Situation

This company was faced with unexpected strong budget overrun of its IT budget.  We were asked to help recover the costs to stay in budget limits.

Objective and deliverable

The objective was a double digit budget reduction in a period of just 6 months

Challenges

• Achieve savings in a short timeframe while considering existing contract agreements and ramp-up time for savings.
• Deal with software compliance issue that we found.
• Obtain sign-off on the savings from the IT Management Team, the IT Financial Controller, the CIO, the CPO, and the Head of Procurement Europe.

Approach

• Conduct an initial opportunity and risk analysis, including a feasibility/opportunity map, a project plan and workplan for preparing first negotiations, and a detailed analysis of savings opportunities and concerns.
• Assemble and engage the team within 24 hours.
• Achieve double digit savings of the IT budget in a period of 3 months.
• Manage the program by establishing a governance council with the CIO, CPO, IT Financial Controller. Monitor and track progress with weekly meetings to monitor progress and discuss obstacles and solutions.
• Implement progress reporting through the use of a dashboard for close monitoring of savings, which was reviewed on a weekly basis.
• Obtain sign-off on the results from the IT Management Team, the IT Financial Controller, the CIO, the CPO, and the Head of Procurement Europe.

Key learnings and solution

• Strong sponsorhip is key
• Focus of the team on the project.
• Speed of acting is key

Result

We managed to help identify and achieve the savings on target.