Management Consulting Firm: Overview of an Enterprise Technology Analyst Firm

In an article written by Pam Baker named "Six Tips for Stretching IT Budgets in 2009", the writer recommended six tips to get the most value of technology offerings without sacrificing innovations. However, these tips still need some assessment. This paper assesses both positive and negative impacts that those tips have. Of course, the impact is on both operations and strategic investment spending. It will be concise and to the point.

Most companies don 't have a proper strategies to identify potential value of emerging technologies. Nevertheless, there is a number practices backed by research that

In today’s dynamic market, technology plays a critical role in the success of a business (Hirschey,

Positioning organizations to leverage market disruptions and maintain their competitive advantage by adopting a business-outcome-driven EA approach that strategically embraces emerging technologies. In consistently navigating successful engagements, demonstrated the following core competencies:

Of the many disruptive innovations that are impacting computing, social networking and how people and companies communicate, smartphones are among the most significant. Their impact on the traditional PC market continues unabated with research firms including the wlel-respected Gartner Group claiming that there are more smartphones sold in 2011 than traditional laptop PCs, a point Apple Inc., likes to mention in their annual report as their iPad is leading this assault on traditional computing (Apple Investor Relations, 2012). Smartphones are also re-ordering existing enterprise software areas long held under the control of such large and conservatively run companies including IBM, Oracle, SAP and others (Franke, Schreier, 2010). Due to the strength of the disruptive nature of this technology, market research and advisory firm Gartner states that approximately 469 M units were sold in the last year with this year's forecast being 1.1B total worldwide (Apple Investor Relations, 2012). As smartphones are used the majority of the time for keeping consumers and companies both linked to social networks, regardless if they are public or private

Technological innovations are providing new means of developing, sourcing, managing, and delivering applications and services. Businesses are more in need to find technological solutions to aid their achievement of long-term financial sustainability as the economy has become more global. The dynamic transformation of computers being able to communicate with each other has brought out a revolution which affects every industry within the economy. Skills in web design and computer programming are in demand by businesses allowing opportunities for one to grow.

Compass System has requested that a simple overview of the company on how resources and the ability to compete in the marketplace be strategize to the fullest extent. First, a qualitative look at the company’s internal policies, procedures, financial reports, proposal process, and limited customer interaction to provide information on how the company is performing. This data will represent a rapid strategy measure for company performance. If the data is strong and dependable, it will be used as a guide to evaluate how the company is doing. A competitive view of strengths and weaknesses for the current strategy and as well as a forecast of how quick the company is changing. Processes, procedures and value will be assessed to determine how they compete against their competitors for market opportunities and external threats. Viewing value in terms of how it is provided to customers from both the perspective of the rivals and customers. How can value be provided for the customer. Management’s philosophy on the company’s strategy

Resource Based View (RBV) theorists argue that information technology (IT) resources can be used today in an online environment to enable a firm to improve efficiency regardless of whether mimicked by competitors, or may yield performance impacts unique to a firm relative to its’ competitors.” (Melville, Kraemer & Gurbaxani 2004) A major factor in RBV and enhancing value creation better than a company’s competitors is that of competitive heterogeneity. This refers to enduring and systematic performance differences among relatively close rivals. (Hoopes, Madsen & Walker, 2003) Resources are the tangible and intangible assets of a firm that can be used in the value creation process and the RBV consists of six conditions necessary for a firm to confer a sustainable competitive advantage (Melville, Kraemer & Gurbaxani 2004) and are as follows.

To prepare the organization for potential unstable situations, it is important to consider five competitive forces of the company as well as global technological trends, in accordance with the specialization of a business entity. First, the influence of customer and supplier power, established rivals, new entrants or substitutes may notably impact the productivity and profitability of IBM (Porter, 2008). To neutralize the supplier’s power, the IT company needs to put efforts into improvement of its production process because it mostly relies on staff. To attract consumers, IBM can focus on the idea of multiplatform consisting of several technological start-ups, where each one has a different function. As a result, with the versatile range a products, it would be easier for the company to pressure new entrants and spend more resources on research and development (R&D).

Having data is not valuable but using data is. Analytic insights are changing the way corporates strategize and also redefining customer expectations. Analytics is the new differentiator between success and failure in the cut throat e-commerce and internet services based industry. The huge proportions of data generated from the increasing number of smart phones, the social networks and the ever more penetrating internet are automating customer centric marketing and other services. The idea is to predict what a customer may want to buy even before the customer realizes what they need. The techniques to achieve these results are

Microsoft has the potential to innovate in this cloud environment because it can use analytics to quickly understand business usage trends across thousands of organizations — a level of visibility it did not have in the traditional approach. It can then rapidly develop applications and approaches as well as test and deploy new interfaces. Users will realize the benefits of this rapid innovation as their work environments become more nimble, leading to stronger engagement; IT departments will realize the benefits of having Microsoft manage this aspect of their technology portfolio, allowing them to concentrate on other projects.

In this article authors have explained the nature of disruptive technology and argued that the leading companies ignore the importance to identify and nurture the technology at right time. They lose the battle to new entrants, who develop and commercialize those technology well ahead and capture the market before incumbent realize the importance of disruptive technology in business. Innovation is the driver for any industry growth and it has been observed that industries able to innovate as well as maintain current customer satisfied are successful.

Innovation technology has become a prerequisite for success in many industries over the last 20 years. This is especially true in the management consulting industry (Thomas, 1978), which continues to differentiate itself from “product-oriented” industries through the implementation of people analytics. One business that has taken the consulting industry by storm is Deloitte Consulting LLP, a New York based subsidiary of Deloitte LLP and a member of the UK private corporation DTTL (About Deloitte). While the subsidiaries of Deloitte LLP provide several services to a number of different industries, Consulting is one of their most profitable arenas. It is not only the world’s largest management consulting firm, but it is also ranked among the

Technologies have the ability to revolutionize enterprises, making them more customer-centric and giving them the ability to be more resilient in the face of significant and often unforeseen change. The intent of this analysis is to evaluate and describe five specific areas where IT represents a significant risk to a company's competitive advantage. Second, this analysis concentrates on the five specific areas in an enterprise where IT can support and strengthen enterprises' core competitive advantages. Third, one of the five major risks faced by a company is evaluated in terms of how it could be mitigated to reduce risk and deliver significant value to the enterprise. The fourth and final step of this analysis is the evaluation of a one of the advantages, and how it can be accentuated and strengthened to ensure a company's ongoing successful operation. One of the most interesting factors with regard to technology's benefits and risks is how mercurial it can change over time. As Professor Clayton Christensen have often shown in his many case analyses published in the best-selling book The Innovator's Dilemma, there is greater need for agile, value-driven competitors even in the most stable and slow-growth market (Gebhart, 1998). The assessment of several industries in The Innovator's Dilemma underscore just how effective technology combined with creativity can be in creating innovation, at the levels of disruption that Apple achieved under the guidance of

In the era of information and technology, new technologies are generated very fast. Thus, effective management of technology has become more and more important. Driven by the competitive business environment, a new word was born: Technology management tools. Technology management tools is “Effective Systems for managing technology in complex business environments require integrated sets of management tools and processes, underpinned by well-founded conceptual networks ” (Phaal et al, 2006). There are a huge number of technology management tools, but generally it is divided into four major types: Technology Scan, Technology Foresight, Technology Roadmapping and Knowledge Management.