Assignments
We have worked on a large number of complex and difficult projects over the years and are very proud of our successful track record. Our undertakings have been broad, and a sample of these initiatives have been provided below.
Smart Buildings for a colleague experience like no other
Based upon our previous expertise in delivering an end-to-end Smart Buildings solution, Smarter Vision were approached by a very large telecommunications company in 2019. We were asked to lead the technical strategy & implementation of their Smart Buildings initiative which was part of their innovative programme covering dozens of sites across the UK to provide a next-level Smart Buildings experience.
Smart Buildings technology was a key aspect of this programme with the shift in working practices driven partly by COVID 19. From our experience in IT contracts, we:
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Supported and drove the company's legal team discussions around contract clauses and service level agreements.
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We led the technical design & implementation aspects of Smart Buildings to ensure value for money and company compliance, including
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We embedded business processes and supported delivery, testing and implementation around all key services, including:
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Desk Booking + Desk Booking Check-in Signage
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Meeting Space Booking + Meeting Room Panel Hardware
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Way finding + Wayfinding Screen Hardware
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Visitor Management + Visitor Hardware
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Occupancy PoC
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Smarter Vision are proud to say that through our successful partnership, many of client’s key buildings, including their world-class headquarters in London, are now enjoying this new, cutting edge, technology. The buildings really are a shining example of how Smart Building technologies both make them a fantastic place to work and improve business productivity, and how key specialist Smart Buildings experience is key to the delivery of a truly seamless, data-rich and brilliant experience for it’s customers & colleagues.
IT Governance & Architecture baseline
An established Chief Information Officer required support to understand the IT landscape of the organisation and provide a platform for an IT strategy to support business growth. We were engaged on an "On demand"/fractional basis to provide this additional resource to the CIO, as and when it was required. We documented the existing IT landscape using established industry tools and notation and created an alternate view of this environment for presentation at board level. Through our understanding of the organisation needs, we proposed an IT delivery and governance model which was embedded within the organisation. This model included the creation of project artefact templates and architecture principles & standards.
Estates Management & Smart Buildings
A very large automotive organisation was finding it hard to make the best use of technology within it's management of corporate real estate. IT solutions not functionality fit for purpose, badly supported by IT colleagues & vendors, and standardisation was not established. This led to a poorly understood, costly and high risk to the business situation. We met the heads of departments and established a set of business capabilities from which key areas of concern were identified. From here we defined an IT road map of incremental change based upon business value for money and appetite for change. Large strategic initiatives defined as part of this road map were: Energy Management, Facilities Management, and Smart Buildings. We engaged with several vendors as part of project initiation and procurement tender, and then worked with the chosen vendors to ensure that the solutions were designed & implemented according to industry best practice & company standards.
Improved business efficiency
A financially focused organisation was creating a new business operating model and wanted to understand how IT could support this process. We were engaged to evaluate all existing solutions, how they supported the business and if they were fit for purpose both functionally and technically. We then established the business need for new/amended IT services after the introduction of the new operating model and defined a set of solutions that would be required. These were documented within a road map of solutions which were prioritised and structured to ensure any IT dependent solutions were identified. This allowed the business to understand the impact of the new target operating model in terms of IT cost, resources, and time scales for business supporting solutions.
Defining how IT engages with the business
We were engaged by a very large international organisation with a UK presence to define a brand new model for how the business works engages with IT to deliver projects. We used a combination of industry standard best practice methodologies to tailor a custom process that was easy to govern and provided the transparency and agility that the business demanded. IT staff were trained within the new process which they rapidly mastered, and praise was provided by both business and IT stakeholders. IT had more readily defined delivery stages and clear role responsibilities. The business had more control over projects in flight and could more assess the impact of portfolio adjustment and prioritise demand.
Securing the organisation
A FTSE 250 organisation wanted to ensure they had adequate IT security throughout their business and so engaged our services to help define the products required and ensure they were implemented as per best practice. Product needs were established within the areas of virus scanning, email scanning, disk encryption, database encryption, port control, intrusion detection, and data leakage prevention. We evaluated the proposals during a tender process and worked with the selected vendor to govern and implement the solutions over a multi year period.
Infrastructure cost saving
A large UK organisation held a large number of IT servers upon their premise which were aging and hard to manage. They had IT staff but IT was not the primary function of the organisation and they were looking at reducing cost. We worked with them to define an approach whereby a significant portion of servers would be migrated to the cloud over time and therefore eliminate the maintenance overhead and at the same time significantly reduce costs. Remaining servers would be managed by a 3rd party managed service provider and we made visits to short listed data centers for technical evaluation and final recommendation.