Best Practices for Enterprise Deployment

Technology has to be implemented and used efficiently, effectively, and with a repeatable process that can provide flexibility to support change and growth. Information Builders' Consulting – and in fact our whole organization – has built these processes heuristically over many years and many organizations. Information Builders has been helping a broad spectrum of organizations achieve the promised benefits of IT for over 30 years. This Intellectual Property (IP) has morphed and grown over the years, as technology and the world business/organizational environment have grown and changed. We have built, formalized, and documented this IP in what we call Best Practices for Enterprise Deployment.

We have seen these practices pay off for our clients and have made best practices an integral part of the implementation of our Insurance Industry Products initiative. Products such as Insurance Reporting Foundation (IRF) for both standard and reinsurance companies need to be implemented using these best practices, to maximize their results and, hence, value. IRF is discussed in more detail in this issue in a related article, Best Practices for Insurance.

Knowing that our success depends on our clients' success, we at Information Builders Consulting are motivated to transfer the IP of Best Practices for Enterprise Deployment to our clients. These best practices are organized into nine modules, which oddly enough, is the same number of steps as in our Touch Points for Project Success (which is a topic for another occasion).

The modular organization of our Best Practices for Enterprise Deployment processes is as follows:

	Organizational Readiness
	Data Management and Integration
	Application Design and Development
	Architecture and Administration
	Change Management
	Security
	Migration and Conversion
	Training and Education
	Production Support

Note that product names or product categories, for that matter, are not seen in these module titles. The processes, while of paramount importance, are applicable to most products. Information Builders' advantage here is twofold.

1. Both our iWay software integration offerings and our WebFOCUS BI offering are commonly accepted across the IT industry as being the most complete, the most scalable, and therefore the most appropriate for enterprise usage.
2. We know how to implement these nine areas of Best Practices very well when applied to Information Builders' products. We've done it for organizations the world over.

The bottom line is that in today's world, the achievement of organizational missions requires getting the most out of IT, and that requires the successful implementation of Best Practices for Enterprise Deployment. Information Builders, its products, support teams, and consultants provide the fastest and most reliable way to help you do just that.