Companies with a complex IT infrastructure in particular have built up a diverse landscape of IT service providers over the past few decades. The spectrum ranges from SaaS and IaaS providers to highly specialised service partners. In the course of this development, diverse service relationships and dependencies have often emerged, some of which are difficult to penetrate. Overview, transparency and consistent service quality often fall by the wayside.
In an increasingly digitalised business world, efficiency and cost reduction are decisive factors for a company's success. Robotic process automation (RPA) offers the opportunity to automate time-consuming and repetitive administrative processes. This not only significantly reduces the workload of employees, but also enables processes to be controlled error-free and in real time. This raises the question of which processes are best suited to automation and quickly generate measurable added value for the company and its employees
Automation has long been more than just RPA. While robotic process automation was originally seen as a solution for repetitive processes, the field has evolved: Process mining, business process management (BPM) and artificial intelligence are expanding the possibilities and pushing the boundaries of what is considered automatable. However, the euphoria surrounding these advances is often in stark contrast to the reality of many companies. Even today, numerous RPA projects fail or do not deliver the hoped-for added value. The causes are complex - from strategic omissions to unrealistic expectations.
IT service provider and managed service provider Ratiodata is taking the next step in its digital transformation. The specialist & service partner for IT & self-service infrastructure in bank branches, for example, has carried out a large-scale project to automate the interaction between people and software in the order-to-cash process. With the support of noventum consulting GmbH, the IT service provider re-implemented this important process on the basis of the Microsoft Power Platform, created important framework conditions for a broader use of the software in future and is thus driving forward its digitalisation 2.0 strategy.
There are several options for automation: deep code automation, off-the-shelf automation with robot process automation (RPA) and, of course, automation with the help of generative AI. Each of these options has its own advantages and disadvantages that need to be considered when planning a solution.
Almost every company in Germany already has enormous potential to automate processes with robotic process automation (RPA). This potential is being significantly increased by the ongoing development of generative AI. The combination of RPA and AI, also known as Intelligent Process Automation (IPA), opens up new possibilities. By using the rule-based RPA bot to access generative AI, it is possible to automate complex process (steps).
In the fast-paced world of information technology, time is often a precious commodity. Companies are under great pressure to manage their IT services efficiently. At the same time, they must keep pace with the rapidly changing demands of the environment and the pressures of the competitive landscape. Under such conditions, outsourcing becomes a crucial tool to meet the need for flexibility, expertise and cost efficiency. For outsourcing to be successful, forward planning is a general must.
In the digitalised business world, the automation of processes has become an indispensable tool for increasing efficiency and maintaining competitiveness. Bots, i.e. digital assistants, are playing an increasingly important role in this. The integration of bots into business processes enables companies not only to reduce costs, but also to improve the quality of their services and increase customer satisfaction. But how exactly do bots affect process automation and what role do they play?
Merging companies is a complex process in which many factors need to be taken into account. One of the most important aspects is human resource management. However, HR issues are often not given sufficient consideration during purchase negotiations.
The experienced people & culture consultant Michaela Gottwald provides valuable insights into why human resources should be focussed on at an early stage and what challenges HR management faces in post-merger integration.
The IT strategy is an important building block in the planning and further development of IT, regardless of whether it is organised as a department, business unit or even a group company. The IT strategy defines the objectives and ensures that IT understands the company's business objectives and aligns itself with them. In this respect, the annual review of the IT strategy is a good opportunity to check whether IT is still prioritising the right things and aligning its skills and resources with the needs of the specialist departments and internal customers.
In the digital world of work, some topics have become big in recent years that are now indispensable. RPA - Robotic Process Automation - is one of these topics and the management of even medium-sized companies can no longer avoid the question: "Why and for what RPA?" This article aims to shed light on the key reasons why companies around the world are increasingly turning to RPA, using RPA to optimise their business processes, reduce their costs and increase the efficiency of their business operations. From automating repetitive tasks to improving the customer experience, there is much to discover about how RPA will shape the future of the modern enterprise.
The old Microsoft Partner Network has been replaced by the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program (MCPP) and noventum has qualified for two so-called designations. In the future IT companies will be able to demonstrate their expertise in six areas of competence. Three different "Partner Capability Scores" are available for this, in which companies must prove themselves: Performance, Qualification and Customer Success.
Robotic Process Automation, or RPA for short, is a technology that enables companies to automate business processes. It uses software robots that can perform human tasks in digital systems. RPA robots are able to perform repetitive, rule-based and time-consuming tasks by interacting with existing applications, processing data, retrieving information and making decisions.
The demands on a "modern" IT organisation have changed fundamentally; in addition to the classic characteristics such as operational stability and provision of current technologies with high cost efficiency, there are additional wishes and expectations driven by the specialist departments and business partners - the immediate implementation of new business ideas in digital products before competitors are faster and secure market shares.
Digitalisation thus places new demands on corporate IT. In addition to its traditional function, it must now play a central role as an enabler of innovative business models.
SAERTEX GmbH & Co KG and its subsidiary SAERTEX multiCom GmbH produce technical textiles in Saerbeck, Westphalia, and in a number of locations worldwide. In order to improve cooperation within the group, SAERTEX multiCom initiated the creation of an intranet based on the latest Microsoft SharePoint technology. In the future, all locations and departments of the parent company and subsidiaries will gradually work together on the intranet. In 2022, the Saerbeck-based company successfully implemented the pilot project and opened up new ways of communication and data sharing for its employees. Some departments of the parent company SAERTEX were already involved in the SharePoint set-up from the beginning. noventum consultants and SAERTEX employees met in person for the first time after the completion of the fully online project.
Large cloud providers such as Amazon or Microsoft leave the consulting business to partners whose expertise they can vouch for. Amazon has high requirements for certified partner status and has systematically laid these down in its AWS partner model. noventum consulting is an AWS cloud partner and has proven its expertise in various projects, for example for Deutsche Bahn (DB Regio Bus).
Every year, the magazine brand eins presents a detailed survey on the performance and acceptance of management consultancies in Germany. Since 2016, noventum has been one of the approximately 10% of consultancies that are praised by colleagues and customers in a survey. IT strategy and IT implementation are the successful consulting fields in which noventum scores again and again.
On the third of October 2022, the "Microsoft Partner Network" was replaced and switched to the new "Microsoft Cloud Partner Program" (MCPP). In future, IT companies will be able to demonstrate their expertise in six areas of competence. Three different "Partner Capability Scores" are available for this, in which companies must prove themselves: Performance, qualification and customer success.
Even though IT outsourcing regularly becomes a topic (mergers, acquisitions, next generation sourcing ...), it needs a lot of expertise and experience. Without good project management, IT outsourcing will not be a success. Holger Bredenkötter has been working as an IT consultant on this topic for more than 20 years. In his article, he explores the question of why IT outsourcing projects always represent a state of emergency for companies, what IT managers need to pay attention to when the time comes and why you actually need four project managers.
IT outsourcing is standard. If a company decides to have its IT operated by a service provider, this is not an unusual process. And yet the path to the sourcing partner is often not easy and burst sourcing contracts are not uncommon. But what has gone wrong if the partnership is not a real pleasure? IT tenders are the supreme discipline on the way to finding the right service provider and this is where things often go wrong.
Cloud computing is becoming an increasingly important topic in banking. Despite guidance from the EBA and BAFIN, uncertainty remains about the regulatory requirements. The question therefore arises as to which regulatory and relevant requirements must be observed in cloud computing.
The term stands for itself: IT turnaround management aims to turn around a situation, often a crisis situation, into one that is manageable and controlled. A proven toolbox helps to overcome crises. But even in times when there is no acute crisis, it is worth taking a look at this toolbox. Because where a complex application landscape meets high costs, optimisation potential is often not far away. Timely action with an analysis of IT costs and a check of the application landscape and infrastructure can not only prevent a potential IT crisis.
At the end of October 2021, Compleo Charging Solutions AG concluded an agreement with the energy group E.ON on the acquisition of innogy eMobility Solutions GmbH. This includes the takeover of the entire workforce and all customer relationships of ieMS as well as the subsidiary of ieMS in the United Kingdom. The consolidation as a wholly-owned subsidiary has been ongoing since 01.01.2022. Compleo is thus implementing the integration of ieMS and its software services for electromobility into the Compleo Group. Consultants from noventum consulting GmbH in Münster are supporting the process by managing and coordinating the IT & HR post-merger integration and developing a target operating model.
DB Regio Bus has largely moved its IT to the cloud over the last four years. In doing so, it implemented a technological target set by the DB Group, which has been pursuing an active cloud policy since 2015. Supporting the IT managers from the regional bus organisations and convincing them to support the cloud project was a major challenge for the noventum consultants, who have been supporting the project since 2017.
Anyone researching the topic of cloud computing is inundated with technical terms such as "hybrid", "DevOps" and "Kubernetes". The terms "cloud native" or "cloud readiness" are usually defined as critical success factors of a cloud strategy. But what do these terms actually mean? And what mentality goes hand in hand with them?
IT infrastructures are mostly also cloud infrastructures. Cloud providers and customers share the responsibility for cyber security and compliance. In 2021, nearly 9 out of 10 companies were already victims of cyberattacks. AWS customers can choose between Amazon services and a few other firewall providers for the security of their applications and data. Whatever the choice, implementation is not trivial and needs to be well prepared.
Every year, the magazine brand eins presents a detailed study on the performance and acceptance of management consultancies in Germany. Since 2016, noventum has been one of the approximately 10% of consultancies that are praised by colleagues and clients in a survey. IT strategy and IT implementation are the successful consulting fields in which noventum scores again and again.
Some companies operate their Exchange on premises and want to take advantage of a team environment at the same time without losing functionality. Problems arise, for example, with the synchronization of calendars or the coordination of appointments. Dreve, an internationally active manufacturer of medical devices, was faced with this challenge and found a perfect solution with the Microsoft experts at noventum consulting.
In order to better serve the diverse requirements for internal communication in the future, Ahlen-based LR Health & Beauty Systems GmbH developed the basics for an intranet with the support of management consultants noventum consulting from Münster. The technical basis of the installation is Microsoft SharePoint technology. Future expansion stages will be further developed by LR Health & Beauty Systems using its own resources. Following the positive experience with the agile approach in this project, agile project management will also be used as a possible method in the future.
The management of the wholesale and production company WULFF used the development of a Microsoft-based intranet to promote their internal communication and at the same time gain experience in agility. Employees from various departments of the company worked with developers and agile moderation from noventum consulting to develop the first stages of a SharePoint, as it is increasingly being used by medium-sized and smaller companies.
Data overload and increasing requirements are forcing many companies to improve their internal processes and communication channels. Cathalog GmbH from Steinfurt is meeting this challenge with its digitalization roadmap to gradually create more transparency for information that is used across departments. The introduction of a Microsoft SharePoint-based intranet and a quality management manual were the first steps on this path. A special novelty for the Steinfurter was the agile approach.
For 35 years, the North Westphalia Chamber of Industry and Commerce has been the organiser of the regional preliminary round of the nationwide "Jugend forscht" competition. Even in the analogue event of earlier years, the organisation of participants and jurors was demanding. This year, the organisers were faced with the challenge of providing 137 young researchers from 23 schools in the Münsterland region, divided into 7 subject groups, with a digital opportunity to take part in the competition.
Around 2,500 employees and approx. 100,000 patients p.a. ensure a very high volume of data at Osnabrück Hospital. Data integrity and availability are particularly important in everyday hospital life. In particular, SharePoint's high adaptability and good connection to other Microsoft components tipped the scales in favor of the software. SharePoint experts from the Münster-based IT management consultancy noventum implemented the important project together with the KosIT specialists.
Pandemic and lockdown have presented many PMI projects with unexpected challenges. Communication structures had to be reorganized, the cooperation with some suppliers was put to the test and last but not least the collective exodus into the home offices turned out to be a paradigm shift for the project organization. The PMI consultants of noventum consulting have accompanied such a project in the early Corona period and have gained some surprising insights.
With the SharePoint online communication platform, the company TECE uses Microsoft technology for its project management, sales and quality management. TECE is taking this path step by step and is focusing on inspiring its employees and carefully replacing old systems. The next step will be to introduce further Microsoft tools such as teams. noventum supports the internationally active manufacturer of sanitary products.
Digital transformation - i.e. the realignment of a company in terms of strategy, business model and the resources and processes used through the use of digital technologies - is relevant for all companies. The transformation process should be carefully prepared in order to identify unnecessary sources of error and convert them into success factors. Experienced consultants can help.
In traditional software development, final tests are planned in advance. During the test period, test and troubleshooting phases alternate until the finished product is finally ready for installation and use. Agile software projects run differently and challenge this step-by-step approach. Combining classical (software) test management with the requirements of an agile organisation is a methodical challenge, but also holds many opportunities.
Organising a congress for a few hundred visitors with twenty speakers and opportunities for networking and meeting is a great challenge online. This year's IT Strategy Congress of IT-Forum Nordwestfalen and IHK-Nordwestfalen has been held online for the first time. The consultants of noventum consulting were responsible for the technical implementation with Microsoft TEAMS. In the end, organizers and participants were enthusiastic about a perfectly staged congress.
When two companies merge, two technical worlds usually become one. Higher efficiency, scaling effects and the basic idea of "one company - one system" are the guiding principles of any integration. Since a large-scale IT integration cannot wait for every side event, smaller special applications are often dragged along and end up in isolation. This pragmatism helps at first, but subsequently causes problems and leads to a dead end.
There are many collaboration platforms, and depending on the company's technical history, these may be from one of the large manufacturers or they may be small special applications, often with very individual options, suitable for the respective company's everyday life. What they have in common is that they are intended to ensure collaboration within the company or are also used with a corresponding interface in customer communication.
The past months have forced many institutions to review their processes. Home offices have become the norm and traditional meetings or events have been held online with appropriate software. The Microsoft 365 tools are quickly available and in their extended use almost cost neutral. However, some companies are still unsure of the benefits they can derive from the O365 applications.
The merging of companies, the outsourcing of parts of a company or the transfer of individual core processes to a service provider - corporate IT is directly or indirectly involved in all these complex processes. Sometimes it is even the direct and exclusive scene of the action. As different as companies are, as varied are the necessary steps they have to take on their way to each other or away from each other.
For the seventh time in a row, the magazine brand eins and the statistics company Statista have presented a detailed study on the performance of management consultancies. noventum consulting is among the best in this study. In a detailed special issue entitled "Consulting", brand eins presents the study.
Even if the new IT provider and the customer have already worked together successfully in previous years, the renewed service takeover after a provider intermezzo is still not a piece of cake and can become a lesson. noventum consulting has accompanied such a case in an advisory capacity and the realization on all sides after successful project completion is: the combination of a provider change with extensive system changes must not be overstretched if time pressure is high at the same time.
Microsoft SharePoint has been a synonym for contemporary collaboration for several years. A super-functional application that promises to restructure the entire corporate communication. Many companies are trying to implement these diverse offerings in a "big bang" and replace their existing applications. However, success often fails to materialize and the introduction of SharePoint fails due to resistance within the organization.
According to the World Economic Forum up to 10 percent of the global gross domestic product will be generated via blockchains by 2027. Reason enough to take a good look at this technology already today. The upcoming opportunities of blockchain technology have, in fact, found their way into discussions on the executive level. Especially in terms of the alignment of the long-term IT strategy, the topic of blockchain should be taken into consideration in order to be able to identify early on opportunities for your own company. However, decision-makers should have a clear understanding of the potential impacts of the technologies on processes and industries.
It sounds simple, yet, it is of central importance: Software that functions without any error is good, as software errors cost time and money. That applies to standard software, but of course also to custom applications such as those used at many companies in day to day business. Through automated tests, it is possible to continuously measure and assure software quality. Undesired side effects of software changes can be directly identified and avoided through automated tests.
The outsourcing market already reached ever new record levels in the past, both domestically and internationally. The number and complexity of provider agreements keeps increasing, so do the challenges for the IT procurement department. Not only does the latter have to master shorter sourcing cycles, but ever more frequently said department is also taking on the role of provider management. In the future, the IT procurement department – as central bearer of know-how – will decisively co-determine what’s going on in sourcing in the company. Whether or not the department assumes the leading role will, to a certain extent, depend on who within the company is one step ahead in terms of specialist knowledge.
Quite often, SharePoint projects are conceptualised and set up to mirror their technical capabilities. In many companies, the initiative for such projects originates from the technical department which considers SharePoint no different from any other software product and rolls it out. In this, questions regarding the “why” and “what for” are often asked too late. As such, failure over the short or long term is pre-programmed, given that the SharePoint technology is considerably meshing with the internal communication and collaboration processes. That, however, requires the support of all parties involved, from the responsible manager all the way to the user side.
For most companies the use of cloud services is initially often a step-by-step experiment. Based on individual accounts with one of the major cloud providers, various employees explore the possibilities and get an idea of what might be of interest to their company or department. Even these first explorations are usually subject to a fee. In order to keep an eye on where the journey is going financially, this initial option testing has to be tackled systematically. Such a plan is mandatory for a later widespread use of the cloud. Large providers such as AWS or Azure have usually planned the first steps for new customers diligently. With a Trusted Advisor, such as that found at AWS, the first steps are quickly and safely taken.
Over the past few years, more and more IT service providers have relocated services to countries with lower wage levels, especially India. The aim of this offshoring is to meet the increased competitive and cost pressure of the markets. However, many companies had to realize after outsourcing that the expected savings potentials can only be partially realized. As great as the business incentives are, as high are the demands on the provider management of these offshore projects. Due to intercultural differences, serious inefficiencies can occur in such projects. In addition to purely organisational challenges, it is especially the large cultural differences that have a decisive influence on the success of an offshore project.
Today, most companies have already had experience with the cloud: applications, IT capacities or individual processes are sourced from a wide range of cloud providers. Agility, innovation, cost reduction, flexibility and scalability are the most common reasons for moving to the cloud. The practical questions are: which provider has the right services? Which parts of the corporate IT are suitable for outsourcing? How does a migration into the cloud actually work? How does it pay off and are the costs the only trigger for moving to the cloud? The question is usually no longer, "are we going into the cloud?" Rather, it is about questions such as "when and how?" or "which services are possible?". Not only beginners in the cloud topic ask themselves the question of the correct procedure.
Using the concrete example of the relocation of an HR analytics application to a cloud environment, some special features of cloud computing in the BI environment are presented here.
Digital transformation is everywhere! As if the IT-technological development of the last decades had only been an insignificant foreplay, digitization is on everyone's lips. No socially relevant field remains unaffected by this and it seems to be all about the question of speed. The demand for agility and flexibility sets the pace, and this has already clarified what the dynamics of digitization are aimed at. The different players are quite differently positioned and IT departments in companies are often unable to keep up with the pace on their own. Sourcing to IT service providers can relieve the burden on them, whether they are external service providers or internal service providers in larger groups. However, the ever-increasing expectations from business about the speed and scope of digital transformation are also changing the relationship between IT departments and their service providers. In the future, they will have to move much closer to the specialist departments in the companies in order to be able to deliver precisely and quickly.
Cloud computing is currently the technological answer to the many calls for agile IT environments in times of digitalization. However, the market is constantly changing and not a few cloud projects fail due to lack of preparation. The call for a sophisticated cloud strategy and secure procedural models is growing. Together with Microsoft and CAST, the market leader for software analysis and measurement, noventum consulting GmbH has developed a solution for these requirements. The professional partnership between the three companies culminates in a workshop offering for companies that want to test their way into the cloud.
Even in centrally managed international corporations, national or local developments have repeatedly occurred over the years, which run counter to a uniform approach. Such developments are often pragmatic and good, often they are simply expensive. Especially in areas driven by technical developments, such a "wildness" is not uncommon. In this sense, IT sourcing in corporate groups is sometimes confusing.
The "brand eins" magazine and the "Statista" statistics company once more have presented a detailed analysis of the performance of business consulting companies. noventum consulting is among the best of this analysis. brand eins is presenting the analysis in a comprehensive special edition "Consulting".
Companies, public institutions, and state institutions are feverishly dealing with strategies for the digital age and are exploring how this technological megatrend is carrying changes over into all areas of life. The insight is taking a hold that any and all structures and processes will have to endure the digitalisation check-up. In this, sourcing strategies are also prominently encountering the pressure to change. However, a lot of companies do not yet have such strategies to date, and run the risk of losing control in the maelstrom of changes.
Since Indian companies have, for a long time already, been successfully acting internationally as software producers, outsourcing deals have, in recent years, increasingly be awarded to India. In the day-to-day work of provider control, cultural differences become apparent that can make a successful cooperation considerably more difficult. German managers and administrators must be aware of these differences in order to do a good job with the Asian partners. Outsourcing expert Tamara Wagner of the IT management consulting firm noventum consulting has made remarkable observations in the cooperation with large Indian providers.
The change from one IT provider to another is always a demanding project. The more complex an IT landscape is, the higher the requirements posed to project management and communication between the companies involved are. In mid-2015, a new contract was signed with a new service provider the hosting of the IT of ista International. The change was to be completed by the end of May 2016. noventum consulting assumed responsibility for the superordinate management of the transition project. In the end, the committed and professional cooperation of all parties involved allowed for a successful transition already 4 weeks ahead of the planned schedule. Very satisfied with the perfect timing and with the financial impacts associated therewith, the new provider and ista now have tackled the first steps for the pending transformation.
In the selection of their IT provider, customers must pay particular attention to quality and costs. Especially the question of cost is quite often the triggering factor to start tackling a sourcing project. Especially in the assigning of commodity services, a lot of companies then do not see significant differences between the numerous providers and consider additional decision criteria other than price and quality to be insignificant. What is forgotten in this quite often is that a well functioning cooperation also includes a good communication. In day-to-day business subsequent to the signing of the contract, a lot of different employees of the customer and of the provider also have to clarify controversial questions with each other. If this does not work, the strong focusing especially on the cost factor can quickly turn out to be a "bottomless pit". What initially appeared to be economically lucrative becomes very expensive mid-term. What is to be concluded? In the process for selecting a provider, one additional factor is gaining increasing importance as a decision criterion, the so-called "Cultural Fit".
The "FinSAP16" project team was able to proclaim the successful merger of two different SAP systems in early 2016, on-time, and flawlessly. Fiducia & GAD IT AG, the service provider for information technology within the cooperative finance group FinanzGruppe, is going to be working with an ERP system that – as "Best of Breed" – had already before the merger successfully replaced the SAP systems of Fiducia and GAD.
The "brand eins" magazine and the "Statista" statistics company once more have presented a detailed analysis of the performance of business consulting companies. noventum consulting is among the best of this analysis. brand eins is presenting the analysis in a comprehensive special edition titled "Consulting 4.0".
With the experience of many successful sourcing projects in more than 15 years of IT consulting, noventum consulting has developed a process model with which companies can develop IT sourcing strategies.
The outsourcing of the complete IT of a medium-sized company as well as the offshoring of the data center operation of a DAX group will be presented by the responsible IT managers of the companies Nowega and Merck at the 1st Noventum Sourcing Day, which will take place on March 25, 2015 from 3 pm at the Mercure Hotel in Düsseldorf. The IT management consultancy noventum consulting, specialist in the field of IT outsourcing, invites CIOs, IT managers, IT purchasers and provider managers to this free information event.
In recent weeks and months, publications on the subject of security and data protection in the cloud have sprung up like mushrooms in late summer. Almost all well-known institutions and companies have thrown their opinions into the ring and outlined the necessary steps for secure operation or secure use of cloud services.
With its collaboration software SharePoint, Microsoft has been working since 2001 on combining under one roof a lot of functions that - to date - are operated separate from one another at companies: Intranet, extranet, content management, document management, personal cloud, business social networking, business intelligence, workflow management, web content management, and a lot more. The collaboration software - which has to potential to shape business communications as a whole - has arrived in day-to-day business at a lot of companies. Yet, the implementation of SharePoint technology is still a big challenge and a lot of implementation projects fail.
Since the introduction of SAP ERP 6.0 in 2006, the ERP application has – as part of its current release strategy – only been functionally enhanced through so-called Enhancement Packages (EHP). In addition to the usual maintenance via Support Packages, SAP has - with the SAP Enhancement Packages – created an enhancement concept that, on the one hand, ensures stability for existing functions and, on the other hand, allows for simplified and selective access to new functions. In this, it is ensured through the use of the switch framework technology that no functional changes are occurring during installation.
„Never change a running system.“ This motto is known to every IT employee. But, what to do when the system does not function perfectly anymore? Customers complain about the lack of quality. The management complains about ever-rising IT costs. An IT landscape that often has developed over years in small steps is no longer meeting the requirements and is up for discussion. Now, the management of IT has to think about changes. But what should be changed? Are small corrective actions sufficient or does it have to be more
To those who deal with IT quality management, the questions „what is IT quality, actually, where and how is it measured, and where is it created?" very quickly arise.
According to the IEC 2371 standard, quality is the correspondence between the observed properties and the previously defined requirements of an observation unit. In the case of IT quality, the observation unit typically either is an IT component (server, switch, router, etc.) or an IT service.
Even still today, IT is merely a means to an end at a lot of companies. The history of in-house IT is long and twisted, the basic technical facts are confusing, and only comprehensible to „old hands“ at the company. IT serves merely as a tool for the core business and does therefore not receive the attention of a strategic factor in the planning that is decisive for success. At the same time, IT costs a lot of money and has to prove that it has an up-to-date cost/benefit ratio. This is the moment for a paradigm shift: the end of reaction and the beginning of strategy and planning. Hartmut Ossowitzki, management consultant at noventum consulting, has been working as an IT specialist for more than 20 years and advises heads of IT regarding the setup of a strategic EAM (Enterprise Architecture Management).
Nowadays, virtualisation is considered one of the key technologies in business IT. Server virtualisation and storage virtualisation allow for a better utilisation of the hardware, allowing for cost savings and a more flexible delivery of IT resources. Similarly statements apply to the virtualisation of networks, desktops, and applications. The topic of virtualisation has been a concern for the IT world for more than 45 years. In AIX and/or UNIX systems it was possible already as early as in 1972 to partition the hardware resources of a system for the parallel operation of multiple operation system (LPAR mode).
Communication in large hospitals takes place through innumerable channels. In addition to the already highly complex issue of data communications, this does also and still affect the classic area of telephony. The use of mobile end devices is a matter of course in day-to-day hospital business, but here is where problems and challenges occur that are owed to the special hospital situation and that require special solutions. Extraordinarily heterogeneous systems as well as radiation-sensitive areas on the hospital grounds are just two of the numerous topics that an integrated solution must take into consideration.
When all IT systems must be relocated to another data centre, this often is a particular challenge for the affected IT departments due to today‘s complex IT structures. The effort in relocating a complete data centre while maintaining the agreed upon service levels is enormous. Most often, no or only little experience with such a relocation exists. The amount of work often exceeds the available personnel resources. Typically, to conquer this task, external know-how is purchased or the whole data centre relocation may even be handed over to a competent service provider.
Cloud-based services provide some advantage over standard IT services such as scalability, cost reduction, and lower investment costs (operating costs instead of investment costs). The large cloud providers do by now offer a very diverse portfolio from Infrastructure-as-a-Service, via Platform-as-a-Service, all the way to Software-as-a-Service. With the AWS Marketplace, Amazon does, for example, offer the opportunity to provision more than 1,500 software products in 25 categories at the push of a button. In recent years, the cloud market has grown significantly and is playing a more and more important role.
Even in organisations of medium size, the IT infrastructure is often based on different, historically grown structures. With the help of noventum, a German private bank with subsidiaries in Luxembourg has consolidated its IT landscape and centralised it in a single location. The consolidation of the Active Directories and of the Exchange infrastructures was the core element of this measure.
As it is known, in a Microsoft infrastructure, access to resources, data as well as applications is controlled via Active Directory (AD). Depending on how complex the business structures mapped are, AD not only controls access at 1:1, but also describes the different levels of the trust relationship between individual domains. A mostly complex system that reflects the inner dynamics of a company like a mirror image.
To simplify the reading of this article mainly the term transition is used for both transition and transformation. Transition projects where IT Outsourcing (ITO) providers are switched are highly complex, resource intensive, challenging and risky. Typically, the ITO customer has outsourced the required knowledge to the incumbent provider. The new provider has not yet the required knowledge to provide IT services as needed at the beginning of the transition. Therefore, both parties, the ITO customer and the new provider rely on the support from the incumbent provider.
In terms of outsourcing, the opinions were split for a long time: the big ones among the companies obtained room to manoeuvre for their core business by outsourcing functions. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), however, shied away from this step. Insufficient outsourcing experience, worrying about their business-critical data, fear of intransparency and dependency were hindering a good many in terms of handing tasks over to third parties. Now also available in German, the first international standard for this subject area – DIN ISO 37500 „Guidance on outsourcing“ – standardises the process of outsourcing.
Since 2012, noventum has had a presence in Luxembourg. Harald Hau is the owner and managing director of the consulting company noventum S.á.r.l., Luxemburg; in a novum interview, he is reporting on the latest developments and consulting topics of his company.
The integration phase subsequent to mergers is a huge challenge. Often, its success decides about the failure or success of a merger. For many years already, noventum consulting has been supporting the manifold planning and operational aspects of this critical project phase in the IT, financial, insurance, energy, and other sectors. Carsten Fröning, Director, consultant at noventum since 1997, and responsible for the topic „Post merger integration“, provides information about this important milestone in the PMI lifecycle of a company.
Be it floods, technical accidents, or complete power outages: nobody is immune to catastrophes and ever so often companies are affected as well, whose production stagnates as a result or even comes to a grinding halt. In this, the survivability of a lot of business operations is dependent on continuously available IT services and their underlying IT infrastructure.
Just like the call for order, safety, and planning, the call for quality in IT is always topical. This applies when large changes are ahead as well as when realignments and problems occur in normal operations. Each and every major change is followed by a consolidation, be it after a merger, a spin-off, an insourcing or outsourcing, or after periods of severe cost reduction. The next step is the call for an increase or reestablishment of quality.
Bring Your Own Device is still among the most discussed trends in the IT industry. What‘s making BYOD interesting for companies? Or is BYOD just an acronym for „Bring Your Own Disaster“?
As part of a larger IT outsourcing project in Singapore, Tamara Wagner, IT Outsourcing Consultant at noventum, visited the Asian computer centre of its German client. From an IT point of view, this client represents the German company in Asia on the Germany-Singapore-USA axis.
The integration phase subsequent to mergers or outsourcing deals is a huge challenge. Its success often decides about the failure or success of a merger. For many years already, noventum consulting has been supporting the manifold planning and operational aspects of this critical project phase from the IT perspective.
In the financial industry, digital customer communications were the domain of the direct banks for a long time. With the Electronic Mailbox, the IT service provider of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe savings and loan bank finance group is contributing to making the digital customer relations dialogue an essential customer care component of the regionally active savings and loan banks (Sparkassen).
Aside of the day-to-day and line business, projects are what is intended to effect any major change in the business processes. Heterogeneous working groups gather around the new task, at times staffed only internally, and at times also jointly with suppliers or consultants. The managers bearing these responsibilities must ask themselves who should be working on the project, which expertise and experience should the prospective team members bring to the table. Project management as skill, as best practice, as framework – which approach is the right one? Wolfgang Plemper who, as Director at noventum consulting is responsible for the project management training portfolio, is on the road with this topic at universities and companies knows different means: Prince2®, IPMA and other approaches.
The CHAOS Report of the Standish Group has been telling us for 20 years already that IT projects in a clear majority of cases do not achieve their objectives. Be it 16 % achievement of objectives in 1994 or 39 % in 2012, IT projects are not a safe bet and whether the increase by 23 percentage points of the last 20 years is actually the result of a stronger focus on objectives can definitely be doubted.
Anadolu Sigorta, Turkish Insurance Sector Pioneer, is also demonstrating its difference with its investments into Information Technology and into employee’s development and wellbeing. While conducting quite a few projects last year, Anadolu Sigorta has eased the knowledge sharing, increased the trust in data and succeed in increasing the effectiveness of timely information usage.
Due to fluctuations in the economy or changes in the financial results of the companies, the expenditures for IT are subject to cyclical changes. Measures kept in abeyance in the short term and the cost savings resulting therefrom are offset in the next quarters. Increased investments are done again, only to ring in the next round of cost-cutting.
An estimated 4.4 billion people will be smartphone owners by 2017, and a large share of these people will be using apps regularly to quickly and easily access information and functionalities that otherwise could only be reached cumbersomely via the web browser. That this trend cannot move past the business environment is apparent, but there are numerous hurdles in the way, such as the existence of different operating systems, ensuring appropriate data security, or connectivity to the current system landscape.
The European division of a worldwide operating energy group of companies has been using the SAP Solution Manager successfully for more than four years for the processing of incidents. In addition, the tool is used in change re-quest management in order to be able to manage and control IT projects. noventum consulting provides adjustments in customizing.
The partners have already completed the first successful joint projects, and another prominent IT outsourcing project, in which both companies are involved with their consulting expertise, is currently heading towards completion. Now, Diapharm and noventum consulting have sealed their cooperation with a cooperation agreement.
How often do you hear the familiar saying "Only that which can be measured can also be managed"? Managing includes three central tasks: setting objectives, determining paths, and achieving objectives.
In 2015, the internationally standardised ISO standard ISO 37500 will regulate all essential details in outsourcing. Experts from 42 nations are participating in the development of this standard that is recognised worldwide, among them Frank Wübken, IT outsourcing expert and management consultant at noventum consulting. Frank Wübken is participating in the development of the standard as "Head of Delegation" of the German participants. In this function, he participated in an international conference in Delhi, India, at the end of February.
Licences are a topic for any company that utilises non-in-house software for the support of its business. At medium-sized and large companies, the overview over the software used and the licences bought is lost quickly. The task of a licence management is to maintain an overview, be able to state the licence situation at any time, and to support an audit or the purchase of new licences.
Everybody is talking about outsourcing, scenarios for sourcing models are state-of-the-art.
If the internal IT service provider decides to outsource parts or whole areas of its provision of services to one or more external providers, i.e., to initiate an outsourcing project, then a lot of framework conditions are changing for it.
An interview with Carsten Fröning, Thorsten Schmidt and Otto-Jörg Schröder
novum: Mr. Schröder, you have been a part of the management of noventum consulting in the area of SAP consulting since November 2012. What is your specific focus and how does this change the noventum consulting Portfolio?
IT is the backbone of the modern enterprise, not just another function within it. For businesses to continue to succeed in an increasingly technology-dependent world, CIOs must assume a strategic leadership role and drive change throughout the enterprise. Driving business strategy is not an entirely new role, but it is an added responsibility to the traditional CIO job function. While many CIOs possess the skills and ambition to impact business strategy, existing IT operational models and an aging infrastructure are holding them back. CIOs who have been successful in bridging the divide between IT and the business did it by first accelerating IT transformation.
The IT of the clinics of the future is faced with substantial challenges. Not only are huge amounts of data generated by new imaging processes, but these also need to be processed, presented, stored and archived. Now, at first glance this might not appear to be anything unusual. Of course, this is true for the data of a patient staying at the University Clinic. However, when the data of this patient is to be stored for the duration of said patient‘s life and if in addition also all the data that was not generated at the clinic is - in our example - to be stored in the patient‘s file, then the whole is becoming a challenge that can only be mastered with great difficulty.
The customer care card of the Münster municipal works is becoming electronic and features new opportunities for the future. The change is powered by a conceptionally and technically sophisticated IT system.
It has been on the market since 1998 and counts roughly 60,000 customers at this point – the PlusCard, the Münster municipal works’ customer care card. Since spring 2013, the company has been equpping its PlusCard with a chip, rendering the card electronic. The new, intelligent PlusCard supplies its customers with new offers and services with genuine additional benefits. As a first electronic service, the Münster municipal works have introduced the electronic bus ticket (eTicket). It constitutes the basis for several transportation products which allow for a flexible use. The first eTicket product made available by the Münster municipal works is the 90 minute ticket, which has been on offer since March 2013. Its use is especially flexible, since it automatically determines the best price depending on the number of rides already used spontaneously and there is no basic fee attached. A further flexible ticket is in the works for release come autumn 2013. This ticket is aimed at subscribers and automatically calculates the fees according to time of use.
In November 2012, SAP released the first version of Design Studio as the successor to the Web Application Designer (WAD) for customers. With the Design Studio, report applications for web browsers and mobile end devices can be created using an Eclipse-based graphical user interface. After the merger of SAP and BusinessObjects in 2008, the utmost efforts were made to integrate the worlds of SAP BW / Business Explorer (BEx) and BusinessObjects. With the introduction of the BI Platform 4.0 (BIP) and the BI Consumer Services (BICS) interface, a significant breakthrough was achieved. Still, when it comes to tools such as Web Intelligence using the BICS interface the integration with SAP BW leaves a lot to be desired in some areas.
Not all IT providers are alike. The customer structure and hence the portfolio make up part of the distinction, as well as the actual position in the technical upgrading cycle which all IT providers are more or less subject to. The consultants at noventum consulting have been working in the IT banking environment since the mid-1990s. In an editorial interview, noventum Management Consultant Markus Ristau and Stefan Wolters put together key data for a situation analysis dedicated to this special kind of IT Provider.
In-Memory Technology currently is one of the most interesting technical topics in information technology that will surely bring about several changes in the near future. At present, its main area of application is analytical systems that achieve an enormous performance gain from using In-Memory Technology. Additional areas of application are presently being tested and piloted at large manufacturers. Here, SAP is taking a very systematic, innovative path with its In-Memory solution HANA.
In 2007, SAP acquired the then market-leading (based on market shares) BI provider „BusinessObjects“, aiming with this at providing its own, high-performance BI solution. But the devil is in the details and the adaptation to the SAP world turned out to be more difficult than expected. It was only in September 2011 that the Walldorf company brought „SAP BI 4.0“ to the marketplace which is considered an important step for the integration of the SAP BusinessObjects BI solutions into the SAP BW world.
For several years now, COBIT has been received and accepted as the framework for IT governance, both in an international context and in Germany. And like every framework, COBIT, too, is regularly being revised and adjusted to changing needs. In April 2012, now, COBIT 5 was published and is replacing version 4.1. Here, this article introduces you to the innovations in COBIT 5.
The Controlling Profitability Analysis provides indicators that traditionally have been utilised for business management. Since companies are in this area also exposed to huge dynamics and an onslaught of information that has to be faced flexibly, traditional methods are increasingly reaching their limits. The question is, what could alternatives look like.
Imagine being the technical manager of a huge skyscraper. Every day you have to fulfil the demands that require technical modifications of the building that you are managing. Changes such as adding a new girder section to the building or sometimes even collapsing some of them, moving the pipes of the plumbing system, modifying the capacity of the heating and air conditioning systems, etc.. While handling these modifications, you have to make sure that your building is still stable and the people living in your building are as comfortable and safe as possible.
Companies have to establish a clear vision of the future if they want to know how to assure long-term success. With the help of an IT roadmap, business strategy, IT strategy and current IT trends are systematically put in relation to the IT services offered. Furthermore, very specific parameters such as hardware and software cycles, as well as pending expansions, are introduced to the IT roadmap.
Companies have to establish a clear vision of the future if they want to know how to assure long-term success. With the help of an IT roadmap, business strategy, IT strategy and current IT trends are systematically put in relation with the IT services offered. In an interview, Wieland Schäfer, head of the LWL.IT department, explains his motives for creating an IT roadmap for the Landschaftsverband regional council.
There is no question: the cloud is here to stay. What it is, what use it has and whether it should be welcomed or feared is being discussed everywhere. Cloud computing will be a fundamental component of the future of IT.
Increasing internationalisation, constantly growing IT requirements and increased cost pressure force companies to review their IT strategy with respect to integrating cloud computing. In addition, cloud computing promises high agility, flexibility, reliability, security, availability and efficiency.
In the pertinent media, be they digital or print, the topic of EAM (Enterprise Architecture Management) is en vogue. The CIO online portal addresses „Painful EAM project experiences“ and urges those responsible to not approach the topic too technically.
