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311/CRM System (Citizen Relationship Management)

Air Quality Data Management

Business Process Management

e-Geographic Information System (GIS)

Electronic Content Management

Electronic Contract Management System

Emergency Management Services

Health Record System

Homeland Security Solutions

IT Security for State & Local Government

Organizational Alignment

Physical Security Solutions

Virtualization Services

Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Solutions

Workforce Informer

ARRA Health Information Technology Services

Health & Human Services Solutions

Healthcare Standards Compliance Services

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311/CRM System (Citizen Relationship Manage... (309KB)

Air Quality Data Management (285KB)

ARRA Health Information Technology Services (334KP)

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IT Security Operational Maturity: Why You Need More Than Personal Heroism and Silver Bullets
This white paper illustrates the many business drivers shaping IT security, emerging risks, and the need to transform your security program into one that’s operationally mature. After reading this white paper, you’ll understand how to direct investments in your organization’s IT security program to achieve security results that are consistent, reliable, effective, affordable, and auditable.

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ITO Trends in the Mid-Market: Overcoming Challenges in the Current Climate
Paul Roehrig, one of Forrester’s leading analysts in the IT outsourcing space, and Anthony D’Ambrosi, COO of CIBER’s IT Outsourcing Division, discuss challenges based on recent yet-to-be published research on the mid-market space.

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Local Government Emergency Services: Setting Yourself Up for Success
This article, by CIBER’s A.J. Briding first appeared in IAEM Bulletin in October 2007

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04 Sep 2008
CIBER Wins $19 Million SAP Support Contract for Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission
Read the press release | Take the PDF (25KB)

27 May 2008
CIBER Expands Presence in Little Rock
Read the press release | Take the PDF (25KB)

client spotlight
case studies
client quotes

CIBER has won a $22.6 million contract with Montgomery County, Maryland to replace legacy information technology system with Oracle’s E-Business Suite.

Read the press release | Take the PDF (21KB )

Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals
Louisiana Office of Public Health Selects CIBER for New WIC IT System
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Louisiana Department of Revenue, Office of Charitable Gaming
CIBER Builds Solutions to Automate Data Gathering
Take the PDF (164KB)

“We are thrilled to begin this project. The Lawson system will help greatly improve our business processes and generate a substantial return on investment. CIBER has clearly demonstrated their ERP public sector expertise, and we’re confident in their ability to execute.”

Andrea Casselton — CIO, City of Saint Paul, MN

“We needed a centralized, automated system in which information could be easily accessed and shared. We believed that Lawson provided the best functionality for our long-term needs along with tools and best practices that could help us drive business process improvements.”

Pat Pate — Assistant City Manager and Executive Committee Chairman , City of High Point, N.C.

“Lee County School District is trying to maintain customer responsiveness with our current computer system - a 30-year-old legacy system. In today's demanding environment, our system is challenged trying to help us meet our customers' expectations. Our vision for the district is to have world class schools; we are calling this the Navigator Project. So this new ERP system supports our District vision - it will provide world class business tools for world class schools.”

Lee Legutko — Chief Business Officer, Lee County Public Schools

“Clark County is looking forward to working with CIBER to improve the delivery of services to needy and vulnerable residents.”

Nancy McLane — Director, Clark County Social Service

“The CIBER team worked extremely well with our internal functional and technical team members. CIBER knew exactly what needed to be done and came in and accomplished it. The project was well-managed and organized. What is truly amazing is that they came in and figured out how to configure Absence Management with very little assistance from Oracle.”

Rhonda Ringer — Manager, Information Technology, Delaware Department of Transportation

“The PA WIC AAV solution is the first of its kind nationally. WIC clients are very pleased that they can now shop at any authorized store. After seeing a demonstration of PA AAV, the USDA hopes that other state WIC programs will adopt the same method in order to realize similar cost savings for their programs.”

Frank Maisano — WIC Director, Pennsylvania Department of Health

“CIBER impressed us with their understanding of local government challenges and concerns. Not only does the CIBER team bring to the table significant technological expertise, but a solid understanding of local government processes and issues as well.”

Catherine Maras O’Leary — Chief Information Officer, Cook County, Ill

“Managing a busy office of attorneys with a large caseload and limited resources is a huge challenge. We were impressed with CIBER’s expertise and with the robustness of their CRIMES product. We’re looking forward to significant cost savings, reduction of paperwork, and smoother case tracking through the implementation of this system.”

Danny Porter — District Attorney, Gwinnett County, Ga.

“CIBER’s experience with WIC programs and CIBER’s successful track record were significant factors for us in selecting them for this project. Because we want a solution that is independent of proprietary software, we needed someone who could provide solid J2EE experience as well as proven WIC experience—not just technological expertise. CIBER provided what we were looking for.”

Mary Kelligew Kassler — Massachusetts Department of Public Health, University of Alberta

“The department recognizes that it doesn’t have the skills or expertise to create the enterprise architecture framework. We hired CIBER to do the work and transfer the knowledge to our employees by training and mentoring us. CIBER will act as a ‘bridge’ until we develop sufficient competencies within our own staff.”

Bill Shaw — Manager, Enterprise Architecture Group, Idaho Transportation Department

“CIBER demonstrated outstanding experience working with other major cities, like the City of San Francisco, in creating strong e-Gov offerings that resulted in high citizen satisfaction. Based on their hands-on experience, 30-year history of successfully working with local governments and their commitment to creating a strong local presence, we selected CIBER as our strategic web management partner. We are confident CIBER has the expertise to help us develop a site and service offering that will benefit our citizens now and for years to come and place our City in the top tier of ‘best practices for City e-government web services’.”

Dr. Melodie Mayberry-Stewart — Chief Technology Officer, City of Cleveland

“Our goals in creating a web portal were to provide an easy-to-use, single point of access to the City’s information and services, to improve the site’s ease of use for the public, to lower maintenance costs for City web publishers, and—most importantly—to strengthen the sense of community and add value for the City’s residents via the web portal. CIBER helped us reach those goals on time and on budget.”

Randy Kolb — Information Services Director, City of Eugene. OR

For more information about our Organizational Alignment services & solutions, please contact:

303.267.3876
rcaputo@ciber.com

Robin Caputo
VP, Marketing

Organizational Alignment

Government CIOs have the same concern as commercial enterprise CIOs. According to a 2007 survey conducted by the publication Public CIO, government executives listed IT-business alignment as their No.1 IT management concern. Similarly, a spring 2008 INPUT report noted that 69 percent of governors are embarking on IT alignment programs to increase accountability, consolidation, efficiency and transparency in state governments as a form of alignment ensuring that IT organizations can support their departments effectively and efficiently. The nature of the problem is clearly understood by government leadership.

While the issue of IT to business alignment has appeared at the top of the Society for Information Management’s annual survey for many years, the approach to attaining better alignment is not as easily understood. Organizational alignment is a journey, not a destination. Business landscapes complicated by increasing competition, ever-changing regulatory requirements, and other market forces require alignment activities to be undertaken on a periodic basis to ensure ongoing alignment. Where an IT organization may have at one time been well aligned with the business units, continual changes in the business landscape can result in further misalignment.

The symptoms of organizational misalignment (between business and IT) are often easy to recognize. Among the more visible symptoms are:

Usage of IT metrics as opposed to business metrics to define IT value
Business frustration with IT services and capabilities
Lack of enterprise strategy coordination
Limited institutional knowledge of the business within IT
Inability to communicate with business unit personnel using a business vernacular
Reactive IT organizational posture to business requirements
Dissociated decision-making
Lack of understanding of the business value an IT investment or service provides
Inability to tie IT investments directly to business strategies or objectives

Organizational Alignment Requires a Plan

Today, the approach by IT organizations to align themselves with the business is often undertaken in a less than thoughtful manner. IT organizations may undertake pseudo-alignment activities arising from various channels including informal discussions, individual perceptions, governance structures, and requests by individuals often lacking the critical business context upon which to evaluate such activities. Generally, these approaches have not been associated with formalized strategies or objectives focused on bridging the gap between business objectives and technology investments. It is therefore easy to see how an IT executive could be more consumed with the value they can bring to the organization as opposed to enabling the business units to drive organizational value. Improvements to IT offer limited value to an organization, but enabling the business to improve drives far greater organizational value.

The Journey

Aligning an IT organization with the business units or departments requires a thoughtful plan to be successful. Here’s where CIBER’s expertise can help. CIBER utilizes a framework with specific phases and prescribed activities to undertake Organizational Alignment. These summary steps are:

Phase I – Strategic Planning

Identify business unit (or departmental) strategies and objectives that have been defined along with any measures identified to determine progress against those strategies and objectives. Synthesize specific IT strategies and activities to support the business units in executing those strategies and achieving their objectives.

Phase II – Organizational Assessment and Definition

Assess the current IT organization against the capabilities required to achieve identified business objectives and the strategies and synthesized IT strategies and initiatives required to support the business units. Define a target IT organization with the capabilities required to more effectively align with and support the business unit strategies and objectives. Perform a gap analysis between the two organizations.

Phase III – Organizational Planning

Develop plans (technology, organizational) that guide the evolution of the existing IT organization into an IT organization which aligns more effectively with the business units or departments. Develop support plans (communication, resource, funding) to support the required changes.

Phase IV – Organizational Alignment

Execute the organizational alignment plans resulting in the transformation of the existing Information Technology organization.

CIBER: Your Partner On The Journey

CIBER has helped a number of governmental entities achieve tighter organizational alignment. An example of how facets of organizational alignment can be applied to address a specific objective (enterprise IT consolidation) is identified below. CIBER would like to partner with you to address your organizational alignment challenges.

case in point

State of Colorado Governor’s Office of Information Technology

Colorado Governor Ritter instituted the Colorado Promise which included an initiative to improve Information Technology efficiency across the state. The Governor enlisted seasoned veteran Mike Locatis to lead the consolidation efforts. CIBER was enlisted to assist the State in developing a consolidation plan and associated enterprise architecture governance.

CIBER facilitated sessions with the State IT management team to research existing practices in consolidation, develop a framework for consolidation, define enterprise architecture governance, address core consolidation issues and provide guidance on those issues.

The State of Colorado benefited through the process by leveraging a formal process to address consolidation planning and avoiding challenges that some other states have historically encountered.

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For more detailed information, download the full version
(PDF, 315KB)