Information Technology

• Strategy
• Infrastructure, Architecture + Design
• Sourcing
• Solution Planning + Integration
• Business Intelligence + Information Management

Strategy

An IT strategy is key to defining direction and creating business alignment for leading organizations. Our approach is facilitative, spanning assessment, visioning, scoping, justification, and implementation. The result is an IT strategy that is aligned with the needs and priorities of the business.

North Highland helped one client conduct business stakeholder assessments and established business priorities around which the IT organization reorganized and realigned. We then developed and implemented a portfolio management process to set up and maintain priorities of the clients' various initiatives and documented them in an application "road map." We also implemented a service catalog to allow IT to capture and track the value of its services. The result is an IT organization much more in sync with the business it serves - and much more able to focus on and secure funding for truly strategic projects.

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Infrastructure, Architecture + Design

North Highland has considerable experience in designing and planning IT infrastructures to support a broad range of business applications and communications services. From traditional voice networks and common operating environments to workflow platforms, e-infrastructures, and voice-over-IP networks, we have delivered the results leading organizations look for. Our capabilities encompass technology architecture, network and system operations, data center migrations and consolidations, information security, and business continuity/disaster recovery.

A client needed to consolidate its many data centers across the country to three national data centers. These new national data centers were required to support new and disparate applications, hosted environments, customer contact centers, and numerous development environments. North Highland not only facilitated the consolidation and relocation of processing and support, but also developed and implemented required processes and service level agreements (SLAs) with the various user communities required to ensure successful continuity of operations.

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Sourcing

North Highland has helped the widest range of clients determine the most appropriate sourcing strategy among insourcing, outsourcing, offshoring, and other blended models. We can assess current arrangements, develop strategies, select providers, and assist with contracting. Since North Highland is not a provider of managed services, our clients are assured of our objectivity.

A large client in the property and casualty insurance business needed a new application/tool set to allow its business users to more effectively analyze and implement price changes in its various insurance products across all of its markets. North Highland prepared a very detailed requirements statement and RFP, identified and contacted potential vendors, established a client-driven selection process, and facilitated vendor selection. The end application has now been implemented and is in use by the client's product management team, providing them with far greater analysis and flexibility in product definition.

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Solution Planning + Integration

North Highland provides a combination of experience, independence, and creativity that enables clients to succeed when faced with difficult projects. Our consultants have experience with leading technology platforms, packages, and delivery channels and develop customized delivery approaches based on a client's individual needs and capabilities. Although we have experience with specific packages and platforms, we have no vendor alliances - we select the best vendors in the marketplace to meet a client's requirements. We can assume various roles in the delivery of solutions, depending on client needs, with responsibilities ranging from advisory to leading the entire development initiative.

A technology client was experiencing difficulty getting new products to market in a timeframe acceptable to its customers. North Highland performed a development, testing, and product release process assessment. In a very short project, we interviewed multiple customers and internal stakeholders as well as all relevant individuals in the client's organization. We determined that the client's product release processes and its organizational structure were in conflict and recommended very specific changes to the process and team structure.

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Business Intelligence + Information Management

Business Intelligence and Information Management Services (BI) at North Highland are a broad collection of people, processes, and technologies geared towards helping companies make better use of information across their enterprise. BI includes informational solutions intended to provide the right data to support effective decision-making in business processes. These solutions include dashboards, scorecards, reporting, statistical modeling, and forecasting applications. BI also includes operational data solutions that allow other systems or technologies to communicate more efficiently across an organization. These concepts may include enterprise information management, master data management, enterprise information integration, or content management.

North Highland has helped numerous leading companies create breakthrough business models through new insights into business information. One example of this is in the banking industry where North Highland helped one of the world's largest banks take advantage of cross-selling, intelligent offers, and universal pricing by unlocking the potential of customer data integration, leading to millions of dollars of increased revenue potential. Leveraged use of data is key to successful business strategy. North Highland has the business and technology acumen to support successful data endeavors in any industry.

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