Technology Advisory Services

Businesses today are increasingly investing in enhancing customer experience or in rolling out new products instead of investing in technology expenditure. To gain competitive advantage, it is more important than ever for businesses to figure out how to maximise their existing investments and effectively leverage new technologies, as well as how to eliminate waste.

Our clients ask:

Static growth, margins eroding... How can I do more with less?

I don’t understand what I’m being charged for
I don’t get the value from IT

This is how we solve it:

We help you understand the true cost and value of your IT services, and to implement both cost and value models and charge-back mechanisms
We work with your CIO to quantify and to communicate the business value of IT initiatives and consequently inform investment decisions
We assess the structural soundness and fitness-for-purpose of your IT organisation (governance, processes, roles and skills)
Having assessed your IT capability, we help you define an IT governance framework and operating model that enables your organisation strategy and achieves greater IT efficiency
We identify opportunities to rationalise your applications and infrastructure in order to simplify the systems and optimise their cost base. We define the target architecture and assist you throughout subsequent transformation projects
We work with you to define the most appropriate sourcing strategy and systems/vendor selection as well as evaluation to optimise your IT costs and increase the quality of IT services (e.g. global business services, Business Process outsourcing, IT outsourcing, cloud). Through execution and implementation of your target sourcing model, we assist in managing risks and help you to maximise the value gained from your sourcing vendors’ relationships
We help you define a robust IT services catalogue and associated pricing that your Business can understand
We help you define an IT performance framework that will allow you to measure and track performance of IT and demonstrate its value to the Business

Talk to us about:

IT strategy and enterprise architecture
IT function assessment and strategy
IT system selection and evaluation
IT infrastructure
Driving business transformation through the cloud

IT strategy and enterprise architecture

The C-suite faces relentless pressure from shareholders to pick up the pace of product rollouts, pivot to adapt to ever shifting market changes and expand globally. Business and IT leaders must sync their strategies to achieve the speed and agility required to meet these expectations and at the same time remain focused on the cost effectiveness of IT initiatives.

It can be challenging to bridge gaps between business units and the IT department and to unite them around a shared vision that powers the business. In other words, corporations must fuse business and technology.

PwC is uniquely positioned to facilitate the conversations that fuel the new partnerships, mindsets and governance models that are needed so that business and IT strategic planning can co-exist. Our business and technology expertise spans industries, disciplines and all types of technology. We understand how to address market pressures, leverage core and emerging technologies and align employee talent to seize business opportunities and to solve problems. Our solutions are custom designed to transform your business and drive distance between you and your competition.

We can help you with:

Technology Strategy - Scope your business objectives over a multi-year span and determine how information technology can drive your goals
Technology Operating Model Design - Help re-design your technology operating model including solution and software lifecycle processes, management and governance operating model and processes, career path and skills design, and sourcing strategy to support your business's unique needs. Develop strategies to fill gaps and plan for the future
Technology Innovation ideation & prototyping - Develop a framework and process to identify, prioritize and plan for technology breakthrough ideas and prototypes and evaluate business relevance and market impact. Cultivate the culture and capabilities that can enable you to achieve continuous innovation
Technology Investment & Business Case Planning - Build the business case for a technology strategy, create cost models and outline the expected benefits
Enterprise Architecture Blueprint Design - Create a business-driven technology "city plan" that maps out the processes, metrics, applications, information, integration, infrastructure and security components needed to deliver a business vision
Enterprise Architecture Capability Planning - PwC can help design and launch a new Office of the Architect or just individual architecture services like strategic planning, reference architecture development or architecture governance. Or, if more appropriate we can help evaluate current capabilities, recommend focus areas for improvement and help devise a plan for filling any gaps that may exist

IT function assessment and strategy

IT is a major investment area for most organisations nowadays. However, the value of such investments is not always appreciated, nor its expected value fully derived from the investment; and in many cases, IT investment may be seen as high risk. While increased pressure exists to align IT expenditures to business needs, it is sometimes difficult for organisations to manage IT effectively for maximum returns on investment.

Clients continuously look for ways to get more out of their IT investment by improving their IT function effectiveness. Our trusted advisors can work with you towards this end, helping you to understand the value of, and manage the costs and risks associated with IT functions.

We can help you to:

Conduct assessments of the organisation’s IT capabilities including business alignment, investment portfolio planning, annual budgeting, total cost of ownership analysis, solution and software lifecycle processes, management and governance operating model and processes, IT value measurement and reporting, IT organisation, career path and skills design, and enterprise architecture capability assessment and planning
Develop strategies to fill gaps and plan for the future

IT system selection and evaluation

Scoping your business needs over a multi-year span and determining how and which industry specific business applications and solutions can drive your goals. This includes IT planning, requirements specifications, solution architecture, and vendor evaluation and system selection.

We can help you to:

Develop a tendering framework and governance process, conduct workshops with business users and define business requirements for solution implementation, develop tender specification and drive an independent tender process to evaluate and select a suitable fit-for-purpose systems or vendor

IT infrastructure

Aging IT Infrastructure and facilities, combined with fierce competition and savvy business users, have led many IT executives to retool their approach toward IT infrastructure. Furthermore, they are continually being challenged to keep up with demand for increased infrastructure capacity and services, more agility and decreased time-to market, all while trying to reduce costs. This may be a challenging time, but it also presents opportunities to deploy innovative infrastructure services that enable mobile access and incorporate streamlined processes in order to improve IT services, availability and utilization.

Valuable assets should not work in isolation from one another. PwC shows clients how to align and integrate their infrastructure services and business architecture. Through our range of services, you'll discover how to simplify your IT infrastructure and enhance your operating model with advanced networking technologies, improved IT assets and capacity management, more responsive disaster-recovery plans and foolproof information security and privacy. We can also help you navigate new challenges like hybrid cloud solutions, server consolidation, mobile device security, social networking strategies, employee-owned devices and cyber security.

We can help you to:

Reallocate infrastructure spend from operations to innovation - CIOs can often get more from their IT budgets by reevaluating existing cost structures and redirecting noncore expenditures toward technology initiatives. Reap greater rewards by investing in infrastructure innovations that support your business goals, rather than business as is
Lower IT costs through new technology - An IT infrastructure built for flexibility can be critical to growth. In many cases, CIOs can improve customer satisfaction, increase speed to market and gain competitive advantage by adopting a dynamic IT infrastructure that includes facility design, power and cooling while simultaneously transitioning to a service-based operating model in order to streamline operations
Optimise technology services in order to improve stakeholder experience - The cloud, mobile technology, SaaS, social media and other emerging technologies are forcing executives to deal with higher demand for both employee and customer satisfaction. And the first step in doing more for less today is increasing your technology investments
Build an IT infrastructure that can respond to changing priorities - Technology has moved to the fore as overburdened CIOs balance ongoing business requirements with preparedness for new opportunities. But technological investment is futile if the next generation of tech specialists is not ready to continue building your firm
Make smart decisions about IT infrastructure - IT departments must make new investments wisely. Internal considerations and outsourcing options must be weighed in order to ensure the right assets are put in place at the lowest cost. In order to build IT infrastructure that will function tomorrow, make the right IT provisions today
Optimise disaster recovery plans - Firms industrywide are now under pressure to maintain operations while contending with increased regulations and intensifying competitive pressures. And with global web transactions now taking place around the clock, any down time courts the risk of lost revenue or opportunities, possible breaches of regulatory or contractual obligations and tarnished brand name or reputation. Now is the time to invest in measures that ensure your firm can weather the unexpected

Driving business transformation through the cloud

Agile companies are seizing opportunities around the cloud to create innovative new services and business models that decrease time to market, create operational efficiencies and engage customers in new ways. Cloud services like Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Software-as-a-Service (SasS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Business Process-as-a-Service (BPaaS) are more than technology delivery paradigms.

Whether an enterprise wants to consume or offer cloud services—they can leverage the cloud to achieve new levels of the “Connected Experience” across customer, supplier, partner and employee relationships. The cloud impacts the entire enterprise—spanning corporate strategy, finance, operations, governance, culture and technology.

Wherever you are in your cloud journey, we have the breadth and depth of experience and global resources to help you create lasting competitive advantage with cloud solutions. From strategy through execution, we help our clients leverage the cloud to transform IT, scale and streamline operations and create new cloud-based businesses. Our strong alliances with HP, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Salesforce, and Workday further differentiate our offerings.

We can help you across three cloud "value lenses":

Create the IT platform of the future - Companies can leverage cloud technologies from infrastructure through software to fundamentally change the long-standing role of IT from a custodian of IT assets to an orchestrator of business services. This service oriented mindset requires a cultural shift as well as a transition to a demand-driven operating model. This transition also builds in additional flexibility and enables IT to more effectively help drive business growth
Transform business operations - Companies can derive further value from cloud by transforming internal business operations and increasing operational performance. They can leverage the cloud via business applications consumed as Software-as-a-Service, whether in sales and marketing, human resources, or across the supply chain. This can result in greater agility across the enterprise
Create profitable cloud businesses - We help companies innovate new products and services to generate additional sources of revenue, to build the business case, and to transform their business models. We also help our clients engage the entire C-suite and foster new ways of customer interaction to strengthen their competitive advantage including the use of mobile solution and digital services