Your First Strategic Business Review: What to Expect

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December 16, 2020

Now that you’ve made the switch to Integris, here’s what you can expect from your first Strategic Business Review.

We can’t wait to deliver on our promise to ignite your digital transformation. As technology is further integrated across your organization, you will develop increased operating leverage to deliver superior value to your clients.

This will not happen overnight, so we must set expectations and establish a meeting cadence to plan the work and work the plan.

 

Strategic Solutions Objectives: The Top Five

1 – To build a strong, trusted partnership

Every new client we acquire has at least one thing in common: the desire for a better relationship.

While Integris leverages a lot of innovative technology that smaller IT providers and in-house IT departments cannot afford, it’s not our primary differentiator.

We tend to attract clients who value discernment. This character trait inspires us to sit on the same side of the table as our clients and truly understand their long-term goals before making recommendations.

Integris is so much more than technical support and project services. You probably got variations of that somewhere else, but now you’re here.

It’s time to get to know each other and broach the topic of setting up an IT Steering Committee. This is the best way to make sure key stakeholders within your organization are part of the conversation, at least on a high level.

 

2 – To identify business conditions or issues for improvement

This phase of the journey should be called Discovery 2.0. We already have a detailed snapshot of your IT systems from the security assessment and onboarding. Now we need to address the moving picture. And team up with you to talk through the priorities.

Technology is ever-changing, and a lot can happen in the month or two since onboarding began. Our support team has been tracking all of these new developments through the following categories of ticket requests:

  • End-user technical support
  • Incident management
  • Alert response
  • Problem management
  • Technical questions or requests
  • Minor change requests

When you submit a ticket to Support, you are dialed into a team that is maintaining the existing operational state of your technology and working on your requests in real-time.

They are also proactively responding to incidents created by automated monitoring platforms to solve issues before problems arise and force you to call the help desk. Both activities unearth a massive volume of business intelligence which the team uses to help you make data-driven decisions related to:

  • Analyzing gaps in your business
  • Calculating the risk and impact of the findings
  • Taking the significant first step to keeping your budgeting and planning process on track with a detailed roadmap

 

3 – To ensure your IT infrastructure meets minimum standards for compliance with industry best practices and applicable regulatory controls

Integris takes a holistic approach to your digital estate and its symbiotic relationship to your particular industry’s regulation and compliance guidelines.

One hundred percent compliance is impossible since government policy changes tend to create a moving goalpost.

That’s why current, standards-based infrastructure and documentation are your best defense. You decrease the likelihood of a disaster or data breach and lower your liability because you have evidence of due care.

Your vCIO and Manager Services Concierge provide regular executive summaries and simplified scoring of assets under management and security monitoring KPIs.

 

4 – To assist with long-term planning and strategy to improve IT Return on Investment (ROI) over time

We apply long-term planning and strategy to maximize the ROI of your technical stack

Warranties apply to mission-critical network systems such as web servers, mail servers, switches, and routers. Assume we show you a report with a Server and Network Warranty with a low score of 33%.

Since both devices affect multiple users and support your entire company, it’s essential to have valid warranties for these critical systems as their warranties usually offer expedited resolutions.

We also need to accelerate the overhaul of expired Windows Servers.  With the worldwide exodus to the cloud, there’s probably a good case for abandoning bare metal assets.

 

5 – To increase your organization’s overall Operational Maturity Score (OMS)

Your OMS is a ranking between 0 and 100. And it goes beyond rating the sophistication of your IT operations. Its calculation is based on many factors:

  • How well developed are your organization’s documented policies and procedures?
  • Does your organization have well-defined one, three, and 5-year business plans?
  • Do you have a formal budgeting process?
  • Is your IT environment in compliance with industry best practices?
  • Is your IT security posture sufficient to protect against the ever-evolving threat landscape?
  • Is your staff operating at peak efficiency?
  • Are you in compliance with legally mandated regulatory requirements?
  • Are there other high-risk conditions that could result in the interruption of business operations?

Companies with higher operational maturity scores grow faster, are more profitable, and are more attractive for sales generation, recruiting, investment, or M&A activity.

Our team will benchmark your OMS and track it over time so you can see the long-term benefits of our unique approach.

 

Next Steps!

The following Advisory services are included in your Managed Services Agreement:

    • Strategic Business Reviews
    • Participation in Board or IT Steering Committee meetings
    • Strategic Roadmaps (key recommendations categorized by business risk and impact)
    • Rough Order of Magnitude cost estimates to help with budgeting
    • If your organization requires expanded vCIO engagement, you get priority booking of additional hours at a reduced rate.

I hope I have inspired you to schedule your first Strategic Business Review. Visit Integris Support to request a meeting with your Managed Services Concierge.

Jed is a Solution Advisor at Integris who has specialized in MSP solution development, sales, and marketing communications since 2003.

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