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When you invest in a business solution, you should ensure that you work
with technology providers and system integration partners to help you plan,
develop, and deploy your system. Advisorysoft is a premier management and technology consulting firm
that provides help through every stage of the technology planning, deployment,
and support process. We specialize in combining management and technology
to provide real-life IT solutions: networks, crm, erp, ecommerce,
intranets and portals, and more. Our consultants have the experience and
expertise to align your IT vision and business goals. Click on any of the
sections below to learn about some of the services we use to provide value to
our clients.
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Assessment and Review Services
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If your organization is in the early planning stages for a
major operational system, Assessment and Review Services provide in-depth
evaluation of business requirements, plans, architectures, and designs of
operational systems and environments. This early state service allows
you to identify and mitigate risks and realize benefits quickly.
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Planning, Architecture, and Design Services
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Do you need help building a solution from the ground up?
These services will help you create plans for business solutions and
technical architecture as well as design infrastructure and mission-critical
applications. Based on a proven approach, this service includes
assessment and review documents that are developed in-house and extend
beyond the scope of Assessment and Review Services.
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Proof-of-Concept Services
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After you have finished the planning and design stage of a
solution, Proof-of-Concept Services will deliver a prototype or pilot for a
particular project. This service empowers you to mitigate technical
risks and accelerate the formation of a project team prior to the
development or deployment of your IT solution.
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Implementation Service
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Your partnership should include agreement on how much
design, coding, and testing will be allocated to each member of the
partnership. No matter who you partner with, you need assurances that
the solutions partners are experienced in designing this type of system,
that their coders are knowledgeable and experienced with this type of
business system and the tools and software needed to develop it, and that
the partners can test the code, not just on a PC in a lab somewhere but on
site or in simulation environment that takes into account all the variables
of your system.
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This should not be an "extra", or something that is thrown
into the discussion at the last minute; instead it should be discussed when
the project groundwork is laid, and you should receive assurances that the
partner you are working with has top-of-the-line credentials. This is
your business, after all.
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Deployment Services
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Your partners should not just be "code jockeys", but should
also have experience with enterprise-level systems and the supporting
infrastructure. They need to know how your systems interoperate and how
to work within any system constraints. This knowledge contributes
directly to planning for solution deployment; your solution partner must
understand how to plan for system capacity (and its attendant scaling and
availability concerns), system and data security, network firewalls and
topology issues, and hardware and software infrastructure.
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These factors all go beyond focusing just on what needs to
be built and go toward understanding how to build it and how to minimize
complexity or fragility. It would not do to have the best content
management system in the world if you can handle only 100 subscribers or is
regularly unavailable because of system downtime or network bandwidth
issues. Make sure your partner has this knowledge and familiarity with
the entire network, not just the server.
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Operations Services
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When you partner with solution providers, they should be
able to help you with operational services for your solution that include
training and guidance on how the system is maintained on a daily basis as
well as long-term monitoring. You should discuss target goals for
system availability or uptime, baseline performance goals, page views or
transactions per minute, or other metrics that can be built into the system
or monitored by existing services.
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Operations planning must also include the more mundane but
equally important task of backup and disaster recovery, ongoing system
maintenance with software upgrades or solution enhancements, and system
expansion recommendations for increasing capacity by scaling up, scaling
out, or increasing system availability through redundancy and elimination of
single-point-of failure weaknesses. This type of system planning is done for
the long term, not the short term, and will be of continued benefit long
after the solution is up and running
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Support Planning
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Sometimes a solution partner will tell you that once a
system is installed and running, you're own your own--the reasons cited
usually include the idea that too many things can happen, the systems are no
longer under the sole control of the provider, and so forth. However,
reputable solution providers don't send you a "thanks for the memories" card
at the end of the project; they are able to provide you with support and
planning for the life span of the solution.
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Support planning services start at the post development
phase and cover the system's overall health and operational status.
This includes providing guaranteed response times on trouble calls or system
alerts, problem isolation, troubleshooting and preemptive maintenance, and
even ongoing system and software updates, service packs, and patch
installations. These services complement your existing IT service and
support staff with people knowledgeable about the new business solution, and
they provide the added benefit of knowledge transfer from the services staff
to your own department. The most powerful weapon you can have is the
ability to bring in the experts quickly. When a system hiccup means
money lost, you don't want to spend time on hold, waiting for the next
available front-line technician
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Custom Solution Services
Advisorysoft is a premier management and technology consultant offering
"lightweight" solutions with added services such as consultation, support,
integration, and custom development.
Started in 1991 by Eric Smith to combine the strategic advice and counsel of a
management consultant with the technology knowledge and skill of a technology
consultant.
Eric Smith received his undergraduate computer science and management degrees
from Northwestern University.
Contact Information
- Telephone
- 773 731-5106
- FAX
- 773 731-5106
- Postal address
- 8342 S. Dante Ave, Chicago, IL 60619
- Electronic mail
- General Information:
ericsmith@advisorysoft.com
Sales:
Customer Support:
Webmaster:
ericsmith@advisorysoft.com
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