IT turnaround for a British mobile communications provider
Developing and implementing the IT turnaround strategy and preparing the IT of a British mobile communications provider for a merger as interim IT Director
01
The challenge
- IT budget – reduction of IT development spend by 50% vs. previous year and significant cost reduction
- IT projects – portfolio streamlining towards short-term EBIT contribution and ensuring delivery in time, quality and budget
- IT stability – daily IT incidents with business impact
- IT security – mandatory implementation of credit card payment requirements (PCI/DSS) within 3 months, customer data insufficiently protected
- IT employee satisfaction – significantly below company average
- preparation for a merger with another mobile telecommunications provider
02
The approach
- personal, face-to-face communication with the other directors and executives regarding perception of and expectations towards IT
- co-location of project teams from IT and other business functions, alignment towards common objectives, transparency regarding project delivery status by regular communication with demand owners
- systematic removal of root causes for IT incidents and implementation of a strict change management in close and direct cooperation with the IT operations outsourcer, common planning and agreements on planned market activities and the resulting IT operations requirements with marketing, sales and customer services
- assignment of accountability for company critical data on director level and implementation of technical security measures
- assignment of stability, security, quality and budget targets to all IT employees and regular communication
03
The result
IT turn-around achieved within 9 months:
- IT budget: met
- IT projects: delivered in time, quality and budget
- IT stability: critical outages reduced to a minimum
- IT security: customer data protection and security achieved organisationally and technically, credit card payment requirements (PCI/DSS) implemented on time
- IT employee satisfaction: increased above company average despite a reduction of 20% of total IT headcount
- merger preparation: IT applications, architecture and operations model qualified as foundation for the merged enterprise