Client Situation
Our client is a leading Construction & Real Estate group involved in the development, sale and lease of commercial, residential, retail and industrial property. The client planned to develop an IT strategy to enhance the operations of its business & automate processes. IT diagnostic was a critical initiative identified as part of this exercise, and the client was planning to develop an IT strategy based on this diagnostic.
Cedar’s Approach
Cedar was mandated to assist in an IT diagnostic and way-forward strategy for the client. The project engagement framework employed by Cedar was:
- Current State Assessment:
- Assessing the core systems deployed & business utilization followed by its effectiveness
- Technology deployment & architecture review
- Review of the IT organization in the company keeping in mind the team size & skill sets
- Overall IT Governance framework review
- Strategic Recommendations:
- Cedar helped the client develop a way forward with respect to the Business-IT alignment & enterprise architecture
- Aided in prioritization of system roll-out & application architecture
- Identified an aligned technical architecture & TCO reduction opportunities
- Defined IT organization & outsourcing alternatives
- Developed overall framework of IT functions to support long term business requirements of the client, both in terms of business volumes and strategic growth plans
- Prescribed an enhanced technical architecture with respect to the hardware platform, network & infrastructure
- An IT governance framework was deployed which defined IT policy norms specific to the core areas, IT budgeting and governance principles that needed to be adopted based on best practices
- The key gaps were fixed in the application architecture, along with drawing out an application roadmap identifying applications to be retained, replaced, or upgraded, and the rationale
- Prioritization of IT processes, as to which applications need to be prioritized in the context of the client’s overall business priorities, as defined in the Balanced Scorecard exercise
Outcome
The program carried out by Cedar impacted the client in various ways, some of which were as follows: