Enterprise Architecture

Which technologies will be important for your IT organization in the future?

Only if IT services in the IT organization are regularly improved a targeted response can be made to new challenges in the future. That's why it is important to keep a constant eye on new technologies and their developments using a technology roadmap for the IT organization. From consulting practice, a four-stage process has been established for the development of a technology roadmap.

1. In the beginning, the current IT service portfolio must be analyzed in order to determine which IT services are value-adding services for the IT organization. Non-value-adding IT services do not have to be considered for the Technology Roadmap.
2. The next step is to identify suitable market research institutes that are relevant for the selected IT services. The difficulty lies in selecting the right institutes, since it does not make sense to rely on the statement of a few or even a single one. That's why the statements must be compared with several suitable research companies.
3. Based on the recommendations of the research companies, the relevant technologies are derived in the third step. Technologies without added value for IT services are no longer considered for the roadmap.
4. In the last step, an evaluation of the current status and an analysis of the measures necessary to integrate the new technologies into the IT services are carried out.

This approach has the advantage that one only refers to those IT services that provide real added value for the organization. The specific selection of several market research institutes provides an unclouded insight into the market and thus accelerates the adaptation time of new technologies.

How to find the right platform for your business application

Often in a IT organization a business application no longer corresponds to the state of the art or the requirements of the department. However, since a change of application is often associated with high costs and risks that should not be underestimated, it is often delayed as long as possible. With the help of a standardized model from consulting practice, it is possible to evaluate and select new possibilities and solutions for business applications based on facts in just a few steps. The model is divided into two different phases - the definition of the evaluation scheme and the evaluation itself.

In the first phase, the process as well as basic requirements, disqualifying criteria and conditions are developed. Next these are transferred directly into system requirements according to the results of the analysis. Based on the system requirements, the next step is to design and evaluate the resulting overall architecture for the IT organization. The architecture is used to select potential providers for the solutions and compile them in a longlist. An initial pre-selection takes place and the required tender documents are created and sent to the selected providers. The documents must include a description of the concept, a catalogue of requirements, a schedule and contractual conditions. After that, the evaluation phase begins, in which joint workshops can be held with the providers to answer any questions that may arise. The offers submitted are then analyzed and evaluated. Now selected providers have the opportunity to present their solution. Based on the results of the presentations and the fulfilment of the catalogue of requirements, the financial negotiations can be started afterwards, to avoid buying a cheap solution that doesn't work in the end.

How to keep track of your data

Huge amounts of data are no longer a rarity in IT organizations today. It is therefore not surprising that IT organizations are faced with major challenges due to the ever-increasing volume of data, growing data heterogeneity and new and frequently changing regulatory requirements. With the help of an approach from the consulting practice for data management it is possible to bring transparency into the current data structures and to create a basis with which an active management of the data is possible. To achieve this, it is important to reduce the existing complexity and adapt the data landscape to the requirements of the departments.

A recurring practical example is Identity & Access Management (IAM). IAM ensures that the right people have access to the necessary information. The advantage of an IAM lies in the central administration of digital identities and access to company data. Through transparent and increasingly automated control of user accounts and accesses, the risk of IT security incidents can be significantly reduced. The most frequently used IAM principle at present is "Role-based Access Control". This involves assigning roles to the individual identities, which are linked to access rights. This procedure offers a high standard of protection, since authorizations can only be assigned to roles and not to individual users. Conversely, this also relieves the IT administration by reducing maintenance costs.

Are public or private clouds the right place for data?

Operating a data center is associated with high costs for hardware and personnel. In order to reduce costs and at the same time be able to react more flexibly to business requirements, more and more IT organizations are migrating their data, applications and IT infrastructure to a private or public cloud. However, this path is not always associated with the hoped-for benefits. In order to make a well-founded decision, it makes sense to first evaluate the cloud potential of the IT organization. Here a model from consulting practice that is divided into four phases can help.

1. At first the applications are assigned according to technical and process-related properties, such as latency or necessary bandwidths.
2. Next essential information about the IT infrastructure is completed and broken down into server and storage configurations.
3. In the third phase, the clusters of applications are evaluated for their cloud potential according to defined decision criteria.
4. Lastly the current costs of the IT infrastructure are determined, and the costs of a technology change are estimated.

This process model provides a good insight into the technological fit of the individual applications regarding the various cloud technologies, also provides insights into the financial effects of a technology change and can quantify the costs and benefits. Based on these findings, it is possible to make a targeted decision as to whether and which type of deployment model in the cloud is the right one for the IT organization.

Our consulting services – Why 4C?

We support you in establishing a sustainable Architecture & Technology Management in your IT organization and thereby prepare your IT staff for future challenges. In addition, we will assist you in the evaluation of your technology roadmap as well as in the areas of cloudification, platform selection and data management as a temporary co-pilot and accompany you in the implementation and acceptance of your architecture & technology management. We will help you to overcome the pitfalls and hurdles on your way or to find another way to reach your goal.

Our consulting services at a glance

The process for implementing an Architecture & Technology Management comprises all the necessary components from planning the Technology Roadmap, analyzing your cloud potential and selecting and evaluating new platforms to Data and Identity & Access Management.

Consulting project

As part of a consulting project, we support you in the implementation of Architecture & Technology Management and the necessary components as well as the anchoring of a sustainable technology roadmap, which ensures that your IT is capable of coping with the changes that occur in the company, the market or the technology.

Why 4C?

Experience - We advise our clients on a wide range of IT and digitization issues and accompany them from strategy to implementation.

4C GROUP offers its customers implementation success.

If you share our approaches and want to take your IT to a new level in order to meet the challenges of your business and the autonomy aspirations of your business, contact us.