Consulting in information technology

development into project leadership, and then to general management. Opportunities exist to make the switch to consultancy at several stages, and IT consultants may have a great depth of technical experience gained over many years or may have relatively little. The breadth of experience will also vary greatly between consultants. Many IT specialists change jobs frequently to gain experience and advancement but they will often work with one particular technology or even one proprietary technology platform, and this will limit their range and flexibility.

So much for gaining technical skills, but what about managerial skills? Some consultants will have gained their managerial experience as an IT manager or consultant. Others will have studied for an MBA degree to help them make the transition from technical expert to consultant.

The other route into IT consulting is from general management consulting. Some IT consultants with a background in management or strategy rely on sound business skills combined with a general knowledge of what IT can do rather than the technical detail of how it is achieved.

Information technology still carries a degree of mystique and clients sometimes have a rather naive belief in the abilities of the IT guru. It would be wise for consultants, aspiring consultants and their clients to remember that nobody can be an expert at everything.

13.3An overall model of information systems consulting

This model (figure 13.1), adapted from Michael Earl, shows that in thinking about applying information technology to a business, it is possible to gain a great deal of clarity by answering four simple questions: why? what? which? how? Clarity about the question being asked will help clients in choosing, briefing and managing consultants and will help the consultants to ensure they deliver what the client expects.

Why should we spend scarce resources on technology?

The answer to this question can only be given in terms of business strategy. Technology can support an existing strategy or it can permit a strategy that would otherwise be impossible. For instance, small companies can now enter international markets through the Internet. A strategic idea like this one is simple enough to grasp, but the interplay of strategic and operational implications is both far-reaching and subtle.

The intellectual tools of strategy formulation, such as “critical success factor analysis” or “value chain analysis”, are equally applicable when the focus is on information technology. However, their use requires a particular kind of person: someone skilled in strategy formulation but also very familiar with the

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Figure 13.1 A model of IT consulting

Source: Adapted from M. Earl: Management strategies for information technology (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, PrenticeHall, 1989).

capabilities and constraints of current technology. Most companies will look to consultants to provide the breadth of experience that is needed.

Typical consulting assignments would be:

●investigation of competitive advantage through information technology;

●study of the need for reactive changes to the adoption of technology by competitors;

●review of business strategy in the light of recent technology developments.

What technology applications shall we build?

This is the central question of an information systems strategy. Technology is expensive and no company can afford to waste resources on developments that do not support the business objectives or on developments that are outmoded or premature. It may be an attractive idea, for instance, to experiment with e-commerce, but would it be better to delay this development until the customer database has been improved?

A sound business strategy is the starting-point for developing a portfolio of future or enhanced IT applications with clear priorities. However, a sound business strategy by itself does not necessarily ensure an optimum set of IT applications. John Ward’s concept of an application portfolio can be used to balance present and future needs. The portfolio can be divided into “support”, “mission-critical”, “strategic” and “experimental” applications.

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Figure 13.2 An IT systems portfolio

Source: J. Ward and P. Griffiths: Strategic planning for information systems (New York, Wiley, 1996).

Every company has a number of “support” applications that are useful but not necessarily vital to the business. Many desktop applications are in the support category. Companies will want to ensure that their support applications are user-friendly, standardized and cost-effective.

Other applications, such as call-centre support, are “mission-critical”: if they cease to work, even for an hour or two, then the objectives of the business are in jeopardy. Professional management is vital for these mission-critical systems. Cost must take second place to security and availability. Mission-critical systems are often based on standard software that has been modified for the company concerned.

The company that is looking to the future cannot rely solely on support and mission-critical systems for today. There will need to be a small and manageable number of “strategic” systems in the pipeline. These are the systems that differentiate the company from its competitors or that will transform the business for tomorrow, perhaps by permitting radical new products and services or by changing the way a business connects to its suppliers, customers and business partners. Information technology for e-business is a strategic system for many companies today. Strategic systems must be justified and managed in a business-like rather than in a technical way. Cost must be weighed against risk, potential benefit or even future survival. The systems will either be custom-built or will combine a standard package with company competencies in some unique way that is difficult to copy.

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The fourth element of an IT portfolio comprises the “experimental” systems. Some money and resources should be set aside for new ideas and new technologies that might come to nothing or might turn into real strategic applications. The overall cost of this element of the portfolio must be limited but, within budget limits, the emphasis should be on creativity rather than cost.

By helping to answer the what? question, consultants can help to turn the broadly based imperatives of a business strategy into a practical and achievable portfolio of IT applications and a plan to achieve them.

Typical assignments would be:

●development of an information systems strategy;

●development of an application portfolio plan;

●screening of potential IT applications for business value;

●financial justification of potential applications;

●risk assessment of future IT applications.

Which technology, which vendors, and which hardware and software?

There is an English-language consumer magazine that is simply entitled Which?. This magazine tests consumer durable products and makes recommendations as to which product to buy. Other countries have similar magazines. Unfortunately, the purchaser of commercial IT products has no such simple guide. Managers must make basic choices about such things as the standard operating system or network architecture, together with numerous decisions on items of hardware and software. This is the most technical aspect of IT application, but in choosing the technology managers must not forget the business needs that they are trying to address. Consultants have a large role to play in assembling a blend of technical and business expertise to advise on these difficult issues.

Typical assignments are:

●development of information systems architecture;

●comparison of competing software systems;

●choice of preferred vendors.

How can the technology and its implementation best be managed?

A company can have the best possible strategy, the best portfolio of IT applications, the finest hardware and software, and still fail to manage the technology or fail to complete the implementation projects before the changing environment renders the strategy or the technology obsolete.

The basic principles of technology management are little different from those in any other field of business, but there is a wealth of experience in practical ways of coping with the unique features of information technology that were listed earlier in this chapter. Consultants can review existing management

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