Williams Bain transformed the fortunes of a FTSE 100 IT solutions business by substantially reducing its cost to service. Our involvement resulted in an in-year saving of £2.3m.
The Situation
The board had recognised that targets were being missed and, more importantly, there was a significant risk that volume business would be lost. They needed our help to find a solution and implement it quickly so that their profit figures were not adversely affected that year.
The main Board member who was responsible for the change had made it clear that their main focus was on reducing costs. During the discovery phase of the project our CIO level interim transformation Director found that the IT systems were not geared towards serving the customer, and the cost of delivering the service was too high if they were to remain competitive in the market. In order to proceed with the client, we needed to find a solution that improved customer experience at the same time as restructuring operations and reducing their cost to serve.
The Solution
Our target was to reduce IT spending by £1.9m. The programme plan was created and we commenced delivery led by our interim business transformation expert and supported using the client’s internal resources that were identified from within the business.
The Result
The success of this assignment was down to the working relationship between the client and our hand picked Interim Manager. The clients strategy was accelerated sufficiently to be delivered ahead of time and the savings achieved were in excess of the targeted £1.9m.
A third of the IT workforce, including the permanent CIO role, were lost. The IT function was realigned to become fit for purpose and therefore able to price competitively for new contracts.