Tag: Integration

Harnessing the Power of Generative AI: A Blueprint for Business Success

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For businesses to stay relevant and ahead of the competition requires embracing cutting-edge technologies. One such transformative technology is generative AI. This blog post delves into how generative AI can revolutionise business operations, enhance creativity, and foster innovation. By establishing an AI Centre of Excellence, companies can effectively integrate AI into their workflows, empowering employees and driving efficiency. Whether you’re a large enterprise or a nimble start-up, this guide provides valuable insights into harnessing the power of generative AI to propel your business into the future. Join us as we explore the potential of AI and its impact on the modern workplace.

The Potential of Generative AI

Generative AI, when harnessed correctly, has the power to revolutionise the way companies operate, innovate, and compete. The key to unlocking this potential lies in establishing an AI Centre of Excellence (CoE) that integrates IT with learning and development to meet business needs.

Establishing an AI Centre of Excellence

An AI Centre of Excellence is not exclusive to large enterprises; even smaller companies can set one up. In fact, smaller businesses can be more agile and flexible, enabling them to outpace larger competitors in AI adoption. The CoE requires a two-pronged approach: learning from external best practices and understanding internal AI usage.

Learning from Generative AI Best Practices

Look Outward: The first step is to observe how other companies have successfully integrated AI into their operations. These companies serve as valuable case studies, showcasing both successes and challenges. For example, some companies use AI for creative content generation in marketing, while others apply it to predict customer behaviour in sales. By studying these practices, businesses can formulate a unified AI strategy.

Look Inward: The second step is an internal audit to understand how employees are currently using generative AI. This can reveal unexpected insights and areas for improvement. Encouraging employees to share their AI experiences fosters a culture of innovation and makes AI integration a company-wide effort.

Overcoming Integration Challenges

Many companies face challenges when integrating AI into their workflows. However, initial evidence suggests that AI can boost individual productivity by 20% to 70%, with output quality often surpassing non-AI-assisted tasks. This highlights AI’s potential as a personal productivity tool, especially when used by experts in their fields.

Despite this, AI currently enhances individual productivity more than organisational productivity. As noted by Ethan Mollick from the Wharton School, AI can be unpredictable and error-prone, making it difficult to scale across an organisation. However, recognising AI’s potential as a personal productivity tool and leveraging it within your organisation can empower employees and improve efficiency. As AI technology evolves, it will become more reliable and scalable, eventually enhancing overall organisational productivity.

Key Principles for a Successful AI Centre of Excellence

Once a company has gathered the necessary information, the next step is to establish an AI Centre of Excellence. This centre should be co-led by teams from IT and HR, combining technical expertise with a focus on learning and development. The CoE serves as a hub for AI-related activities, providing guidance, setting best practices, and ensuring alignment across departments.

To ensure success, the AI Centre of Excellence should adhere to the following guiding principles:

  1. Clear Vision and Mission: Define the strategic objectives of the CoE and align them with the overall business strategy. For example, if the goal is to leverage AI for content creation, the mission could be to develop and implement best practices in this area.
  2. Foster Collaboration and Communication: Act as a bridge between departments, facilitating the sharing of knowledge and best practices. For instance, insights from the marketing team’s use of AI can benefit other departments through the CoE.
  3. Focus on Continuous Improvement: Regularly review and refine processes to remain effective and relevant. Stay updated with the latest AI technologies and incorporate them into the company’s practices.
  4. Promote a Culture of Learning and Development: Provide training and resources to enhance employees’ AI skills and knowledge. Offer workshops on using generative AI tools and resources for self-learning.

Serving Business Operations Through an AI Centre of Excellence

The ultimate goal of establishing an AI Centre of Excellence is to enhance business operations. Generative AI can streamline processes, improve efficiency, and drive innovation. By learning from others, understanding internal usage, and centralising AI initiatives, companies can harness AI’s potential and transform their operations.

The CoE plays a crucial role in this transformation, guiding the integration of AI into business operations. Whether it’s automating routine tasks, generating creative content, or predicting market trends, the CoE ensures these initiatives align with strategic objectives and best practices.

For example, to streamline customer service operations with AI, the CoE could develop a roadmap, identify the best AI tools, train staff, and set up a system for monitoring and improvement.

Moreover, the CoE fosters a culture of continuous learning and innovation, keeping the company up-to-date with AI advancements, encouraging exploration of new AI applications, and promoting experimentation and risk-taking.

Conclusion: GenAI – A Path to Growth and Success

The journey towards effective use of generative AI may seem daunting, but with the right approach, it can lead to unprecedented growth and success. Embrace the potential of AI, establish your Centre of Excellence, and watch as AI propels your business into the future.

Remember, the future of business lies in not just adopting new technologies, but understanding, integrating, and using them to drive operational excellence. Let the Centre of Excellence be your guide on this journey towards a future powered by generative AI.

Are you ready to unlock the full potential of generative AI and transform your business operations? At renierbotha Ltd, we specialise in helping companies of all sizes establish AI Centres of Excellence, ensuring seamless integration of AI technologies into your workflow. Our team of experts is dedicated to providing tailored solutions that drive innovation, enhance efficiency, and give you a competitive edge.

Get in touch with renierbotha Ltd today to start your journey towards a future powered by generative AI. Contact us directly to learn more about how we can support your AI initiatives and help your business thrive in the modern landscape.

Optimising Cloud Management: A Comprehensive Comparison of Bicep and Terraform for Azure Deployment

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In the evolutionary landscape of cloud computing, the ability to deploy and manage infrastructure efficiently is paramount. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) has emerged as a pivotal practice, enabling developers and IT operations teams to automate the provisioning of infrastructure through code. This practice not only speeds up the deployment process but also enhances consistency, reduces the potential for human error, and facilitates scalability and compliance.

Among the tools at the forefront of this revolution are Bicep and Terraform, both of which are widely used for managing resources on Microsoft Azure, one of the leading cloud service platforms. Bicep, developed by Microsoft, is designed specifically for Azure, offering a streamlined approach to managing Azure resources. On the other hand, Terraform, developed by HashiCorp, provides a more flexible, multi-cloud solution, capable of handling infrastructure across various cloud environments including Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud.

The choice between Bicep and Terraform can significantly influence the efficiency and effectiveness of cloud infrastructure management. This article delves into a detailed comparison of these two tools, exploring their capabilities, ease of use, and best use cases to help you make an informed decision that aligns with your organisational needs and cloud strategies.

Bicep and Terraform are both popular Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools used to manage and provision infrastructure, especially for cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure. Here’s a detailed comparison of the two, focusing on key aspects such as design philosophy, ease of use, community support, and integration capabilities:

  • Language and Syntax
    • Bicep:
      Bicep is a domain-specific language (DSL) developed by Microsoft specifically for Azure. Its syntax is cleaner and more concise compared to ARM (Azure Resource Manager) templates. Bicep is designed to be easy to learn for those familiar with ARM templates, offering a declarative syntax that directly transcompiles into ARM templates.
    • Terraform:
      Terraform uses its own configuration language called HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL), which is also declarative. HCL is known for its human-readable syntax and is used to manage a wide variety of services beyond just Azure. Terraform’s language is more verbose compared to Bicep but is powerful in expressing complex configurations.
  • Platform Support
    • Bicep:
      Bicep is tightly integrated with Azure and is focused solely on Azure resources. This means it has excellent support for new Azure features and services as soon as they are released.
    • Terraform:
      Terraform is platform-agnostic and supports multiple providers including Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, and many others. This makes it a versatile tool if you are managing multi-cloud environments or need to handle infrastructure across different cloud platforms.
  • State Management
    • Bicep:
      Bicep relies on ARM for state management. Since ARM itself manages the state of resources, Bicep does not require a separate mechanism to keep track of resource states. This can simplify operations but might offer less control compared to Terraform.
    • Terraform:
      Terraform maintains its own state file which tracks the state of managed resources. This allows for more complex dependency tracking and precise state management but requires careful handling, especially in team environments to avoid state conflicts.
  • Tooling and Integration
    • Bicep:
      Bicep integrates seamlessly with Azure DevOps and GitHub Actions for CI/CD pipelines, leveraging native Azure tooling and extensions. It is well-supported within the Azure ecosystem, including integration with Azure Policy and other governance tools.
    • Terraform:
      Terraform also integrates well with various CI/CD tools and has robust support for modules which can be shared across teams and used to encapsulate complex setups. Terraform’s ecosystem includes Terraform Cloud and Terraform Enterprise, which provide advanced features for teamwork and governance.
  • Community and Support
    • Bicep:
      As a newer and Azure-specific tool, Bicep’s community is smaller but growing. Microsoft actively supports and updates Bicep. The community is concentrated around Azure users.
    • Terraform:
      Terraform has a large and active community with a wide range of custom providers and modules contributed by users around the world. This vast community support makes it easier to find solutions and examples for a variety of use cases.
  • Configuration as Code (CaC)
    • Bicep and Terraform:
      Both tools support Configuration as Code (CaC) principles, allowing not only the provisioning of infrastructure but also the configuration of services and environments. They enable codifying setups in a manner that is reproducible and auditable.

This table outlines key differences between Bicep and Terraform (outlined above), helping you to determine which tool might best fit your specific needs, especially in relation to deploying and managing resources in Microsoft Azure for Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and Configuration as Code (CaC) development.

FeatureBicepTerraform
Language & SyntaxSimple, concise DSL designed for Azure.HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL), versatile and expressive.
Platform SupportAzure-specific with excellent support for Azure features.Multi-cloud support, including Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, etc.
State ManagementUses Azure Resource Manager; no separate state management needed.Manages its own state file, allowing for complex configurations and dependency tracking.
Tooling & IntegrationDeep integration with Azure services and CI/CD tools like Azure DevOps.Robust support for various CI/CD tools, includes Terraform Cloud for advanced team functionalities.
Community & SupportSmaller, Azure-focused community. Strong support from Microsoft.Large, active community. Extensive range of modules and providers available.
Use CaseIdeal for exclusive Azure environments.Suitable for complex, multi-cloud environments.

Conclusion

Bicep might be more suitable if your work is focused entirely on Azure due to its simplicity and deep integration with Azure services. Terraform, on the other hand, would be ideal for environments where multi-cloud support is required, or where more granular control over infrastructure management and versioning is necessary. Each tool has its strengths, and the choice often depends on specific project requirements and the broader technology ecosystem in which your infrastructure operates.

Innovation Case Study: Test Automation & Ambit Enterprise Upgrade

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A business case of how technology innovation successfully integrated into the business operations an improved the way of working that supported business success.

  
Areas of Science and TechnologyData Engineering, Computer Science
R&D Start DateDec 2018
R&D End DateSeptember 2019
Competent ProfessionalRenier Botha

 

Overview and Available Baseline Technologies

Within the scope of the project, the competent professionals sought to develop a regression testing framework aimed at testing the work carried out to upgrade the Ambit application[1] from a client service solution to a software as a service solution (SaaS) operating in the Cloud. The test framework developed is now used to define and support any testing initiatives across the Bank. The team also sought to automate the process, however this failed due to lack of existing infrastructure in the Bank. 

Initial attempts to achieve this by way of third-party solution providers, such as Qualitest, were unsuccessful, as these providers were unable to develop a framework or methodology which could be documented and reused across different projects. For this the team sought to develop the framework from the ground up. The project was successfully completed in September 2019. 

Technological Advances

The upgrade would enable access to the system via the internet, meaning users would no longer need a Cisco connection onto the specific servers to engage with the application. The upgrade would also enable the system to be accessed from devices other than a PC or laptop. Business Finance at Shawbrook is comprised of 14 different business units, with each unit having a different product which is captured and processed through Ambit. All the existing functionality, and business specific configuration needed to be transferred into the new Enterprise platform, as well as the migration of all the associated data. The competent professionals at Shawbrook sought to appreciably improve the current application through the following technological advances:

  • Development of an Automated Test Framework which could be used across different projects

Comprehensive, well executed testing is essential for mitigating risks to deployment. Shawbrook did not have a documented, standardised, and proven methodology that could be adopted by different projects to ensure that proper testing practises are incorporated into project delivery. There was a requirement to develop a test framework to plan, manage, govern and support testing across the agreed phases, using tools and practices that help mitigate risks in a cost-effective and commensurate way.

The test team sought to develop a continuous delivery framework, which could be used across all units within Business Finance. The Ambit Enterprise Upgrade was the first project at Shawbrook to adopt this framework, which lead to the development of a regression test pack and the subsequent successful delivery of the Ambit upgrade. The Ambit Enterprise project was the first project within the Bank which was delivered with no issues raised post release.

The development of a regression test pack which would enable automated testing of future changes or upgrades to the Ambit platform

Regression testing is a fundamental part of the software development lifecycle. With the increased popularity of the Agile development methodology, regression testing has taken on added importance. The team at Shawbrook sought to adopt an iterative, Agile approach to software development. 

A manual regression test pack was developed which could be used for future testing without the need for the involvement of business users. This was delivered over three test cycles with the team using the results of each cycle (bugs identified and resolved) to issue new releases. 

173 user paths were captured in the regression test pack, across 14 different divisions within Business Finance. 251 issues were found during testing, with some being within the Ambit application. Identifying and resolving these issues resulted in the advancement of Ambit Enterprise platform itself. This regression test pack can now be used for future changes to the Ambit Enterprise application, as well as future FIS[2] releases, change requests and enhancements, without being dependent on the business users to undertake UAT. The competent professionals at Shawbrook are currently using the regression test pack to test the integration functionality of the Ambit Enterprise platform.

  • Development of a costing tool to generate cost estimates for cloud test environment requirements

In order to resolve issues, solutions need to be tested within test environments. A lack of supply was identified within Shawbrook and there was an initiative to increase supply using the Azure cloud environment. The objective was to increase the capability within Business Finance to manage an Azure flexible hosting environment where necessary test environments could be set up on demand. There was also a requirement to plan and justify the expense of test environment management. The competent professionals sought to develop a costing tool, based on the Azure costing model, which could be used by project managers within Business Application Support (“BAS”) to quickly generate what the environment cost would be on a per day or per hour running basis. Costs were calculated based on the environment specification required and number of running hours required. Environment specification was classified as either “high”, “medium” or “low”. For example, the test environment specification required for a web server is low, an application server is medium while a database server is high. Shawbrook gained knowledge and increase its capability of the use of the Azure cloud environment and as a result are actively using the platform to undertake cloud-based testing.

The above constitutes an advance in knowledge and capability in the field of Data Engineering and Computer Science, as per sections 9 a) and c) of the BEIS Guidelines.

Technological Uncertainties and activities carried out to address them

The following technological uncertainties were encountered while developing the Ambit Enterprise upgrade, mainly pertaining to system uncertainty:

  • Implementation of the new Ambit Enterprise application could disrupt existing business processes

The biggest risks for the programme of change, was the potential disruption of existing business processes due to the implementation of the change without validation of the upgraded application against the existing functionality. This was the primary focus of the risk mitigation process for the project. Following the test phases set out in the test framework would enable a clear understanding of all the residual risks encountered approaching implementation, providing stakeholders with the context required to make a calculated judgement on these risks.

When an issue was identified through testing, a triage process was undertaken to categorise the issues as either a technical issue, or a user issue. User issues were further classified as “training” or “change of business process”. Technical issues were classified as “showstoppers”, “high”, “medium” and “low”. These were further categorised by priority as “must haves” and “won’t haves” in order to get well-defined acceptance criteria for the substantial list of bugs that arose from the testing cycles. In total, 251 technical issues were identified.

The acceptance criteria for the resolution of issues were:

  • A code fix was implemented
    • A business approved work around was implemented
    • The business accepted the risk

All showstoppers were resolved with either a code fix or and an acceptable work around. Configuration issues were within the remit of Shawbrook’s business application support (“BAS”) team to resolve, whilst other issues could only be resolved by the FIS development team. When the application went live, there were no issues raised post release, and all issues present were known and met the acceptance criteria of the business. 

  • Business processes may no longer align with the new web-based application

Since the project was an upgrade, there was the potential for operational impact of existing functionality due to differences between the Ambit client server solution, and the upgraded Ambit Enterprise web-based solution. The BAS team at Shawbrook were required to make changes to the business processes in order to align with the way the Ambit Enterprise solution now operated. Where Shawbrook specific issues could not be resolved through the configuration of the application with the business processes, changes were made to the functionality within Ambit, for example, additional plug-ins were developed for the Sales Portal platform to integrate with the Ambit Enterprise application. 

Because Ambit Enterprise was a web-based application, application and security vulnerabilities needed to be identified so that the correct security level was achieved. Because of this, performance and security testing, which was currently not being executed, needed to be introduced to the test framework. Performance testing also needed to be executed so that speed and stability requirements under the expected workloads were met.

Summary and Conclusions

The team at Shawbrook successfully developed a test framework which could be used across all projects within Business Finance. The development of the test framework lead to the generation of a regression test pack for the Ambit Enterprise upgrade. By undertaking these R&D activities, Shawbrook gained knowledge in the use of Azure Cloud Environment for testing, and increased its automated testing capabilities, enabling the transition to a continuous delivery framework whereby the majority of testing is automated.

[1] Ambit is the asset finance application operating within the business unit, 70-80 percent of transactions on all lending is captured and managed through Ambit

[2] FIS is the Ambit Enterprise vendor

Top 10 Technology Trends Impacting Infrastructure & Operations for 2018

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Does your IT strategy include infrastructure, operations (I&O) practices and data center architectures that are sufficient to meet the demands of the digital business. Digital transformation requires IT agility and velocity that outstrips classical architectures and practices.

David Cappuccio, from Gartner outlines the top 10 trends that will impact IT operations (I&O) in 2018. Each will have an impact on how IT operates, plans, enhances internal skill sets, and supports the business.

 

Guest Blog: Original Article @ Gartner

Outside forces will shape IT’s journey towards a digital infrastructure.

Legacy infrastructure and operations (I&O) practices and traditional data center architectures are not sufficient to meet the demands of the digital business. Digital transformation requires IT agility and velocity that outstrips classical architectures and practices.

In 2018, IT will be increasingly tasked with supporting complex, distributed applications using new technologies that are spread across systems in multiple locations, including on-premises data centers, the public cloud and hosting providers.

David Cappuccio, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner, says I&O leaders should focus on 10 key technologies and trends to support digital transformation.

“These are not necessarily the top 10 technologies, or the hottest trends in IT, but rather the 10 trends we feel will have an impact on I&O teams over the next few years,” says Cappuccio. “Some are happening already, some are just beginning, but each will have an impact on how IT operates, plans, enhances internal skill sets, and supports the business.”

Strategic

Trend 1: Geo Planning
Outside factors including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), geo specific workloads and global and regional network access are driving IT to spend more time on geo planning as part of their longer term strategies. The long term objective is not to own a global infrastructure, but to build the infrastructure needed to support the business via partners, as well as leveraging an organization’s partner’s infrastructure to help support initiatives such as multiple network connections and infrastructure design and support.

Trend 2: The Intelligent Edge
Many digital business projects create data that can be processed more efficiently when the computing power is close to the thing or person generating it. Edge computing solutions address this need for localized computing power. For example, in the context of the Internet of Things (IoT), the sources of data generation are usually things with sensors or embedded devices. The intelligent edge serves as the decentralized extension of the campus networks, cellular networks, data center networks or the cloud. Organizations that have embarked on a digital business journey have realized that a more decentralized approach is required to address digital business infrastructure requirements.

Trend 3: Intent-based Networking (IBNS)
Gartner predicts that by 2020, more than 1,000 large enterprises will use intent-based networking systems in production, up from less than 50 today. Intent-based networking (IBNS) is not a product, or a market. Instead, it is a piece of networking software that helps to plan, design and implement/operate networks that can improve network availability and agility, which becomes increasingly important as organizations transition towards digital business.

With IBNS, rather than explicitly defining to the network what needs to be done, the software translates the business intent to determine the “correctness” of the network configuration before deployment. The system then continuously compares the actual and desired state of the running network.

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Gartner IT Operations Strategies & Solutions Summit 2018

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Tactical

Trend 4: APIs – Integration Economy
A digital business is supported by technology platforms in five areas: information systems; customer experience; data and analytics; IoT; and ecosystems. The ecosystems technology platform supports the creation of, and connection to, external ecosystems, marketplaces and communities. Application performance interface (API) management enables the digital platform to function.

Organizations should design APIs from the “outside in,” based on ecosystem requirements, not “inside out,” based on existing applications or technology infrastructure. “Ensure that your organization takes an ‘API first’ approach, designing APIs based on the requirements of your organization’s ecosystem,” says Cappuccio. “APIs designed in this way can be mapped to internal technology infrastructure. This approach is more effective than simply generating APIs based on existing infrastructure and data models.”

Trend 5: Reputation and Digital Experience
There are two interlinked trends impacting business today that have nothing to do with IT infrastructure, but everything to do with infrastructure design. Digital experience management (DEM) is the impact of presenting the right digital experience to customers. The experience could be mobile or web-based, and should be always available, continually improving and perform quickly and consistently. If any of these tenants are lacking, customer satisfaction is in peril. If customer satisfaction is in peril, especially in today’s social media savvy world, corporate reputation could quickly be damaged.

Trend 6: Beyond Traditional IT – New Realities
Business units are demanding agility, in opening new markets, taking on emerging competitors, bringing in new suppliers, and creating innovative ways of interacting with customers. Over 30% of current IT spend is not part of the IT budget, but overall responsibility for supporting these new initiatives, once they are tested and stabilized, will reside with traditional IT. Managing those new providers, managing workflows and managing new types of assets in this hybrid environment, regardless of where they are located, will become crucial to IT’s success.

Operational

Trend 7: DCaaS as a Strategy
In a perfect world, at least from the perspective of many business leaders, IT and the data center would be essentially a very agile provider of service outcomes, rather than the owner of the infrastructure. To do this organizations are creating a data center as a service (DCaaS) model, where the role of IT and the data center is to deliver the right service, at the right pace, from the right provider, at the right price.

“Making key short-term decisions can lead to a long-term strategy that incorporates the best of ‘as a service’ and the cloud without compromising IT’s overall goals to both protect and enable the business,” says Cappuccio. “In this manner, IT can enable the use of cloud services across the business, but with a focus on picking the right service, at the right time, from the right provider, and in such a way that underlying IT service and support does not get compromised.”

Trend 8: Cautious Cloud Adoption
For many enterprises the journey to the cloud is a slow, controlled process. Colocation and hosting providers have established private or shared clouds on their premises to provide customers some basic cloud services, enabling controlled migrations, staff skills training and a “safe” cloud environment as a stepping stone to increased cloud adoption in the future. As customers get comfortable with these services and costs, increased migrations to external providers are enabled via interconnect services. Using this partner ecosystem to enable an agile infrastructure is a rapidly emerging trend.

Trend 9: Capacity Optimization – Everywhere
Organizations need to focus on optimizing capacity and guard against stranded capacity – things that are paid for, but not really being used. This issue can be found both in existing on premise data centers and in the cloud. A change in culture is needed to fix this problem. Organizations must learn to focus not just on uptime and availability, but also on capacity, utilization and density. Doing so can extend the life of an existing data center and reduce operating expenditures from cloud providers.

Trend 10: Extended Infrastructure Management
The data center as the sole source of IT infrastructure has given way to a hybrid of on-premises, colocation, hosting, and public and private cloud solutions. These elements are being combined with a focus on providing business-enabling services and outcomes, rather than a focus on physical infrastructure. Enterprises must apply a future-looking, enterprise-wide “steady hand” to IT strategy and planning, and apply appropriate guardrails, or face the possibility of losing relevance, governance and enterprise agility.

 

IT Due Diligence – is IT an asset or liability?

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Information Technology is an integral part of any organisation and enables the operations of enterprises. Through supporting business operations, IT collates and analyses business data to provide the management information required in making timely and effective decisions. IT can even be the product/service around which enterprises are built. Information is a key business asset. But IT can also be the skeleton in the closet. Technology assets can turn into liabilities costing more and/or introducing risks that are not anticipated. This makes IT a key priority consideration in strategy development, corporate governance and business risk mitigation as well as merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions.

Despite the obvious importance of IT within any organisation, do business executives, who are mostly more focused on the financial and legal aspects, often overlook it. The appropriate attention is not given to the IT diligence as part of corporate governance or during the due diligence in M&A initiatives. This might be due to the continuous limited understanding of the technology discipline amongst business executives and/or the absence of the right expertise within an organisation to conduct the needed IT review. Another contributing statistic is that IT due diligence rarely is the make or break factor in business deals, which in a lot of cases, result in unwanted surprises presented to directors. That is why IT should be part of the scope of business strategy development and be one of the key contributors in M&A negotiations, influencing the deal and price.

The key reason for IT due diligence is to ensure visibility to the directors of concerns relating to IT operations in order to develop addressing strategies and mitigating actions. Investors should also use this information in assessing a potential business asset and it’s associated opportunity versus risk.

A due diligence exercise will cover at least the following main IT considerations: Systems, Projects & Change, Data, Security and IT Service Provision. Each of these considerations should be reviewed covering at least the following four elements: People, Process, Technology and Value.

Meaningful IT due diligence can be accomplished by practitioners who can ask the right questions stemming from the appropriate industry experience and domain knowledge. The art of due diligence is in formulating the right questions around key investment and/or corporate success drivers and interpreting the answers to inform the true state of affairs and it’s associated business enablement ability, future opportunity contributions and the associated business risk. Mostly, this diligence informs on the present and future role and influence of IT assets within the overall business success, for example:

  • Product, service and information Ownership – does the business really own what IT claims to be the property and assets of the business in relation to it’s true value and the balance sheet?
  • Reliability – can the business rely on its technology, now and in the future?
  • Sustainability – does the business have the ability to sustain its IT asset and visa versa?
  • Scalability – can the technology assets keep up with the business’ growth plans?
  • Adaptability – how easy can the technology asset integrate or be adapted to integrate with other systems and new emerging technologies in the future?
  • Compliance – does an IT asset introduce unwanted risk through non-compliance? For example, the introduction of new legislation to address the continuous increase in cyber and information security concerns might have a significant impact on the legality of an IT asset that might result in serious financial risk and penalties, if not addressed.
  • Finance – how much are IT assets likely to cost the business and what contributions will these expenses have on the financial success of the organisation?

A typical IT due diligence exercise could cover the following areas of IT operations (Some of these areas might not always be applicable in all organisations.):

  • Clarity on the Business Value Chain
  • IT Staff
    • IT Organisation Structure
    • Leadership
    • Qualifications & Skills
  • Certifications & Standards i.e. ISO9001 (Quality), ISO17001 (Security), ITIL (Service Management) or ISO20000 (ITSM)
  • Products and Services
  • Documentation
  • Software Development Processes & Methodologies
  • Service Management
  • Software applications and Services utilized
  • IT Infrastructure
    • Hardware
    • IP Network Infrastructure
    • Hosting Environments
  • Business Continuity
    • Service Availability
    • Systems Up-time
    • Backup and Recovery
    • Disaster Prevention & Recovery
  • Security
    • Cyber & Information Security
    • Network Security
    • IT Services & Systems Access
    • Physical Access
  • Governance
    • Operating Model
    • Policies
    • Procedures
    • Risk Management
    • Performance & KPIs
  • Projects & delivery methodologies
  • Compliance
  • Legal
    • SLAs
    • Supplier & 3rd party Service/Support Agreements
  • Intellectual Property
  • Quality Assurance & Improvement
  • Financial
  • Client and/or Customers

Understanding this information is vital in corporate governance, strategy formulation and capital investment decisions ensuring business critical assets are sustained and developed appropriately for a viable ongoing business concern.

The content of an IT due diligence report should focus on the objectives of the due diligence review, outlining priority findings with recommendations that present a clear call to action addressing the key issues found. A typical report should contain:

  • The objectives of the IT due diligence review
  • An executive summary with the key take aways
  • Key findings and the associated risk
  • Recommendations

The review findings and recommendations should be acted upon through appropriate remediation projects and a clear transition & support plan with inclusion into IT & business strategy. The business benefits can only be realised if these post review projects and transition, are successfully integrated into the organisation.

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