£250 million cost savings through architecture and operating model simplification for a large consumer business
The Situation
A consumer business in the UK, serving 10 million customers with a complex IT architecture and Operating Model, set on a large scale digital transformation programme. However, the co-existence of the transformed estate with the legacy estate, resulted in dual technology stacks and dual operating models, along with the associated uplift in cost & complexity, leading to ~ 40% increase in operating cost.
It became an imperative for the business to simplify its architecture and the operating model to reduce the dual running cost. This simplification had a significant contractual, people, operational and regulatory implications that needed effective strategy, planning, execution and collaboration across the organisation.
The Task
Leading and inspiring a large team of subject matter experts from various business domains, on behalf of the COO, my task was to shape the strategy & roadmap for architecture and operating model simplification, obtain stakeholder buy-in and execute the roadmap to deliver £250 m savings over 5 years. The simplification had to be executed without any adverse impact to customer experience or regulatory obligations.
The Action / Approach
The simplification programme involved various activities including definition of the guardrails for simplification; asset identification; value assessment; impact assessment to determine the implications on people, process, customers and compliance; business case development; execution planning & prioritisation; inter-dependency mapping; supplier contract reviews and negotiation of descoping catalogue with partners; execution of contract termination; remediation of adverse impact to people, process and KPI/SLA; system power-down and deactivation of alarms & information feeds; data migration and erasure; equipment disposal.
The Result
Leading and inspiring the cross-functional team, shaped the strategy & roadmap for architecture and operating model simplification; Obtained stakeholder buy-in; Set up the governance structure and delivery model; Progressed execution of the plan to deliver £250 m savings over 5 years with minimal adverse impact to customer experience or regulatory obligations.
