Our Design Criteria
The criteria that ensure every solution serves the business
Every solution we design — whether it's a supply chain system, an RFID deployment, an AI build, or an IT infrastructure review — is assessed against the same criteria. These are not just technical checkboxes. They start with the criteria that most design frameworks miss: whether the solution enables the business, whether the people believe in it, and whether the investment is directed at the constraint. The technical criteria matter too — but they only matter if the business criteria are right first.
Talk to UsWe Start Where Most Frameworks Stop
Standard solution design frameworks cover the technical criteria well — functionality, availability, scalability, cost. But they treat the business context as an afterthought, if they address it at all. We lead with three criteria that most frameworks miss:
Business Enablement
IT and technology can change the way a business goes to market. We work with our customers to identify and qualify these opportunities and realise them as soon as possible. We focus on delivering business outcomes — not just point technology implementations. Every design decision is evaluated against: “Does this enable the business to do something it couldn’t do before?”
Engagement
Even the best solution is pointless if people don’t believe in it. We work within the existing partner engagement model our customers feel comfortable with — providing point requirements alongside existing capability or end-to-end delivery as required. We work with the whole team and ensure everyone is on board. Technology adoption fails without organisational buy-in.
Priority
The criteria are not all equally important to every organisation, and the relative value does not necessarily carry a commensurate cost. Prioritising the appropriate elements ensures investment is directed in optimal alignment with the return to the organisation. We always encourage investment at or in alignment with the single systemic constraint — the one bottleneck whose improvement will have the greatest impact on the whole system. We also consider strategic alignment: what the board and executive team see as strategically important can override short-term ROI drivers.
The Complete Framework
The three criteria above sit alongside the technical, risk and commercial criteria that together form the complete design framework. Every solution is assessed against all of them — with the relative priority tailored to each customer's specific context.
Functional and Compliance Requirements
Functional requirements should enjoy the highest priority in any technology solution — but when you see the gap between what people wanted, what they got, and what they actually need, you realise the real requirements are not always obvious. We rapidly cycle design concepts past stakeholders to ensure solutions match real requirements over the life of the solution — not just what was written in the initial brief.
Risk Profile
We believe technology can offer predictable service levels at a predictable cost, as well as certainty of outcome within a given timeframe. Zero risk would come at infinite cost. What we do is present solution options in terms of cost, value, and risk to find the optimal balance that suits each customer’s appetite for risk versus return. We are comfortable taking a shared-risk approach because we are confident in our proven ability to deliver.
Security
Every solution changes what an organisation exposes. We design for what the solution can reach, who can reach it, how it is defended, and how the business recovers if it is compromised — including whether the recovery path itself can withstand a deliberate attack on it. We also assess the security posture a solution inherits from the environment it enters, because most solutions are only as secure as what they connect to.
Data
Every solution runs on data, and that data is rarely in the condition the business believes it to be. We assess whether the data a solution depends on is fit to be used — accuracy, assurance, maintenance, structure, location, integration, transformation and model — and what may be done with it: who can see it, how long it is kept, and what it may be used to train. AI has made data far easier to work with, and the opportunity and the exposure have grown together. The data a digital supply chain generates is already being consumed by AI models and driving business decisions, and an AI answer is only as good as the data it can reach. And since 1 May 2026 the Privacy Act 2020 has required an organisation to notify people whose personal information it collects from any source other than the person themselves — which catches much integration and enrichment work.
Supportability
People, processes, and technology are all required for IT to deliver a consistent service level to the business. We help our customers ensure internal, vendor, and service provider support processes and resources are aligned with their risk profile. A solution that can’t be supported is a solution that will fail.
Availability
Availability is a function of the maturity of the technology, solution design, internal capability, processes, and external support levels. We tailor solutions to match your business requirements and ensure you get the availability you require at a cost you can afford.
Scalability and Flexibility
Organisations change over time and technology needs to grow or change with them. We work to understand what an organisation expects and put in place solutions that provide an optimal balance of scalability and flexibility to suit their spending profile. Where a market is moving quickly — AI platforms most of all — we design so that today’s vendor choice can be revisited: commitments made deliberately, with the cost of changing course understood at the time it is made rather than discovered later.
Interoperability
Most solutions go into existing environments alongside existing technologies, processes, resources, and tangent projects. All of these represent leverage opportunities but also increased complexity. By resolving potential conflicts and leveraging the synergies, it’s possible to reduce overall upfront investment and future costs.
Visibility and Control
Technology exists to support the business. By providing role-related ubiquitous visibility and control, it’s possible to ensure the continued close alignment of technology with business needs. This applies across supply chain systems, IT infrastructure, and operational technology.
Speed and Efficiency of Delivery
In business, if something is worth doing, it is worth doing sooner. Our methodology enables us to bring the business benefits forward while minimising disruption, setup activity, and costs in the process. This is why we start with pilots and quick wins — prove value early, then scale.
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Spending Profile
We highlight the capital and operational cost implications of available solutions over the life of the project, including indirect costs such as risks to brand value or revenue. We work creatively with our customers to clarify business cases and match the balance of capital and operational costs to their spending profile.
Applied to Every Engagement
These criteria are not theoretical — they're applied in every engagement during our reverse engineering process:
Step 2 (Determine Prerequisites) — The criteria identify what the solution must satisfy.
Step 3 (Find Creative Delivery) — The criteria evaluate competing approaches.
Step 5 (Eliminate Risks) — The criteria surface risks that might otherwise be missed (supportability, interoperability, availability).
The relative priority of each criterion is set with the customer at the start of each engagement — because what matters most to a growing manufacturer is different from what matters most to a pharmaceutical distributor.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are design criteria in technology consulting?+
Design criteria are the standards against which a technology solution is evaluated during design and delivery. Synergic Technologies applies a single framework covering business enablement, engagement, priority, functional and compliance requirements, risk, security, data fitness and protection, supportability, availability, scalability, interoperability, visibility, speed of delivery, and total cost of ownership. Unlike standard architecture frameworks that focus on technical criteria alone, Synergic’s framework leads with business context — whether the solution enables the business, whether the team believes in it, and whether the investment targets the constraint.
How do the design criteria apply to AI projects?+
The same criteria apply to an AI build as to a supply chain system or an RFID deployment. What AI changes is where the weight falls. Data asks whether the information an AI system depends on is fit to be used and what may lawfully be done with it, which is where most AI projects come unstuck. Security asks what a model can reach and who can reach it. Scalability and Flexibility asks whether today’s platform choice can be revisited as the market moves. Business Enablement and Priority still come first: whether the use case enables something the business could not do before, and whether it targets the constraint that matters most.
How do design criteria reduce project risk?+
By evaluating every solution against the full set of criteria before committing to delivery, design criteria surface risks and trade-offs that would otherwise emerge during implementation — when they’re expensive to fix. Synergic’s framework explicitly addresses security, data protection, supportability, interoperability, and availability alongside business enablement and priority, ensuring solutions are designed for the real environment they’ll operate in.
Design Starts With the Business Outcome
Every solution we design begins with understanding what you need to achieve and what matters most. Tell us about your challenge.
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