Advanced Strategic Information Technology

Course details

Course Introduction:
For IT professionals seeking a strategic edge, this course covers advanced concepts in aligning IT strategy with business goals, leveraging technology for competitive advantage.

Course Outcomes:
Appreciate the advantages and risks of corporate and internet computing, in achieving financial, efficiency and other objectives
Explain the costs, economics and opportunities provided by the corporate computing systems, the internet, cloud computing, open standards and social media
Create plans to introduce efficient enterprise computing systems, cloud computing and Software as a Service (SaaS)
Create plans for the application and management of ERP, CRM and IT projects using agile project management to achieve efficient and reliable and effective performance

Who Should Attend:
Senior financial executives, managers and professionals, who need to understand the impact and opportunities arising from advances in IT, the internet, social media, cloud and open standards, in order to inform the board of emerging IT risks and opportunities
Financial executives, managers and professionals, who are responsible for budgets and projects and must know the costs, economics and potential impact of computing and how to introduce computing projects
Senior company executives who are in charge of change management, ERP, CRM and IT projects

Course Topics:
IT strategy

Advances in IT and developments in corporate computing
IT applications security and architecture
Issues in formulating IT strategy to meet organisational needs
Current themes and trends open standards and the new digital environment
The IT strategy framework
Where and how to startCommon mistakes and SWOT


Project Management

Large versus small projects
Agile versus other methodologies: SSADM and Prince II
Big project case studies and research findings
Procurement and contract management: life cycle procurement
IT benchmarking


Agile Project Management

History and successesAgile practices
Agile disciplines and fulfilling control and reporting needsSetting up the agile team


Cloud Computing

The economic case for cloud computing
The opportunities from cloud computing: SaaS IaaS PaaS etc
Cloud issues: security confidentiality performance limitations (big data and content)
Purchasing and procurement of cloud
Cloud as an opportunity to upgrade and to rethink data and processes
What is SOA and should I care?


Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

ERP and workflow history and economicsFunctionality and vendor analysis
ERP pitfalls
ERP and open standards
Common mistakes and SWOT


Advanced Business Intelligence

Information and intelligence to run an organisation: data driven models and budgetary control; decision support systems; risk modelling and data-mining
Further techniques to define information: Critical Success Factors KPIs Balanced scorecard and benchmarks
Specialist needs: combating money laundering; fraudulent trading etc
Communicating with the Boardroom: BI dashboards and BI usage
The future: using BI to deliver policies


Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Second generation CRM and functionality
Selecting and specifying your CRM on-premise v cloud
Marketing analysis and campaigns 360 relationships and social media
The application of CRM in public and private sector (sales v. citizen interactions)
Common mistakes and SWOT


Using the Web and Social Media for Competitive Gain

BI and data-mining analysis of marketing and selling data
Pro-active use of social media Facebook viral campaigns community groups
Analysis of tweets and social media
Dealing with big data and data discovery


Management Information and Financial Systems

Selecting and specifying your financial system including appraisal against IFRS
Managing a large organisation meeting board management and regulatory needs
The impact of cloud and big data issues
Data efficiency utilisation and control avoiding data silos
Business Intelligence and an integrated view of the organisation