When every business is saturated with information technology, IT alone can`t possibly be a strategic differentiator. The competitive advantage will be how well and how pervasively organisations integrate their business with information technology. Is your organisation ready?
At the PM Sight recent executive breakfast: `Evolution of the Microsoft Office 2007 Solution Event Series`, Paul Viviers, managing director for PM Sight, said: "Today`s business organisations are increasingly using software development and IT to capture and apply knowledge that is unique to their business, in order to drive innovation and make better use of limited resources. Realising this capability, however, has its challenges."
Many business managers have a lack of understanding about how IT can help achieve corporate goals; many regarding IT as a necessary evil.
In some organisations that recognise the importance of investing in IT to achieve corporate goals, IT projects often do not deliver the value because they fail to align themselves with business objectives.
In addition to IT, decisions-makers in many organisations are not able to analyse needs and focus resources on projects that would lead to better efficiency and cost savings.
He said: "Organisations should not be deterred by these challenges. Companies that begin to align their strategies will gain critical agility and have a greater command of their organisations - they will be better positioned to meet the ever-changing business demands."
PM Sight believes that organisations should be able to manage a process, from business challenge through to solution idea, budget approval and project development, and right on through to project execution and costing. However, no one solution has been offered in the market to meet this need, until now.
By leveraging the latest Microsoft offerings, PM Sight is able to demonstrate how organisations can support an integrated portfolio and project environment, which alleviates these challenges through the proper balance of process, governance framework and technology.
"Companies need to optimise for change through transformation, innovation, integration as well as successful execution to ensure targeted performance. Often a minefield, companies need to navigate this complex business environment. This means moulding strategies, policies, processes, automation and metrics into a pervasively integrated business life cycle - one that can adapt to change faster than the competition," he says.
Based on PM Sight`s practical approach, strict objectivity and personalised service, PM Sight developed PM Revolution, an end-to-end solution which helps enterprises quickly implement and expand the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) solution with a pre-configured instance of the Microsoft Office stack.
PM Revolution users are able to: Gather, evaluate, categorise and prioritise IT requests based on business objectives; perform effective demand management; provide visibility into the IT portfolio and the decisions that govern which projects and investments will be funded and which won`t; accurately assess needs to effectively deploy resources by tracking availability, utilisation and work progress; deploy enterprise templates for standardisation of data and reporting; promote your own project management methodology for organisation-wide compliance and consistency; empower project teams to view, share and update project information from the Web; integrate between ERP and EPM solutions; allow the business to measure the performance of individual projects as well as their portfolios.
David Funchall, Manager consulting for Paracon SA, said: "PM Sight`s approach is practical and effective, and an effective way of aligning project portfolios to an organisation`s strategic intent. We have all talked about the why for years, but now we have the how, there is no excuse: PM Sight`s portfolio perspective is sound, clear-cut and practical. The solution presented demonstrates how the relationship between PM Revolution and Microsoft can be of benefit to the industry."
"PM Sight`s presentation underscores the importance of PPM governance and the impact this has on an organisation`s strategic goals... in an easy to understand, practical and sound business manner," comments Dion Tappan, PrCertEng, PMP, SCPM, Project Portfolio Manager, Harmony Central Projects Function.
"I was fortunate enough to hear Paul Viviers speaking at the Executive Breakfast on 7 November this year. The presentation was well structured and informative, and the delivery was relaxed and confident. The solution presented encapsulates a process that will support any governance structure that you have in an organisation. Paul used humour and personal experience to support the PPM governance message, resulting in a presentation that was enjoyable and has left a lasting impression," said Wayne Moore, Project and Portfolio Executive for of AVI IT shared services.
In conclusion, Viviers says: "PM Sight`s aim is to enable your organisation to overcome even the greatest IT challenges, by achieving a higher level of performance through integration, collaboration and execution of top down and bottom-up strategies, while leveraging your Microsoft Office Solution investment."
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