Global Courier Company
Scenario
Review of IT plans for one division of a global courier company
Situation
The client's European and African region
comprises individual companies in many countries, each
with their own management team and IT organisation.
One group of countries had formed a single company,
and the regional IT director was concerned that the
combined company had committed itself to a significant
number of IT projects and would not be able to deliver
them on time. Given the critical nature of many of these
projects, the IT Director needed to understand quickly
whether the company was over-stretched, so that some
projects could be assigned elsewhere if necessary.
Charteris Role
Charteris was able to supply two experienced
staff to undertake an independent assessment of the
IT workload and the resource capability of the regional
company. For the review to be successful in a very short
timescale, it was vital that the team was very experienced
both in project management and in understanding what
makes IT organisations effective. It was also important
that the team were completely independent, as this enabled
the staff to speak frankly and express their own views
on the situation.
Solution
A team of 2 Charteris
consultants spent 4 days in the client's offices interviewing
a total of 18 staff, ranging from technical support staff
to senior management. The team quickly built up a very
detailed picture of the IT organisation, the procedures
and mechanisms in place for implementing projects and
the status of all projects underway and planned. The team
was able to use its experience in asking pertinent and
revealing questions to determine the extent of the problem.
At the end of the assignment, Charteris presented their
results to the IT Director and his direct reports, together
with a set of recommendations aimed at substantially improving
the IT operations in that region.
The report was very
well received by the client, and formed the basis of the
IT director's plans to move forward.