An international food distribution company had embarked on a new business strategy to change their business radically which in turn meant a new IT strategy was going to be required. The current IT services were provided in the main by a single managed service provider and there was a concern that the current IT services would not support the new IT strategy.
This case study has been produced by Steve Ingall, Head of Business Services at iCore to demonstrate how iCore was able to help the customer embark on a major transformation of their IT services.
Requirement
The CIO had already established a framework with one large managed service provider for application development, which had already successfully delivered the required SAP upgrade and enabled the company to embark on a major SAP development programme.
Attention now turned to the Infrastructure service providers and IT Service Management (ITSM) provider. With the exception of the mobile services, all other Infrastructure and ITSM was provided by a single managed service provider. This incumbent had a long-term contract (10 year) which had been extended once and was now approaching another renewal anniversary. The company’s Board had raised concerns about the current performance of IT and the CIO approached iCore to undertake a review of the existing services, provide a proposal of how to proceed and support them through the ensuing selection and transition work.
Approach
Service Review
The service review involved a benchmark of the costs and prices being paid for the existing services, the satisfaction of users with the service, a review of the existing operational model within IT, and a quick assessment of the technology. The key findings of the service review indicated that there had been a lack of investment in IT for several years, aspects of the existing services were not providing value for money, users were very dissatisfied with the Service Desk, a lot of the existing technology was old, the in-house team had evolved to cover up for short-comings in the managed service provider, and the incumbent’s contract was approaching a point in time where there was an exit clause that would not trigger any termination payments.
Based upon these findings the main recommendations were to restructure the in-house team to operate more in line with a SIAM Model and following more options analysis work, to recompete the services to get better value and use the opportunity to transform the technology.
iCore were asked to look at whether the Service Desk should be brought in-house to which the conclusion was to keep it as a managed service but bringing it near-shore.
Requirements and Selection
On iCore’s recommendation the Networks and Telecommunications (Telecoms) lot was competed first as this was easily defined and a shortlist was quickly agreed. This included the incumbent but they chose not to bid and in the end a specialist telecoms supplier was chosen and iCore managed the transition of services to that new supplier over a period of 3 months.
For the Desktop, Datacentre and Service Management (Compute) requirements iCore produced a three part Request for Information (RFI) which was issued to a chosen list of suppliers with an invite to attend an open Q&A meeting ahead of them presenting their credentials. As time was of the essence the CIO rejected single lot responses and selected 3 suppliers who could deliver all three lots plus the incumbent to respond formally to the RFI.
Through a series of proposals and meetings the four became two and included the incumbent. These two were asked to present their best and final offer and this was presented to the Board who selected their preferred supplier, who was not the incumbent.
Negotiations and Transition
iCore managed the contract negotiations with the new Telecoms supplier and with the new Compute supplier working with the companies legal and financial team, and the exit of the incumbent in both cases. The Telecoms negotiations and eventual transition took 6 months including the upgrade of the network components and the issue of new mobile SIMs.
The Compute services took longer to negotiate and this ran in parallel with the Telecoms transition but the Compute transition did not commence until the Telecoms one was complete. The Compute transition was phased with the new ITSM services moving quickly after the contract was signed as this was simply to manage the incumbent. The new Desktop service was delivered next with the enabling new platform, followed by the other IT Services which were transitioned into the new suppliers Datacentre over a single weekend. The whole transition took six months to complete.
Outcomes
The new Telecoms supplier delivered a more resilient network with extended capacity and performance, plus new mobile services at more reasonable tariffs.
The new Desktop, Datacentre and ITSM supplier managed the deployment of a new desktop (removing XP), transfer of services onto a new virtualised platform, a near-shore Service Desk, a lower OPEX rate, and within CAPEX constraints. During the transition all termination fees were avoided and TUPE costs minimised.
The in-house team reorganised to become more business aligned and to manage the services rather than manage technology. Importantly they regained the trust and respect of the Business.
If you found this case study useful and would like to discuss iCore can help you drive your IT Service Delivery then contact us on +44 (0)207 868 2405 or email info@icore-ltd.com.
