ICT Strategy 2013 - Hays

3.2 Developing the Business ICT Strategy
The Business ICT Strategy 2013-2016 is supported by a comprehensive component based
assessment of 164 distinct Council business systems and the underlying enabling ICT infrastructure.
The component assessment provides the Council with insight into current capabilities and required
future capabilities and defines in some detail the business requirements and needs of the
organisation over the period 2013-2016. The assessment followed a structured repeatable approach
that allows for additional assessments in the future of capabilities as business requirements develop.
In addition to the component analysis a Council wide “Voice of the Customer” survey of staff was
conducted to seek staff views on current ICT service provision.
The component assessment was conducted by the business and ICT between August and October
2012. Each component was assessed against the Architectural Principles identified in Section 3.1
above, taking into consideration on-going projects, risks, issues and business challenges, and given
an overall RAG (Red, Amber or Green) rating.
The component assessment ratings were analysed against the Enterprise Architecture and a “Heat
Map” of current capabilities was compiled. The analysis was captured and analysed at a number of
levels of detail with level 1 presenting the highest level of aggregation of current capabilities.
The capability heat map supports the development of a portfolio of opportunities across the
following dimensions:
1. Corporate or departmental i.e. opportunities that will deliver business benefit to individual
departments or functions;
2. Organisation-wide i.e. opportunities that will deliver benefits across the whole Council; and
3. Infrastructure i.e. enabling projects that will underpin the delivery of either service specific
or Council wide capabilities.
Opportunities within the portfolio have been categorised as either Strategic or Tactical/Operational:
Strategic opportunities are defined as capabilities requiring significant attention and may
require the development or delivery of a new system or significant effort to address issues
with an existing set of capabilities. As a result Strategic opportunities may not have preexisting
funding in some cases, or the business case may be more complex or need to
consider a longer time period when looking at whole life costs.
Tactical/Operational opportunities are defined as capabilities requiring a minor upgrade to
an existing system or requiring business as usual support activities, and where funding for
such initiatives is from existing business budgets.
South Gloucestershire Council Business ICT Strategy 2013-2016 Page 18 of 30