If you are reading this, it is very likely that you are looking at implementing a change, or series of changes, to make your organisation's IT more efficient and ultimately more profitable.

Change is a small word that can have a huge impact on any organisation and as such needs to be properly managed. It is for this reason that any large scale change to the running of your organisation or department is likely to have an impact on tangible entities such as: costs, revenues, investment, IT systems, skill levels and company strategies. But there are also the hidden elements of change to an organisation which can be of equal if not greater importance. These might well include: employee morale, work ethic, culture and staff retention.

It is for these reasons that change needs to be properly project managed and implemented. But before that can happen it is important to make sure that the proper business analysis has been completed to ensure that the scale and nature of the work to be done can be captured.

Rainbow Solutions NW Ltd has a great deal of experience in providing business analysis consultancy. We have also successfully implemented appropriate bespoke IT solutions on the back of conducting proper detailed analysis into an organisation's current practises and intended future direction.

Below is an outline as to the steps we would take to help you prepare to implement a change to your organisations IT systems.

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Firstly, Rainbow Solutions would look to sit down with key stakeholders and personnel who are likely to either, be impacted by, or be the driving force behind this programme of potential change.

During these initial discussions we would aim to extract, interpret and document the varying viewpoints, issues and priorities raised by each of the key stakeholders.

Furthermore, the main risks to implementing change often become apparent at this stage. Rainbow Solutions would document these in a risk log which can be added as part of the requirements gathering documentation for consideration.

This is important as it might well determine whether implementing such a change constitutes a viable project.

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Gap analysis provides a foundation for measuring the necessary resources (time, money and human resources) required to achieve a particular outcome. Therefore, once the initial requirements of a potential project have been gathered and documented, the next step is to consider the extent of the change(s) required and resource(s) needed to bridge the gap between the current situation and the desired solution outcome.

Rainbow Solutions can undertake this Gap Analysis for your organisation as part of the groundwork into researching the viability and requirements of your project.

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Risk analysis is a technique used to identify and assess the factors that may impact the success of implementing a change or project.

Whilst organisations can only progress through change, change itself always presents risks and it is these risks that need to be identified and managed.

A project will always have certain parameters which at their minimum tend to consist of a budget and timescale for completion. In these cases, the most obvious risks are those factors which would increase costs above their budgeted level or would see delays in work which would impact the achievable completion date.

Whilst Rainbow Solutions cannot wave a magic wand and eliminate risks from your implementations we can help you manage the risks to your projects by:

• Identifying them as early as possible.
• Documenting them so they are a known quantity.
• Monitoring them so that they can be properly planned and managed.
• Giving them a risk owner whose job is to manage that risk

Proper risk analysis and management can help organisations avoid undertaking projects that are too risky from the outset - saving time, money & effort. It can, however, also lead to projects being successfully completed that would have floundered if certain risks had not been identified early and properly handled over the lifetime of the project.

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As part of conducting the pre-implementation groundwork for a change, it is often necessary to determine the current quality and quantity of data being stored and associated data storage mechanisms and to see how effectively they map to your business processes.

It is always important to ensure that the information needs of your organisation are being met by the IT systems that you have in place.

Therefore any significant change to your organisation's business processes might well impact on the way in which your IT systems need to store, manage and retrieve its data.

Rainbow Solutions believes that Data Mapping and Business Process Mapping are important in highlighting any additional pre-implementation issues or risks that had not yet surfaced.

Furthermore this groundwork can also provide metrics to your organisation's pre-implementation IT / business process efficiency which can be measured and reviewed post implementation.

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Risk analysis is a technique used to identify and assess the factors that may impact the success of implementing a change or project.

Whilst organisations can only progress through change, change itself always presents risks and it is these risks that need to be identified and managed.

A project will always have certain parameters which at their minimum tend to consist of a budget and timescale for completion. In these cases, the most obvious risks are those factors which would increase costs above their budgeted level or would see delays in work which would impact the achievable completion date.

Business Process Mapping analyses each process and or department within an organisation and defines:

• What each process does.
• Who is responsible for the process.
• To what standard a department should complete a process.
• How the success of a business process can be determined.
• Which processes are inter-dependent.

Performing this mapping analysis enables an organisation to review its functions and to determine if there are any grounds for improving efficiencies either within or between an orgnisations' departments.

Like Data Mapping, Rainbow Solutions believes this analysis is useful if performed before an impending change is implemented as it allows any pre-implementation issues to be identified, accounted for and managed. Additionally it provides means for measuring and comparing post-implementation business efficiencies.

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Business Process Reengineering is a management approach aiming at improvements by means of elevating the efficiency and effectiveness of the processes that exist within and across organisations.

If it is clear that the nature of change to be implemented in your organisation is considerable and that Business Process and Data mapping analysis reveals that delegating existing tasks to different employees is insufficient then it might well be appropriate to consider Business Process Re-engineering.

For example, consider a situation whereby a small group of independent shops have been bought out to form a small chain. The new owner might wish to increase economies of scale by centralising the sales and customer care teams. Therefore employees of the independent shops might have to change the nature of their role to accommodate a more specialist role over a wider territory. This would raise a number of issues such as training, morale levels and staff retention but also it would be necessary to map the new processes of centralised administration to a new group of people or department.

Furthermore these changes might have IT considerations in terms of the relevance and quality of data currently being stored at individual shop level which might not be sufficient at group level and hence the need to ensure that Data Mapping and Business Process Mapping are consistent becomes clear.

Rainbow Solutions is experienced in assisting organisations who are looking at implementing change on a scale that will affect their business processes, and to increase efficiencies through business process re-engineering. However, we advise that this is best implemented once appropriate Business Process Mapping and Data Mapping analysis have been undertaken.

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