IT Governance Cosulting Services
The role that IT plays in organisations has changed drastically in recent years. IT has become an integral part of business strategy, which has introduced new risks and challenges. IT Management is increasingly being challenged to understand and articulate the risks and benefits of IT, and to find ways to deal with:
- Aligning IT with the business strategy
- Adding value to the business
- Managing the risk of IT
- Managing the IT resources
- Managing IT’s Performance
Analytix offers IT consulting services that assist organisations in all aspects of implementing and managing IT Governance and strategy. Our IT Governance consulting services are based on the principles and guidelines of the CobiT and related frameworks, and are aimed to assist IT management in integrating and institutionalising IT management best practices to ensure that IT supports the business' objectives.Some of the key IT Governance consulting services we offer include:
IT Strategy Facilitation and Development
The development of an IT strategy that manages and directs all IT resources in line with the business strategy and operations is a key requirement and challenge for business as well as IT management.
Our IT Strategy services cover the following areas:
- Strategic Alignment – these services include IT strategy facilitation and development aimed at ensuring the linkage of business and IT plans that articulate and define the IT value proposition. This will enable you to align your IT operations with the business operations
- Value Delivery – these services are about assisting you to execute IT’s value proposition throughout the delivery cycle and ensuring that IT delivers the promised benefits against the strategy. This involves assistance on how to optimise costs and proving the value of IT
- Performance Measurement – these services will assist you to track and monitor implementation, project completion, resources usage, process performance and service delivery, using Balanced Scorecards that translate strategy into action to achieve objectives beyond conventional accounting.
- Resource Management – this service is about assistance to optimise the IT investment, and the proper management of critical IT resources, applications, information infrastructure and people
CobiT Assessment
Our CobiT Assessment service is designed to provide an assessment of your current IT process control environment, risks and maturity levels, utilising a range of information gathering techniques including interviews, facilitated workshops, observations and the study of relevant records and documentation.The aim of the CobiT assessment is to provide management the means to make informed decisions on which IT areas to focus on, which areas to improve, to derive maximum value.A review of the existing IT related documentation is necessary in order to evaluate the adequacy of your IT control as well as the maturity of your IT processes.The CobiT Assessment utilises the following CobiT components:
- CobiT Control Objectives to measure the adequacy of the controls of the selected IT processes, and to identify how to address the Gaps
- CobiT Control practices
- CobiT maturity models for the IT processes included in the scope, to establish the “As-is” maturity, in order to plan the enhancement of process maturity to the “To-be” levels
Based on the current objectives and risks, we assist you to identify and select the priority CobiT processes that require initial focus and action. This will enable the organisation to show senior executives the “Quick Wins” and define an effective CobiT implementation plan.The output of the process is a CobiT Assessment report which includes a quality review of the IT operation against the CobiT guidelines, with gaps and actions identified against the CobiT framework’s guidelines. In addition, we provide maturity and risk assessments against each CobiT area.
CobiT Implementation
CobiT has become the de facto model for IT Governance. A major challenge for organisations wishing to implement CobiT is to identify where to begin, and how to do it. According to ISACA, “CobiT is implemented when you have executed the improvement projects that have been translated from the gaps that linked where you are and where you want to be relative to the important things to do for IT control and governance, identified based on an analysis of your organisation’s values and risks.”The requirements and effort associated with a CobiT implementation, could be daunting, and could involve months and even years of effort to execute.
Our IT Governance Implementation Services provide a structured, practical, results-oriented approach that assists organisations in all the aspects of implementing CobiT, thereby bridging the gap between the “As-is” and “To-be” positions, i.e. enhancing the current capability of the IT processes as determined with the assessment and the target capability planned, as measured against the CobiT frameworks guidelines.
Covering the full lifecycle of IT Governance implementation, the services include:
- Integrating IT governance with Corporate Governance
- Ensuring accountability for IT throughout the organisation
- Defining appropriate IT organisational structures
- Developing, documenting and clearly communicating IT policies, standards and processes for IT governance and control
- Effecting cultural change
- Driving a process and culture of continuous improvement
- Creating optimum monitoring and reporting structures
IT Controls – Policies, Procedures, Practices etc.
CobiT implementation involves the achievement of CobiT’s control objectives, which represents the minimum requirements for effective control of the IT processes. CobiT implementation therefore requires the development and implementation of a variety of IT controls, covering activities such as systems development, change management, information security, computer operations etc.We provide consulting services, toolkits and templates aimed to assist you in developing the required policies, procedures, practices, organisational structures and other controls required to achieve CobiT compliance.
IT Risk Assessment
Within the IT Governance programme, Risk Assessment focuses on the assessment of significant IT risks to the organisation.Our Risk Assessment services will assist you to implement an IT Risk Management Framework, develop a clear understanding of your organisation’s appetite for risk, compliance requirements, and the embedding of risk management responsibilities.Our approach makes provision to document the agreed-upon level of IT risks, agreeing on appropriate mitigation strategies and residual risks. This will ensure that any potential impact on your organisation’s goals caused by an unplanned event is identified, analysed and assessed.The result of the IT Risk Assessment is a risk register which is understandable to the stakeholders, and enables stakeholders to mitigate risk to an acceptable level of tolerance.
IT Balanced Scorecard Development
The Balanced Scorecard has emerged as a proven and effective performance management tool that can be leveraged to enable alignment of the IT strategy with that of the business. The IT Balanced Scorecard can also be an effective means for IT management to communicate with, and report to the executive management about the performance and value if IT.Our approach to the development of IT Balanced Scorecard, involves combining the Balanced Scorecard with the CobiT guidelines for IT strategy, as part of the strategic planning process, thereby creating a solid foundation for a balanced IT strategy development approach for your organisation.
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