Building the Framework for IT Excellence
IT leaders often will look for the latest technologies that will provide the quickest return on investment. This strategy can work in the short-term―however, overtime and without proper planning, they often find themselves grappling to manage an unwieldy IT infrastructure. Complicating matters, many businesses experience high turnover within their IT team. With every team member exit, vital knowledge is lost―making it increasingly more difficult to optimize your return from new technology investments.
At BACS, we leverage our extensive technical and business process planning expertise to help banks, insurance companies, and other financial services firms create IT strategies and implement technology to drive business growth and accelerate performance. Our portfolio of IT and professional services and solutions are grounded in best practice principles gained through years of information technology planning, design, and management experience.
Not all providers are created equal and choosing the wrong one could prove costly. As your business needs change and grow, more focus is needed to ensure that technical delivery functions and IT services are designed, implemented, managed and controlled in a consistent manner. Selecting a consultancy company that can deliver the range of capabilities you need is critical.
BACS experts have extensive experience helping businesses across industry sectors plan their IT infrastructure, deploy new technologies, and improve operational efficiency. With BACS, you can optimize the performance and resiliency of your IT infrastructure while reducing the cost spent on operating and maintaining poorly planned, out-of-date infrastructure.
BACS provides strategic guidance in several core areas:
IT Assessment and Strategy
If you are like most organizations, your IT environment has developed gradually over time. As your infrastructure evolves, problems can emerge, including redundancies, inefficiencies, performance gaps, and unplanned information silos. Eventually, it can be difficult to determine what is working and what is not, or where to invest in your IT resources.
To position IT as an enabler of success, you need an IT strategy that aligns with your business. That’s where BACS can help. Our IT assessments help determine how well your IT operation is performing, whether your business strategy is supported by your technology, and how to leverage technology and resources to full advantage. Our detailed evaluation will reveal insights into your IT strengths and weaknesses, uncover opportunities for cost optimization, and determine where business processes can be improved.
BACS is diligent in its effort to help you get more from your people, processes, technology, and budget. Our technology consulting experts are well-versed in the importance of integrating IT into your overall business strategy. We help you take full advantage of the opportunities a proactive information technology approach enables, whether it’s growing revenue, capturing market share, or enhancing the customer experience.
By performing an objective IT evaluation and applying our business process and technology consulting experience, we identify opportunities to streamline your operations, generate new revenues, improve your customers’ experience, and create a competitive advantage.
With BACS, you benefit from our insight and knowledge of new and emerging technologies, working with specialists who have decades of experience across industry sectors. We understand the complexities of technology support and work to help ensure your IT systems and business processes are aligned with your long-term objectives and will scale appropriately.
Changing business models are driving a shift in the role of IT―from technical support and management to the higher, more strategic goal of driving business value. Using industry best practice tools and techniques, our comprehensive IT assessments help answer questions that are vital for helping your business increase efficiency, minimize risk, bolster security, and enhance your bottom line.
Technology Planning and Roadmap Alignment
Disruptive technologies like big data, cloud, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are shifting business models and reshaping IT landscapes. BACS consultants work with you to develop the right technology roadmap with a strategic view towards long-term growth and maximum technology leverage. Our expert consultants understand the complexities and challenges of technology deployment and work to ensure your solutions align with your priorities and will scale appropriately.
Companies are increasingly using the enormous processing power of artificial intelligence to analyze vast amounts of data in near real-time, helping to mitigate risk across a variety of areas. Meanwhile, cognitive computing tools are allowing security teams to analyze transaction details to help identify early signs of fraud, identity theft, money laundering, and other criminal activity. Meanwhile, through the use of intelligent, connected devices, companies are gaining more opportunities to refine their operations with tighter processes, better decisions, and more targeted offers.
BACS relentlessly pushes the envelope in our effort to help you get more from your people, processes, technology and budget. Our expert analysis and technology roadmap planning help ensure the best approach to migrating your platforms and applications to deliver optimum performance and maximum return on investment.
Our expert consultants understand the complexities and challenges of information technology deployment and work to ensure your solutions align with your priorities.
The benefits enabled by new and emerging technologies are important, but tapping technology’s full potential requires a careful, strategic approach to deployment and management―which is where the knowledge and offerings consulting expertise of BACS can deliver immense value.
“It means the world to have knowledgable I.T. people on our team; BACS is excellent.”
Sound technology planning will allow you to more easily adapt to shifting business needs or new strategies, whether it’s geographic expansion, launching new products and services, or making decisions around mergers and acquisitions. The roadmap provides a coordinated method of managing changes to business priorities as they evolve; helping to make sure technology has a voice around decisions that demand IT support.
In the age of technology, IT is no longer a “support” item on the budget. It is now a critical enabler of business growth. Whether you’re seeking to upgrade your existing technology, or make a complete transition to the cloud, our team of technology consulting experts will make your transition fast, efficient and cost-effective. We help you shape, refine and execute a business application plan that optimizes your investment, minimizes risk, and drives competitive advantage.
A realistic, achievable roadmap tailored to your objectives will allow IT to:
- Act tactically and purposefully when making technology decisions and managing projects.
- Offer a more structured process when securing approval from business leadership.
- Negotiate more confidently in its requests around new IT initiatives or projects.
Benchmarking and Performance Assessment
A results-focused approach to IT planning relies on collaboration between the business and the IT consultant. As part of our goal to deliver exceptional client experiences, we continually raise the bar on our ability to help you achieve the results you want by always measuring, reporting and improving your IT performance.
We work closely with key decision makers to assess your current situation and develop a disaster recovery strategy that safeguards critical systems and data, and manages ongoing threats.
“Our consultants track your performance using carefully defined metrics measured against industry standard benchmarks. By pinpointing poor performing areas and those that are running smoothly, our benchmarking approach helps identify your important areas for improvement and investment. We then work to eliminate the performance barriers.”
Once the metrics have been created and implemented, we conduct recurring checks to make sure the technologies and processes are aligned with the benchmarks. We use our service desk support to correct any problem areas. As part of our benchmarking process, we will also carefully document our findings along with key operational details and workings of your IT environment.
Risk Management and Compliance
As every member of your IT organization is well aware, security is paramount for the safe and reliable operation and protection of your business infrastructure and data.
“BACS provides a holistic approach to risk management and compliance that defines what is most important to you, helping you protect vital business assets from unauthorized access and also to react quickly when systems are compromised.”
As the data security and privacy regulations continue to proliferate, one major challenge is understanding and keeping track of new and emerging compliance requirements, such as HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and 21 CFR Part 11, which outlines criteria for electronic records and signatures. Some data assets require minimal protection while others may require more robust security measures, particularly those assets governed in Europe under General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or locally under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) .
Creating a well-planned IT disaster recovery and business continuity plan that is built on sound data backup and recovery principles is vital. Data loss could result in lost business, compliance risks, and a damaged reputation. BACS consultants work with you to assess your current situation and develop a disaster recovery strategy that safeguards infrastructure and data, and manages ongoing threats.
Building an effective risk management and compliance framework is a long-term process, so the sooner you get started, the better. Leading organizations already have plans in place to help ensure that their IT environment is able to effectively support and persevere against rising threats to today’s IT infrastructure.
Resource Efficiency and Cost Optimization
Competitive advantage in today’s market tends to favor those who know how to get the most from their IT investments. Achieving cost optimization requires a clear and documented framework for measuring, analyzing and predicting IT and business performance and risk.
BACS provides impartial, fact-based recommendations designed to make your business more efficient and productive. You might need updated tools or processes, or perhaps simple a better configuration for the tools you have. Either way, we’ll help you make the right decision. We’ll make recommendations based on what works and what is going to deliver optimum return on your investment.
Given the enormous upside potential, the sooner you get started with IT cost optimization, the better. The precise timing of your initial project is based more on internal elements than external ones. After you’ve planned and implemented your first initiative, cost optimization should be an ongoing process. When business is good and revenue is strong, it’s vital for organizations to remain mindful of the importance of continuous improvement and the long-term business value a proactive optimization strategy can deliver.
Leveraging the Value of Strategic IT Management
Technology is far too important not to deserve strategic priority. In today’s era of rapid business change, short-sighted decisions can result in costly, ineffective investments and technology complexity. That’s why you need an IT consultant that understands the technology landscape and is focused on helping you solve business challenges, drive efficiency, and build lasting value.
BACS consultants are well-equipped with deep industry expertise and the latest tools to systematically evaluate your IT environment. We review your IT support capabilities, pinpointing areas of potential improvement that could have the most impact on business productivity, service quality, and operational efficiency.
By outsourcing ongoing support tasks to a trusted full time partner, you can focus on more strategic activities with greater peace of mind knowing that your server systems and processes are running smoothly and efficiently.
With our flexible professional services model, you benefit from more predictable pricing and manageable costs, allowing you to better plan and budget for larger IT projects and improvements without the restrictions of a lengthy support contract.
Working with an experienced service provider like BACS can help ease the growing burden of IT management while helping your business:
- Stay current with access to the latest technologies
- Identify opportunities for cost optimization
- Meet industry standards for compliance, security and uptime
- Optimize reliability and availability of resources and applications
- Prioritize decisions and plan for new capabilities based on defined business goals
