We are asked on many occasions to carry out a systems review, or 'health-check', of the firm’s IT service to its organisation.  The types of questions that are frequently asked of us include:

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• are we getting value for money?

• are we using IT effectively?

• does our IT organisation complement our business?

• how do we compare with our peers?

 

Not as detailed as an IT Strategy, a ‘health-check’ reviews and analyses your current IT – systems and people – and compares it against publicly available information and our own database of industry and generic norms.  This includes reviewing whether your current suite of systems meets your business needs, the size, shape and fitness of your IT team, and analysing your IT spend (as a proportion of turnover and per fee-earner), and value for money.

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Despite the fact that such a review is not as detailed as a strategy, we will always start such a review by gaining a clear understanding of your business objectives, as in all cases this is the key to answering the questions above.

We can then advise you how to best exploit future investments in IT in order to maximise the effect on your business – both now and in the future.

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One, somewhat off-kilter, example of such an engagement was the value for money study that the Council of Europe asked us to undertake in relation to the Council's spend on IT for the European Court of Human Rights. No 'industry' benchmark data for such an exercise exists - therefore we had to develop a methodology for comparing the relative IT spend - and benefits realised - by a range of international legal tribunals.