Calor Gas
Scenario
A need for the Calor Group to respond to a UK wide transfer of BACSTEL services to the new platform called BACSTEL-IP.
Situation
Calor Gas were faced with a technology driven change to many of the financial transactions underpinning their business which needed to be completed to a fixed date at the end of 2005. Their existing BACSTEL based processes had been running without close scrutiny for many years; however, due to staff turn-over the management no longer had a detailed understanding of the existing processes and procedures they needed to replace, nor a clear assessment of the complexity and costs involved in moving to the new platform.
Charteris Role
Charteris were asked to provide the means by which the key process stakeholders within Calor Gas could determine:
- How BACS and BACSTEL were currently used by which user departments.
- Document the BACS IT infrastructure, processes and operations at Calor.
- The background, timeline, objectives and potential benefits of the BACSTEL IP upgrade.
- The new solution options based upon variables such as process rationalisation, security, solutions, solutions providers and risk.
- A detailed set of business requirements, both functional and non-functional.
Solution
Charteris devised a one day workshop which brought together the key stakeholders in the wider team to consider the challenge and its implications.
This provided insights into:
- Current Business Process.
- Potential Benefits.
- Existing Technical Architecture.
- Internal Audit Requirements.
- Required Budget and likely costs.
- Impact on the business if the project risks where not addressed.
Follow up interviews were conducted within all the implicated departments to assess current processes and to formulate future requirements. This included integration into existing development initiatives and the capture of immediately implementable process improvements.
The final deliverable was a report which included:
- A complete list of Calor Gas stakeholders.
- A structured list of detailed business requirements.
- A list of assumptions made and dependencies identified.
- Risks assessed and outstanding issues listed.
- A project plan including a fully resourced Gantt chart with key milestones and review points identified.
As result of the 10 man-days work done by Charteris, Calor Gas were able to move forward confidently, ahead of the rest of the industry, towards solution selection with a clear set of objectives, requirements, benefits and plan of action.
Simon Went, Systems Development Manager, of Calor Gas commented: "Working closely with Charteris has revealed that migrating to BACSTEL-IP is not just a simple software upgrade, it is a key project that will have an impact across our entire business. Charteris has provided a clear understanding of what is required to meet the looming BACSTEL-IP deadlines; but moreover, we have used this mandatory change to streamline our business processes and thereby add value to our business."