On this page, we describe some recent engagements Accendor has undertaken. Coupled with our services description and knowledge of our research areas, we hope you’ll be better able to see how Accendor can help you.

1. Establish an IT Governance Board: An IT Governance Board is an extension to an organization’s executive management committee structure. Composed of representatives of all arms of the business under the leadership of the CIO, the Governance Board takes on policy, priorities and investment decisions surrounding technology across the enterprise. Accendor has helped organizations create these bodies, which operate in a “Board of Directors” style, assisted IT organizations in adapting to the existence of the Governance Board, and integrated Governance Boards into existing portfolio, project and program management and architectural units.
   
   

2. Determine how best to invest in a Data Centre: From determining how best to handle business continuity issues, to questions of consolidation, outsourcing and reconfiguration, Accendor has helped organizations determine their strategy around in-house infrastructure. This has led to decisions to use a managed facility solution, to acquiring and using unorthodox space in an effective manager, to evaluating the quality of available space and determining its real value for a client (not the same as market value).
   
   

3. Take a Start Up through the Final Stages from Product Development to Sales & Marketing Mode: Accendor enjoys working with entrepreneurs as much as with large organizations. Taking a start up over the hurdle from product mode to sales mode is an organizational challenge. We subscribe to the axiom “real artists ship”, and worked with this client to them to simultaneously develop the support mechanisms (marketing, sales support, product support, etc.) they would need while focusing on “just enough” product to create a revenue stream. As a result, the firm self-financed its expansion and the founders maintained a significant equity stake.
   
   

4. Determine if Project Investment Should Continue: Any project manager worth her or his salt knows project schedules and requirements are dynamic, not static. As a result, it is common to face the question of whether to continue an investment. In this assignment, we looked at a key project that was seriously behind schedule. We determined whether to fund completion of the original intention, and, in this case, what to do to solve the complete problem, thus raising the value of the result (since it would now cost significantly more to complete). We obtained, through our analysis, a high degree of reuse and salvage for the client, minimizing write-downs associated with the change of direction.
   
   

5. Review the IT Strategy of a Corporation: This work focused on the contribution the business should be expecting from technology, and encompassed a full assessment of their portfolio of technology assets (with recommendations for replacements, eliminations and additions in a financially-controlled but cumulative way), organizational redevelopment, an improved planning process, development of “just enough” architecture to keep the strategy on track, and modified services arrangements with outsourcing and integration partners.
   
   

6. Determine if a Publicly-Traded Company should be Sold, Acquire to Infill its Product Line or Change Direction: Here Accendor took on the job of determining the future of a technology company at a time when their core markets were under stress and a simple product refresh cycle did not clearly make up for prior erosion of share. We ended up recommending an approach that allowed for small-scale but focused acquisitions to be done from cash flow and shares that would move the company into embedded technology markets, removing the key channel blocks currently in effect. We also recommended ways to work with existing channels during the transition, including which channel partners were likely to be more willing to work with the firm and its products rather than competitors, and why. The company is now well advanced on its reinvention with no impact to its share price during the transition.
   
   

7. Develop a Financially-based Technology Future State: Accendor believes that the fundamental decisions that exist around technology are financial in nature: a technology investment either creates new demand for the firm’s products and services (a top line impact) or it reduces the firm’s costs, typically in SG&A. We provided a long-term technology architecture that could be maintained, modified and enhanced internally based on key indicators from technology markets that would allow for orderly transitions toward a low cost environment. We provided gateway decision points to investigate services en route, from traditional outsourcing to cloud infrastructures, and ways to reuse and extend the life of paid-for assets. We indicated which applications should be migrated or replaced and when to keep a financially balanced asset base in effect, thus minimizing any depreciation impacts — and built the whole effort around a revenue point for the firm 20% less than its current incomes, to allow for continuation of the strategy under many different economic situations.
   
   

8. Review Efficacy of an Organization and Fitness for Future Demands: Following a corporate reorganization which merged and split divisions, we were asked to examine one of the resulting divisions with an eye toward its ability to fulfil the expected changes of the next few years. We proposed organizational models and work approaches which would allow for the redevelopment of practices ahead of the change wave, and which recognized the need for a major management team upgrading to meet the demands of the future, then worked with the existing management team to allow them to make the findings of their current strengths and weaknesses over into plans for them to fulfil within the division.
   
   

9. Deliver a Custom Education Program: Used to broaden the horizons of IT directors, senior managers, managers and senior staff, the client would propose particular topic areas being requested within the firm; others were proposed by Accendor as appropriate for this client. Sessions were composed of a formal presentation followed by an open forum.
   
   

10. Serve as a Neutral Third Party Monitor of Systems Integration & Outsourcing Contracts: Accendor analysts have been used to act as intermediaries in major systems integration and outsourcing agreements. For SI situations, the analyst is well-placed to intervene in both the client’s organization — bringing up failures of performance that are impacting the SI contract that may be politically difficult to deal with until a crisis has emerged — and in the SI’s organization. For outsourcing situations, repeated negative interactions between the two companies can lead to deadlock: the analyst is able to separate real issues from residual hostilities and help both “restart” on a new foundation.