Z Consulting can assist clients with strategic planning of multiple IT related projects.

Most businesses follow standard Request for Proposal process that is not customized to buy today’s complex technologies. Procurement practices, especially in the government sector, are complex. Z Consulting’s Request for Proposal (RFP) development process incorporates specific proven steps for a fair evaluation. It limits the possibility of protest and addresses the total cost of ownership for IT products and services.

Some of these steps are:

1. Document baseline assumptions using a planning engagement process that builds consensus among divergent client groups
2. Examine multiple options
3. Build financial models including green initiatives
4. Conduct technical and financial reviews with vendors to provide feedback and any miss-understandings prior to completing the evaluation, thus minimizing the chance for vendor protest

Build technology alternatives that represent the total cost of ownership, including:

1. Capital costs for the hardware, software, physical infrastructure, implementation, training, professional services, and project management
2. Lifecycle maintenance
3. Adds, Moves, and Changes
4. Growth
5. Refresh
6. Circuits

Z Consulting can assist clients with implementation oversight by providing skilled project management resources to ensure the technology selected is properly installed from beginning to end.

Large businesses and government agencies have a mixture of Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) and Voice over IP (VoIP) technologies, which have been complicated by mobility.

Z Consulting can help clients with appropriate solutions by examining:

1. WHAT’S THE RIGHT ROLE FOR ONSITE VS. CLOUD HOSTED?
2. HOW QUICKLY DO YOU GET THERE?
3. WHAT IS YOUR REALITY?
4. WHAT WILL IT COST?
5. WHEN WILL YOU NEED THE MONEY?

Today’s customers demand shorter answer times and the ability to reach the best resource the first time, on any communication channel when calling into a call center.

Where it is On-Premise or Cloud/Hosted, Z Consulting can help clients ensure employees have the right tools built for quick resolution.

Contact center employees have a lot of repetitive and routine tasks that could be automated accurately using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics Process Automation (RPA).

Z Consulting can assist in choosing the right mix of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics Process Automation (RPA) to streamline contact center efficiency.

Z Consulting can assist clients identify what they have, what they need, and how to get it with a robust assessment of their video surveillance systems by ensuring all equipment is properly identified, storage is calculated, and procedures adhere to policy and law.

5G 

5G technology promises multi-gigabit speeds, ultra-low latency, extreme reliability, scalability, and capacity. The technology is in its infancy and is being rolled out to select major metropolitan areas.

Z Consulting can help in identifying the readiness of 5G infrastructure to support the clients’ critical applications.

SD-WAN (Software Defined Wide Area Network)

Today’s workforce is consuming a lot of wide area network (WAN) bandwidth as they stream video, download, large  files, collaborate online and perform other bandwidth-intensive activities.

In a multi-site work environment, employees in all locations need reliable and high- performance network connections when accessing data and applications from the company’s datacenters.

Which technology is right for the client as they may use point-to-point T1s, Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), fiber, Switched Ethernet, wireless, Long Term Evolution (LTE), and satellite.

Z Consulting can help in analyzing SD-WAN options, to provide organizations with more bandwidth and edge site redundancy options.

Most businesses and government agencies sign three to seven year contracts for telephone circuits and wide area networking services. Benchmarking with peer institutions and market is necessary to insure that these contracts remain competitive year-to-year.

Z Consulting can conduct a competitive price assurance Benchmark Analysis and provide an answer to the question, “Is this a good market price for the services being provided by the contracted service provider?”

A vast majority of the Public Safety Microwave Radio Systems supporting counties and states are still analog.

Agencies such as, Fire, Sheriff, Highway Patrol, Emergency Medical Systems (EMS), and Local Government (LG) have a need to communicate during disasters and emergencies.  P25 trunked radio system offers a platform for a shared system to be used among various agencies.

Z Consulting can aid local and state agencies to better understand centralized or distributed system architecture designs.  In addition, help analyzing land mobile radio (LMR) systems, Microwave Systems, Dispatch and subscriber model selection.

Business leaders can make better decisions about insourcing/outsourcing when they know the true cost of a given service. Large businesses and government agencies have an internal IT organization that operates either on a cost recovery basis or is funded by general funds.  Departments usually complain about the rates charged for network and telecom services.

Z Consulting Group can assist in understanding cost and rate structure using the following step-by-step process:

1. Lines of Business analysis involving all costs and funding sources for voice, LAN, WAN, wireless, IPTV, and computing products and services.
2. Activity based cost (ABC) analysis addressing the usage for each service allocated across major customer groups.
3. Build awareness for stakeholders regarding technology services and their costs.
4. Peer and Market Reviews communicating to stakeholders’ market rates for similar services.
5. Alternate Rate and Funding Models providing choices culturally acceptable for the institution.

With increased mergers and acquisitions, service providers’ billing systems may not reflect the contracted versus the invoice pricing.

The Circuit Analysis Process can accomplish the following:

1. Confirm contracted versus billed
2. Reconcile invoices to actual usage
3. Address potential cost savings
4. Leverage improvements with existing service level agreements.