Training Services

HCR develops and delivers customized business value training content.   This training has helped IT vendors (and their partners) enhance selling effectiveness by focusing on the business value of products/services.  Business value training also helps IT and business managers make more effective/credible IT investment decisions.

Typical Training Format: 

• 40% Lecture
• 30% Demonstrations of tools, spreadsheets, and sample deliverables
• 30% Individual and team activities, exercises, and case studies (practice using tools, estimating, analyzing, interviewing, etc.)

Training Duration:  1-5 days

Potential Training Content

1. Overview
   1. Common terminology – business value, economic justification, business case, ROI, TCO,
   2. Importance of credibly/accurately assessing the business value of investments
   3. Trends / key issues
      1. Why business value is becoming increasingly important
      2. Why more business value assessments are not credible
4. When and why perform a business value assessment?
2. Financial concepts
   1. Costs, benefits, TCO (total cost of ownership)
   2. ROI, NPV, IRR, payback period, EVA
   3. Cash flow analysis
3. Key components of business value assessments
   1. Business assessment
      1. General organization/industry assessment
         
      2. IT assessment
         
      3. Business assessment
         
      4. Process diagramming and analysis
         
   2. Solution assessment
      
      1. Proposed solution selection or clarification
         
      2. Solution mapping (map solution capabilities to KPIs, KSFs, and benefits)
         
      3. Implementation planning
         
      4. Deployment planning
         
   3. Costs & benefits
      
      1. Qualitative benefit assessment
         
      2. Estimating IT benefits (TCO savings) - IT labor and service savings, hardware savings, software savings
         
      3. Estimating business benefits - cost savings, productivity improvements, revenue growth, KPI (key performance indicator) impacts, other benefits
         
      4. Cost assessment (hardware, software, IT labor and services, user labor)
         
   4. Analysis & reporting
      
      1. Risk assessment
         
      2. Options (flexibility) analysis (e.g.  using Black-Scholes Option Pricing Model)
         
      3. Financial analysis
         
      4. The business case
4. Process to conduct business value studies
   1. Client qualification
   2. Sponsor/key stakeholder interview
   3. Planning/preparation
   4. Kick-off meeting
   5. Surveys/questionnaires
   6. Interviewing
   7. Product demos
   8. Workshops/visioning
   9. Analysis/modeling
   10. Review/validation
   11. Final presentation
   12. Consensus on next steps
   13. Deployment planning
   14. Final deliverable (the business case)
   15. 3rd party audits, peer reviews
   16. Post-project review
   17. Monitoring actual results achieved
5. Other related assessment types & components (purpose, samples, etc.)
   1. Project portfolio assessments
   2. Maturity assessments
   3. Capability assessments
   4. Competitive comparisons
   5. Pro/con tables
   6. Benefits management
   7. Best practices impact assessment
   8. Key success factor impact assessment
   9. Business process impact assessment
   10. Benchmarking
   11. Scorecards
6. Evidence:  finding and using sources of cost and benefit data/information (tools, publications, databases, expertise, etc.)
   1. Scholarly publications
   2. IT researchers (Gartner, Forrester, IDC, etc)
   3. Technology vendors (Microsoft, IBM, etc)
   4. Books
   5. Benchmarking services
   6. Trade publications
   7. Organizations
   8. Consultants
7. Best practices for conducting successful business value studies
   1. Set expectations
   2. Involve appropriate executive sponsor and other key stakeholders
   3. Effective project management
   4. Be conservative
   5. Use credible methods to quantify benefits (use multiple approaches, if possible)
   6. Leave an audit trail (clear link to the data source)
   7. Transparency:  avoid “black box” approaches
   8. Leverage research/data – minimize opinion-based calculations
   9. Obtain buy-in
   10. Be comprehensive and detailed, but follow the 80/20 rule
   11. Business value studies at government agencies and other nonprofit organizations
8. Methodologies, processes, and tools (when to use, sample deliverables, etc.)
   1. TCO – Total Cost of Ownership (Gartner)
   2. TVO – Total Value of Opportunity (Gartner)
   3. REJ – Rapid Economic Justification (Microsoft)
   4. TEI – Total Economic Impact (Forrester)
   5. Others
9. Resources/references/research

Contact Us for more information.