The more companies can rely on a stable and agile IT architecture, the better they cope with digital transformation. In other words, IT plays a key role as a provider of the digital infrastructure. In the form of consolidation, harmonization, and automation, IT supplies crucial prerequisites for transformation projects. 

Using assessments of digitization readiness we prepare a platform on which specific digitization measures and IT-driven solutions can be built. What we compile and develop together, results in a digitization agenda that determines the direction, measures, and concrete implementation steps. In the process, consulting and putting into practice adapt to the pace at which market and customer requirements are changing within the paradigm of digitization: quick solutions instead of lengthy projects.

Does day-to-day-business leave you little room to deal with matters you know are important for your company but which, due to a lack of time, resources, and know-how, end up on the wait list? For example, the Industry 4.0 topic? In this case, we are an excellent choice for you. 

Industry 4.0 requires organizational process changes and optimizations so that digital communication components in manufacturing, logistics, and service can be networked. We analyze these and, based on the results, develop purposeful measures designed to increase operational efficiency and strategic decision-making. Our consultants add not only competences for predictive maintenance with integration of factors such as sensors, data transmission, health monitoring, data analysis, and data use, but also for the development and evaluation of real-world use cases. 

What has to remain here in due brevity is an encouragement: Be impatient in the matter of Industry 4.0 – and act before the competition does so...  

The flood of data is increasing. Nothing new because this has happened for years. What has changed, however, is the speed of the growth that accompanies developments related to Mobility, Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things (IoT). This includes risks, but also offers vast opportunities to recover hidden treasures in the form of decision-relevant data and analyses from the depths of the flood of data. 

Do you intend to go on such a treasure hunt? Gain real-time transparency? Count on reliable forecasts instead of your gut feeling? Let us address the Big Data topic together. Develop in cooperation with us targeted strategies. Clarify the opportunities and risks of implementation. Bring clarity to technical conditions and opportunities to use analytics conditions required to identify patterns and correlations in our business data. However deeply you want to immerse yourself in our flood of data, with us by your side a successful treasure hunt is guaranteed.

Companies are required to design their business processes so that they fulfill the requirements of an increasingly digitized and rapidly changing business world. In other words, future-proof business processes are required.

What is useful in this situation is external support by consultants with tried and tested technological and business competences, i.e., process experts who master the company-specific modeling of business processes, who use metrics and key figures to lay the foundation for sound evaluation and control of business processes, and who know how to integrate customers and supplies with the context of digital transformation. 

Dissolving process islands, providing integration, setting standards – a broad variety of tasks, various potential solutions always geared towards one goal: To shape a process world that opens up all options for you to cope successfully with digital transformation.

Digitization means change – and adaptation. The application and infrastructure strategies must be put to test. IT architecture and IT-technical support must allow questioning. The security architecture calls for innovation. New interface strategies for connections with customers, suppliers, and other business partners are required. And so on... 

You can fully subscribe to these requests. But how about implementation when the digital wind of change calls for realignment? In addition, new challenges emerge at the IT horizon almost daily, for example, embedding IoT systems into your IT architecture. Or integrating external technology such as CPS (cyber-physical systems)...

Can all this work be managed with internal resources that mostly operate to full capacity anyway? If your answer is "no" we recommend – us. 

Digitization promises a lot of advantages. However, if IT operations scenarios and IT services are not reconsidered thoroughly, the promise is not kept. 

Those who want more, must do more, for example, develop a strategy to integrate new technologies in a profitable way. Or find an answer to the question of whether the inclusion of cloud services to scale the system requirements or the use of hybrid models is an appropriate alternative to focusing on the growth of internal services. Pinpoint the need for action claimed by Industry 4.0 and Big Data in the matter of security. Optimize service control from the perspective of the business processes. Ensure a reliable correlation of the most diverse data types and data classes...

There is much to be done. Let us get on with it together. 

Does it make sense for the company to carry out certain IT services itself? Or is it more economical and effective to outsource individual activities or entire services? Using a methodological approach, we identify together the appropriate sourcing strategy for you. 

On the way to the goal nothing falls by the wayside. How does IT support your business processes? Which general conditions must be taken into account? Which services and objects are eligible for which sourcing model? These questions as well as security and privacy aspects, general policies and compliance standards are taken into account by the analysis. A sourcing assessment provides insights in benefits and risks. Sourcing maps illustrate the distribution of responsibilities of internal and external service delivery. Service demarcations are defined and stated precisely, sourcing variants are measured, delivery models are put to test and deployment models are evaluated. Finally, results of analyses are consolidated in options for action and recommendations. You can determine your strategic sourcing direction on a solid basis.

The strategic course is set. Concrete definition is the next step in the sourcing life cycle – and it is of crucial importance for the success of the project. 

What needs to be done is to define services and activities qualitatively and quantitatively, to establish measuring and service transfer points, to devise technically and legally well-conceived service descriptions, thus creating the bases for transparent service level agreements. Transparency right down to the last details determines the joint action that methodically leads to the goal of optimum solutions: Sourcing in breadth and depth as is makes the most sense for your company, carried out in the framework of a service delivery that meets your needs exactly and is billed based on a consumption-oriented model. Nothing remains stuck in theoretic considerations because we not only initiate change processes but also assume the responsibility for their practical implementation.  

"So test therefore, who join forever", the German poet Friedrich Schiller once admonished in his "Song of the Bell". In fact, for sourcing, too, it is of crucial importance to find the partner who is suitable in and for every relationship.  

This is often easier said than done. To define a methodologically designed and implemented RfI/RfP process, to create audit-compliant tender documents, to structure competitive bidding procedures clearly and to accompany them with a qualified due diligence process – all this requires experience and know-how. Capabilities such as these are also required in the last selection phase:  create short list, evaluate strong and weak points, analyze risks.... When the selection procedure is over, our seat at the conference table does not remain empty. We prepare the contract negotiations, facilitate and document their course and together with you we are delighted about the conclusion of a contract without pitfalls but with clear agreements...

The contracts have been signed. Now, press the start button to get started immediately... However, reality is different because, under the umbrella of "transition" and "transformation", with the transfer of the project towards practice, a challenging phase full of complexity and risks comes next. 

Now, there is evidence that precision, detailing, and quality in the preparing phases pay off. If interfaces and transfer points are defined precisely, implementation and control processes are aligned perfectly, and operational concepts and Service Level Agreements (SLA) are defined clearly, nothing will get out of hand. This is in good hands with us. We keep your sourcing project on the planned implementation course, adapt your organization to new conditions, build a retained organization according to your needs and coordinate the organizational change management. Performance tests and measures to remove identified defects mark the last stretch of the road. They lead directly to the goal of a successful operational transition. 

For companies with existing sourcing arrangements, our consulting portfolio keeps a number of service building blocks at hand that despite their content-related differences are united by one common goal: Detecting and turning optimization potential into added-value for your organization.

A good example of this is benchmarking that we use to analyze existing service delivery processes from a legal, content-related, and commercial point of view and to compare these processes to top performances from experience. You can see where you stand, whether you are positioned in line with market requirements, and which areas of activity offer room for improvement. We target other optimization options using the analysis of control parameters such as KPIs and SLAs, investigate their reporting landscape for possible improvements, or check whether compliance and security policies are complied with, up to date, and efficient. Our portfolio knows only one direction: To make you even better tomorrow than today.  

Companies that position their IT as service-oriented and business-oriented providers are more than a nose ahead of their competitors. This is where we want to take our customers. 

For this, we rely on procedure models that assess the existing service delivery from a strategic, tactical, and operational angle. They show approaches for optimization and help to define and improve transitions of responsibility and interfaces between service providers. What state is the flexibility and the quality of your service delivery in? Are key figures and measuring procedures for the performance of your services available? Do your reports supply the degree of transparency you need? 

Let us find together answers to this or other questions, answers that will make your IT service management to what constitutes the very "nose"....

The better the provider management, the lower the risks and efforts during cooperation with service providers. However, if the management of your providers ties up too many resources or requires complex administration, if there is an increase in blame-shifting among service providers or if the management yields unsatisfactory results, you should act. 

Our consultants accompany you and provide qualified advice be it for the introduction of provider management or the latter's continued development and alignment with new requirements. You take care of contract management, review existing contracts and identify the need for updates. The contractual service delivery as well as the commercial processing are addressed. Monitoring and reporting are implemented or adapted to new challenges. And finally, escalation management will not be left out either: Rest assured that even unusual events will be subject to timely problem resolution.

There are many approaches towards optimizing service level management: Optimize the system in parts or in whole, realign to address changed requirements, or improve the service quality by establishing structured monitoring and controlling of the service levels. 

Wherever the SLA shoe may pinch you: To prepare the ground for quick and consistent problem solving we provide consulting and implementation services based on which you define input, output, process, and product-oriented service level agreements; create and harmonize agreements and other contractual components, such as bonus, extra premium, and contractual penalty; implement or optimize measurement and monitoring systems; and setup or improve end-to-end monitoring. 

There is one thing you will observe during our cooperation: We adhere with a service level that is aligned to highest demands.

Actually, it is quite easy: The concerns and requirements of IT users are collected, evaluated, and prioritized systematically and, as projects, implemented methodically. The more standardized the process, the smaller the risk of misdirected investments or the implementation of projects with little substantial value.

We help you to align your demand and portfolio management strategically, tacti-cally, and operationally with the business objectives.

We also support you defining clearly roles and responsibilities and responsibility tran-sitions and interfaces between service providers.

Are consistent standards for collecting and evaluating requirements lacking? Our experts add methodology to the process of categorization, implementation, and tracking and develop, together with you, suitable tools. Your value? A demand and portfolio management that directs the "correct" projects to the implementation pipeline thus making an important contribution to the efficiency enhancement of IT.

Service catalogs that are more than just a matter-of-fact listing and technical description of IT services in real-life reap what they deserve: Acceptance because they do not only supply IT-specific expertise but also cater to the needs of the users.

If you feel there is a need for action in this environment, look for a fresh impetus for methodical creation and content-related alignment of your service catalog and discover and put into practice your optimization potential: Get our service catalogization experts into the project boat. They accompany the compilation and further specification of your IT service portfolio, create and improve service descriptions, set up a modular catalog structure, and develop catalog views on a new level of transparency. But that is not all: Because the service catalog also has an organizational facet, we integrate it smoothly with existing pro-cesses e. g. from ordering to the billing of IT services.

Cost management is a subject that causes many IT managers more headaches than it should. The reason is obvious: required is an ever-increasing IT performance at the lowest possible costs with greatest possible flexibility and availability, and optimum security of the IT services. 

Efficient cost management is one of the most sustainable solutions to address this dilemma. Based on experience from a large number of projects, we have developed a methodology and tool kit that we use to analyze your IT cost items selectively, identify weaknesses and detect and exploit optimization options. This includes requirement-specific cost accounting and activity allocation models just as much as it includes establishing a cost and activity assignment and allocation on the basis of cause. Fixed budget accounting or flexible standard costing, gap analyses related to actual/planning or contribution margin accounting – effective key parameters are not lacking.

Let us figure out together which of these factors lead to a more favorable cost/benefit relation in your IT.

Even a thick rope starts to rot at a thread – a Chinese proverb that points out to each security lead in IT that security has many facets of which even the smallest can be of greatest significance.

Use our in-depth security expertise to protect each facet of your IT reliably: for example, based on a security readiness that takes into account security-relevant aspects related topics such as cloud sourcing, Industry 4.0, and the EU's General Data Protection Regulation. Or is the development of an IT security policy on your agenda? We analyze your security and organizational policies, procedures, and general IT conditions and, based on the results, create new security guidelines or optimize existing ones.

Is your risk management up to date? Have the risk factors been identified and evaluated? We have a close look at risk-relevant vulnerabilities, accompany the setting up of a security management organization, develop response mechanisms for problem and disaster situations and advise you with respect to the selection of technical security solutions. 

This is how security management becomes a safe bet...

To assign rights to use IT services to authorized users and to manage granted rights based on digital identities from users and devices are demanding tasks, especially if they involve hundreds and thousands of IT users, a varied user life cycle with arrivals and leavers, and a dynamically growing application landscape. 

In each case, excellence in the area is a prerequisite for secure IT operation. Do not face this high standard without qualified consulting and support. Develop together with us an identity and access management strategy that corresponds to the individual requirements of your company: from creating the statement of work to adapting organization and processes as well as documentation of statutory regulations, procedures, and process flows. You already possess an IAM system that, however, has become slightly outdated? An additional good reason to contact our IAM experts who are looking forward to the challenge of bringing your identity and access management on a future-proof track.