Professional Services

  • IT Strategic Management & Virtual CIO

  • Identification & Implementation of Cost Out Opportunities

  • Solution Architecture Design & Service Delivery

  • Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery & Risk Management

  • IT Lifecycle & Change Management

  • IT Consultancy & Project Management

  • IT Governance, Compliance & Business Process Improvement

IT Strategic Management & Virtual CIO
Solution Architecture Design
Cost Savings
Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery
Risk Mitigation
IT Lifecycle Management
IT Change Control
IT Consultancy & Project Management

IT Strategic Management & Virtual CIO

Any mid-sized business requires IT strategy management – do you have that on your leadership team?

As a vCIO we take ownership of your IT strategic direction, providing expert guidance and overall management of IT people, processes and technology providing the foundation for business growth and innovation

Virtual CIO Services & Benefits

  • Strategic planning & creation of IT Policy & Roadmaps aligned with business goals

  • IT Security, Business Continuity & Risk Management

  • IT Financial Management, Budgeting, ROI analysis & capital investment planning

  • Staff & IT Vendor development, KPI & SLA Management

  • IT Operations, Service Delivery & Lifecycle Management

  • IT Governance, Compliance, Change Management & Business Process Improvement

  • Visibility & reporting on performance, systems health & technology capability gaps

Obtain all the benefits, expertise & career knowledge of an in-house CIO without the considerable salary

Solution Architecture

Our Solution Architecture engagements aim to deliver a cost effective standardised tech-stack designed to be highly available and scalable. We utilise best of breed technologies with a focus on IT simplification and intuitive user interfaces to achieve end user engagement and increase productivity

Every IT asset, platform and system requires maintenance, support and upgrades, they can also require licensing which can add up to significant labour and operating expenses … our approach is to do more with less, rationalise applications, simplify the tech-stack and reduce OPEX whilst delivering on business requirements

We provide end to end IT solutions from requirements, through to design, engineering, implementation, service delivery and post project control

Q. Do your line of business applications lack integration & you have multiple reporting sources?

Q. Is your technology misaligned from your business direction & hampering growth?

Q. Do you have several applications to achieve what could be achieved with less?

Q. Can your sales force be more effective in the field with the right technology tools?

Q. Do you have a specific objective you’re looking to achieve but don’t know where to start?

Q. Is your IT not agile enough & can’t keep pace with business change or growth?

If you can answer yes to any of these questions then we should be discussing our Solution Architecture offering

Identification & Implementation of Cost Out Opportunities

Cost savings exist in every business and the IT function is renowned for excessive costs that aren’t providing any value

We identify opportunities to reduce expenses without compromising on quality or functionality, in fact we typically save you money whilst improving performance

We leverage technology to eliminate manual processes, improve efficiencies and reduce costs through IT automation

Aside from automation opportunities it’s highly likely we can reduce costs through a review of 3rd party vendor contracts, hardware maintenance, redundant or unnecessary services, over licensed applications, ineffective labour, over specified compute resources, underutilised capacity or simply being charged too much

We can also provide you a comparison rate for a particular service so if you’re interested in reducing your IT spend then we’d be happy to conduct a review

Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Solutions

Are you prepared for your IT services being unavailable? Can your business function without access to communications, business applications or data? How well would your business recover and return to operations from a natural disaster, a major security breach, significant loss of critical data or unplanned Infrastructure outages?

We provide Business Continuity (BC) and Disaster Recovery (DR) solutions to ensure your downtime is either eliminated or minimised and business operations and IT services are restored promptly

BC / DR is broad topic and creates good leadership debate but everyone agrees that preparedness is absolutely necessary. Be prepared and have scenario driven “what if” discussions about your current state and where improvements can be made and tested in advance

Business Continuity is designed to maintain IT operations in the event of failure whereas Disaster Recovery is designed to minimise disruption and have you operational as quickly as possible … similar to an evacuation plan an effective BC / DR plan can avoid or reduce recovery times substantially

From automated high availability services and fault tolerant Infrastructure to manual processes and access to business data – it’s important you understand the risks and business impact of short or long term IT outages

New Zealand is vulnerable to natural disasters & force majeure events. Consider the 2011 Christchurch earthquake & how resilient your business would have been

Risk Mitigation

IT risks include systems and Infrastructure failures, human error and change failures, compromised security, compliance defects, social networking misuse, legacy technology, facilities failures and many more

IT risks have the potential to result in outages, systems downtime, reputation damage, impact to productivity, customer dissatisfaction, commercial losses and breaches of regulatory requirements

We take a pragmatic approach to your IT risks … we develop a current state IT risk profile, then devise risk avoidance and safeguard initiatives to mitigate those risks. Our risk probability and consequence matrix provides a toolset for business leaders to make informed data driven decisions on assessing and prioritising their IT risks

IT risks evolve over time so regular reviews are required to ensure your risk profile is maintained

Have a “what if” chat with us now to avoid the “what now” chat later

IT Lifecycle Management

An ongoing IT challenge is maintaining version currency and standardisation of hardware and software versions

Our IT Lifecycle programme manages Infrastructure and asset refresh, firmware upgrades, version controls, patching and security updates and functionality enhancements for all hardware, middleware platforms, appliances and toolsets

IT hardware requires firmware upgrades to maintain vendor support but upgrading to recent releases is also necessary to avoid code bugs, enhance functionality and maintain stability. Software and applications are even more subject to frequent version releases mandated by vendors. As these upgrades introduce risk they require testing in advance, they consume IT resources and can be complex with multiple interconnected dependencies. We ensure these challenges are painless

An all too familiar occurrence is businesses being hamstrung by legacy systems that haven’t been maintained or upgraded … these systems create dependencies, introduce unnecessary risk and can lead to a lack of spare parts or technical expertise. Lifecycle management can avoid this situation and ensure your Infrastructure and systems remain current

Our Lifecycle programme delivers on a regular schedule of upgrades using a disciplined change management approach to manage risk. Lifecycle management is not a 1 time, set and forget task … it requires regular feeding and watering that most businesses and IT departments neglect

Call us today & avoid a situation where you can’t move forward because your IT Lifecycle hasn’t been maintained

IT Change Control

Have you been asked to approve IT changes – if not, why not? The numbers don’t lie … failed IT changes are the number 1 cause of IT and business downtime

IT changes can be complex with multiple interfaces and systems dependencies – adopt a no-cowboys approach to managing IT changes by utilising our enterprise class IT change management service

Formal change control governance provides key stakeholders with visibility of the change including business impact and affected IT services, time frames, change ownership, implementation risks, rollback plans, communications plans, technical dependencies, technical tasks, sequence of events and ultimately approvals to proceed

Importantly, change control provides a forum for discussion and guarantees all relevant parties are in agreement with the planned approach, it provides accountability and ensures everyone is aware of their roles and responsibilities

IT Consultancy & Project Management

You can engage us to consult on any IT challenge or upcoming initiative you might have. The scope of that consultancy could well be anything you see mentioned on this website – and more

With decades of expert knowledge and industry prowess we’d welcome the opportunity to provide objective IT consultancy for your business

Should you wish us to take on a discreet piece of work we have qualified project management staff to manage your IT projects or programmes of work

LEAN Six Sigma Consultancy

“Show me the data”. For a statistical data driven approach to defect elimination and continuous process improvement there is no better methodology to improve your business capability and efficiency. Whether it be a discreet improvement initiative or a business wide adoption of LEAN Six Sigma – we have certified staff happy to discuss your objectives

Our offering is backed by IT expertise but is can be deployed across all business functions

“LEAN then digitise”

Compliance, Licensing & Audits

Remove the administrative burden of managing your own software licensing, renewals, hardware maintenance and IT compliance for various industry standards such as ISO, PCI and SOX

Speak to us about how we manage these tedious but mandatory tasks and ensure you pass your next IT audit with flying colours

Get In Touch

Customers can engage us for Professional Services to achieve a specific IT objective or to provide ongoing strategic management as required

Contact us today for an introductory chat

FAQ’s

Professional services are more strategic, advanced services requiring in depth knowledge of systems integration and customers business. This is where we move from supplier to valued partner. Pro services engagements are not quick wins and require commitment from both parties

As a small business may only require a small engagement in that case but any sized business is faced with the same technology challenges

Yes, that is typically what tends to happen for businesses with internal IT staff. Often they don’t possess the appropriate skills sets so we take the lead and they assist as IT resources to deliver projects or discreet IT objectives

An initial no obligation, no charge consultation to discuss your business objectives and direction, IT current state, risks and challenges- recommendations and proposals follow

Each engagement has defined deliverable and specific goals that must be achieved. We provide regular tracking and reporting to ensure we’re achieving those goals

Service Portfolio       

Multiple Services, 1 Service Provider … how can we help you today?

TALK WITH AN EXPERT TODAY

0508 2CLOUD 09 366 0878 Chat sales@strobe.net.nz

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