Blue Divider

IT consulting & strategy services

Begin with the end in mind

When it comes to creating an effective IT strategy, it’s common for companies to become “too close” to a project or their business situation. That’s when an objective, experienced outside expert can add tremendous strategic value.

We’ll help you overcome common roadblocks such as:

Gaining internal consensus as to goals, challenges and opportunities

Challenging the status quo and “that’s the way we’ve always done it” mentality

Strategizing for efficiency, profitability & competitive advantage within budget

Team working at computer

We help build consensus and move the ball forward

Too many valuable IT projects get held up in perpetual discussions and debates. Fluent’s expert team provides actionable assessments and planning services that address short- and long-term business goals, and existing and potential challenges.

Because every business is different and has ever-changing needs, we offer three levels of assessment and practical deliverables — IT Organizational Review, Technology Roadmap and IT Strategy.

Find out how our business-first IT Strategy and Consulting services can future-proof your business.

How it Works

Discovery Meeting

We’ll meet with you up front to gain an understanding of your project goals.

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We conduct a preliminary discovery meeting with you to better understand what’s driving the need to improve your company’s IT performance and/or planning. This is at no cost and lets us appropriately scope and focus our effort on what’s most important to you and achieving your business goals.

Stakeholder Interviews

We’ll schedule a series of interviews with key stakeholders.

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We then schedule a series of interviews with the appropriate key stakeholders and another more in-depth interview with leadership. During these interviews, we are seeking to gain a deeper understanding of:

  • The company’s business goals and strategy
  • The performance issues across all stakeholders and departments
  • Current organizational structure, key processes and the IT group’s mix of skill sets and experience

We then analyze our findings to create a gap analysis to determine the investments that will be necessary to achieve your company’s business goals.

IT Roadmap

We’ll use insights from the gap analysis to develop an IT Roadmap.

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Finally, we use the insights from the gap analysis to develop an IT Roadmap, complete with timeframes, budgetary and resourcing information necessary to achieve the plan. The IT Roadmap is right-sized to your specific situation and may include recommendations for improving your:

  • IT planning and governance
  • IT operational and support processes
  • Network, cybersecurity and disaster recovery capabilities
  • Overall operational efficiencies and market competitiveness
  • IT group’s effectiveness and accountability
  • IT cost structure and total cost of ownership

At this point, we can either hand off the IT Roadmap for you to execute alone, or if you prefer, we can lead the execution of the plan.

Our work in action

Car Parts

System Integration

How a franchisor improved the collection and accuracy of franchise performance data.

1,286% speed increase of mission critical system

The build of a single web interface resolved latency issues caused by the ineffectual integration between the company provided and shop management systems.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who executes the IT strategy?
If you have a true CIO on staff, then we would likely recommend that they lead the execution of the plan. If you don’t, we can provide a Fractional CIO to play that role.
How long does it take you to develop an IT strategy?
To conduct an initial assessment and provide high-level recommendations with associated rationale can take as little as 2- 3 weeks.
Why do I need an IT strategy?
Developing and documenting an IT strategy enables you to maximize IT performance while optimizing IT budgets and significantly reducing the risk of catastrophic events. To operate without an IT strategy is to ignore a critical success factor of modern business. Those who do, typically suffer negative impacts to their bottom-line.

“We devoted three months to preparing for this project and selecting a new software development partner to do the work. We ultimately chose Fluent and we couldn’t be happier with our choice. As a company, they’re a real pleasure to work with. We found their consultants to be exceptional, and their depth of knowledge and leadership style both confidence building and refreshing. Our project was a major success. We plan to partner with them again in the future. ”

– project controls manager, construction company

Are you stuck in neutral without an IT roadmap?

Let’s talk about your current IT challenges, and see how we can help.