Our Services
Software Selection Advisory
We provide objective, unbiased software selection services. We are not affiliated with any software vendors. We focus on meeting your needs and achieving your goals.
Our software selection methodology begins with a thorough needs analysis that includes interviewing your key staff, such as your accounting, finance and operations departments as well as senior management. We thoroughly document your current business processes and systems and prioritize your business requirements.
We assist you through the entire process including identifying software vendors, moderating and evaluating vendor demonstrations, creating the Request for Proposal (RFP), assisting in the final selection of the vendor and software application(s). We do it all including negotiating price and reviewing contracts (contract term and response time) and all the details in between.
Technology Assessment
Technology evaluation can be an intimidating task. Are you leveraging technology to your best advantage?
If you think your technology is outdated or is the source of operational inefficiencies, call Richard Nathan Consulting, LLC for an independent, unbiased assessment. We provide realistic, usable and prioritized observations and recommendations from a business and operational point of view about your environment. Our methodology includes reviewing all documentation, interviewing internal and external IT support and services that are critical to the continual and efficient uptime of your technology environment. We review the relationship and the fees associated with both internal staff and external vendors.
We also review the usability of both the infrastructure and key applications by interviewing key staff to discover if the technology in place supports the operations of your organization. Such an assessment can help you utilize best practices, leverage current and emerging technologies, improve operational processes, and reduce IT cost.
Are you leveraging technology to your best advantage? If you think your technology is outdated or is the source of operational inefficiencies, call us for an independent, unbiased assessment.
We provide realistic, usable, and prioritized observations and recommendations from a business and operational point of view about your environment. Our methodology includes reviewing all documentation, and interviewing internal and external IT support services that are critical to the continual and efficient uptime of your technology environment. We review the relationship and the fees associated with both internal staff and external vendors.
We also review the usability of both the infrastructure and key applications by interviewing key staff to discover if the technology in place supports the operations of your organization.
Such an assessment can help you utilize best practices, leverage current and emerging technologies, improve operational processes, and reduce IT cost.
Software Selection Project Management – Facilitation – Advisory
Once the software applications have been selected, Richard Nathan Consulting will provide implementation advisory, facilitation and project management services as they are integral parts of the application implementation process.
These services keep both your company and the software vendor(s) on-track in order to complete the project on-time and on-budget. Often, there are specific challenges that may arise at strategic points in the project lifecycle where we will work with both you and your staff and the software vendors to find a solution.
Some key areas of advisory include, but are not limited to:
- Determination of projected go-live date
- Determination updates to the project phasing where required
- Implementation kick-off meeting
- Participation in the periodic status meetings
- Facilitation of specific project challenges, such as historical data conversion
- Focus on overall project timing and budget
Project Management – Facilitation – Advisory
You have identified a technology project identified through an IT Assessment or review and you need a resource to assist in the completion of critical tasks and action items.
Richard Nathan Consulting will provide implementation advisory, facilitation and project management services as they are integral parts of completing these tasks and action items in a timely fashion. These services keep all resources on-track in order to complete the projects on-time and on-budget. Often, there are specific challenges that may arise at strategic points in the project lifecycle where we will work with both you and your staff and the software vendors to find a solution.
Some key areas of advisory include, but are not limited to:
- Creation of a project plan and setting realistic dates and budgets for action items
- Helping to interpret technology challenges in order to move the project forward and keeping to the schedule and the budgets
- Participation in the periodic status meetings as required
Cyber Assessment
The protection of your company’s digital assets is key to ensuring continuous uptime in a world of potential ransomware and other cyber-attacks.
Our process includes an assessment of your information security management practices and system configurations, your primary infrastructure, network, server and database storage environment, and information security practices. Our process also includes the review and recommendation of effective and practical policies and procedures as well various applications and appliances to protect your digital environment. We work closely with your IT management and or external IT resources and utilize various, customized tools to verify and validate findings.
Our assessment will include the following key cybersecurity topics. Additional and more advanced services are available upon request.
- Information Security Management
- Access and Authentication including Remote Access
- Asset Management
- Communication Security and Cryptography
- IT Operations and Infrastructure Security
- Information Security Aspects of Business Continuity Management
Business Continuity Planning
In order for your organization to reap the benefits of continuous operational uptime and reduce the impact of business interruption events, Richard Nathan Consulting will provide an assessment of the current Business Continuity Planning process and provide a framework for the creation of a working Business Continuity Plan.
It is important to note that business continuity planning is not a static process and will require continual updating on a periodic basis in order to keep the plan current, providing for any changes to your company’s uptime requirements.
There are three critical components to our Business Continuity Planning services:
Business Impact Analysis — review the company’s downtime risk tolerance in terms of Recovery Time and Point objectives (RTO and RPO) and impact on Service Level Agreements (SLA’s). Evaluate the capability of the company’s failover systems and processes to support the RTO/RPO targets.
The core component of disaster planning is the business impact analysis and the core components of the analysis is identifying and defining both the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and the Recovery Point Objective (RPO).
The RTO is the amount of time allowed for the restoration of a business process in order to avoid unacceptable consequences from a severe disruption.
The RPO is the amount of time prior to a disruption for which the lack of data backup is acceptable.
Action Plan – review the company’s failover and failback procedures, incident management and documented action plan(s). Review the approach to failover scripts and incident response procedures including secondary site configuration, which can be activated in a business disruption or disaster recovery event.
Documentation of the Technology Environment – we review the documentation of your company’s technology environment. Review system restart and system configuration documentation that contain restore procedures. Our methodology includes working closely with your internal and external IT resources and other vendors in order to gather critical documentation of your technology environment in addition to information gathered from interviewing key staff and stakeholders.
Other Key Components of our Business Continuity Planning Services
Disaster Recovery Approach – review of the company’s disaster recovery approach and discuss single points of failure in the existing network architecture.
Asset Prioritization – review the prioritization of critical services in the event of an incident. Data Backup Scheduling – review the frequency of periodic backups as well as backup testing procedures.
Data Backup Scheduling – review the frequency of periodic backups as well as backup testing procedures.
Data Retention – review data retention policies and Service Level Agreements (SLA’s). Business Continuity Plan – we provide an initial plan framework for an on-going dynamic planning process.
Business Continuity Plan – we provide an initial plan framework for an on-going dynamic planning process.