IT Advisory

dataplex IT Advisory

dataplex's IT advisory services team thinks strategically about entire industries and helps our clients define IT and operational initiatives that contribute to their company's growth. Our team is highly creative and thrives in deconstructing and re-creating businesses to meet changing strategic and operational needs, enable innovation, establish more efficient IT practices, and help the company continue to achieve its vast potential.

These services are made possible by the foundation laid by our consultants through their experiences and commitment to innovation and a keen eye to detail.


Areas of advisory engagement

IT Strategy

All organisations face similar challenges; reduction in operational costs, compliance and the ability to respond to changing business requirements. The need to deliver business goals whilst anticipating changes in markets and technological factors is ever-present.

The focus of all strategic engagements should be achieving business objectives and the delivery of benefits, with a secondary focus on the application of technology.

A robust IT strategy is central to ensuring that IT delivers the value needed in today's changing business landscape and it should identify ways of driving growth and improving operational performance to position the organisation for the future.

Often business and IT initiatives and strategies work in different directions, this is bad and is an area where the two must join forces to make the most impact possible.

dataplex sit uniquely within this space to assist businesses in understanding the capabilities available to drive the business forward and the changes that need to occur to ensure the vision of the business is realised.

Through a tried and tested methodology dataplex can guide organisations through the review and development of an IT strategy to ensure business and IT align together.

dataplex engage with senior executives to establish the foundations and then through a number of key stages we are able to identify the most suitable IT strategy for the business.

dataplex combines its comprehensive business acumen and practical experience to work with you to develop a thorough understanding of the current business and technological state from an organisational, operational and market view. The result is a fully informed strategy which forms the foundations upon which services will be developed and delivered. It clearly describes the technology to be used, the way it will be exploited and the models that will deliver services to the business.

A key element of our approach to IT strategy is the inclusion of a technology and market appraisal to augment the technological elements of your strategy. dataplex have direct senior contacts into many of the key software and hardware vendors that define the IT market and you can be sure that the solutions included in your strategy are relevant, supported and best of breed.

Strategic Advice - IT Efficiency

In today's economic climate many organisations freeze their IT spend or mandate cost reduction exercises that impact the initiatives on which an organisations future growth depends. Coupled with an increasing focus on globalisation, M&A and multi supplier sourcing has opened new markets, new sources of IT services and improved ways of working.

IT powered business initiatives also put heavy focus on capabilities that IT organisations have not been historically strong at, such as business partnering, enterprise architecture, innovation and commercial management. These can lead to operational challenges around critical areas of IT.

Business Requirements IT Efficiency is core to achieving business objectives. And successful chief information officers (CIOs) know they must focus on IT efficiency to enable rapid response to changing business requirements, such as:

Market research suggests that this approach often results in increased spend in the future as:

IT Capabilities and Productivity Deteriorate
IT Maintenance costs rise through supporting legacy hardware and applications
Staff Morale wains
Facilities costs increase
Entrance to new markets is hampered.

Conversely, in the race to achieve competitive advantage as we enjoy a more buoyant economy, IT spending sometimes grows unchecked. This approach can prove just as costly to business performance as sweeping IT cost reduction programs.

dataplex's approach to IT efficiency supports the IT organisation by developing a strategic approach to immediate and sustainable cost reduction, by working to identify profitable investments and reduce/optimise IT spend, whilst improving performance in specific areas and across the IT organisation.

It also provides an insight into the right level of investment across IT functions by benchmarking a client's spend against industry standards. The areas that are typically assessed in an IT efficiency review are shown below:

Technical Advice

Deciding the right solution for your business can be tough based upon the complexity inherent in IT, and that is why we live by our value statement “in a complicated world, we simply do what we say”

When you consider factors such as price, quality, supportability and level of maturity the choices facing the IT department can be bewildering. Ensuring that systems are cost-effective, fit-for-purpose and supportable is vital for any organisation.

Solution Architecture

Through our IT advisory practice at dataplex we have experts who can help you with the design process down to the last nut and bolt.

Our team has extensive experience working across a range of desktop and datacentre technologies that comprise a converged infrastructure. With a track record in advising many leading public and private sector organisations, we provide you with solutions that are practical, pragmatic and easily understood by both technologists and business people. We will not confuse you with buzzwords and technical jargon and always remember that the purpose of IT solutions is to support the business.

Our Solution Architects approach design from a universal point of view. We consider elements such as service, cost and sourcing as well as technology to ensure that you can be confident that the systems you deploy will more than satisfy the needs of your business.

Design Due Diligence

In many instances our technical advisory team will work alongside client staff from the start of your project; however, there are times when an independent design due diligence can be beneficial. This process reassures IT management that the solution incorporates all the design principles appropriate to the business.

We typically utilise a four-step approach to technical design due diligence:

Assessment Services

Once dataplex has engaged with you through a strategic advisory service the next stage is to get under the skin of your existing architecture. We will assess the architecture that is looking to be augmented or replaced with the distinct projects that formulate the programme of works within the IT strategy.

This engagement can be aligned to many initiatives but ultimately follows a standard dataplex process which will determine your current state, reconcile the gap between current and desired and highlight the overall health of the environment.

Common assessment services that dataplex undertake frequently for our clients are:

Market and Technology Review

A strategic insight on the direction being taken by IT vendors, service providers and peer organisations is invaluable. It facilitates strategic formulation and decision making from an informed, real-world position.

Server Infrastructure Advice & Assessment

Servers are the heart of any enterprise IT infrastructure. If they are not fit for purpose, they can severely affect the efficiency of an organisation's operations. dataplex provides clients with advice on specifying systems that will meet their requirements into the future. We can also provide clients with cost estimates and comparisons based upon our experiences. The option to use hosted services is a strategy that is increasingly considered by many of our clients, and we are able offer impartial advice on the appropriateness of such solutions.

Ultimately we will review your existing server estate be it virtual or physical to see where efficiencies can be brought about through smart consolidation exercises or business continuity.

Desktop Assessment

A review of your existing desktop estate be it virtual or physical to see where efficiencies can be brought about through a simplified desktop and application delivery mechanism. The desktop is one of the most problematic and expensive areas of an enterprise and yet is often overlooked, using technologies from key software and hardware vendors can significantly improve your efficiency and that of your users.

Core IO Assessment Core Infrastructure Optimisation Assessments

Infrastructure optimisation means obtaining the best blend of operational features for the best commercial terms clearly, the better the blend, the higher the value you will gain for the business.

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Core Infrastructure Optimisation is a proven framework for evolving your IT infrastructure to become more agile, secure, and better-managed, while reducing overall IT costs and making better use of resources. The bottom line-IT becomes a stronger strategic asset to the business

Business Productivity Optimisation Assessments

While most executives realise that technology is crucial to the running-and the success-of their businesses, many will admit that the state of their business productivity processes is less than optimal. Analysts say more than 80% of a typical IT budget is spent on infrastructure, such as servers, operating systems, storage, and networking. Refreshing and managing desktop and mobile devices adds additional cost.

To help companies advance from costly and inefficient IT environments, dataplex offers guidance in the form of the business productivity assessments. The models outline steps that companies can take to analyse where they are today and to plan for and create an IT environment that is well managed, secure, and efficient.

While enterprises and midsize businesses have unique needs that influence their technology decisions, they share the need for a well-managed business processes. The IT infrastructure and business productivity environment is the foundation for the business, whether large or small, and it must have the reliability, security, and flexibility not only to sustain the business, but to help it thrive.

Storage Strategy and Assessment

Data storage requirements for organisations are growing at an exponential rate, fuelled by the ever increasing dependency on IT systems to support processes within an organisation. To address this demand, storage capacity has risen dramatically over the last 10 years, with large-scale storage now available in the form of both storage area networks (SANS) and network addressable storage (NAS). Storage is an essential part of any network design; it must meet both the requirements of the initial system, and be flexible enough to be upgraded given network capacity increase.

Typically the data that resides on it is often untouched for 90% of the time. dataplex can assess your existing storage infrastructure to determine the best configuration for you to optimise the delivery of the data from a storage infrastructure that is fit for purpose. We have the experience and ability to recommend on the various protocols for your business from FC to iSCSI.