(CLP) Programs

Appleton Greene corporate training programs are all process-driven. They are used as vehicles to implement tangible business processes within clients’ organizations, together with training, support and facilitation during the use of these processes. Corporate training programs are therefore implemented over a sustainable period of time, that is to say, between 1 year (incorporating 12 monthly workshops), and 4 years (incorporating 48 monthly workshops). Your program information guide will specify how long each program takes to complete. Each monthly workshop takes 6 hours to implement and can be undertaken either on the client’s premises, an Appleton Greene serviced office, or online via the internet. This enables clients to implement each part of their business process, before moving onto the next stage of the program and enables employees to plan their study time around their current work commitments. The result is far greater program benefit, over a more sustainable period of time and a significantly improved return on investment.

Appleton Greene uses standard and bespoke corporate training programs as vessels to transfer business process improvement knowledge into the heart of our clients’ organizations. Each individual program focuses upon the implementation of a specific business process, which enables clients to easily quantify their return on investment. There are hundreds of established Appleton Greene corporate training products now available to clients within customer services, e-business, finance, globalization, human resources, information technology, legal, management, marketing and production. It does not matter whether a client’s employees are located within one office, or an unlimited number of international offices, we can still bring them together to learn and implement specific business processes collectively. Our approach to global localization enables us to provide clients with a truly international service with that all important personal touch. Appleton Greene corporate training programs can be provided virtually or locally, and they are all unique in that they individually focus upon a specific business function. All (CLP) programs are implemented over a sustainable period of time, usually between 1-4 years, incorporating 12-48 monthly workshops and professional support is consistently provided during this time by qualified learning providers and where appropriate, by Accredited Consultants.

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Executive summary

Leading IT Transformation

Leading IT Transformation is targeted at organizations that are struggling with various issues impacting information technology implementations. Perhaps your teams are plagued with schedule and cost overruns. There may be a lack of trust or partnership between IT and the business. The business may need IT to deliver value faster with better collaboration with the business. Often there is an increasing demand for responsive IT processes and infrastructure that meets the business’ growing and ever-changing needs. One or, more likely, a combination of these factors may have led the organization to conclude they need to transform their IT and business interactions to “fix” what is broken. This course will give learners tools to address these situations. +

Possible segments may include:

– Creating a 90 Day Plan (within 30 days);
– Conducting a Current State Assessment (Days 1-30 of 90 days);
– Creating a Future State Design (Days 31-60 of 90 days);
– Developing a realistic Transformation Roadmap (Days 61-90 of 90 days); and
– Execution of Transformation Roadmap (Day 91+ – usually 3-5 years in total).

Other possible segments include:

– Effective Leadership (including concepts of Servant Leadership, collaborative partnerships);
– Effective Organizational Design, (getting the “right people in the right seats”);
– Leading Organizational Change;
– Effective Team-Building (to enhance teamwork and collaboration);
– Developing Meaningful Metrics;
– Communicating Progress (Successes and Challenges);
– Implementing/Improving Agile Practices (Kanban and Scrum);
– Building an Effective IT Outsourcing or Co-Sourcing Model;
– Software Package/Service Evaluation;
– IT Vendor Negotiations; and
– IT Vendor Relationship Management

The 90 Day Plan is intended to jumpstart the transformation process by timeboxing the discovery, design and high-level planning efforts to 30 days each. The first 30 days is spent understanding where the company or business area is by interviewing key stakeholders (executive leaders, area leaders, staff, other business areas that do or should collaborate, etc.) to understand the perceptions of the current state. These may not be accurate, but they are true from those individuals’ viewpoints. The next 30 days are spent designing the ‘future state’. This involves researching industry leading practices, any published standards, leading competitor practices, etc., to develop the future state design. The final 30 days are spent developing a roadmap to get to that future state in a very practical way, anticipating (and addressing) the challenges likely to be encountered. The objective is not to achieve perfection in the 30-day increments, but rather, to gain the most value in the shortest period of time applying the 80/20 Rule. In the Current State Assessment, the objective is to learn 80% of what we need to know about what is good and bad about the current state in the first 30 days, and learn the remainder (e.g., outlier situations) over time. Likewise, the objective in the Future State Design is to get it 80% right, with adjustments to be made as more is learned. The Roadmap is not ‘set in stone’, but rather it provides high level targets to achieve important milestones which can be communicated to obtain buy-in from leadership, IT staff and business areas. Overall, it should be about 80% accurate, with more accuracy in the next 6 months, and less accuracy 2-3 years out. The Roadmap is a living document, with timing adjustments expected as more is learned along the way.

A Brief History of the Use of Technology in Business

A company’s IT infrastructure is its backbone. It provides the foundation to manage business processes, serve customers and work with vendors. Technology has advanced tremendously over the past seven decades. A laptop today has roughly the same power a supercomputer had 20-30 years ago. Information systems cover many more functions of the organization than before, have become more integrated, and allow visibility into vast amounts of data to inform business decisions. Technological advancements have continued at a relentless pace, impelling businesses worldwide to modernize their IT systems to gain competitive advantages.

Tracing the IT infrastructure evolution

1930-1950: This era of electronic accounting machines used large, cumbersome machines with hardwired software. The machines were used for sorting, adding and reporting data.

1959-present: Mainframe computers were the first powerful computers that provided virtual memory and multi-tasking, and supported thousands of remote terminals. This era was defined by centralized computing managed by programmers and system operators. Minicomputers made computing decentralized to individual business units.

1981-present: The IBM PC made an appearance in 1981, attracting the attention of businesses across America. The PC era had arrived, and the big winners were Intel and Microsoft, who formed an alliance to build the software and hardware platforms for personal computing and businesses. This ‘Wintel’ partnership became weak with the growth in mobile computing; in 2017, Microsoft announced partnerships with chipmakers Qualcomm and Cavium to power its PCs and Azure cloud computing service.

Starting from 1983, the client server era reshaped the way computers were used. In this form of computing, computers (“clients”) are networked to server computers that provide services and capabilities to clients. Client/server computing provided a host of benefits, including integrated services, centralized management, improved data sharing, and data interchangeability and interoperability.

From 1992 onwards, enterprise internet began connecting computers and related devices across departments, facilitating data accessibility. Also known as a corporate network, enterprise internet uses the TCP/IP communications architecture.

Evolution of management information systems and IT management roles

A management information system (MIS) is a computer system that collects and stores information and includes tools for analyzing that information. The tools support processes, operations, business intelligence and IT. Past management information systems operated independent of other company systems. They were found only on mainframe computers and the information they processed were used only by the company management. Today, information systems, as they are commonly called, serve different organizational levels.

In the mid-1960s to the mid-70s, information systems were centralized and reserved for governance and management issues. The information systems and their reports were controlled by the accounting department. They used mainframe computers, the assembly language Fortran, databases and ethernet networks.

As the benefits of organization-wide implementation of information systems became apparent, initiatives were formed to explore the scope of additional information system projects, culminating in the adoption of minicomputers and mid-range computers.

In the third era, from the mid-80s to the late 90s, information became decentralized and the role of the Chief Information Office (CIO) emerged for planning the purchase and management of information systems for various organizational departments.

The fourth era, beginning in the late 1990s, made systems and data more accessible to all organizational employees. Technologies utilized included social media, search engines and laptops, tablets and smartphones.

The recent years have seen the emergence of cloud computing-based information systems. The value of cloud computing derives from the availability of resources in a flexible and economical manner. As a model for delivering software, platforms and infrastructure on an on-demand basis, the cloud offers businesses huge cost-saving potential.

Problems with older technology

Relying on old technology to run operations is risky for several reasons. Not only can it affect operations but also negatively impact users.

Reduced productivity: Older systems may slow down not due to age but due to the weight of new software, which require new and better hardware than what aging systems have. This bloat makes PCs and laptops slow, hindering productivity. It poses a problem when employees n