Many of our engagements start with a high-level review of one or more business functions. This can be a preliminary assessment, or a more formal strategic review. Our insight, gained from previous client projects, as well as broad industry exposure, such as with the NOA (National Outsource Association), allows us to quickly make an assessment and quantify an opportunity for change.
We tend to use benchmarking data from a number of sources to allow us to compare your internal services with those available from within similar organisations, or those offered by 3rd parties. We are able to do this for most support functions: Finance; HR; IT; Facilities, as we believe these functions offer the greatest contribution to your bottom line. Any savings identified and realised can be re-invested in core activity or maybe help organisations get through a period of tough trading.
Throughout a change project, we track cost vs. benefit by drawing up a business case that is updated as we progress through the project. When proposing changes, clients are often concerned about the impact it may have on their customers or brand. We usually carry out a risk assessment on this before, during and after a change to allow your board to decide if the risks are worth the potential benefits. We then propose a project to manage the change in order to minimise any impact on revenues or brand value.
In a recent ExcelSource project, our client believed its global IT services were not running with maximum efficiency. IT infrastructure was delivered from 10 locations globally and the client felt this number could be reduced. A preliminary assessment was carried out to see what was involved in reducing the number of data centres and if it would be feasible to outsource elements of the service.
The outcome of this assessment did not identify a significant saving, because any savings would be largely wiped out by the investment needed to deliver. Furthermore, a number of different outsourcing scenarios were explored and none resulted in a positive business case. Following further exploration, it was decided to expand the scope of the project; looking at an IT-wide strategic review, rather than just IT Facilities.
This review identified significant improvement opportunities, which would deliver substantial cost savings. A risk assessment was carried out and a plan to mitigate those risks was accommodated in the project plan. The board approved the project and ExcelSource are presently contracted to deliver this change project.