IT Project Risk Management: Today's IT projects are much more complex than a normal construction project because of the systems, technology, organizational and business aspects involved. Because of this, over 74% of complex IT/ERP projects fail. One of the best ways to guard against this failure is to hire an experienced independent risk manager who can see issues long before they affect the project budget, schedule or quality. See attached presentation for more information.

SOX: Any company listed on a US stock exchange must pass SOX 302 (certification of financial reports) or 404 (certification of internal controls) and possibly must report under section 409 (material event reporting). Audit firms, executives, Boards and CIOs understand that the issue of compliance to these standards is now a part of business life. Unfortunately, the rules have been fluid and have wreaked havoc on IT groups as they are spending more resources on SOX than value creation. CIOs recognize that they need to put in place a system of controls to automate the effort of compliance, get IT projects back on track, and once again, focus their IT organizations on delivering long term value to the business. Independent consultants can help by executing the findings of the external auditor. If companies use the external auditor to execute the findings they are in effect asking the fox to guard the henhouse. If an independent is used the audit firms are much more likely to be reasonable for fear the independent may uncover abuses. This should be a sweet spot for a company like GWC.

C-SOX: This is the same as SOX, except that C-Sox is less onerous and can usually be handled using internal resources. The only difference is that C-SOX is less onerous and can usually be handled by internal resources.

Energy Trust Governance: There is a growing concern among the large energy trusts that they are too big to act small on governance issues. It appears that they have grown rapidly from a conglomeration of small companies and this growth has caused a strain on governance in their finance systems.

Mid-Sized IT Governance Planning: Smaller companies can't afford full time risk and security personnel but still need to protect the company's assets. GWC can help by providing services and a process or checklist for checking and fixing issues before they become problems.

Independent Audit Execution: Companies should hire independent consultants to execute the findings of the audit firms. This protects the company in a couple of ways. It assures that the findings are reasonable and keeps the audit firms in check by not rewarding an increase in findings with more billings.

e-Procurement Planning: All successful e-procurement projects start with solid planning. Every company is different but most follow the same basic steps:

Indent Management, eTendering, eAuctioning, Vendor Management, Catalogue Management, and Contract Management.

Package/Vendor Selection: Much like ERP package selection, our experience with the various packages and vendors in this area should make us an ideal choice for this type of work. This is an area where an independent consultant should be the logical choice to ensure and unbiased opinion.

Electronic RFP Creation: One key to getting the best price from vendors is the assurance that the process is completely unbiased and will follow the rules laid out in the request for proposal. If the suppliers don't trust the system they won't give their "best and final" price.. However, new electronic tools ensure that sealed bids stay sealed until the date spelled out in the RFP and the rules are laid out in such a way that everyone is playing on an even field. These tools save months of time and always get a better price on large bids.

Reverse / Dutch Auction Execution:GWC has strong experience in this area, in both the US and Canada.

Strategic Sourcing: Strategic sourcing is a classical method of mining through commodity and part information in ERP systems to consolidate and prioritize purchases into strategic areas that can be bid in bulk. The size of the contracts ensure better pricing, service and partnerships. This is more manually intensive and doesn't produce the same results on a percentage basis as reverse auctions or e-RFP's but typically produces more bottom line dollars because more commodities can be tapped.

Program Management: GWC has some of the most experienced program / project / portfolio managers in Canada. Beyond the obvious project planning, risk management, budget and schedule control experienced program managers intuitively see risks far enough in advance to keep them from negatively affecting the project. In summary a good project manager brings complex projects in on budget, schedule and quality to deliver the business value. Our program managers have a long record of on time, budget and quality implementations.

Master Data Management: Before any company can have a successful core system implementation, they must have clean master data. This is usually a daunting task and if looked at in a "waterfall" method almost can't be done because of the sheer size. However, experience shows how and what to prioritize and how many of the tasks can be omitted, automated or simplified. It's a surprisingly large area of need that should yield a fair amount of business. When complete the company will save millions or tens of millions of dollars on simple things like procurement contract consolidation, resource allocations, etc.

IT Architecture: Interestingly most IT departments spend double what is needed because of simple mistakes in architecture. We have typically seen tens of millions wasted due to duplication or misapplication of technology. For example, all SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems are pretty good and do basically the same thing but most companies have many different systems - we have seen cases of over 12 standards. If a company will standardize their major systems (e.g. document management, middleware or any other major packaged solution) they can save money, increase productivity and improve quality because resources can focus on a single standard. In other words the company can do much more with much less. This is an area of low hanging fruit and the value is easily measured. In most cases we have seen 10-40% savings accompanied by an 10-50% increase in productivity.

IT Benchmarking: Every IT shop should benchmark themselves against the industry, best in class, and all industries, world class, every year to ensure they are keeping up. Experienced independent consultants can tailor the benchmark for the area and company.

Shared Services: Implementing a shared services strategy for major applications and IT services is one of the quickest and easiest ways of improving quality and productivity while dramatically decreasing costs. GWC has done a number of successful engagements in Calgary.

IT strategy development: CIO's are often too busy to do the necessary long term planning and need someone with CIO experience to be their right hand. To be successful, a 3 and 5 year strategic plan needs to be presented to and approved by their peers and the Board. Without this the executive team and Board can't understand or approve project and operational budgets. In most cases their peers won't even understand the results that IT is achieving every day which could lead to IT budgets and priorities being questioned ultimately leading to IT being treated as a cost center instead of a business partner. However, it is not difficult to marry business needs to technology and process improvements. GWC has former CIO's who can work with the business, peers and the Board to gain agreement on a strategy that will return measurable business value.

Turnaround Situations: It is often difficult for executives to deal with difficult situations caused by changes in the business or technology. Many times areas need to be re-arranged, downsized or outsourced/insourced to accommodate the changing environment. GWC has senior IT advisors who can either lead or facilitate this better than permanent employees because it can be done without emotion, compromise or residual harsh feelings. Something as simple as sunsetting old systems that have outlived their usefulness can be a political minefield which could impact careers negatively which paralyzes everyone involved. Our IT partners have built their career on identifying and executing the changes needed to make a turnaround successful. Best of all consultants can be easily released if required by the political environment.

CIO Coaching: Many companies promote a successful IT manager into their CIO without the proper training and mentoring in advance. Unfortunately the day to day operational successes that have built the manager's career will not translate into the strategic vision needed as a CIO. Strategic thinking, business partnership, executive communications and most of all understanding the needs of the business and Board are all areas that need to be learned. We have the experience of seasoned SVPs and CIOs to help make this transition successful.

Interim CIO: It typically takes 6-12 months to find a new CIO and we have experienced CIOs that can help fill the void so things don't go off track in the interim period. IT can easily spend 2-5 times more than it should and will have lower productivity if left to its own devices. This isn't normally malicious but tends to happen because all of the moving parts work independently instead of as a single entity. This is second nature for our CIOs and should add millions of dollars in value to almost any company.

First 100 Days Training: It's vitally important for any executive, especially a CIO, to set direction, organizational structure and basically put their fingerprint on the organization and gain buy-in soon after they are hired. However, most new CIO's aren't strategic and need help understanding this important process. Any company hiring a new CIO should hire a successful CIO to mentor to ensure the investment in their new executive is not wasted.

Insourcing/Outsourcing:Every company should consider the balance of outsourcing to insourcing in IT and procurement every year. An independent consultant that has successfully gone through this process multiple times will ensure success. Although the process is positive, the politics, fear, uncertainty and doubt can be very difficult and in most cases can either derail the process before it starts or damage it beyond repair. An experienced independent consultant with practical experience and no relation to the companies involved is necessary to ensure the optimal solution is achieved.

Mergers and Acquisitions:IT integration is key to any successful merger or acquisition. We specialize in identifying synergies, planning and implementing the integration project and ensuring results through proper change management. Interestingly, most issues and opportunities are recognized in IT - governance, integrating ERP, integration, etc.

Package Selection: The most important step in a successful ERP implementation is selecting the technology that best suits the business needs and personality. All ERP systems work well but the executive sponsors, business partners and technology groups must be in alignment on what needs to be implemented in order to deliver the most value. This area, like outsourcing, needs an independent consultant to lead or facilitate to ensure emotions or biases that may be present in the company or consulting companies affiliated with a package provider don't rule the day. This is not to say emotions or politics aren't important but the consultant should be the voice of independence that the client can listen to before making the final decision. I have worked with most major vendors and know them well enough to guide the client through the process - even negotiation if they like.

Program Planning: Our consultants are among the most experienced in North America and can almost always save millions or tens of millions in the case of large projects for the client through proper planning, and negotiations (ERP, hardware database vendors in addition to regulators if necessary). We have always come in on time, budget and quality in large part because of the rigorous up front planning.

Blueprinting: During the "Blueprinting Phase" the business processes are designed and any gaps between the "to be" processes and the ERP system are identified. These gaps and complexities are recorded in the RICCEF (Reports, Interfaces, Conversions, Configuration, Extensions and Forms) and the team must create a solution, define a workaround or ask the business to change their processes to match a supported solution. At the end of this phase all processes will be defined and documented with a signed agreement between all parties (systems integrator, business, IT and sponsors). This is the foundation for the successful implementation and operation and agreement must be complete before moving to the next stage gate in the project.

Design/Build: This phase of the project is where the final solution is developed. The business processes are configured, prototyped, unit tested and approved in a development environment. Similarly the other elements of the RICCEF are created, tested and approved before a final signoff is completed signaling that the project is ready to move into the final phase before go live.

Integration Testing and Business Readiness: All of the final configurations, programs, reports and forms are migrated into an integrated environment where they are tested from end to end at high or full volume to be sure all elements work in concert. The test teams will run scenarios through a real end to end test to ensure that regular daily processes as well as outliers are fully tested and documented. After the system has been fully tested and documented end users are brought in to be trained and test the final production system through a series of simulations of actual real world transactions along with multiple cycles of the "Go Live" process. These rehearsals not only shake out any final bugs in the system but train a large set of end users that will ultimately become the Super Users that will ensure a successful go live and operation.

Go Live and Stabilization: Assuming the previous phases have been completed correctly the go live should be relatively straightforward. After go live the stabilization phase begins. There is an initial storm period where extra resources are needed to help users, who have training only, not the super users, gain the real world experience needed to stabilize operations. The extra consulting resources are also needed to resolve any unforeseen issues.

Organizational Change Management (OCM): OCM is one of the most important and the most overlooked area of every major ERP program. Business involvement, end user training and communications are needed to ensure alignment and knowledge needed for a successful project. Change management is a structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from their current state to a desired future state. Change management is the process during which the changes of a system are implemented in a controlled manner by following a pre-defined framework/model with, to some extent, reasonable modifications. Managing expectations, politics and knowledge is vital to a smooth transition.

ERP Project Risk Management: ERP projects are much more complex than normal projects because of the system, technology, organizational and business process changes involved. Because of this, over 74% of complex ERP projects fail. One of the best ways to guard against this failure is to hire an experienced independent risk manager who can see issues long before they affect the project budget, schedule or quality. See attached presentation for more information.