The timeline for developing your GIS Strategic Roadmap usually averages 3–6 months, dependent on your utility size, organization goals, and pre-existing knowledge of Network Management (ArcGIS Utility Network) and ArcGIS Pro, if migration is your objective. Throughout six primary phases, we help you define the specifics of your roadmap and demonstrate how those unfold with an implementation plan, schedule, and budget.
Phase One: Realizing the Functionalities of Network Management
If migrating now or later, it’s necessary to understand the features of the ArcGIS Utility Network and ArcGIS Pro to create the most comprehensive roadmap for your individual utility. Through an executive presentation, we outline the functionalities the platform would enable for your Business and IT stakeholders and provide you with a solid understanding of what to expect.
Phase Two: Roadmap Initialization
To drive the approach and methodology used in your roadmap, UDC reviews your existing landscape and relevant documents to ensure our team has a solid foundation of your systems, business drivers, and underlying technologies. We meet with your executives one-on-one to refine and confirm your utility’s enterprise goals, vision for your roadmap, strategic objectives, and critical success factors.
We develop a vision and business strategy for your technology adoption after compiling and analyzing this information, which aids our team with creating your personalized Enterprise GIS Strategic Roadmap.
Phase Three: Current State Discovery and Assessment
To capture the current state view of your business processes and technology environment, UDC completes a Technology and Business Process Questionnaire with you as well as conduct interviews and workshops with key members of your organization to gain a deeper understanding of your business drivers
Your ‘current state’ would form the baseline for analyzing and gapping business process and activity improvements. We use a targeted approach in your current state workshops, leveraging our reference solution architectures to determine the value and priority of business process improvements, business technology improvements, and the level of automation needed to support your integrations. We also meet with your IT and application O&M teams to review your utility’s current systems, current integrations, and network topology and utilizations.
We generate a first cut of your future state using the current state discovery information, our reference solution architectures, and your answers to our questions.
If a formal business case is required, we provide the typical benefit categories and range of benefits seen in other roadmaps and subsequent implementations, while your utility develops the benefits for each line of business from a business process perspective.
Phase Four: Identifying Your Gaps
Driven by the results of the current state assessment workshops and further comparison with UDC’s reference solution architectures, we define your Enterprise GIS strategy and geospatial roadmap requirements through identifying any gaps in your applications, integrations, data, software, business systems, business processes, and hardware. The resulting gap analysis indicates how well your utility is performing in comparison to the industry.
We then assess which applications, integrations, business systems and types of data are required to implement the new GIS technology at your utility. We also provide your utility with a tactical set of recommendations for improving your current state environment.
Phase Five: Defining Your Future State Model
Using the gap analysis from Phase Four, UDC creates your utility’s future state view and provides input on current gaps and mitigation options. We then discuss with you new and emerging technologies, technology obsolescence, and industry trends. Following this workshop, we finalize your improvement recommendations for maintaining a high-level of safety, reliability, customer service, and enterprise-wide GIS adoption within all related lines of businesses.
Your finalized future state gets divided into individual business releases that are based on the benefits and prioritizations provided by your utility.
Phase Six: Developing Your GIS Strategic Roadmap
Guided by the conclusions from the previous phases, UDC creates a customized strategic implementation roadmap for advancing your utility – including high-level budget numbers, dependencies, risks, and a business release schedule. Your roadmap defines when the recommended technologies and related integrations should be deployed, taking into consideration change management issues involved with replacing older, well-known systems and technology with newer business processes, technologies, and a consolidated infrastructure.
If moving to Network Management (ArcGIS Utility Network), your roadmap would also factor in the time and effort required to migrate your GIS data.
(Optional) Phase Seven: Formal Business Case
Applying our cost model, UDC calendarizes your set of benefits based on your strategic implementation roadmap business release schedule. We then create specific business cases using your financial information.