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Codete Blog

IT Audit & Consulting

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13/03/2019 |

11 min read

Agnieszka Krawczyk

Many factors can slow down your business in terms of technology. Deconstructing and analyzing the processes hidden inside IT projects is crucial for tracking any issues. That’s why IT audit and consulting procedures is a perfect starting point. How do they look like in practice? What are the stages of IT audit and consulting and why do they play a vital role with regards to business growth? Let’s find out.

Serious players from each industry have turned on the green light for digitalization. From banking and finance services, through real estate, healthcare enterprises, up to travel and hospitality providers (and much more!) – all B2B and B2C decision-makers have embraced technology to enhance their position on the market.

Although billions of dollars spent by tech giants on Research & Development is utterly impressive and intimidating for the rest of the peloton, managers of smaller companies and start-up owners don’t give up the fight. They keep on investing in web and mobile applications (and more complex IT solutions) to drive them to excel.

However, to stay in the game you need to build a technology strategy. The very first thing on your radar should be getting an IT partner to launch an audit of your technological premises. Why? Because it starts with getting rid of the hurdles standing in your way to scale up your business.

To diagnose the obstacles properly, you will have to prepare for a professional IT audit.

Let’s decipher IT audit and consulting services piece by piece.

 

How to define an IT audit?

Before we reveal the stages of the process, we need to start with rudimentary – what the IT audit procedures are? And why are they so significant for taking technology projects to higher levels?

Basically, IT audit is a complex diagnostic, designed for examining any software products. From our perspective at Codete, the best practice is to assign our consultants and developers to a project. They take a deep dive into a project, conducting a highly-detailed analysis of development processes on the client’s side.

 

What are the elements of an IT audit?

Many businesses find game-changing benefits in these services. How do they work? Regardless of the size of a particular company, we can divide an IT audit process into the following elements:

  •   Analyzing technology stack. We take a closer look at what’s already been used when it comes to building a product. We are interested in tools and frameworks developers have decided to work with. The next question is about the future of developing a product, based on those tools and frameworks.
  •   Running code reviews. This stage requires hands-on experience and specific expertise. It’s scrutinizing the code already written by client’s dev teams. To be able to do that, we need to have developers specialized in different programming languages.
  •   Testing the testing. This element of an IT audit focuses on testing procedures, detecting errors with Continuous Integration. At this stage, we also check the condition of data security and let our DevOps engineers investigate the methodology used in the project.
  •   Studying project management. Each digital project has its own Project Manager. Our role as a software house is to check the behind-the-scenes of a project management workflow and look for any problems there. It’s essential to optimize that flow and finding a way to speed up the performance with more agile communication.
  •   Looking after team management. There can be loads of issues to locate within a team structure or a style of team management. We are eager to learn about the roles team members have, and how a client copes with getting new employees on board.

Pointing out the problems at each stage leads to formulating frames an audit and its agenda. In the end, a trustworthy, well-conducted IT audit process will result in full audit documentation and a report.

The next step is where IT consulting services come up. All the issues highlighted in the report, need to be taken care of. To monitor the fixing process, we lease our consultant as an outsourced technology referee.

 

Why is an IT audit so important?

The rule is simple. To be successful, a software product needs to perform well, and to be scalable. If those is something wrong with those aspects, your technology will stand in the way to make your business thrive.

After we nail down problems and define all the limitations, we are ready to gather all the data. We interview the managers, we rub elbows with client’s employees during team shadowing, and we analyze the code and the documentation. As soon as we pass that point, we can name the solutions and create a roadmap for implementing necessary changes in the project.

 

Most common technology problems for businesses

Just like in movie scripts, to call for a superhero, we need to identify the villain first. What are the typical challenges business owners and C-level execs have to face in terms of technology processes? What issues drive them to the conclusion that they need an outsider to fix them?

The devil’s right there in the details:

Here at Codete, we come across clients’ technology problems in four main areas:

  1. Choosing the technology with regards to stability and scalability of their applications.
  2. Shaping up the developing, testing, and production processes.
  3. The quality of code and dev team management.
  4. Coming up with final strategic decisions and pointing out one direction for the company’s technology.

 

Stability and scalability of your software product

It’s inevitable. If your business grows, your website or app will have to be ready for a stronger stream of visitors. Whether you run an e-commerce site or a browser-based SaaS platform, your roadmap should also include adding more features to attract more users.

However, if the system is not stable enough, increasing the number of functionalities will be painful for you and your product’s user. You wouldn’t like your clients to bounce from your page or app, because the page load time is too long. But, most importantly, you wouldn’t want the features of your product to fail to work correctly. Scalability won’t do the trick if the primary functionalities refuse to perform well.

To choose the right technology to fix scalability problem, you need to launch an audit looking for answers within architecture, framework, design, testing, hardware limitations, and third-party integrations.

Teaming up with a solid IT partner is a must – a software house will provide you with consultants and developers on a daily basis. They will be actively monitoring the changes and making sure that everything is going according to the technology strategy.

 

Development, testing, and production.

Each software solution needs to have a synchronized sequence of creating a product. Although it sounds obvious, each of these environments deserves to be treated with the same level of respect. If you put most of the effort on the development phase and then skip to the production, you’ll miss out fixing the bugs along the way.

Moreover, if development, testing, and production environments don’t match, you will stumble over problems while upgrading your product later on.

At Codete, our dedicated lead developers take care of these three elements. Having unlimited access to the entire production process, they can track and eliminate any bottleneck situations. They submerge in the project to discover any issues at the code, tools, testing methods, and DevOps activities.

 

The quality of code and the people behind it

This is crucial. According to the findings delivered by The 2018 State of Code Review: Trends & Insights into Collaborative Software Development:

  • “While roughly two-thirds of respondents are satisfied with the quality of their software, there is a general downward trend since 2016.
  • Only 43% of respondents are satisfied or very satisfied with their current code review process.
  • For the third straight year, respondents identified code review as the number #1 way to improve code quality.”

These software development insights indicate that the quality of code is still something to improve and code analysis is a part to be focused on.

Luckily, we have a remedy here. Our consultants, lead and senior developers have gathered their priceworthy experience during numerous, international IT projects. Maintaining high code quality is one of their priorities.

 

 Grow your business with a customized technology strategy

It’s hard to overestimate the meaning of building a sound strategy, especially with a focus on software. We do what it takes to create one for a client – we analyze the business needs, the product’s potential and how it can expand with the help of the latest technology.

We help to set the goals and assist our client to reach them. A digital strategy is not a ready-made product placed on a shelf; it’s a fully customized project.

 

Time to boost your business with IT Audit & Consulting

Recognizing a technological problem within your organization is a milestone for your business. To do that, you need to team up with a software house which specializes in providing IT consulting services.

How do we do it at Codete?

We release our troops shortly after a startup or a well-established enterprise decides to put their trust in our expertise. Audit and consulting services are where we begin with.

We call it Discovery phase, and this is where the beauty lies. Our consultant backed up with a dev team take a deep dive into your project. We analyze the situation on the technical and workflow level. We are on a hunt for any roadblocks. We need to know what’s slowing down the process and what are the boundaries.

And finally, we go through your delivery process, step-by-step. To do that, we arm ourselves with weapons like codebase analysis (with our very own software audit tools), delivery process evaluation, and workshops held with your project’s key players.

 

In the end, you’re looking at the three-level process:

  • Performance boost – it’s not a vague idea or a buzzword-fueled sales pitch. It’s a promise to deliver technology factors responsible for the performance and growth of your business.
  • Development optimization – opening the doors of your software development environment for our consultant. The result of the IT consulting process? Taking technological productivity to another level.
  • Full documentation – all the outcomes, recommendations, solutions for leaving risks and high costs behind, and technical documentation are wrapped up in a final report.

 

How Codete clients succeeded with IT audit & consulting

Leonardo Hotels – brand-new quality of room booking

Leonardo Hotels are a flagship example of creating a digital strategy from scratch and leveraging the new technology process in terms of achieving their ultimate business goals.

Before we started working with Leonardo, their business pain point was slow growth and disappointing scalability. It dragged them down and made it difficult to chase the competitors.

To overcome this problem, we needed to audit their resources first. It turned out that the biggest issue was hidden behind their page usability. The solution was to power up their results with a transition to digitalization and agile development process. UX and UI improvements together with frontend and backend code review and optimization led Leonardo to receive a brand-new, dedicated booking website engine.

This is a vivid example of how running an IT audit and consulting was a solid ground to start building a new quality. We have created a dedicated DevCenter for Leonardo, which made their technology process secure and efficient. Thanks to those changes, Leonardo have reinforced their position on the hotel market, and leave the competitors behind.

 

Broker Genius – the significance of interviews and reviews

This fintech company based in New York have set the standards for pricing automation technology. Nevertheless, Broker Genius was still eager to level up their technology process efficiency. They decided to invest in IT audit and consulting, and that certainly paid off.

To improve their procedures, we formed a team of specialists conducted by a dedicated Project Manager. What was about to happen, was a series of interviews with client’s employees. The outcomes were priceless because the interview sessions revealed their approach towards both, development and management.

After reviewing the code and examining the procedures, we were ready to wrap all the data up in an extended report. Broker Genius received a highly-detailed overview of the current situation, enriched with specific recommendations on how to move forward.

 

Ready to start your own success story?

As you can see, the IT audit and consulting process is an excellent choice to start a new chapter of high-quality business technology. Tell us about your barriers, and we will be happy to help nail down the obstacles and find a way out.

Rated: 5.0 / 1 opinions
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Agnieszka Krawczyk

Senior Marketing Manager at Codete. Interested in modern technologies, e-commerce, and fashion. Trend researcher.

Our mission is to accelerate your growth through technology

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