Could This Be You?
I was sitting at a lunch table at a grower conference a couple of years ago talking to some of the management team of a Western US grower. We were discussing key databases and reports that helped them assess current operational effectiveness. I asked them when the last time that server was backed up. The main manager hung his head. “I don’t know. Probably not in a long time.” was his delayed reply. He then went on to say that my question made him uncomfortable. I asked why. He said because they obviously had a big risk, and he didn’t want to think about the consequences to their business of losing that important data source.
This conversation illustrates one small aspect of dependency and risk that even small growers face with their technology systems.
What You Don’t Know Can Hurt Your Operation
In the day-to-day pressure of running a grower operation these important but not urgent issues simmer below the surface until they boil over causing an interruption to your operation. Or worse.
Can you answer the following questions about your operation?
- Do you know where your key data lives and key reports come from?
- Will your system backups work when you need them to?
- Do you need better data protection and automation for decision support?
- How does the critical data for your operation like sales or production flow?
- What happens when the key employee quits without notice?
- Do you know your vulnerabilities to hackers?
- Does your grower software provide the capabilities you need?
- Do you know and control the important aspects of your web domain and site?
- What is the next most important system improvement you need?
- What are the technology risks hidden in your business?
- What happens when your key sever fails?
- Do you have many manual data processes that need to be automated?
These are a small sample of the questions that can impact your operation from a technology perspective. If you don’t know the answers to all these there is an easy way to find out.
Help to find the answers
If you don’t know these answers to these questions, then consider having Advanced Grower Solutions perform an Information Technology Assessment and Blueprint report process on your business.
Whether you use our products and services or not, our Information Technology Assessment and Blueprint report process will help you understand your business better. It reveals and documents what may be only known in the minds of key employees. It documents the important areas of your technology, grower software and systems and information architecture. It shows system risks, capability gaps as well as potential business future needs. It provides a reference to help guide a future cohesive implementation plan for any provider you choose.
The Advanced Grower Solutions Information Technology Assessment and Blueprint report engagement has the following phases:
Phase 1: Discovery
We start the Information Technology Assessment and Blueprint report engagement with gathering information from your business and employees. In this phase we
- Assess the business model, setup and goals
- Interview key staff members
- Have key employees complete assessment questionnaires
- Review key systems setup and configurations
- Identify key employee singular dependencies
- Identify data flows and areas and key dependencies
- Data process flow identification, key reports, and data improvements
- Data process automation opportunities
- Investigate risk areas in your configuration
- Assess security and operational areas
- Software and systems listing
- Identify areas of technical obsolescence.
Part 2 Analysis and Documentation of Findings
Once we gather the basic details we will analyze and document our finding
- Create a technical overview of your business
- Document basic system architecture and hardware providers
- Document Data architecture and data sources
- Document system configurations
- Show key risk areas and possible mitigation strategies.
- Document business data needs and perform IT gap analysis.
- Document blueprint for future changes the business can enact when ready.
- Document ways to reduce employee busy work and improve data and system automation.
- Where applicable suggest no cost or low-cost immediate improvements for risk mitigation
- Re-interview or assess key areas as needed for clarity and completeness
Part 3: Presentation and Conclusion
- We will meet with you and/or your team
- Present an overview of our findings, analysis and recommendations.
- Provide a full confidential assessment report
- documenting our findings in clear language
- providing blueprint suggestions for future projects,
- show current risk areas and possible mitigations and
- discuss architectural changes to enact when the business is ready.
- And more
At the conclusion of the assessment the presentation and report are yours to keep, and you have no further commitment. If you choose we will engage with you for the defined projects or services from the play but there is no obligation to do so.
Expected Outcomes
Having a clear understanding of your technology structure and configuration gives the ownership peace of mind, and a strategy and action plans for future protections and improvements. It also lowers the risk of employee departure or vendor change.
Knowing where your data resides, how it flows, and its security state is also crucial for planning and execution. It improves communication, understanding and sets the stage for alignment of future technology projects.
The Advanced Grower Solutions team has over 160 collective years of experience in helping growers with software, data analysis, automation, and information systems. Our experienced, competent, and collaborative team can do a thorough assessment and provide you with actionable information to help you plan and execute your improvement strategy.
Engagement Details
Schedule
Depending on the size and complexity of your operation and the available of key employee resources this type of engagement covers just a few weeks. We will work around your schedule and availability to complete the activities of the discovery phase.
Confidentiality
This information we gather, the report and its contents are for your business (or who you designate) only. We do not share any data or aspects of a grower’s operation or details with anyone else. Our analysis and the details of our reports are your and yours alone.
Access
Certain parts of the assessment require server or network access. We will work with your technical resources to insure secure, temporary access is used then removed once we are finished with the data gathering phase.
Site Visits
It is usually beneficial to physically visit your facilities. We are sensitive to the grower’s facility challenges and schedules during the year and will work with the grower on a case-by-case basis for the best approach.
No Further Obligation
Just because you use Advanced Grower Solutions for an Information Technology Assessment and Blueprint report engagement you are not obligated to use any of our other products or services or to use us for any suggested improvements or future implementations.
Prices and Fees
Engagements of this quality and depth can run 10’s of thousands of dollars at standard industry consulting rates. We try to economize and charge minimal fees. Prices of this engagement are dependent on the size and complexity of the business. If you choose to engage, we will have an initial preliminary scoping call and give you a proposal tailored to your operation.
Commonly Asked Questions
Most businesses give free estimates why do you charge for the assessment?
The Advanced Grower Solutions Information Technology Assessment and Blueprint report is not an estimate for work for a specific project. It is a comprehensive technology review, assessment, and document with recommendations to help you more clearly see technology advantages, issues, risks and have a high-level set of future action plans and recommendations based on the way you want to grow your business. As such, the time, effort, and expertise to discover, analyze, create and delivery this level of detail is far beyond a simple work estimate.
Why would I need an assessment?
The Advanced Grower Solutions Information Technology Assessment and Blueprint report is not an estimate for work for a specific project. It is a comprehensive technology review, assessment, and document with recommendations to help you more clearly see technology advantages, issues, risks and have a high-level set of future action plans based on the way you want to grow your business. It also provides a single point of reference for technology discussion, communications, plans and future projects so that your future implementation plans can be more cohesive toward your overall goals.
How will my business benefit from an assessment?
Your business can benefit from the Advanced Grower Solutions Information Technology Assessment and Blueprint report by having clearly documented systems, identified risks, opportunities for improvement. This allows you to align communications, risks, issues, plans and future products within your leadership team. And the report can speed the implementation analysis for any future provider that you would use for doing any of the future project related work.
How can I use the results of the assessment when its complete?
Your team can use the results to assess what the most urgent and beneficial changes to your technology environment may be. You can also use the result to guide high level planning of future changes, project implementations and yearly project planning.
Does Advanced Grower Solutions implement the recommendations of the assessment?
Implementations are not included in the assessment engagement fees.
Advanced Grower Solutions can help with implementations if you wish, those implementations would be scoped as separately priced projects when you decide to move forward. Or you can engage with another provider of your choice for implementations.
My “IT guy” takes care of this why do I need Advanced Grower Solutions to assess my technology?
Relying on a single internal resource can create blind spots and limit risk analysis and gap analysis to that resources’ experience level, perceptions, or personal preferences. Additionally, single employee dependency can create serious problems in the event of an illness, family situation or departure from the company.
Advanced Grower Solutions has a broad range of capability and experience across a wide range of information technologies, databases, software development and IT and cloud operations. We couple with the technological experience over 160 cumulative employee years serving the grower industry in systems, software, and systems work. Additionally, we have key 3rd party relationships to further augment necessary analysis and implementation plans. Our breadth and depth can provide a more comprehensive review and recommendations when coupled with the knowledge and experience of your internal resources. * These are ranges of estimates based on past work. Your engagement will be scoped and tailored to your business, computing environment and situation and may be different than these ranges.
Find Out More
Contact Us to find out how an Information Technology Assessment and Blueprint report can help improve your operation.