IT Department Transformation

Information Technology (IT) plays a crucial role in all of today's business processes. It is both an essential enabler across departments and also provides for improved external business relationships since it permits companies to reengineer business processes to be more effective, less costly and much more efficient. However, the misuse of technology can slow up or, in some instances, even restrict business processes entirely by reinforcing old ways of thinking and old behaviour patterns.

Are any of the following statements relevant to your company?
  • IT seems to cost a great deal but it's unclear as to exactly what value it bring to the organisation
  • All IT projects take too long and run over budget
  • Business managers can never understand what members of the IT Department are talking about
  • MIS is not easy to obtain and seems to need lots of people, time and spreadsheets in order to produce it
CCL's IT Department Transformation service has been designed to address all of these issues. A highly structured approach combined with the many years of experience of CCL's consultants allows us to quickly arrive at:
  • Clarity over exactly what it is that the business expects from IT
  • The ‘gap' between the expectation and what IT actually delivers
  • Recommendations and an action plan to fill that gap
It is possible that the business may have unrealistic expectations of IT, in which case an education programme may be required, almost certainly starting at Board level and working down from there. Once a realistic expectation has been agreed, this can be documented in a Service Level Agreement (SLA) which becomes the on-going ‘contract' between IT and the business.

Other recommendations may include:
  • Changes to the organisational structure of the IT Department
  • Re-evaluation of the skills within IT resulting in the training and development of existing staff and/or the introduction of new people
  • Revisions to the methodologies IT use, particularly in the areas of Project Management and Service Delivery
  • Improvements in the systems employed so to provide greater strategic alignment, to simplify them (where possible) and to consider outsourcing any functions that are not core to adding value to the business operation