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Retirement Benefits Fund of Tasmania

Retirement Benefits Fund of Tasmania

Retirement Benefits Fund (RBF) of Tasmania, wished to relocate its head office comprising all personnel and functions, including the primary data centre, to a more suitable office building. Concurrently RBF wanted to refresh all IT infrastructure, the majority of which was 'end-of-life' equipment.  A specific goal of the project was to provide the foundation and capacity for the next five years of operation so detailed alignment with the enterprise business strategies for this period was essential.

The IT infrastructure included:

  • desktop equipment (personal desktop and laptop computers with all peripherals)
  • servers (Windows and Sun/Unix hardware)
  • data storage systems (included backup and archive systems)
  • network infrastructure (switches, routers, firewalls, content scanners and filters)

Solution

The Dialog team provided business and technical consulting services to the RBF Project Manager to detail the project objectives, create the enterprise architecture and present the strategy for approval. Dialog also devised detailed plans for the implementation of the architecture, supported many client staff in the execution of allocated tasks and advised on the many complex details of the enterprise architecture in a number of phases.

Phase 1 - High level project design and scoping

The outcome was a high level design specification and scope of works with sufficient detail for the underlying infrastructure to be architected and designed in detail and to allow resourcing requirements to be estimated. It also showed the critical paths and opportunities for parallel development processes such as:

  • the new office fit out requirements
  • equipment and licence purchasing
  • application and data conversions

Phase 2 - Detailed infrastructure design

Dialog's role in this phase was to take the infrastructure requirements from Phase 1 and develop a detailed architecture, meeting the requirements including the 5 year lifetime, accommodating the apparent risks and being achievable within the imposed timescale. 

The principal output of this stage was to create a document that enabled:

  • the client to undertake the infrastructure tendering processes with a well-defined scope and quantified specification of specific business requirements and technical integration requirements
  • hardware and solution providers to propose and price the selected specific technology offerings
  • the client to judge the responses both as to their alignment with the requirements and where possible to compare 'apples with apples'.

Phase 3 - Technical advice

Purchasing and negotiation with suppliers was principally performed by the client working to the design and project plans developed previously by Dialog’s consultants. As part of the tender responses suppliers had provided their timetables and target dates and negotiated minor changes to scope, timing and logistics.

During this phase Dialog’s consultants' responsibilities included attendance at meetings, reviews of documents prepared by suppliers and the client, supporting the client, making suggestions and giving advice to the client's project managers and staff. These were all achieved at a high level by Dialog’s consultants.

Phase 4 - Integration implementation planning and technical support

During phase 4 the following tasks were undertaken requiring significant inter-disciplinary and cross-party coordination:

  • IT equipment and related infrastructure was purchased, installed in racks and tested  
  • new and upgraded applications were tested on early-implementation test infrastructure and database copies
  • legal personnel reviewed support contracts
  • telecommunications cabling and services were installed
  • offices were fitted out with desks and cabling finally relocation of staff and 'go-live'

Phase 5 - Post project support

Because the detailed strategic, technical and business involvement of Dialog’s consultants throughout this project provided them with a great deal of insight into the integration of IT into the client's business at the enterprise and lower levels, a number of important activities continue to involve these consultants in the client’s strategic decision making. 

Dialog's work in this phase continued as a support role for some months assisting the client to maintain and support the systems once they were operational until the regular IT support personnel were fully familiar with the new environment. This work included providing a checklist for a security review by the client listing nearly 150 topics to be tested or confirmed.


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