Bull Advisory Services for Higher Education

IT Strategy and Services need to be aligned to their institution's strategic objectives and their plans for achieving those objectives. IT strategy should also be complementary to the other approaches that underpin and deliver their institution's strategic objectives e.g. academic, HR, estates, research, and enterprise.

The importance of a well articulated and practiced plan and process is critical, and should ensure that the vision of how IT will help enable change / transformation within an institution is embedded in the institution's strategic plan. The IT services and the architecture that underpin these services should support their institution's objectives by the appropriate and timely delivery of supporting technology, at the appropriate price point and service level.

As with planning any journey, you need to know where you are coming from to get to where you are going to. Bull Advisory Services can assist you on each stage of your journey with a range of coordinated assessment tools and services. At the first stage, we can deliver the following: -

Discovery, baselining, and gap analysis of your existing IT estate
Generate a catalogue of the 'true' costs of technology ownership, along with associated costs of personnel, floorspace, and power, all of which can be used for an input to ROI modelling
Calculate your actual carbon footprint and emissions
Benchmark your service maturity and business alignment against accepted best industry practice and ITIL standards.
Workshop facilitation, interview techniques, behavioural analysis

IT departments need to ensure that the institution appreciates the true cost of IT service provision and demonstrate the benefits that investments in IT can deliver to the organisation. This assessment activity is essential in achieving this, and enables the institution to engage in informed and mature decision making on which IT services should be provided along their associated service levels.

Armed with the above information, you can now plan your journey.

Strategic plans need to be flexible and responsive to the changing needs of their organisation. IT departments need to exhibit a degree of agility to enable them to respond to changing circumstances. While change can present challenges, it is the only constant, and IT should be in a position to embrace it. However, change can also present some new opportunities for IT to better align themselves with the institutional structure and to build sustainable relationships within senior management teams. Bull can be instrumental in helping achieve both these objectives. Some of the services Bull can offer in this phase are as follows: -

Innovation, planning, and design
- DataCentre, Infrastructure, SLA's, Service Catalogue, and Business Continuity
Migration planning
- Data Centre, Physical to Virtual, Applications & Data
Requirement to service mapping, change simulation and risk analysis
Environmental impact analysis
Operational and procedural streamlining and standardising
Development of your IT delivery services within an ITIL framework to ensure a credible level of professionalism and consistent service levels

Whatever route you have decided upon for your journey, Bull can take you there with our full range of offerings, and together we can make sure you reach your final destination.