Information Technology
In recent years, companies have invested heavily in Information Technology (IT) while trying to maintain competitive parity and support robust growth. In the current economic environment, it is difficult to gauge accurately the value derived from IT and to identify the pragmatic options that will allow a business to segment risk and drive growth, while simultaneously streamlining costs and improving performance.
Without the right strategy, organizations have driven huge complexity into their IT infrastructures and created much confusion within their businesses. It should come as no surprise that executives remain unsure about what exactly they are getting from the IT function and why their IT costs keep rising.
Many consulting firms are tied to their own proprietary information technology outsourcing businesses, and have the incentive to sell these follow-on support services so they see customer needs through that lens. At Booz & Company, we are independent of any specific products, and we see our clients’ needs in terms of strategy, people, and processes first. Our information technology solutions are sophisticated, robust, and objective. Clients value our independence, our deep content knowledge, and our holistic solutions to their most challenging technical problems.
To approach these issues objectively, Booz & Company takes a revolutionary view of IT as a business operating within a business, and addresses a focused agenda:
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Structuring IT to support and enable business growth in line with the overall organization’s business strategy through initiatives that drive improved efficiency and effectiveness. This approach requires IT executives to engage their firms in a dialogue about how and where IT drives the business.
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Reducing IT cost and complexity, thereby minimizing risk and challenging IT to "flex" better with the organization rather than act as a fixed and increasing cost base.
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Increasing the transparency into IT costs and performance. This allows the business to understand the value of what it is buying and to facilitate proper economic trade-offs between IT and non-IT spending.
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Building IT into a business within a business. This means instituting world-class practices focused on pragmatic outcomes.
At Booz & Company, we have the skills and experience to help businesses and organizations maximize their IT return. Our capabilities to support this agenda span four areas:
IT Strategy
Current and future information technologies provide powerful options for creating value. Defining the value proposition to the business in clear terms and creating an options-based IT strategy enables business leaders to direct and control IT assets. This includes aligning the IT interface with the business based on functions and processes, not IT capabilities.
Business Value Capture
Realizing the potential of IT investments requires building a core business capability that defines and manages IT-enabled change initiatives. This capability must perform at best-practice standards to fully align IT with the organization; to develop strategies based on clear understandings of the economics, risks, and challenges for organizational change; and to define ownership and governance within the organization.
IT Operations and Delivery
IT must be managed as a business, balancing supply costs, performance, and risk against demands for service. Bundling IT service options with transparent pricing to meet the IT customer’s needs enables the business to make choices about IT service levels. The IT operation must manage its supply chain to take advantage of the IT commercial marketplace, which is rapidly evolving, creating innovative service-delivery options that reduce operating costs and capital investment requirements.
Technology Architecture
In today’s business environment, IT architecture is a critical factor for the global, extended enterprise. The ability to cost-effectively and quickly integrate and scale information systems is crucial for capturing synergies and managing post merger, and for working with extended supply chains. The technology architecture must allow effective insertion of new or refreshed technologies while meeting budget and capital constraints. The architecture must also ensure information and systems security in support of broader business continuity needs.
Learn More
Learn more about Booz & Company's service offerings in the Information Technology in the Automotive, Transportation, and Industrial Sectors.