Strategic Planning and Technology Management Consulting

Look Forward with the Strategic Planning and Technology Management Team

In 2021, Vantage Technology Consulting Group celebrated 20 years as an innovative strategic and engineering-based technology consultant to education and healthcare institutions, commercial owners, and architectural designers. In this brief video, the Strategic Technology Team shares what makes Vantage services uniquely valuable.

Vantage provides a broad spectrum of interrelated information technology (IT) consulting services ranging from visioning and strategic planning to design and commissioning. We have nationally recognized clients in education, healthcare, public sector, and corporate markets. Our experience in system design and strategic technology consulting successfully links strategy, systems and infrastructure.

Our Strategic Planning and Technology Management consultants have a wide range of expertise. We are past practitioners from higher education and private sectors who understand institutional issues in addition to technology issues. In addition to comprehensive strategic technology planning services, we offer expert consulting in business continuity planning, disaster avoidance, and recovery planning, organizational development and transition planning, and financial modeling and assessments.

Vantage staff are experienced at facilitating expert discussions and workshops, guest lecturing, and delivering keynotes. Our memberships include EDUCAUSE, HESS Consortium, HIMMS,  IAPP, Internet2, ISACA, and NACUBO. We hold these certifications: CISSP, HCISPP, CISM, CDPSE, CGEIT, CRISC, CIPT,  GSLC, and GSTRT.

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Strategic Consulting Services

IT Governance Design and Implementation

  • Organizational investment in IT and reliance on information systems has grown, and the need for reliable structures to support stakeholder involvement and sound decision-making is critical. An IT governance program helps provide the framework for the effective and efficient use of IT investments to support the organizational mission.
  • We offer several different service activities to help you get your IT governance program started, from facilitating design workshops to helping you implement your IT governance structure. We can even assist you with initial meetings to get processes off to a good start!

 

IT Organizational Assessments

  • Benchmarking your IT organization’s operations against peers is a common practice across industries. Understanding how your organization compares to your peers can help you assess and improve your technology performance and right-size your information technology approach for your unique culture and services.
  • We analyze your financial, staffing, and service organization for potential improvements and opportunities.  We use this analysis to create a prioritized roadmap to assist your institution in effectively and efficiently meeting its future technology needs.

 

IT Service Delivery: Service Catalog Creation

  • Successful delivery of IT services is an organizational issue, as IT services are used to support organizational mission and operations. Implementing a service catalog can be a transformative service delivery step—helping move organizational IT units from a technology components organization to a service-oriented organization that facilitates organizational outcomes.
  • Through a service catalog creation project, we can help you better understand how IT services are delivered at your organization. Our process includes assessing IT services and service support levels, designing a service catalog structure, and soliciting executive and user feedback.

 

Data Management & Governance
  • Organizations are drowning in data and the need to organize and make sense of that data is more important than ever. Well-planned data governance ensures that data are adequately protected and are available to stakeholders when needed for decision-making.
  • We can help you tackle data management and governance at your organization. From designing data governance programs to socializing those concepts across the organization, we can help ensure that your data governance and decision-making activities sit on a solid foundation.
Information Security Program Design

  • Organizations continue to struggle with solving today’s information security challenges in a way that minimizes organizational risk and provides effective and efficient business processes with available resources.
  • Vantage will work with your organization to design and implement an information security program to help with this balancing act. We offer several different service activities from strategic planning processes to identify organizational risk to reviewing security frameworks suitable for the organization’s information security program to maturity assessments.

 

Information Security Policies Processes Design and Writing Services
  • The purpose of organizational information security policies is to document an organization’s commitment to information security. They outline an organization’s information security goals and direction, state compliance with legal and regulatory requirements, inform community members of their responsibilities, and communicate the consequences for failing to secure organizational data and IT resources.
  • Vantage offers a phased approach to providing information security policy services depending on your needs. We offer an exploratory workshop to understand and improve your organization’s information security policy process followed by a review of your current information security policies and standards for completeness using your chosen security framework. Finally, we can assist you in creating new and revising current information security policies.

 

Information Security Controls Assessment
  • Information security programs traditionally include a concept of continuous improvement—moving from one maturity state to another to reduce organizational risk. Regular assessment of program maturity state creates a roadmap for future progress.
  • We can help you assess the current maturity of your information security program using the controls framework of your choice.  Our services include policies and standards review, a controls maturity assessment, and creating a roadmap to improve your security operations and compliance posture.

 

Insider Threat Program Design

  • Organizations that possess a Facility Clearance (FCL) are required to form an insider threat program that will gather, integrate, and report relevant and available information indicative of a potential or actual insider threat in order to prevent harm to the United States.
  • Vantage will work with your organization to create an organizational insider threat program that is consistent with Executive Order 13587 and the National Insider Threat Policy and Minimum Standards for Executive Branch Insider Threat Programs. Our services include designing the program structure and creating policies and training documentation.

 

Information Security Incident Response
  • Information security incident response plans are created to help organizations respond to incidents that impact the confidentiality, availability, and integrity of an organization’s IT systems and data.
  • We can work with your organization to establish a flexible information security incident response plan that reflects industry information security best practices, includes roles for technical specialists, and information security, IT, and executive leadership, and considers breach notification practices.

 

 

IT Audit Preparation

  • Today’s compliance landscape routinely requires that information systems be audited for proper operation and satisfaction of information security and privacy control requirements. Successful IT audits don’t magically happen, they are the result of careful preparation.
  • We offer a number of IT audit services to provide you with technology audit advice, and plans to prepare, pretest, and validate technology processes.

 

Privacy Program Design and Implementation

  • In 2019, privacy was listed on the EDUCAUSE Top 10 IT Issues list, indicating that safeguarding privacy rights has truly become a mainstream higher education issue. An institutional privacy program helps provide the framework for addressing institutional privacy issues in a way that supports the institutional mission and protects the privacy of campus constituents.
  • We offer a number of different service activities to help you get your privacy program started, from facilitating design workshops to helping you implement your privacy program structure.
Teaching and Learning Technology Assessment and Visioning

  • Addressing the condition of learning technologies and facilitating collaboration to explore changing pedagogy and student dynamics is an important part of institutional strategy.
  • Through our learning technology assessment and visioning services, Vantage can help you assess the state of technology in your learning spaces and develop a current classroom technology design standard. Our expertise supports real-world experience, higher order learning, physical and digital immersion, and advanced communication skills.

 

 

Research Computing Program Design

  • Demonstrating institutional research readiness can facilitate your institution’s ability to get grants, effectively and efficiently support researchers, and secure and maintain research data.
  • We offer a number of different service activities to help you get your research computing program off to a good start from implementing a governance structure to designing enclaves for research environments.

 

 

Research Computing – Technology Environment Assessment

  • Continuous improvement is a “must” for institutions that participate in the highly competitive research computing landscape. Even mature research computing programs aligned with institutional research objectives.
  • Vantage offers services to help you better understand and evolve your research computing capabilities, including assessments of research IT service offerings, high-performance computing (HPC) environments, and adherence to compliance obligations that impact grant requirements.
Network Design

  • Today’s organizations must be supported by high performance, reliable and resilient data networks to meet their missions in a time of great technological progress and change. However, many organizations have an aging network infrastructure.
  • We offer several visioning and design services to help your organization ensure high performance, reliable, and resilient data networks.

 

 

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan Design

  • Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plans are designed to ensure an organization’s long term and enduring IT operations. In today’s always-on service delivery environment, contingency plans are critical.
  • Vantage will work with you to assess, implement, and test information technology business continuity and disaster recovery plans. Our services include a business impact analysis to prioritize those IT services that must be restored immediately in an emergency and identify recovery strategies for IT services.

 

 

Unified Communications Design and Implementation

  • Unified Communications (UC) technology has evolved considerably from the traditional voice PBX. Today UC is an interrelated suite of services designed to improve internal and external communications, enhance productivity, and increase efficiency.
  • Vantage offers a phased approach to providing UC services depending on whether you are just beginning to consider replacing your legacy voice system with UC or ready to fully transition to UC services. We also offer guidance during the procurement and implementation process.