Systems & Process Analysis

Navigate your growth with confidence. Mitigate risk and weave technology into your company’s future with our process and technology advisory services.

The goal of Encore’s strategy engagements is to provide you with an honest assessment of your current solution environment and to identify opportunities for improvement based on your goals. In addition, Encore will assist in the development of a tailored, integrated, and achievable solution strategy.

We call it your “path forward”. Our systems and process analysis engagements provide a solid vision for your growth, and knowledge of what it will take to get there.

You Should Consider a Technology Strategy Engagement If:

You are unsure if your existing systems are being used to their full potential.
You have bought into – and want to get more out of – the Microsoft stack of products (our specialty).
Recent company growth has left you with ambiguous or glaringly inefficient processes.
You want to make sure you are formulating the perfect RFP for a new system, upgrade, or re-implementation.

Our Approach to Process & Systems Analysis

The review process involves a series of facilitated discussions which break down into two categories:

A Review of Your Existing Business Environment

Reviewing your existing business environment will create an understanding of your current utilization of systems and the data you collect. This first step is intended to be product-agnostic to any systems that are already in place. We look at your business processes and business needs rather than current software capabilities or functionality.

Through a detailed review, we will achieve an understanding of what is working for you, and what is not. This understanding allows us to generate the evaluation and decision-making criteria that is used to recommend certain solutions in your technology roadmap.

After this initial engagement, we will also know which business processes and systems need immediate attention in the first phase of your road map.

Long-term Planning Sessions

Long-term planning sessions will focus on defining the direction and future requirements of your technology, as it relates to your company’s objectives, in addition to inter-operability and coexistence with the solutions recommended for the first phase of your roadmap.

Review of strategic organizational direction and objectives.
Review of desired long term business processes.
Review of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) requirements, business measurements, and metrics at all levels of the organization.

Deliverables – What You Get

At the end of every systems analysis engagement, Encore delivers a detailed Roadmap/Blueprint that outlines our findings and recommendations.

Knowledge and Documentation of Your Current State

Our blueprint begins with a detailed documentation your existing business processes and technology:

Which systems are critical to which processes, and why.
Which processes are inefficient “stop-gap” processes – only necessary due to inadequate technology.
Which processes, data, and workflow are critical or unique to your business model.
A review of your systems integrations and dataflow.

An Understanding of Your Long-Term Growth Requirements

Our second document outlines your plans for growth and your technology requirements in light of these plans:

A review of your planned growth strategies.
A full description of your business model: what is your current model, and the long-term plan for the evolution of that model.
Any specific requirements due to inefficiencies in your current processes or collected data.

Standardization of Your Business Measurements

Our third deliverable is a standardization of the KPIs that you will use to measure growth, and how you will provide information to decision makers.

Financial Indicators: a review of your current indicators as well as future indicators.
Operational indicators: a review of your current and future operational KPIs – what they are and how they will be measured. Your final operational KPIs will be broken down by process area, then balanced and weighted to your plans for growth and your industry’s best-practices.

A Vision for Your Target State

To set your course for the future, we will identify what your processes and solutions will look like in the future at a high-level, describe how information will be processed and managed, and define ownership of the data from a systems perspective.

The establishment of standard operating procedures. Where ambiguous, Encore will recommend best practices for managing your people, processes, and technology in harmony.
Information flow – how information will flow within processes as well as between solutions. (With detailed process maps).
High-value opportunity areas will be determined based upon your current needs and long term objectives, taking into account how to maximize utilization without overburdening your end users.

Immediate and Long-term Recommendations

Based on our analysis, Encore will provide recommendations in the following areas:

Which business processes need addressing immediately (6 – 12 months)
Detailed solution requirements and evaluation criteria for Phase 1 solutions (6 – 12 months). These will assist you in making a software selection to address broken processes. Encore will also provide a software recommendation from our portfolio based on these requirements and criteria.
Which business processes should be addressed in the future (24 – 48 months)
High level definition of solutions as they relate to long term (24 – 48 months) requirements.