Our technology acquisition experts will help you design and acquire applications and architecture that improve your operational performance while preparing for change and managing risk.

During a technology acquisition, it can be a challenge to quickly identify technology requirements, credible enterprise solutions, and an effective evaluation process. We’ll help you select the right enterprise system to achieve your goals. Regardless of the project, our team will define a plan to meet your objectives within tight budgets and under strict timelines. The methodology of our team of project management specialists is based on the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). We’ll maintain the scope of your project, focusing on your stated objectives.

Our technology acquisition consultants will provide:

• Technology marketplace insight
• Independence & objectivity
• Effectiveness
• Operational improvement
• Contract negotiation
• Implementation planning
• Project management 
• How our technology acquisition insights can benefit you:
• Proven due diligence approach reduces your time involvement 
• Reduced enterprise system ownership risks & cost
• Staff engagement & buy-in of planned change

A plan designed to avoid the pitfalls of enterprise system implementation

Enablers:

• Total cost of ownership/ return on investment model
• Technology market data
• Proposal analysis tool
• Baseline software requirements
• Staffing needs assessment tool 
• Dozens of templates

Our process consulting service experts can help you do more with less — provide new services, speed up turnaround times, improve accuracy and customer experience.

Legacy technologies, workarounds, ineffective processes, shadow systems, and management structures can all impede your progress. We’ll take a holistic look at your operations to improve the interplay of people, processes, and technology to ultimately improve service, and reduce cost, variability, and risk.

Our process consultants have extensive expertise applying operations improvement methodologies (several of our consultants are Certified Professionals) and other waste-reducing principles including leveraging technology to improve operations. We’ll help you achieve significant improvements in productivity and efficiency by implementing technology to transform your operations with a focus on continuous improvement.

How our process consulting services will benefit you:

• Reduce waste & improve service
• Enable current staff to provide more value
• Ensure accountability & transparency
• Retain control over resources
• Identify true costs

Enablers:

• Value stream mapping
• Key performance indicators
• Templates

We provide quality project assurance to help you implement enterprise technology projects on-time and within budget while ensuring your goals are achieved.

Enterprise system projects such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), enterprise content management (ECM), and enterprise asset management (EAM) have inherent risks associated with them. Since these systems are critical to your overall strategy, you want to avoid cost overruns and other disruptive factors that can distract your company from its core mission.

Our project management quality assurance (PMQA) consultants will help you overcome these challenges. Our project assurance consultants have the technical expertise, project management, strategy, and planning experience to guide you through a successful enterprise system implementation.

We help ensure your enterprise system projects succeed — not only in terms of cost and timeline — but also in terms of operational improvements. Our approach focuses on your end goals to avoid risks and achieves your organizational objectives.

Regardless of the project, the VSF team can help you carefully define a plan to achieve your objectives within tight budgets and under strict timelines. Our team of project management specialists is experienced in using a methodology based on the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). You can depend on us to control the scope of your project by staying focused on stated objectives.

How our project assurance expertise can benefit you:

• Proven due diligence approach reduces your time involvement 
• Reduced enterprise system ownership risks & cost 
• Staff engagement & buy-in of planned change
• A plan designed to avoid the pitfalls of enterprise system implementation
• A solution with optimized process improvement

Enablers:

• Project dashboard
• Project tracking tool (risk, issues, budget, change, etc.)
• Staff resource allocation tool

We assist clients with strategy development, design and implementation of IT infrastructure, and end user technologies.

With updates and upgrades, your organization’s IT environment could function more effectively and efficiently, but where can you turn for advice? You can depend on our IT infrastructure specialists for the most cost-effective solutions.

Our independent, experienced team will examine your existing situation and guide future, including improved reliability, optimizing IT infrastructure and operations, growth projections, plans for facility renovations, and support for enterprise system upgrades and expansions. We possess extensive experience with technologies available in the marketplace today and can help design solutions in the following technologies:

• Enterprise-wide networks
• Wireless
• Servers & storage
• Telephony
• Cable infrastructure
• Video surveillance & access control
• End-user technologies
• Cloud/hosted/managed services
• Virtualization
• Video distribution & production

Once a strategy is determined, we can help you find and select products and vendors to provide the recommended improvements. Our process will help you optimize the return on your dollar by prioritizing IT infrastructure upgrades/replacements while addressing increasing demands for bandwidth, connectivity, and security.

How IT infrastructure optimization can benefit you:

Increased reliability of your IT infrastructure, the foundation of your information systems

A comprehensive IT infrastructure strategy that identifies funding & support requirements

Advice from specialists whose only concern is your organization; we are independent of all vendors, manufacturers, & services providers. Ground floor team to oversee the implementation & ensure solutions are delivered on-time, within budget, & conform to the goals of your organization

Today, more than ever, your current technology assets and new technology investments must deliver their expected returns and support your organization’s overall strategic plan.

Have you wondered whether your current systems are meeting internal and customer needs most efficiently? Have you committed the right dollar amount to IT investments for the next five years? Do you have the right technology in place to meet new demands? Is your IT staffing adequate?

Our technology selection consultants can help you take the guesswork (and stress) out of finding the answers and developing an actionable plan. Our consultants will help you fully realize the potential of your current IT operations and build a framework for vetting future investments.

Our strategic process will help articulate future goals and priorities. Most importantly, you’ll walk away with a technology selection and an actionable plan to integrate and align major initiatives, strategies, and investments with the administrative structures and real-world tactics that will move your organization forward.

How a technology selection will benefit you:

• Increase value from IT investments
• Improve IT service levels
• Technology recommendations based on best practices

We work with clients to design and acquire applications and architecture that improves their operational performance while preparing for change and managing risk. 

We provide project management quality assurance to help clients implement enterprise technology projects on time, within budget while helping to ensure organizational goals are achieved. 

We deliver ERP solutions that help clients achieve significant process improvements, cost reductions, and advanced analytics for monitoring performance. 

We assist clients with strategy development, design and implementation of IT infrastructure and end use technologies. 

We assist clients with a comprehensive assessment of their technology governance, organizations, operations, and assets to recommend enhanced value and cost containment. 

We help clients achieve dramatic improvements in cybersecurity controls and mechanisms to ensure sustain confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data.

Improve efficiencies and contain costs

If you are trying to decide if your organization could benefit from an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, if you are looking for more value from your current system, or if you are shopping for a replacement ERP system, the ERP specialists on the VSF technology consulting team can help you make an informed decision.

As independent, unbiased advisors, they can assess your situation and develop a plan that fits your unique situation. Whether you are a school, a government institution, a manufacturer, or a not-for-profit organization, you can rely on our ERP specialists to know the ERP marketplace and the solutions available. And they have experience helping organizations like yours select and implement ERP systems that unite their strategies, people, and processes.

ERP Assessments – When conducting an assessment, our ERP specialists inventory your unique needs and objectives and determine where you are getting the most out of your current system and whether replacing your system is necessary and justifiable. Utilizing information from the ERP assessment, they will help you build a business case to determine and justify what improvement alternatives are available to satisfy your needs in both the short and longer term.

Continuous Improvement – ERP providers are continually upgrading their systems and delivery methods. You can collaborate with our ERP system specialists to make sure that your solution is providing the highest level of reliability and the cost savings you can expect. 

ERP Implementation – Whether you are implementing upgrades to optimize your current system or implementing a new system, our ERP implementation specialists can help you through each phase of the implementation process. They bring deep application software and infrastructure expertise to every implementation. They use a project management methodology that carefully defines the scope of the project and the roles of everyone involved along with a timeline and checkpoints to ensure the implementation will be completed on time and within budget.

Infrastructure Optimization – As ERP systems introduce more and more improvements, they demand more and more from your IT infrastructure. Is your network robust enough to support the improvements? Our ERP solutions team can examine the full range of your IT architecture and give you the answers and make recommendations if upgrades are needed.

ERP Selection – You will especially appreciate the independence of our ERP specialists when you are cutting through the noise of vendors vying for your business. Our technology consultants can help you develop an RFP that reflects the ERP system you need. They can also help you determine whom to ask for proposals and review the completed proposals to make sure they meet your requirements. Finally, their independence and experience enables them to thoroughly review and help negotiate the contracts to reduce your cost and risk. Throughout the ERP selection process, you can rely on our ERP specialist to maximize the return on your technology investment.

There is no question that enterprise resource planning can help you work more effectively and efficiently. But finding the right system, supporting it with the right infrastructure, leveraging best practices, and adapting it to your organization’s unique needs is a complex process. Our ERP team can help you face these challenges with confidence and deliver a robust return on investment.

Our management consultants bring a successful track record helping organizations with their internal operations.

When you engage our management consultants you will appreciate the years of experience they have gained helping organizations of all sizes thrive beyond their expectations. Our team includes specialists in operations analysis & process improvement, restructuring, and strategic planning.

They often begin their operations consulting relationships by helping clients benchmark their operations against their peers. During that process, you will appreciate the depth of industry knowledge our management consultants bring to your project. In many cases, we maintain proprietary databases and can quickly compare you against your peers in areas like pricing, operations, human resource statistics, and financial performance.

Data-driven decision making

You can depend on our management consultants to give you the information you need to make good decisions. They will gather data quickly because they know your success depends on reasoned, timely responses to changes in your markets, opportunities to expand, and other events that cause you to re-evaluate your strategies.

Our clients describe our management consultants as “strong on theory and hands-on experience.” You will appreciate that many of our operations consultants were business executives or entrepreneurs.

In other words, when our management consultants help you with strategic planning, you can be sure you will end up with realistic, actionable plans. And they can collaborate with their colleagues in the firm to help you implement your plans.

Operations improvement

If part of your strategy is to increase profitability, our experienced operations improvement consulting team can help you identify and eliminate waste as well as come up with cost reduction strategies in every area of your organization, so that you can expend fewer resources and less time and human effort while improving quality and services.

If you need to quickly and dramatically impact cash flow and your bottom line, our seasoned operations restructuring experts can quickly assess your operations and execute a plan to get you back on track to profitability.

To ensure a healthy bottom line, it is always important to focus on the effectiveness and efficiency of your operations. You can depend on our experienced operations consulting team to help.