In the 21st century management consultants are often called upon to address business and IT and operations, processes, and strategies which enable and drive organizations to become more competitive and profitable in rapidly evolving technology-centered marketplaces. The deployment of emerging information technologies for revenue generating initiatives has accelerated the pace of strategic and operational change as well as enabled/driven new business ‘disruptors’ to enter markets previously considered to be stable and resistant to innovation.
Management consultants must become trusted advisors to senior IT and non-IT client executives to help them address critical client business problems and get their buy-in on how to address these issues and opportunities in a way that ensures business value generation. Management consulting engagements and projects must begin with consensus-building among senior IT and non-IT executives to ensure understanding and agreement on how best to improve the competitive position, alignment of business and IT strategies and operating performance, establish appropriate business and IT organizational and process infrastructures and value-related analytics, and address business and IT governance and sourcing considerations.
This course will concentrate on developing the participants’ competency in engaging with clients to assist them in evaluating, establishing and coordinating the key strategic and operational options, processes, activities and organizational structures required to manage the business and IT functions of in today’s technologically intensive environment that will generate measurable and sustainable business value. This course, and others, in this Certificate will be grounded on the principles and implications of the Henderson-Venkataraman Strategic Alignment Model (SAM) and Luftman’s Strategic Alignment Maturity Assessment.
Course Topics include:
- The Business-IT Consulting “Life Cycle”
- Differences Between Management/Business Consulting and Service Providers, and Internal IT
- Consulting Organization Structures
- Types of Consulting Engagements and Implications
- Hiring/Mentoring/Growing Team Members
- Consulting Sales and Marketing
- Constructing and Presenting Proposals
- Constructing and Presenting Consulting Agreements
- Scoping the Business and IT Problem(s)
- Structuring and Staffing Consulting Projects/Engagements
- Outcomes-Based Thinking and Value Management
- Approaches to Identifying, Refining and Selecting the Vision
- Consulting Portfolio and Program Management
- Planning and Managing Consulting Projects
- Applying Frameworks and Methods to Business-IT Issues
- Consulting Engagement Leadership and Relationship Management / Telling Clients “No”
- Governance and its Centrality to Success
- Performance Metrics
- Organizational Change Management and Organizational Alignment
- Applying Performance Metrics to Consulting Engagements
- Expanding Your Consulting Services “Footprint” – The Value of Networking
- Trends and Directions in Management Consulting
