Case Study
IT improves perception from “Bottleneck” to “Enabler”
They’re one of the largest independent public accounting and advisory services firms in North America. Providing skilled professional resources in the areas of Tax and Business Services, Assurance Services, Alternative Investment and Real Estate.
Shadow IT vs Central IT
Needs Agility
Shadow IT turned Citizen Developer
A Principal in this company’s Philadelphia office and member of the Firm’s Advisory Services division needed application agility in order to drive new business.
He has 24 years of experience in accounting and finance, sales, marketing, and IT, and currently specializes in enterprise-level application and infrastructure support, high-volume data management and business process outsourcing (BPO). With a focus on operational excellence and process improvement, he has assisted a wide range of clients, including Fortune 200 organizations, to optimize their enterprise-level applications and processes.
Needs Control & Compliance
Central IT turned Agility Enabler
The Business Applications Senior Manager of this company has more than 15 years of experience with Systems Engineering and Business Application Management.
He supports the Advisory Services division by managing their Application Portfolio.
The Problem
This Team needed software that Central IT could not provide
The Principal needed software prototypes, applications and modifications quickly.
As part of his client services, he provided software solutions for his customers. These solutions include tools for Project Management, Document Management, and Consumer-Facing Applications. To address customer demands and support sale efforts, He was dependent upon Centralized Development Staff processes.
The Applications Manager could only respond to a limited number of requests each budgetary cycle.
He had limited development resources to support his constant stream of custom development requests. As a result, he had a backlog of development projects.
The Principal became Shadow IT.
As a reaction to development backlog, he turned to external development resources and numerous off-the-shelf software solutions to meet the growing needs of his clients and sales processes.
The Applications Manager faced losing control of Security and Compliance.
How could he be expected to maintain important compliances like SOX and perform security testing and remediation on software he didn’t control?
The Solution
One Week after Engagement with CitizenDeveloper tools
Transformation of this team from Shadow IT to CitizenDeveloper was immediate. With only a few hours of training, he utilized the CitizenDeveloper tools to demonstrate a Proof of Concept to a large Las Vegas Resort, and several more followed soon after.
Security and Control was immediate. The Applications Manager installed CitizenDeveloper onto their internal server giving full visibility into each installation and insuring that the Principal’s work was secure and compliant.
- Immediate Security
- Immediate Compliance
- Immediate Transformation from Shadow IT to CitizenDeveloper
Three Months after Engagement with CitizenDeveloper tools
90% Reduction of cycle times. The Principal finally had Agility. He reduced his wait times to 0, and his development cycle time by 90% from design to production, allowing them to deploy 7 unique solutions in 3 months.
His citizen-developed solution was embraced by Verizon Business to manage their customer-facing tax document repository. This solution was built with less than a week of effort, and continues to service Verizon Business more than 3 years later. Secure, Compliant new features are added with no lead time and only hours of citizen developer effort. With this success, new doors opened for him to pitch two other opportunities at Verizon Business.
The Applications Manager became an Agility enabler with increased control benefits from his dashboard, He can easily review system performance, support needs and generate compliance audits.
- 90% Reduction of Cycle Times
- Deployed 7 Unique Solutions
Today Central IT has become an enabler of Enterprise Agility
95% decrease in development time (from Quote to Proof of Concept), reducing that portion of the sales cycle from months to days, and impressing customers with the company’s newfound agility.
Citizen developers have replaced Shadow IT. The Principal employs a team of part-time citizen developers, who, by the way, happen to be full-time in Sales, Marketing, Consulting, and Administration.
Central IT is seen as an enabler of business agility. The Principal and the Applications Manager no longer fight over a development backlog, as citizen developers are able to handle development with their own resources.
- 22 Custom Installations Deployed
- 95% Decrease in Development Time
- Central IT is a Business Agility Enabler
- Citizen Developers Replaced Shadow IT
What’s Next? The Principal is currently working on a large multi-tenant expansion of his services for Verizon Business, deploying his CitizenDeveloper application to over 600 tenants.
Agile
Today, Central IT has become an enabler of Enterprise Agility:
22 Custom Installations have been Deployed.
95% decrease in development time (from Quote to Proof-of-Concept), reducing that portion of the sales cycle from months to days and impressing customers with the company’s newfound agility.
Citizen developers have replaced Shadow IT. The Principal employs a team of part-time citizen developers, who, by the way, happen to be full-time in Sales, Marketing, Consulting, and Administration.
Central IT is seen as an enabler of business agility. The Principal and the Applications Manager no longer fight over a development backlog, as citizen developers are able to handle development with their own resources.
Cost
90% Cost Savings on Application Development:
This company now has over a dozen client-facing applications produced by citizen developers.
Without citizen developers, the company estimates that these applications would have required 900% more time and money to develop using traditional code.
Outsourcing, external developers, and vendors are no longer required to support the Principal’s aggressive prototyping and sales efforts.
He produced 10 times more Proof-of-Concept applications than he was previously able to.
Control
As an Accounting Firm, Control, Compliance, and Security are Mission Critical and Non-Negotiable:
The Applications Manager and his IT Team have portfolio-level visibility into performance and security across all CitizenDeveloper installations.
Central IT finds comfort in knowing that new security vulnerabilities are not being introduced by the rapid development.
Central IT uses built-in compliance tools for immediate SOX, HIPPA and other compliance requirements.
What others are saying about CitizenDeveloper
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