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IT Strategy - a Stately Home
About the Client
The details have been sent to the client for review, amendment, and, hopefully, agreement.
The Situation
There are a number of locations using IT facilities, located quite some distance apart.
The IT systems had evolved gradually around the Trust and were not integrated to any real extent. Some locations were linked by a network, some exchanged data by transferring data on disks, and some were not linked to anything. All the sites were connected to a telephone exchange, installed a few years previously, although one was linked to the exchange via the BT Public Switched Network. This system could not handle combined data and voice traffic.
Virtually all users had access to word processing, spreadsheets and e-mail, although the software varies, especially between PCs and Macs, and also between different versions of Windows. A variety of items of applications software, such as Box Office and Accounting software, had been acquired, but they were not effectively integrated and it was difficult to provide users with access to software not used on their immediate network.
The client was aware of the limitations of the existing systems and had attempted to plan a way forward, but was hampered, both by the pressures of existing work, and the lack of strategic IT awareness within the Trust.
The Work Undertaken
The overall objective was to provide a strategy, which the trust could progress towards at a pace adaptable to their capabilities and means. Specifically, the aim was to determine the facilities which the Trust should be using within three to five years and the more detailed objectives were to identify:
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the functions which any future computer system should be able to support;
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the communications requirements of the Trust;
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the options available for meeting these needs, and the implications of each option.
The trust could then make informed decisions about the future IT strategy.