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Training, Tools, Research and Development
Research and Development
ITBC has been engaged to direct a range of research and software development projects on behalf of clients and partners. These remain client legally confidential, under non-disclosure agreements. They covered research and development in a range of industries including; telecommunication, hospitality, retail, media, audit services, legal services, business process automation, software development methods, robotics, monitoring and control systems, primary industry and manufacturing. The common theme is the ability to help sift through “wild ideas”, “deep concerns” and “commercial realities” in pursuit of pragmatic solutions.
Tools
Between 2004 and 2013, ITBC re-invested in the development of consulting productivity tools to enhance consulting value. Some examples are below:
- A previous ITBC sponsored R&D project was adapted for secure knowledge capture by market leading companies in developing their services.
- ITBC's Meter and Bill idea and software development was a finalist in one of New Zealand's highest regarded business planning competitions, the University of Auckland's 2007 “Spark $40K ($100K) Challenge”. We used the framework to support consulting efforts in service, resource models and capacity planning.
- We acknowledge and thank the University of Auckland, former post-graduate students, professors and business mentors for their contributions.
- For further information please see our public disclosure statement
Configuration excellence
One of the key factors for successful change relies on the thought and quality put into the configuration of new tools and platforms. We frequently observe organisations "sold"/"buy" tools and or services without consideration of the tool or service configuration or integration into the organisation.
Tool configuration is frequently viewed as a technical problem. New tools are delivered to users with little or no consultation into how they would like to use the tool, how they would benefit from the tool, what the "key controls" for the tool are or consulted on who pays to maintain the tool. Little wonder that tools don’t deliver as expected.
"Tool as a service" take paths of least resistance. We observe “Get it through commercial or compliance hurdles and start using it”. New services get deployed with little consideration of broader stakeholders or how it might evolve. Test and Learn” is encouraged which may or may not be ok for regulated industries and critical functions.
Our view is that the configuration of "tool" or "service" presents unique opportunities with effort proportional to the benefits and risks. This doesn’t mean slow down adoption. It does mean look ahead. We have helped organisations to select, purchase, configure and embed tools and services.
We have successfully configured tools and systems in areas such as:
- Architectural frameworks and planning systems
- Knowledge management and embedding knowledge and controls into Systems
- Metering and billing systems
- Service management systems
- Source control systems
- End to End services and “tool chains” and Monitoring and Alerting
- Infrastructure and IT services
2017 research trials included:
- Microsoft Azure webservice
- Amazon Web Services on EC2
- Hosted source control (Bitbucket and GitHub)
- Enterprise Architecture Tools