Sustainability

The movement toward “Green” and Sustainable industries has taken hold in the United States after lying dormant for 15-20 years. While the rest of the world quickly adopted sustainable technologies, business practices, and corporate cultures, the U.S. has been lagging behind. Just like the ISO 9000 mandates of the 1980’s that forced all companies to comply with new guidelines for international trade, or Sarbanes-Oxley of the early 2000’s, Sustainability has taken hold with the same urgent mandates and strict guidelines. Not only has Sustainability taken on the Energy and Environmental urgencies of the 2000’s, the concept also brings into focus the idea of Organizational, Operational, and Technical Sustainability of your company.

Some Things To Think About: 

  • If energy prices go up, will your business survive?
  • If your invoicing system goes down, how long could your company survive?
  • Are controls in place today to prevent an executive from fleeing your company or exposing your company to legal risk?
  • If your aging workforce resigns, are processes documented so business can continue?
  • Are your trading partners and supply chain customers requiring you to comply with environmental and energy conservation guidelines?

At Statera, we understand that our clients who depend on trading partners, supply chains, and timely information are in critical need of assistance with establishing a sound Sustainability strategy. 
 

The Key Benefits of a Sound Sustainability Strategy
 
A key element of any comprehensive Sustainability program is access to data, integration of legacy systems, robust reporting capabilities, and speed. Sustainability programs are typically sponsored by the highest levels of the company and, as such, the need to monitor and report on progress of Sustainability programs is critical. Statera has been helping meet these needs since 2001, and we know that programs and initiatives with such compelling business criticality cannot be hindered by a lack of data, reporting, and monitoring capabilities.
 
Business-Driven Data Management and Executive Access

Most sustainable programs are hindered not by the existence of critically needed data, but the lack of ready access to it. When executives, auditors, and governance agencies need an update on progress, most companies are ill prepared to respond. Properly designed Sustainability programs are always enabled by well architected data management platforms. Well executed Sustainability programs are, in fact, sustainable and nimble – especially when the life blood of the business is depending on it – proving compliance to trading partners and customers.

Integration of Disparate Applications Supporting Sustainability Programs
 
Most of the data that reporting is derived from comes from stand-alone applications – often antiquated and difficult to work with. The integration of the applications from which the data comes is a critical factor in the success of the program – and the speed of the response. While most companies are not in the position to replace or re-engineer their legacy systems, current technologies (web services, EAI, XML, datamarts, etc.) allow for effective solutions that can be used for problem-specific purposes – like a report on energy usage across plants or environmental conservation compliance by office.

High Availability “On Demand” Reporting and Business Intelligence

Most companies today have implemented some form of ad hoc query reporting and business intelligence capabilities. Nowhere is this capability more important than as a supporting set of tools for a Sustainability program. Executives, Boards of Directors, Auditors, and outside compliance agencies do not wait for this information. The proof is in the pudding and if you “can’t monitor it, you can’t manage it.” The key benefit to this kind of reporting and business intelligence capability is the speed with which decisions and, if needed, course corrections can be made.

“Green IT”
 
IT departments in many companies today have tried to better understand how to reduce the energy consumption of their technical infrastructures. The trend toward low-energy consumption servers, virtualization, and cloud computing has quickly embraced this and they each offer legitimate solutions for reducing the energy footprint for IT departments and data centers.

Statera offers a suite of customized services to our clients in need of help.
They are as follows: 

Sustainability Program Data Architecture, Management and Integration
Services targeted at integrating application, data, platforms into a manageable structure so sustainability teams can “turn on a dime” when asked to provide an executive update of progress.
 
Sustainability Program Portals
Statera is a leader in the development and deployment of industry-leading portal platforms and technologies. We tailor-design and build portals that envision an “executive dashboard” view into the progress of the company’s Sustainability programs.
 
Sustainability Reporting and Business Intelligence
Statera understands the importance of empowering our clients with the ability to quickly access and report on the critical Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) of a managed Sustainability program. The data supporting Sustainability programs is voluminous, complex, and not readily accessible. The key to rapid response to inquiries is a well designed – yet simple - Business Intelligence solution. Statera has deep experience and expertise in building solutions of this kind.
 
“Green IT” Consulting Services
Statera has embraced Server consolidation, Virtualization, and Cloud Computing all as viable methods for helping IT departments tackle the challenge of reducing a data center’s energy consumption footprint and overall cost to the business. Our services include designs, vendor selection, and implementation of cloud and virtualization initiatives.