While normal internal management processes are satisfactory for undertaking software engineering projects and maintenance, the provision of a business intelligence environment requires a broader range of specialised skills with necessary experience in toolsets and methods not typically found in IT staff. In addition, this range of knowledge and skills cannot usually be found in a single person, and so a team of staff is required to provide a comprehensive and effective approach to business intelligence. The required capability extends beyond engineering - the team will have to include management capability and the capability to lead the evolution of a business intelligence environment within the organisation. The real cost of maintaining an in-house BI environment management capability is considerable and businesses need to answer the question: ’the availability of business information is strategic but is investment in BI skills strategic?’.

In response, Montage offers a business intelligence system management partnership that provides a full strength virtual BI team to organisations wishing to maintain a rich BI environment but reluctant or unable to commit to recruiting and retaining the broad range of specialist and proven skills and experience required for a successful outcome. It provides a level of control and cost containment not normally associated with outsource arrangements, yet without the hassle and risk of maintaining a full in-house capability. The virtual team can include existing in-house staff, and can be easily scaled as workloads change, while guaranteeing a continuity of skilled resources to match your organisation’s needs. This is not a contract labour arrangement but an outcomes focused whole service. Unlike traditional outsourcing arrangements, Montage aims to work on a long-term collaborative basis with its customers’ management and business units.

Key advantages of the Montage virtual BI team:

Provides a greater range of skills
Provides specialised, proven skills
Removes hassle and cost of recruitment and HR management
Eliminates need to maintain BI and related specialist competencies
Provides an innovative team already integrated and working together
Allows the team to be re-sized at any time
Improves responsiveness
Guarantees long-term staff availability
Increases return on investment
Increases quality of solutions
Integrates learning from a wide range of organisations into customer sites
Avoids the discontinuity of arranging independent consultants

The size of the virtual team can be scaled at any time to be the right size for the business, expanding for peak demand, and contracting during maintenance phases. Customer staff can be added to the team as necessary to provide long-term up-skilling of internal resources, and to provide an alternative career path for staff interested in business and customer intelligence.

Provides a greater range of skills

Montage staff members have worked in a broad range of industries both in New Zealand and overseas. They can bring a fresh perspective to business problems as well as a deep knowledge of what works, and doesn’t work in other organisations. The virtual team provides many times the experience of a single employee or contractor.

Provides specialised, proven skills

The Montage virtual team members are leading BI specialists. They do nothing but BI and have worked with toolsets from all the major vendors.

Removes hassle and cost of recruitment and HR management

The time taken to recruit the right BI staff can be between three and six months and there is still the chance you will end up with an employee that is less effective than they initially appeared. With the Montage Virtual team, all the members have been pre-selected, and have proven their competence over a range of BI challenges in other organisations. If you don’t find one of the team members completely suitable for your organisation, they can be exchanged. There is no performance management hurdle, no risk of expensive litigation, no downtime, and the replacement will be fully trained and briefed before they arrive.

Eliminates need to maintain BI and related specialist competencies

The Montage team is always up to date with the latest tools and methods. There are no training costs, no funding of industry conferences, and Montage guarantees to maintain competencies in the tools used by your organisation, even if they are not the industry standard.

Provides an innovative team already integrated and working together

The Montage team is well integrated from the outset. They know the best member to solve specific problems or issues, improving effectiveness. Montage has a vibrant and established culture of innovation. We are not satisfied with maintaining the status quo – we want to lead and challenge our customers to get real business benefit and competitive advantage from their BI environment.

Allows the team to be re-sized at any time

The typical organisation will implement BI in a number of phases, with intense periods of build punctuated by testing and maintenance phases. Maintaining an in-house team in this environment is particularly difficult. The team will either be under-resourced during build, over-resourced during maintenance, or the BI activities will be performed at a rate that is inappropriate for the organisation. With the Montage virtual team, the team size is always the right size for the phase the organisation is in.

Improves responsiveness

Unlike traditional contract based relationships, that are focused on the delivery of long-winded formal specifications, the Montage virtual teem seeks to establish a long-term relationship with the business. If business priorities change, then Montage will change to suit. There is no re-negotiation needed. The business is always in control.

Guarantees long-term staff availability

Barring sudden unforeseen circumstances the Montage virtual team size will be maintained regardless of staff leaving for other positions, maternity leave or extended vacations. Montage will ensure that competencies will be maintained over the long-term.

Increases return on investment

With the Montage virtual team, the fees you pay are all you pay. There are no hidden costs of education and training, no recruitment fees, no health or other benefits to pay. Added to this, the specialist nature and skills of the Montage team make them more than twice as effective. Unlike typical consulting arrangements that have large contingencies adding to the cost of your solution, the Montage virtual team is based on size, making it the most cost effective approach to outsourcing possible.

Increases quality of solutions

The quality of our solutions is paramount to our continued success. As an ISO 9001:2000 registered company, Montage takes quality seriously.

Integrates learning from a wide range of organisations

The Montage virtual team can contain as many or as few of a customer’s staff as needed to integrate the BI knowledge into the customer’s skill set. Internal staff will gain greater BI skills and knowledge as they will be working closely with industry recognised experts. This is a far better training ground than can be achieved through commercially available training.

Avoids the discontinuity of arranging independent consultants

Independent consultants will often push a specific solution and when more than one consultant is involved, the solution is often to replace prior systems, no matter how effective they are. With Montage, you will get not only independent advice that is not keyed to a specific software solution, but you will get a long-term BI roadmap that will build the BI solution over the long-term.

Scope

The scope of the agreement includes work in six main areas:

Team Management

Act as the primary interface between the customer and Montage BI staff
Ensure the right people are used for the right tasks
Ensure work is scheduled and executed in a timely manner
Ensure the customer’s business needs are met
Provide traceability and accountability for all work undertaken, or queued
Ensure that competencies in the customer’s BI systems and environment are maintained
Ensure that a knowledge of the customer’s business is maintained
Provide regular reporting of activities

Maintenance

Provide resources for the maintenance of the customer’s BI systems developed by Montage.
Provide resources to diagnose and repair business intelligence software, tools and databases, where this is unable to be performed in-house
Provide resources to support the customer’s staff in performing general day-to-day housekeeping of BI systems
Provide resources to design, build and implement additional features that enhance the functionality of the customer’s BI systems

Business facing systems

Provide resources to aid in the selection or trialling of business access and reporting tools
Provide resources to aid in the implementation of business access and reporting tools
Provide resources to aid in the implementation of business reports where this is unable to be performed in-house

Requirements and user satisfaction

Provide resources to ensure an up to date appreciation of The customer’s business is maintained, and that the needs of the business are reflected in The customer’s BI systems or planned for the future, as appropriate

Strategy

Provide resources to transfer knowledge of up-to-date BI concepts, methods and strategies to senior customer staff to ensure the long-term success and outcome focus of the BI system, as well as an appropriate fit with the customer’s strategies
Pro-actively manage business intelligence activities to ensure long-term strategic fit of business intelligence systems
Provide roadmap describing long-term business intelligence activities, architecture and positioning within the customer

Training

Provide "Montage real training™” on up-to-date BI concepts, methods and toolsets

In addition, Montage can assist the customer in any way that is appropriate for the skills of Montage’s staff, but not defined in the scope above. Specific team activities, timeframes will be negotiated outside this agreement.

Out of Scope

The scope of the agreement specifically excludes:

Supply, installation or configuration of hardware
Support or maintenance of the customer’s infrastructure, including network or server availability, backup or restore
Support or maintenance of the customer’s system software, or software purchased from other vendors
Supply, installation, configuration or other maintenance of systems unrelated to business intelligence or customer intelligence
Provision of first level support
Support of systems currently under project management
First and second level help desk