Application Platform Development and Optimization
Centric’s approach to application platform optimization is to help our customers align their applications with core business processes, assess the workload performance of existing business-critical applications, and prioritize their application and infrastructure investments.
Business Productivity Deployment and Optimization
Business Productivity Optimization is not only about helping with deploying and optimizing IT, but also helping Centric’s Clients move forward with IT initiatives that deliver the most business value. Centric’s offerings span the Business Productivity Optimization Model’s five capabilities that are required to build a more agile infrastructure:
- Collaboration & Portals
- Unified Communications
- Enterprise Content Management
- Reporting & Analysis
- Content Creation
Core Infrastructure Deployment and Optimization
Core infrastructure includes data center services like virtualization and networking, client services such as client management and security, identity and security services such as access and information control, and IT processes and compliance. Centric’s offerings span the Core Optimization model’s four capabilities required to build a more agile infrastructure:
- Data Center Services
- Client Services
- Identity & Security Management
- IT Process & Compliance
Centric’s Microsoft Solution Offering is:
- Business Focused - Helping business clients derive value and ROI by understanding how and where to focus to achieve optimum efficiency and value. First and foremost we look for solutions to business problems.
- Adaptive - A phased approach allows clients to understand and participate in the prioritization of their Microsoft initiatives. A phased approach also reduces the “sticker-shock” factor when approaching large, enterprise-scale problems and initiatives.
- Based On Visible & Accessible Metrics - Centric assessments utilize industry best practice data from independent third party sources like Gartner, IDC and Forrester. Clients see not only their own opportunities for improvement, but also what leading firms in related industries are doing to optimize their IT infrastructure.
- Always part of a Holistic Project Approach - Centric looks holistically across the infrastructure, addresses underlying structure and complexity, creates an integrated, uniform environment, and adopts IT solutions that support proven Best Practices. IT initiatives are prioritizingin a structured, systematic manner. Traditional Microsoft consulting focuses on product specific features and benefits. Centric’s approach is holistic and considers how the integration of any product across the enterprise has the potential to affect the entire enterprise and therefore the overall goals of the organization.
Bridging the Business Drivers with IT
Centric knows that by focusing on the optimization of business drivers, IT organizations can bridge the gap between business and IT. Based on an Infrastructure Optimization model and our many successful enterprise customer engagements Centric enables an IT organization to develop an actionable roadmap that supports business strategies. The key steps in the process include:
- Understand Business Drivers, Needs, and Challenges - First understand where you are. Understanding the current business environment will improve the quality of the remaining steps and probability of overall success.
- Identify The Needed Business Capabilities - By focusing on the business capabilities that need to be delivered, IT is able to drive a roadmap and supporting architecture for the business.
- Assess Current Capabilities - Centric utilizes its experience as well as data from industry analysts to generate an assessment providing benchmarks that indicate the overall level of organizational maturity.
- Perform a Gap Analysis of Current vs. Desired Delivery - Given an assessment of current capabilities and an understanding of desired business capabilities, gaps can be identified suggesting a course of action.
- Roadmap the Short-term and Long-term Capabilities and Delivery Goals - Developing a roadmap that provides explicit, actionable short and long term solutions and projects allows IT to not only convey and build support for the plan, but also establishes a baseline for reporting progress.
- Build the Architecture for Specific Solutions - The solution architecture is the overwhelming key to success in Microsoft enterprise optimization engagements. When a solution is properly architected based on the desired business drivers, the ultimate outcome is defined and quantifialble and closely tied to business objectives.
A typical Infrastructure Optimization project provides:
- Insight into current IT maturity, based on a multi-level maturity model,
- The desired level of IT maturity, mapped to specific business priorities,
- An in-depth gap analysis between current IT capabilities and the desired end state,
- A capability-level roadmap for short-term and long-term solutions,
- TCO & ROI guidance and estimates, and
- Architectural guides and project scoping to coordinate the adoption of technologies and process to drive the short and long-term business goals.
