In this case study, WGroup helped a firm with insourced IT justify and plan the transition to a comprehensive virtual outsourced solution, saving 15% on IT costs. As a result, client benefited from an advanced technology platform, lower risk, and increased agility.

1. Opportunity
The client, a full-service investment
advisor and broker, and a market leader
in life insurance, benefits management,
and retirement planning, was fast
outgrowing the capabilities and capacity
of its existing in-house data center.The
client’s most vital and immediate need
was to reduce risk associated with an
internally provisioned data center in
the firm’s downtown high-rise building.
The company also wanted to move
to an advanced technology platform
and new service delivery model to
improve performance and reliability
of data center operations, scale up to
meet increasing IT demand, improve
service delivery, and lower operating
costs.The company’s new CIO had
been considering outsourcing as a way
to accomplish these objectives, and
also to add capabilities in service desk
and desk-side support, gain access
to updated skills and technology,
and to provide better RTO/RPO to
support its DR and BC initiatives.
The client had reservations about
outsourcing mission-critical IT
functions to a service partner, and
sought WGroup’s counsel in facilitating
and implementing this fundamental
business decision.The client engaged
WGroup to assess the existing IT
environment, and to compare cost
and performance profiles of internal
versus external infrastructure hosting
and support. Once outsourcing proved
to be the better option, WGroup
created a detailed RFP and guided the
sourcing process to evaluate and select
a comprehensive outsource solution.
Approach
WGroup conducted a complete IT
strategy assessment, including a
financial base case for use in comparing
market pricing to internal costs.
WGroup’s analysis of the client’s
day-to-day and strategic information
infrastructure requirements led
to development of a full scope IT
infrastructure RFP to identify qualified
service delivery partners. As part of
that effort, WGroup helped to define
a variable server and desktop compute
environment to support a flexible IT
run rate over time. Vendor selection
was complicated by the client’s
insistence on onshore resourcing,
retaining application development,
and custom application interfaces.
WGroup supported the negotiation of
a detailed contract with the winning
vendor that spelled out roles and
responsibilities, the technical scope
of the service relationship, and the
financial objectives the client expected
to achieve.The contract also addressed
the particular challenges the solution
must accommodate, such as compliance
Drive Your Business
Comprehensive
Infrastructure Outsourcing
WGroup Helps a Broker and Financial Advisory Firm
Reduce Risk Associated with Its Total IT Infrastructure
Financial Services | IT Outsourcing
1
WGroup helped
a firm with
insourced IT justify and
plan the transition to a
comprehensive virtual
outsourced solution,
saving 15% on IT costs.

2. with the complex financial industry
regulatory environment. WGroup’s
guidance continued beyond the
awarding of the contract, defining a
high performance retained governance
organization to hold the vendor
accountable for delivering expected
service levels and value propositions.
Insights and Advice
The client, a first-time outsourcer, was
wary of relinquishing control of IT
infrastructure to an outside resource.
They sought the expertise of WGroup
to guide them from their current
state to a robust, virtual, on-demand
infrastructure delivery model. In order
to perform a structured assessment
of the sourcing opportunities that
aligned with the client’s infrastructure
requirements, WGroup employed
proprietary templates, processes,
and experience to facilitate data
collection and analysis.The data
included technical and financial
discovery, process and resource
discovery, and technology inventories.
WGroup collected and coordinated
tier III facility will dramatically reduce
the risk of data center failure and
improve DR/BCP performance.
As a result of the outsourcing
partnership, the client reduced its
IT risk profile, enhanced business
processes and service delivery,
and reduced operating costs
The client benefited from:
• An advanced technology platform;
• Variable compute capacity in
a highly secure, fully hosted
and managed data center;
• Highly redundant architecture with
24-hour RTO/RPO performance;
• Full scope service desk and
desk-side support;
• Access to highly skilled staff
and multi-platform resources to
support both current-state and
future-state requirements;
• Governance strategies to keep
the service relationship on
track for optimum results.
this information and compared it
to the firm’s experiential database,
benchmarking the client’s current
state to industry leading practices.
As the client migrates infrastructure,
data and applications from the existing
data center to the outsourced virtual
infrastructure, WGroup continues to
support the project at a strategic level.
WGroup also contributes guidance
and oversight, advising the partners
on matters of intent, service levels, and
roles and responsibilities.To facilitate
the vendor’s success with the client,
WGroup provides executive level
insight into vendor relationship issues
and helps define governance strategies.
Value Delivered
WGroup’s business case for the
sourcing strategy is contributing a
15% annual savings compared to the
previous environment over the five-year
term of the contract. More importantly,
moving the data center into a hardened
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Malvern, PA 19355
610-854-2700
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About WGroup
Founded in 1995, WGroup is a boutique management consulting firm
that provides Strategy, Management and Execution Services to
optimize business performance, minimize cost and create value. Our
consultants have years of experience, both as industry executives and
trusted advisors, to help clients think through complicated and pressing
challenges to drive their business forward.
For more information on WGroup, visit http://thinkwgroup.com