TECHNOLOGY TRANSFORMATIONHigh Profile Technology Transformation Programme For A Multi-Billion Dollar Global Financial Services Data Provider

When a multi-billion dollar Global Financial Services Data Provider embarked upon a strategic technology transformation programme to consolidate its data centre footprint and adopt cloud technology across its extensive product portfolio, it hadn’t fully appreciated the scale of business change that was required. Whilst technically it had designed the architecture and implemented the facilities and technology infrastructure required for the new global centres, the impact of the change on the organisation had not been taken into account. In particular, at the point where the business needed to start the migration onto the new technology – a high risk operational and logistical challenge – the operational teams and product business units weren’t on board with the programme. Consequently, whilst costs had been incurred the business benefits were now at risk. Getting the new centres fully operational, with the right organisational structure, processes and culture in place along with committed plans to migrate products to the new cloud based platform was now critical. At this point help was enlisted from business and IT change specialists, DAV Management, to get this technology focused initiative properly scoped, fully structured and implemented as a business change programme so that the anticipated business outcomes and associated benefits could be realised.

Streamlining costs

The client had previously identified a strategic need to streamline its worldwide data centre operations and introduce an infrastructure based on cloud technology. The business case was compelling: in addition to a substantial reduction in costs the programme would make the business more agile and resilient, so reducing time to market for its products. With many older data centres dotted around the globe reliant on legacy technology, the organisation knew that these large-scale facilities were becoming increasingly inefficient from a capacity and power perspective. The majority of its product portfolio was not utilising hardware efficiently and this, combined with rising energy prices, meant that power had become a major issue.

A business case was put forward and agreed at executive level for a technology transformation programme to rationalise the data centre estate down to a small number of global, super-efficient facilities with a state-of-the-art cloud technology infrastructure. There was a great deal at stake to successfully achieve this multi-year programme, which involved re-developing and migrating the majority of the organisation’s product portfolio onto a cloud based, virtualised and automated platform. The migration to the new technology infrastructure would ensure a massive reduction in energy overheads as well as provide a new fully optimised “private cloud” – all leading to significant cost savings and increased agility and resilience. The business case for the programme anticipated that the organisation would start realising the full annual cost savings from 2015 onwards.

Focusing on the technology

This was a highly visible mission-critical technology initiative with multiple programme streams and projects requiring not only new facilities and technology infrastructure but also major organisational, process and cultural change in order to drive the savings and create a more agile organisation. Six months into the plan, the new facilities and technology infrastructure had been designed and the organisation had progressed well with implementation in the new centres. It was now critical that the organisational, process and culture changes were accelerated to ensure that the business was ready to operate and migrate onto the new platform.

However, from the outset the organisation had approached this as a technology implementation and had not fully engaged with the operational teams and product business units to articulate the vision, business objectives and specific benefits; the programme had not been structured to consider the needs of the business or focused on the required business benefits. In addition, some of the product business units would need to completely re-engineer their products to work on the new cloud based infrastructure. This was not something they had bargained for and the benefits of pursuing such a strategy were unclear to them. Unsurprisingly, they had not bought into the vision. In essence, the technology requirements had been progressed but the business change needs had not been addressed.

redefining the management of change

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DAV

As a result, the programme was starting to drift and it was at this stage that the client looked to business and IT change specialists, DAV Management, for help. Having had previous experience of working with DAV, the organisation knew the company had the knowledge and expertise to help make this transformation work. DAV was enlisted to look at all the elements that the business would need to undertake in order to get the operational teams and product business units fully engaged and ensure that the business stood a chance of realising the benefits identified in the business case. In short, DAV was tasked with getting the technology transformation programme back on track and properly structured to deliver the required business change and subsequent benefits.

Implementing the programme

The scale of technology, organisational, process and cultural change still required was enormous. This involved transforming an internal technology operation into a “private cloud” service provider and enabling product business units to become more agile, resilient and connected. It required not only new skills, organisational structures and processes, but also a huge change in mind-set.

In the first instance, DAV restructured the programme to ensure the right focus on the business change was achieved. This included devolving unequivocal accountability for delivery into ‘business as usual’ functional teams, and a re-organisation of programme governance to ensure clear business direction and ownership. The new structure was designed to enable the continued evolution of the technology infrastructure whilst implementing the organisational, process and cultural changes required for the business benefits to be realised. The main delivery elements of the structure were:

1. Technology capability development – the definition and ongoing development of the technology platform including the processes and tools required to facilitate the migration of products onto the infrastructure and their subsequent support;

2. Organisational and culture change – driving the organisational structure changes, acquisition of new skillsets and adoption of ‘service provider’ behaviours required to support the implemented technology platform and migration of products;

3. Service charging – defining how the new “private cloud” and associated services would be charged to the product business units, a critical element in achieving the mind-set change;

4. Marketing – working with the product business units to articulate the business vision and associated benefits, facilitating product roadmap planning to include re-development and migration activities and promoting the associated agile methods of working.

Three key supporting workstreams were also put in place to support the delivery requirements: Stakeholder communications - to co-ordinate stakeholder mapping and management and oversee the required programme communications;

Benefits and financial management - to monitor business case performance and delivery of benefits, ensuring business ownership for benefits delivery;

Design authority - to assure overall technical consistency of programme delivery.

Communicating for success

Ultimately, the overall success of the programme depended on gaining the “buy-in” of the operational teams and the product business units and it was clear to DAV that it was critical to engage with these key stakeholders more effectively. This was achieved by refining and articulating the business vision, effectively outlining what the business wanted to achieve, whilst accepting that there was always going to be some pain involved with such a huge transformation. In addition, the programme strategy and plan needed to be communicated in a way that everyone throughout the business could understand, sign up to and support. DAV believed that it was important that everyone within the business understood the overall journey as an overriding principle of the communications approach.

Charlie Mayes, Managing Director for DAV Management comments: “The whole concept of aligning the product roadmaps with the technology infrastructure capability so that they converge over time to facilitate migration, requires clear and continuous communication. The programme members, operational teams and the product business units all needed to have a mutual understanding of what they were trying to deliver for the programme to succeed. In the first instance, we had to clearly shape it so that people could understand what it was that we were trying to do.”

CONTACT DAV Management LtdAlbany House14 Shute EndWokinghamBerkshireRG40 1BJ

+44 (0)118 974 0100dav.mgt@davmanagement.comwww.davmanagement.com

“WITH HELP FROM DAV MANAGEMENT, WE ARE WELL ON OUR WAY TO ACHIEVING OUR PLAN AND IN THE PROCESS WE ARE BECOMING A MORE EFFICIENT, AGILE AND RESILIENT BUSINESS, BETTER EQUIPPED TO RESPOND TO THE VOLATILITY OF TODAYS MACRO-ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT.”

redefining the management of change

management

DAV

Benefits beyond the original plan

The original business case was based on the significant cost savings associated with rationalising the data centre footprint and implementing the new cloud based technology infrastructure; primarily power savings but also savings from standardised infrastructure, increased automation and improved resilience. However, it was clear that these benefits could not be realised by approaching this as just a technology implementation programme. The business change approach was not only critical in ensuring that the anticipated benefits could be realised, it also enabled further business benefits, that were not included in the original business case, to be identified. These related to additional benefits of adopting cloud technology that derive from faster time to market for new and enhanced products and included greater revenue opportunity and the optimisation of development expertise across the organisation.

Creating an agile organisation

Today, the Global Financial Services Data Provider has implemented a small number of state-of-the-art global data centres containing cloud based technology infrastructure and is actively managing a programme to re-develop and migrate its legacy products onto the new platform and close down its many older, less efficient data centres.

Over time, as the ongoing business change activities are implemented, the internal technology operation will complete its journey to becoming a “private cloud” provider and the product business units will become more agile and resilient, reaping the benefits of adopting cloud technology. However, this is a multi-year programme and whilst it is now set up for success, a continued focus on business change is needed to ensure that the vision and associated business benefits are fully realised.

Two years on and with the help of DAV Management, the organisation is well on the way to achieving this and in the process is becoming a more efficient, agile and resilient business better equipped to quickly respond to the volatility of today’s macro-economic environment.