Integrating IT Operations post-merger, to reduce cost, plus improve Business/IT relationship through better alignment of IT to the Business

Customer Profile:

Centrica is a top 30 FTSE100 company with growing energy businesses in the UK and N. America.
Sector: Energy Geography: Multi-National See: www.centrica.com

The Customer Issue:

After a series of successful business acquisitions, Centrica needed to rationalise and integrate a number of legacy IT operations across the UK. Its objectives were to reduce both operating costs and capex across the IT infrastructure.

Centrica also saw this as an opportunity to improve the value that IT delivered to the Business by better aligning the IT services it delivered, to the business services, products, people and processes that it supported.

The Solution:

BSMimpact identified a Business Service Management framework as the key to achieving Centrica’s objectives. This was developed and applied through an IS Transformation Programme. To achieve the efficiency savings required, the Programme incorporated a technology refresh, a focus on cultural development plus the standardisation of service against ITIL guidelines. In order to achieve better alignment of IT with the business, a formal service delivery framework was agreed based on defined Services and a set of formal service contracts. The programme contained many projects, including the following:-

• A Service Management Platform using a standardised mix of BMC and HP tools (based on BMC PATROL and HP ServiceDesk)
• A Service Based Supply approach for the delivery of all service to internal Business Units based on Service Contracts
• A Service Catalogue containing a definitive list of the IT services available
• Benefits Management designed to manage the realisation of the benefits assigned to the Programme.
• Enterprise Management Solution automating the creation of incidents, creating a new centralised Service Control Centre, consolidating tools support into a new EMS team, providing Service Views to move the management of services from a technology view to a true business service view

By the end of the 12 month project, the EMS programme had realised £12m operational savings.

The Benefits:

The IS Transformation Programme delivered an organisation redesign, £12M in cost savings through enterprise management, and an improved service management capability. The IS function was also better able to target IT spend against business priorities.