Adapting business strategy in line with technology disruption is consistently ranked as a top priority by business leaders across Asia/Pacific. All firms understand that successfully applying technology is a critical success factor in todays’ globalized knowledge-based economy. But many organizations struggle to put in place the right leadership, culture, structures and strategies to take full advantage of emerging technology capabilities. They are also under intense strain to achieve leverage from technology whilst striving to reduce operational expense and avoid costly mistakes due to poor technology decisions.

Our consultants work with executives from all types of enterprises that use technology to help them make informed and effective technology decisions. We have worked with small companies, government agencies and some of the world’s largest corporations to assist them with many aspects of their IT-related business strategies for Asia/Pacific. Our lengthy background in providing advisory services to clients on IT-related strategic issues in Asia/Pacific makes us ideal partners. We tailor our findings to every client’s unique issues, and work diligently to reduce the risks our clients face when considering IT investment.

We can call upon a wide network or colleagues with drill-down industry domain expertise if required, and focus on end-to-end processes in our analysis and advice.

Our Technology User Consulting services include:

• IT Governance: Putting in place the organizational constructs and processes for effective IT governance in a modern enterprise. Working with our clients to assess the current maturity of IT processes, identify gaps and prepare action plans to close them.
• Location Analysis: Give our perspectives on the most suitable locations across Asia/Pacific to create or expand any aspect of operations. We have assisted clients with picking the right place to invest in R&D activities, to host back-office processing work, to consolidate regional IT infrastructure and to manage various divisions.
• Readiness for Technology Investment: Conduct reviews of current business and technology strategies, capabilities, infrastructure, operational processes and preparedness prior to any significant technology investment. Assist our clients with the creation of TORs, RFIs and RFPs that ensure the best response from the supplier community.
• Supplier Relationship Manageement: Assist our clients with vendor selection, product decisions, supplier negotiation and ongoing management of provider relationships. We provide an objective and independent service, and can act as mediators between buyers and sellers of technology. We can also provide oversight of lengthy and complex outsourcing arrangements, working towards dispute resolutions and commonly agreed measures of quality and deliverables.
• Technology & Competency Assessments: Expert audits to determine the level of maturity of technology and process competencies, along with suggested actions to bolster capabilities. Discover the true status of your technology capabilities and processes. We are especially strong in the areas of IT Architecture, SOA, BPM, EDA, BI, IT Infrastructure Management and other leading edge forms of enterprise software.
• IT Planning Workshops: On-site interviews, current situation analysis and open debates that lead to mutually agreed IT forward-looking strategic plans. Our consultants are experienced facilitators of all manner of workshops, especially those related to IT strategy and Future Scenario Planning.
• IT Executive Mentoring & Coaching: Regular interactions that provide a range of personalized advisory services to IT executives that strengthen their abilities to deal with the complexities of managing a modern dynamic IT environment.
• Strategic Sourcing Decisions: Deciding how, where and when to seek external providers for a wide range of IT or business process services is a complex strategic goal. We work with enterprises to ensure the most optimal outcome from any sourcing decision. We deliver incisive guidance on IT-related sourcing decisions, including using an external provider for managed services, offshore software development or business process outsourcing.

Case Study # 1

A large US-based consumer product firm required assistance to decide on the best location in Asia to host a new data center. All 14 existing data-centers across Asia would be consolidated into the new center. In addition to the usual requirements of infrastructure, cost, government support and skilled labor, a novel aspect of this engagement was the requirement to factor in business development. The company wanted to increase the level of business they conducted in any country that they would eventually choose, and therefore their current level of business activity in the region had to be assessed as part of the decision process. During Phase 1, a short list of three locations was quickly arrived at. In Phase 2, the final selection was made, which in this case was just outside Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.

Case Study # 2

A major Australian-based firm in the beverage industry needed help to best understand the impact emerging technologies would have on their business model, especially in their ability to compete effectively in Asia. An offsite 2 day workshop was convened with facilitation by our consultant. Various scenarios of technologies likely to emerge in the near future that may have a disruptive impact on the business model were openly debated. A final report with recommendations was submitted that pointed to a number of opportunities and threats that required decisions on the part of the board of the firm. Subsequently, presentations were made to the board using business terminology in order to secure the necessary funds for investment as well as explain the rationale behind all recommendations.

Case Study # 3

A leading bank in Thailand required an assessment of their IT architecture with special attention to be focused on their SOA capabilities. They needed to determine if they were headed in the right direction with their efforts to exploit SOA to achieve more rapid solutions development, application integration and reduced software complexity. Our report highlighted a number of areas in need of remedial action, as well as the fact that newly emerging BPM solutions would be well suited to improve the bank’s ability to reach its goals as well being highly synergistic with their SOA approach.

Case Study # 4

The CIO of a significant health care facility in Asia asked our consultant to provide regular mentoring services to help him gain a better insight into the best practices of running a large IT function. The service also provided a very useful sounding board for problems and issues and to help source and report on various technology-related matters as they arose.