organization
    • Extent of regulatory requirements and scrutiny
    • The amount of data you want to report
    • Current maturity of data architecture, particularly your ability to scale
    • Current maturity of your risk and control program – how easy is it to enhance current processes?
    • The availability and quality of primary data
    • Data set gaps
    • In-house expertise in data, model risk, and change management
    • Current operating model – is it siloed or integrated?
    • Implementation time
    • Program cost
    • The availability of vendor solutions that may address gaps

    Info-Tech Insight

    Executive leadership should take a more holistic and proactive stance to not only accurately reporting upon baseline corporate financial metrics but also capturing and disclosing relevant ESG performance metrics to drive alternative streams of valuation across their respective organizational environments.

    Activity 6: High-level implementation considerations

    Input: Business (ESG) strategy, Data inventory (if exists), Asset inventory (if exists), Output from Activity 5
    Output: Summary of high-level implementation considerations
    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, ESG Reporting Workbook
    Participants: Chief Sustainability Officer, Head of ESG Reporting, Business leaders, Data analysts, Data and IT architect/leaders,

    2-3 hours

    1. Review the implementation considerations on the previous slide to help determine the appropriate technology approach.
    2. For each implementation consideration, describe the current state.
    3. Discuss and draft the implications of reaching the desired future state by listing implications and organizational gaps.
    4. Discuss as a group if there is an obvious implementation approach.
    5. At this point, further analysis may be needed. Form a subcommittee or assign a leader to conduct further analysis.
    6. Record this information in the ESG Reporting Workbook.

    Download the ESG Reporting Workbook

    1.3.4 Ensure your implementation team has a high degree of trust and communication

    If external partners are needed, dedicate an internal resource to managing the vendor and partner relationships.

    Communication: Teams must have some type of communication strategy. This can be broken into:

    • Regularity: Having a set time each day to communicate progress and a set day to conduct retrospectives.
    • Ceremonies: Injecting awards and continually emphasizing delivery of value to encourage relationship building and constructive motivation.
    • Escalation: Voicing any concerns and having someone responsible for addressing those concerns.

    Proximity: Distributed teams create complexity as communication can break down. This can be mitigated by:

    • Location: Placing teams in proximity to close the barrier of geographical distance and time zone differences.
    • Inclusion: Making a deliberate attempt to pull remote team members into discussions and ceremonies.
    • Communication tools: Having the right technology (e.g. videoconference) to help bring teams closer together virtually.

    Trust: Members should trust other members are contributing to the project and completing their required tasks on time. Trust can be developed and maintained by:

    • Accountability: Having frequent quality reviews and feedback sessions. As work becomes more transparent, people become more accountable.
    • Role clarity: Having a clear definition of what everyone’s role is.

    1.4 Clear effective communication

    Improving investor transparency is one of the key drivers behind disclosure, so making the data easy to find and consumable is essential

    A diagram of reporting lifecycle.

    Your communication of ESG performance is intricately linked to corporate value creation. When designing your communications strategy, consider:

    • Your message – make it authentic and tell a consistent story.
    • How data will be used to support the narrative.
    • How your ESG program may impact internal and external programs and build a communication strategy that is fit for purpose. Example programs are:
      • Employee recruitment
      • New product rollout
      • New customer campaign
    • The design of the communication and how well it suits the audience. Communications may take the form of campaigns, thought leadership, infographics, etc.
    • The appropriateness of communication channels to your various audiences and the messages you want to convey. For example, social media, direct outreach, shareholder circular, etc.

    1.5 Continually evaluate

    A diagram of reporting lifecycle.

    A recent BDC survey of 121 large companies and public-sector buyers found that 82% require some disclosure from their suppliers on ESG, and that's expected to grow to 92% by 2024.
    Source: BDC, 2023

    ESG's link to corporate performance means that organizations must stay on top of ESG issues that may impact the long-term sustainability of their business.

    ESG components will continue to evolve, and as they do so will stakeholder views. It is important to continually survey your stakeholders to ensure you are optimally managing ESG risks and opportunities.

    To keep ESG on the strategy agenda, we recommend that organizations:

    • Appoint a chief sustainability officer (CSO) with a seat on executive leadership committees.
    • Embed ESG into existing governance and form a tactical ESG working group committee.
    • Ensure ESG risks are integrated into the enterprise risk management program.
    • Continually challenge your ESG strategy.
    • Regularly review risks and opportunities through proactive outreach to stakeholders.

    Download The ESG Imperative and Its Impact on Organizations

    Phase 2

    Streamline Requirements and Tool Selection

    A diagram that shows phase 1 to 3 of establishing ESG reporting program.

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Assess technology and tooling opportunities.
    • Prepare ESG reporting implementation plan.
    • Write ESG reporting presentation document.

    This phase involves the following participants: CIO, CCO, CSO, EA, IT application and data leaders, procurement, business leaders, marketing and communications, head of ESG reporting, and any dedicated ESG team members

    2.1 Streamline your requirements and tool section

    Spend the time up front to enable success and meet expectations

    Before sourcing any technology, it’s important to have a good understanding of your requirements.

    Key elements to consider:

    1. ESG reporting scope. Large enterprises will have more complex workflow requirements, but they also will have larger teams to potentially manage in-house. Smaller organizations will need easy-to-use, low-cost solutions.
    2. Industry and value chain. Look for industry-specific solutions, as they will be more tailored to your needs and will enable you to be up and running quicker.
    3. Coverage. Ensure the tool has adequate regulatory coverage to meet your current and future needs.
    4. Gap in functionality. Be clear on the problem you are trying to solve and/or the gap in workflow. Refer to the reporting lifecycle and be clear on your needs before sourcing technology.
    5. Resourcing. Factor in capacity during and after implementation and negotiate the appropriate support.

    Industry perspective

    The importance of ESG is something that will need to be considered for most, if not every decision in the future, and having reliable and available information is essential. While the industry will continue to see investment and innovation that drives operational efficiency and productivity, we will also see strong ESG themes in these emerging technologies to ensure they support both sustainable and socially responsible operations.

    With the breadth of technology Datamine already has addressing the ESG needs for the mining industry combined with our new technology, our customers can make effective and timely decisions through incorporating ESG data into their planning and scheduling activities to meet customer demands, while staying within the confines of their chosen ESG targets.

    Photo of Chris Parry

    Chris Parry
    VP of ESG, Datamine

    Photo of Datamine Photo of isystain

    Activity 7: Brainstorm tooling options

    Use the technology feature list below to identify areas along the ESG workflow where automated tools or third-party solutions may create efficiencies

    Technological Solutions Feature Bucket

    Basic Feature Description

    Advanced Feature Description

    Natural language processing (NLP) tools

    Ability to use NLP tools to track and monitor sentiment data from news and social media outlets.

    Leveraging NLP toolsets can provide organizations granular insights into workplace sentiment levels, which is a core component of any ESG strategy. A recent study by MarketPsych, a company that uses NLP technologies to analyze sentiment data from news and social media feeds, linked stock price performance to workplace sentiment levels.

    Distributed ledger technologies (DLTs)

    DLTs can help ensure greater reporting transparency, in line with stringent regulatory reporting requirements.

    DLT as an ESG enabler, with advanced capabilities such as an option to provide demand response services linked to electricity usage and supply forecasting.

    Cloud-based data management and reporting systems

    Cloud-based data management and reporting can support ESG initiatives by providing increased reporting transparency and a better understanding of diverse social and environmental risks.

    Leverage newfound toolsets such as Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability – a SaaS offering that enables organizations to seamlessly record, report, and reduce their emissions on a path toward net zero.

    IoT technologies

    Integration of IoT devices can help enhance the integrity of ESG reporting through the collection of descriptive and accurate ESG metrics (e.g. energy efficiency, indoor air quality, water quality and usage).

    Advanced management of real-time occupancy monitoring: for example, the ability to reduce energy consumption rates by ensuring energy is only used when spaces and individual cubicles are occupied.

    2.2 Vendors tools and technologies to support ESG reporting

    In a recent survey of over 1,000 global public- and private-sector leaders, 87% said they see AI as a helpful tool to fight climate change.
    Source: Boston Consulting Group

    Technology providers are part of the solution and can be leveraged to collect, analyze, disclose, track, and report on the vast amount of data.

    Increasingly organizations are using artificial intelligence to build climate resiliency:

    • AI is useful for the predictive modelling of potential climate events due to its ability to gather and analyze and synthesize large complete data sets.

    And protect organizations from vulnerabilities:

    • AI can be used to identify and assess vulnerabilities that may lead to business disruption or risks in production or the supply chain.

    A diagram of tooling, including DLT, natural language processing, cloud-based data management and IoT.

    2.3 ESG reporting software selection

    What Is ESG Reporting Software?

    Our definition: ESG reporting software helps organizations improve the transparency and accountability of their ESG program and track, measure, and report their sustainability efforts.

    Key considerations for reporting software selection:

    • While there are boutique ESG vendors in the market, organizations with existing GRC tools may first want to discuss ESG coverage with their existing vendor as it will enable better integration.
    • Ensure that the vendors you are evaluating support the requirements and regulations in your region, industry, and geography. Regulation is moving quickly – functionality needs to be available now and not just on the roadmap.
    • Determine the level of software integration support you need before meeting with vendors and ensure they will be able to provide it – when you need it!

    Adoption of ESG reporting software has historically been low, but these tools will become critical as organizations strive to meet increasing ESG reporting requirements.

    In a recent ESG planning and performance survey conducted by ESG SaaS company Diligent Corporation, it was found that over half of all organizations surveyed do not publish ESG metrics of any kind, and only 9% of participants are actively using software that supports ESG data collection, analysis, and reporting.

    Source: Diligent, 2021.

    2.3.1 Elicit and prioritize granular requirements for your ESG reporting software

    Understanding business needs through requirements gathering is the key to defining everything about what is being purchased. However, it is an area where people often make critical mistakes.

    Poorly scoped requirements

    Fail to be comprehensive and miss certain areas of scope.

    Focus on how the solution should work instead of what it must accomplish.

    Have multiple levels of detail within the requirements that are inconsistent and confusing.

    Drill all the way down into system-level detail.

    Add unnecessary constraints based on what is done today rather than focusing on what is needed for tomorrow.

    Omit constraints or preferences that buyers think are obvious.

    Best practices

    Get a clear understanding of what the system needs to do and what it is expected to produce.

    Test against the principle of MECE – requirements should be “mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive.”

    Explicitly state the obvious and assume nothing.

    Investigate what is sold on the market and how it is sold. Use language that is consistent with that of the market and focus on key differentiators – not table stakes.

    Contain the appropriate level of detail – the level should be suitable for procurement and sufficient for differentiating vendors.

    Download Info-Tech's Improve Requirements Gathering blueprint

    2.3.1 Identify critical and nice-to-have features

    Central Data Repository: Collection of stored data from existing databases merged into one location that can then be shared, analyzed, or updated.

    Automatic Data Collection: Ability to automate data flows, collect responses from multiple sources at specified intervals, and check them against acceptance criteria.

    Automatic KPI Calculations, Conversions, and Updates: Company-specific metrics can be automatically calculated, converted, and tracked.

    Built-In Indicator Catalogs and Benchmarking: Provides common recognized frameworks or can integrate a catalog of ESG indicators.

    Custom Reporting: Ability to create reports on company emissions, energy, and asset data in company-branded templates.

    User-Based Access and Permissions: Ability to control access to specific content or data sets based on the end user’s roles.

    Real-Time Capabilities: Ability to analyze and visualize data as soon as it becomes available in underlying systems.

    Version Control: Tracking of document versions with each iteration of document changes.

    Intelligent Alerts and Notifications: Ability to create, manage, send, and receive notifications, enhancing efficiency and productivity.

    Audit Trail: View all previous activity including any recent edits and user access.

    Encrypted File Storage and Transfer: Ability to encrypt a file before transmitting it over the network to hide content from being viewed or extracted.

    Activity 7: Technology and tooling options

    Input: Business (ESG) strategy, Data inventory (if exists), Asset inventory (if exists), Output from Activity 5, Output from Activity 6,
    Output: List of tooling options
    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, ESG Reporting Workbook
    Participants: Chief Sustainability Officer, Head of ESG Reporting, Business leaders, Data analysts, Data and IT architect/leaders

    1-2 hours

    1. Begin by listing key requirements and features for your ESG reporting program.
    2. Use the outputs from activities 5 and 6 and the technology feature list on the previous slide to help brainstorm technology and tooling options.
    3. Discuss the availability and readiness of each option. Note that regulatory requirements will have an effective date that will impact the time to market for introducing new tooling.
    4. Discuss and assign a priority.
    5. At this point, further analysis may be needed. Form a subcommittee or assign a leader to conduct further analysis.
    6. Record this information in the ESG Reporting Workbook.

    Download the ESG Reporting Workbook

    Activity 8: Implementation plan

    Input: Business (ESG) strategy, Output from Activity 5, Output from Activity 6, Output from Activity 7
    Output: ESG Reporting Implementation Plan
    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, ESG Reporting Implementation Plan Template
    Participants: Chief Sustainability Officer, Head of ESG Reporting, Business leaders, Data analysts, PMO, Data and IT architect/leaders

    1-2 hours

    1. Use the outputs from activities 5 to 7 and list required implementation tasks. Set a priority for each task.
    2. Assign the accountable owner as well as the group responsible. Larger organizations and large, complex change programs will have a group of owners.
    3. Track any dependencies and ensure the project timeline aligns.
    4. Add status as well as start and end dates.
    5. Complete in the ESG Reporting Implementation Plan Template.

    Download the ESG Reporting Implementation Plan Template

    Activity 9: Internal communication

    Input: Business (ESG) strategy, ESG Reporting Workbook, ESG reporting implementation plan
    Output: ESG Reporting Presentation Template
    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, ESG Reporting Presentation Template, Internal communication templates
    Participants: Chief Sustainability Officer, Head of Marketing/ Communications, Business leaders, PMO

    1-2 hours

    Since a purpose-driven ESG program presents a significant change in how organizations operate, the goals and intentions need to be understood throughout the organization. Once you have developed your ESG reporting strategy it is important that it is communicated, understood, and accepted. Use the ESG Reporting Presentation Template as a guide to deliver your story.

    1. Consider your audience and discuss and agree on the key elements you want to convey.
    2. Prepare the presentation.
    3. Test the presentation with smaller group before communicating to senior leadership/board

    Download the ESG Reporting Presentation Template

    Phase 3

    Select ESG Reporting Software

    A diagram that shows phase 1 to 3 of establishing ESG reporting program.

    This phase will provide additional material on Info-Tech’s expertise in the following areas:

    • Info-Tech’s approach to RFPs
    • Info-Tech tools for software selection
    • Example ESG software assessments

    3.1 Leverage Info-Tech’s expertise

    Develop an inclusive and thorough approach to the RFP process

    An image that a process of 7 steps.

    The Info-Tech difference:

    1. The secret to managing an RFP is to make it as manageable and as thorough as possible. The RFP process should be like any other aspect of business – with a standard process in place, you are better able to handle whatever comes your way, because you know the steps you need to follow to produce a top-notch RFP.
    2. The business then identifies the need for more information about a product/service or determines that a purchase is required.
    3. A team of stakeholders from each area impacted gather all business, technical, legal, and risk requirements. What are the expectations of the vendor relationship post-RFP? How will the vendors be evaluated?
    4. Based on predetermined requirements, either an RFI or an RFP is issued to vendors with a due date.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Review Info-Tech’s process and understand how you can prevent your organization from leaking negotiation leverage while preventing vendors from taking control of your RFP.

    Software Selection Engagement

    5 Advisory Calls Over a 5-Week Period to Accelerate Your Selection Process

    Expert Analyst Guidance over5 weeks on average to select and negotiate software.

    Save Money, Align Stakeholders, Speed Up the Process & make better decisions.

    Use a Repeatable, Formal Methodology to improve your application selection process.

    Better, Faster Results, guaranteed, included in membership.

    A diagram of selection engagement over a 5-week period.

    CLICK HERE to Book Your Selection Engagement

    Leverage the Contract Review Service to level the playing field with your shortlisted vendors

    You may be faced with multiple products, services, master service agreements, licensing models, service agreements, and more.

    Use the Contract Review Service to gain insights on your agreements.

    Consider the aspects of a contract review:

    1. Are all key terms included?
    2. Are they applicable to your business?
    3. Can you trust that results will be delivered?
    4. What questions should you be asking from an IT perspective?

    Validate that a contract meets IT’s and the business’ needs by looking beyond the legal terminology. Use a practical set of questions, rules, and guidance to improve your value for dollar spent.

    A photo of Contract Review Service.

    Click here to book The Contract Review Service

    Download blueprint Master Contract Review and Negotiation for Software Agreements

    3.2 Vendor spotlight assessments

    See above for a vendor landscape overview of key ESG reporting software providers

    The purpose of this section is to showcase various vendors and companies that provide software solutions to help users manage and prioritize their ESG reporting initiatives.

    This section showcases the core capabilities of each software platform to provide Info-Tech members with industry insights regarding some of the key service providers that operate within the ESG vendor market landscape.

    Info-Tech members who are concerned with risks stemming from the inability to sort and disseminate unstructured ESG data reporting metrics or interested in learning more about software offerings that can help automate the data collection, processing, and management of ESG metrics will find high-level insights into the ESG vendor market space.

    Vendor spotlight

    A photo of Datamine Isystain

    The establishment of the Datamine ESG unit comes at the same time the mining sector is showing an increased interest in managing ESG and its component systems as part of a single scope.

    With miners collecting and dealing with ever-increasing quantities of data and looking for ways to leverage it to make data-driven decisions that enhance risk management and increase profitability, integrated software solutions are – now more than ever – essential in supporting continuous improvement and maintaining data fidelity and data integrity across the entire mining value chain.

    An example of Datamine Isystain An example of Datamine Isystain An example of Datamine Isystain

    Key Features:

    • Discover GIS for geochemical, water, erosion, and vegetation modelling and management.
    • Qmed for workforce health management, COVID testing, and vaccine administration.
    • MineMarket and Reconcilor for traceability and auditing, giving visibility to chain of custody and governance across the value chain, from resource modelling to shipping and sales.
    • Centric Mining Systems – intelligence software for real-time transparency and governance across multiple sites and systems, including key ESG performance indicator reporting.
    • Zyght – a leading health, safety, and environment solution for high-impact industries that specializes in environment, injury, risk management, safe work plans, document management, compliance, and reporting.
    • Isystain – a cloud-based platform uniquely designed to support health, safety & environment, sustainability reporting, compliance and governance, and social investment reporting. Designed for seamless integration within an organization’s existing software ecosystems providing powerful analytics and reporting capabilities to streamline the production of sustainability and performance reporting.

    Vendor spotlight

    A logo of Benchmark ESG

    Benchmark ESG provides industry-leading ESG data management and reporting software that can assist organizations in managing operational risk and compliance, sustainability, product stewardship, and ensuring responsible sourcing across complex global operations.

    An example of Benchmark ESG An example of Benchmark ESG

    Key Features:

    Vendor spotlight

    A logo of PWC

    PwC’s ESG Management Solution provides quick insights into ways to improve reporting transparency surrounding your organization’s ESG commitments.

    According to PwC’s most recent CEO survey, the number one motivator for CEOs in mitigating climate change risks is their own desire to help solve this global problem and drive transparency with stakeholders.
    Source: “Annual Global CEO Survey,” PwC, 2022.

    An example of PWC An example of PWC

    Key Features:

    • Streamlined data mining capabilities. PwC’s ESG solution provides the means to streamline, automate, and standardize the input of sustainability data based on non-financial reporting directive (NFRD) and corporate sustainability reporting directive (CSRD) regulations.
    • Company and product carbon footprint calculation and verification modules.
    • Robust dashboarding capabilities. Option to create custom-tailored sustainability monitoring dashboards or integrate existing ESG data from an application to existing dashboards.
    • Team management functionalities that allow for more accessible cross-departmental communication and collaboration. Ability to check progress on tasks, assign tasks, set automatic notifications/deadlines, etc.

    Vendor spotlight

    A logo of ServiceNow

    ServiceNow ESG Management (ESGM) and reporting platform helps organizations transform the way they manage, visualize, and report on issues across the ESG spectrum.

    The platform automates the data collection process and the organization and storage of information in an easy-to-use system. ServiceNow’s ESGM solution also develops dashboards and reports for internal user groups and ensures that external disclosure reports are aligned with mainstream ESG standards and frameworks.

    We know that doing well as a business is about more than profits. One workflow at a time, we believe we can change the world – to be more sustainable, equitable, and ethical.
    Source: ServiceNow, 2021.

    An example of ServiceNow

    Key Features:

    1. An executive dashboard to help coherently outline the status of various ESG indicators, including material topics, goals, and disclosure policies all in one centralized hub
    2. Status review modules. Ensure that your organization has built-in modules to help them better document and monitor their ESG goals and targets using a single source of truth.
    3. Automated disclosure modules. ESGM helps organizations create more descriptive ESG disclosure reports that align with industry accountability standards (e.g. SASB, GRI, CDP).

    Other key vendors to consider

    An image of other 12 key vendors

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Photo of The ESG Imperative and Its Impact on Organizations

    The ESG Imperative and Its Impact on Organizations

    Use this blueprint to educate yourself on ESG factors and the broader concept of sustainability.

    Identify changes that may be needed in your organizational operating model, strategy, governance, and risk management approach.

    Learn about Info-Tech’s ESG program approach and use it as a framework to begin your ESG program journey.

    Photo of Private Equity and Venture Capital Growing Impact of ESG Report

    Private Equity and Venture Capital Growing Impact of ESG Report

    Increasingly, new capital has a social mandate attached to it due to the rise of ESG investment principles.

    Learn about how the growing impact of ESG affects both your organization and IT specifically, including challenges and opportunities, with expert assistance.

    Definitions

    Terms

    Definition

    Corporate Social Responsibility

    Management concept whereby organizations integrate social and environmental concerns in their operations and interactions with their stakeholders.

    Chief Sustainability Officer

    Steers sustainability commitments, helps with compliance, and helps ensure internal commitments are met. Responsibilities may extend to acting as a liaison with government and public affairs, fostering an internal culture, acting as a change agent, and leading delivery.

    ESG

    An acronym that stands for environment, social, and governance. These are the three components of a sustainability program.

    ESG Standard

    Contains detailed disclosure criteria including performance measures or metrics. Standards provide clear, consistent criteria and specifications for reporting. Typically created through consultation process.

    ESG Framework

    A broad contextual model for information that provides guidance and shapes the understanding of a certain topic. It sets direction but does not typically delve into the methodology. Frameworks are often used in conjunction with standards.

    ESG Factors

    The factors or issues that fall under the three ESG components. Measures the sustainability performance of an organization.

    ESG Rating

    An aggregated score based on the magnitude of an organization’s unmanaged ESG risk. Ratings are provided by third-party rating agencies and are increasingly being used for financing, transparency to investors, etc.

    ESG Questionnaire

    ESG surveys or questionnaires are administered by third parties and used to assess an organization’s sustainability performance. Participation is voluntary.

    Key Risk Indicator (KRI)

    A measure to indicate the potential presence, level, or trend of a risk.

    Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

    A measure of deviation from expected outcomes to help a firm see how it is performing.

    Materiality

    Material topics are topics that have a direct or indirect impact on an organization's ability to create, preserve, or erode economic, environmental, and social impact for itself and its stakeholder and society as a whole.

    Materiality Assessment

    A tool to identify and prioritize the ESG issues most critical to the organization.

    Risk Sensing

    The range of activities carried out to identify and understand evolving sources of risk that could have a significant impact on the organization (e.g. social listening).

    Sustainability

    The ability of an organization and broader society to endure and survive over the long term by managing adverse impacts well and promoting positive opportunities.

    Sustainalytics

    Now part of Morningstar. Sustainalytics provides ESG research, ratings, and data to institutional investors and companies.

    UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs)

    An essential methodological foundation for how impacts across all dimensions should be assessed.

    Reporting and standard frameworks

    Standard

    Definition and focus

    CDP
    (Formally Carbon Disclosure Project)

    CDP has created standards and metrics for comparing sustainability impact. Focuses on environmental data (e.g. carbon, water, and forests) and on data disclosure and benchmarking.

    Audience: All stakeholders

    Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI)

    Heavy on corporate governance and company performance. Equal balance of economic, environmental, and social.

    Audience: All stakeholders

    Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)

    International standards organization that has a set of standards to help organizations understand and communicate their impacts on climate change and social responsibility. The standard has a strong emphasis on transparency and materiality, especially on social issues.

    Audience: All stakeholders

    International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB)

    Standard-setting board that sits within the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation. The IFRS Foundation is a not-for-profit, public-interest organization established to develop high-quality, understandable, enforceable, and globally accepted accounting and sustainability disclosure standards.

    Audience: Investor-focused

    United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

    Global partnership across sectors and industries that sets out 17 goals to achieve sustainable development for all.

    Audience: All stakeholders

    Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB)
    Now part of IFSR foundation

    Industry-specific standards to help corporations select topics that may impact their financial performance. Focus on material impacts on financial condition or operating performance.

    Audience: Investor-focused

    Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD; created by the Financial Stability Board)

    Standards framework focused on the impact of climate risk on financial and operating performance. More broadly the disclosures inform investors of positive and negative measures taken to build climate resilience and make transparent the exposure to climate-related risk.

    Audience: Investors, financial stakeholders

    Bibliography

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    "2023 Canadian ESG Reporting Insights." PwC, Nov. 2022. Accessed Dec. 2022.

    Althoff, Judson. "Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability: Empowering Organizations On Their Path To Net Zero." Microsoft Blog, 14 July 2021. Accessed May 2022.

    "Balancing Sustainability and Profitability." IBM, Feb. 2022. Accessed June. 2022.

    "Beyond Compliance: Consumers and Employees Want Business to Do More on ESG." PwC, Nov. 2021. Accessed July 2022.

    Bizo, Daniel. "Multi-Tenant Datacenters and Sustainability: Ambitions and Reality." S&P Market Intelligence, Sept. 2020. Web.

    Bolden, Kyle. "Aligning nonfinancial reporting with your ESG strategy to communicate long-term value." EY, 18 Dec. 2020. Web.

    Carril, Christopher, et al. "Looking at Restaurants Through an ESG Lens: ESG Stratify – Equity Research Report." RBC Capital Markets, 5 Jan. 2021. Accessed Jun. 2022.

    "Celebrating and Advancing Women." McDonald’s, 8 March 2019. Web.

    Clark, Anna. "Get your ESG story straight: A sustainability communication starter kit." GreenBiz, 20 Dec. 2022, Accessed Dec. 2022.

    Courtnell, Jane. “ESG Reporting Framework, Standards, and Requirements.” Corporate Compliance Insights, Sept. 2022. Accessed Dec. 2022.

    “Country Sustainability Ranking. Country Sustainability: Visibly Harmed by Covid-19.” Robeco, Oct. 2021. Accessed June 2022.

    “Defining the “G” in ESG Governance Factors at the Heart of Sustainable Business.” World Economic Forum, June 2022. Web.

    “Digital Assets: Laying ESG Foundations.” Global Digital Finance, Nov. 2021. Accessed April 2022.

    “Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJCI) Index Family.” S&P Global Intelligence, n.d. Accessed June 2022.

    "ESG in Your Business: The Edge You Need to Land Large Contracts." BDC, March 2023, Accessed April 2023.

    “ESG Performance and Its Impact on Corporate Reputation.” Intelex Technologies, May 2022. Accessed July 2022.

    “ESG Use Cases. IoT – Real-Time Occupancy Monitoring.” Metrikus, March 2021. Accessed April 2022.

    Fanter, Tom, et al. “The History & Evolution of ESG.” RMB Capital, Dec. 2021. Accessed May 2022.

    Flynn, Hillary, et al. “A guide to ESG materiality assessments.” Wellington Management, June 2022, Accessed September 2022

    “From ‘Disclose’ to ‘Disclose What Matters.’” Global Reporting Initiative, Dec. 2018. Accessed July 2022.

    “Getting Started with ESG.” Sustainalytics, 2022. Web.

    “Global Impact ESG Fact Sheet.” ServiceNow, Dec. 2021. Accessed June 2022.

    Gorley, Adam. “What is ESG and Why It’s Important for Risk Management.” Sustainalytics, March 2022. Accessed May 2022.

    Hall, Lindsey. “You Need Near-Term Accountability to Meet Long-Term Climate Goals.” S&P Global Sustainable1, Oct. 2021. Accessed April 2022.

    Henisz, Witold, et al. “Five Ways That ESG Creates Value.” McKinsey, Nov. 2019. Accessed July 2022.

    “Integrating ESG Factors in the Investment Decision-Making Process of Institutional Investors.” OECD iLibrary, n.d. Accessed July 2022.

    “Investor Survey.” Benchmark ESG, Nov. 2021. Accessed July 2022.

    Jackson, Brian. Tech Trends 2023, Info-Tech Research Group, Dec. 2022, Accessed Dec. 2022.

    Keet, Lior. “What Is the CIO’s Role in the ESG Equation?” EY, 2 Feb. 2022. Accessed May 2022.

    Lev, Helee, “Understanding ESG risks and why they matter” GreenBiz, June 2022. Accessed Dec 2022.

    Marsh, Chris, and Simon Robinson. “ESG and Technology: Impacts and Implications.” S&P Global Market Intelligence, March 2021. Accessed April 2022.

    Martini, A. “Socially Responsible Investing: From the Ethical Origins to the Sustainable Development Framework of the European Union.” Environment, Development and Sustainability, vol. 23, Nov. 2021. Web.

    Maher, Hamid, et al. “AI Is Essential for Solving the Climate Crisis.” Boston Consulting Group, 7 July 2022. Web.

    “Materiality Assessment. Identifying and Taking Action on What Matters Most.” Novartis, n.d. Accessed June. 2022.

    Morrow, Doug, et al. “Understanding ESG Incidents: Key Lessons for Investors.” Sustainalytics, July 2017. Accessed May 2022.

    “Navigating Climate Data Disclosure.” Novisto, July 2022. Accessed Nov. 2022.

    Nuttall, Robin, et al. “Why ESG Scores Are Here to Stay.” McKinsey & Company, May 2020. Accessed July 2022.

    “Opportunities in Sustainability – 451 Research’s Analysis of Sustainability Perspectives in the Data Center Industry.” Schneider Electric, Sept. 2020. Accessed May 2022.

    Peterson, Richard. “How Can NLP Be Used to Quantify ESG Analytics?” Refinitiv, Feb. 2021. Accessed June 2022.

    “PwC’s 25th Annual Global CEO Survey: Reimagining the Outcomes That Matter.” PwC, Jan. 2022. Accessed June 2022.

    “SEC Proposes Rules on Cybersecurity, Risk Management, Strategy, Governance, and Incident Disclosure by Public Companies.” Securities and Exchange Commission, 9 May 2022. Press release.

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    “State of European Tech. Executive Summary Report.” Atomico, Nov. 2021. Accessed June 2022.

    “Top Challenges in ESG Reporting, and How ESG Management Solution Can Help.” Novisto, Sept. 2022. Accessed Nov. 2022.

    Vaughan-Smith, Gary. “Navigating ESG data sets and ‘scores’.” Silverstreet Capital, 23 March 2022. Accessed Dec. 2022.

    Waters, Lorraine. “ESG is not an environmental issue, it’s a data one.” The Stack, 20 May 2021. Web.

    Wells, Todd. “Why ESG, and Why Now? New Data Reveals How Companies Can Meet ESG Demands – And Innovate Supply Chain Management.” Diginomica, April 2022. Accessed July 2022.

    “XBRL is coming to corporate sustainability Reporting.” Novisto, Aug. 2022. Accessed Dec. 2022.

    Research Contributors and Experts

    Photo of Chris Parry

    Chris Parry
    VP of ESG, Datamine

    Chris Parry has recently been appointed as the VP of ESG at Datamine Software. Datamine’s dedicated ESG division provides specialized ESG technology for sustainability management by supporting key business processes necessary to drive sustainable outcomes.

    Chris has 15 years of experience building and developing business for enterprise applications and solutions in both domestic and international markets.

    Chris has a true passion for business-led sustainable development and is focused on helping organizations achieve their sustainable business outcomes through business transformation and digital software solutions.

    Datamine’s comprehensive ESG capability supports ESG issues such as the environment, occupational health and safety, and medical health and wellbeing. The tool assists with risk management, stakeholder management and business intelligence.

    Start Making Data-Driven People Decisions

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    • Ninety-one percent of IT leaders believe that analytics is important for talent management but 59% use no workforce analytics at all, although those who use analytics are much more effective than those who don't.
    • The higher the level of analytics used, the higher the level of effectiveness of the department as a whole.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • You don't need advanced metrics and analytics to see a return on people data. Begin by getting a strong foundation in place and showing the ROI on a pilot project.
    • Complex analyses will never make up for inadequate data quality. Spend the time up front to audit and improve data quality if necessary, no matter which stage of analytics proficiency you are at.
    • Ensure you collect and analyze only data that is essential to your decision making. More is not better, and excess data can detract from the overall impact of analytics.

    Impact and Result

    • Build a small-scale foundational pilot, which will allow you to demonstrate feasibility, refine your costs estimate, and show the ROI on people analytics for your budgeting meeting.
    • Drive organizational change incrementally by identifying and communicating with the stakeholders for your people analytics pilot.
    • Choose basic analytics suitable for organizations of all sizes and understand the building blocks of data quality to support more further analytics down the line.

    Start Making Data-Driven People Decisions Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should strategically apply people analytics to your IT talent management.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Define the problem and apply the checklist

    From choosing the right data for the right problem to evaluating your progress toward data-driven people decisions, follow these steps to build your foundation to people analytics.

    • Start Making Data-Driven People Decisions – Phase 1: Define the Problem and Apply the Checklist
    • People Analytics Strategy Template
    • Talent Metrics Library
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