Ken Benson

Ken has more than 20 years consulting experience in information technology, systems and network design services. Most recently, he has worked with large multinational companies in aligning their corporate strategies with their Information Systems architecture, applications portfolio both current and planned, local and wide area networks, and information and data center management practices. He has hands on business expertise in formulating corporate IT strategies and in advising clients in how best to determine their cost and benefit trade-offs for planned changes to their applications and systems management infrastructure. He has assisted customers with development of IT Strategic Planning Goals, Objectives, Vision and Frameworks, including: 

  • •  IT Business Requirements, Needs and Service Levels review and definition
  • •  Identify and Review IT Organizational Mandates
  • •  Provide review and recommendations for IT Strategic Planning for areas/topics such as:
  • •  A Client’s Institutional Vision
  • •  IT Governance and Alignment to Core Guiding Principles
  • •  Mission and Values Statement
  • •  Rationale for Approach
  • •  Process and Efficiency improvements
  • •  Internal and external SWOT analysis
  • •  Understanding the Client's culture and organizational planning needs, leadership, responsibilities, staffing and resources
  • •  Recommendations for improving and enhancing the overall IT value proposition
  • •  Review current or required IT initiatives such as:
  • •  Remediation or transactional
  • •  Transitional
  • •  Transformational
  • •  Determine effectiveness of communication and collaboration processes
  • •  Review and determine needs/requirements for IT Policies, Process & Standards Maps
  • •  Review and incorporate requirements for asset distribution and utilization
  • •  Determine requirements and improvements needed for budget processes
  • •  Review and evaluate management planning decision criteria and metrics
  • •  Understanding and considering dynamic or stable environmental climates
  • •  Understand and incorporate requirements to address regulatory and compliance initiatives
  • •  Collaborate and develop Strategic Planning options and alternatives with a cost-benefit analysis/assessment
  • •  Review and enhance the technology and application portfolio
  • •  Determine processes required to maintain and update the Strategic Plan
  • •  Review the Strategic Planning Approval, Accountability, Feedback and Evaluation process
  • •  Incorporate the desired Strategic Planning outcomes and measurements for success
  • •  Define and measure the Strategic Planning Gap Assessment
  • •  Determine opportunity for immediate, short-term, mid-term and long-term improvements
  • •  Review, Recommend and Define Strategic Planning Priorities, Timelines and Schedules

 

He has direct experience with web based applications,in determining co-location, co-sourcing, and or outsourcing decisions and in Service Oriented Architecure (SOA) and its utility within complex enterprise systems. He has assisted numerous clients evaluate and assess their database migrations and charting the best project course for the planned application and systems migration. He has helped his clients in creating and establishing strategies, policies and practices for improving information and application management, and in establishing life cycle and policy guidelines to meet changing corporate and business alliances. He is highly skilled in program and project management and has managed or assisted in over hundreds of application and information systems selections, implementations and systems and network integration projects. Expert in turning strategy and vision into executable programs and doable plans.

Recent engagements have assessed the long term viability of maintaining legacy systems, proprietary databases and repositories, and the cost and change efforts to migrate to open systems and SOA’s. In addition, he has participated or lead Lean Sigma engagements within large corporate Information Technology Departments and with their business application clients. These projects have involved defining the business needs and requirements, software development life cycle, assessing the impact to legacy systems and staffing, costs, and training impact related to changes made to the current software development lifecycle and frameworks and the resultant redesigning of service and support practices.  Specific duties have ensured that client IT architectures utilize appropriate technologies and that these technologies are employed with due consideration to industry trends, future-proofing, technical characteristics and cost.

 

Ken's expertise includes:

  • •  IT Governance
  • •  IT Audit Process
  • •  Systems and Infrastructure Lifecycle Management
  • •  IT Service Delivery and Support
  • •  Protection of Information Assets

 

Ken has worked with numerous industry standard compliance and regulatory bodies, audit, financial, compliance, regulatory and reporting controls and governance models such as:

  • •  ISO
  • •  CMM
  • •  AICPA
  • •  SAS70 (Type I and II)
  • •  Sarbanes-Oxley (Section 302 and Section 404)
  • •  713 SAS
  • •  PCAOB Standard.