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.

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.

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.

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.

IT-Systemintegration

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.

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 Power BI has been on everyone's lips for several years now under the keyword "Self-Service BI" and contributes significantly to the perception of the Microsoft Data Platform as a leading analytics and business intelligence platform. In order to maintain and expand its leading position, Microsoft is making significant investments in the further development of the platform and is constantly increasing the range of functions via short, sometimes monthly release cycles.

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.

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.

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.

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 "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 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.

 

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.

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.

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. Sceptical voices are becoming quieter and we are discovering that processes, technologies and organisations can work together with the changes brought about by cloud computing and the discussion is generally taking place at a procedural or technological level.