I was given responsibility for a multi-site IT function within a major UK multi-site, multi-brand business. The department was sub-optimal, working in ineffective and outmoded ways with poor governance and moderate leadership. The business wanted to move on, and needed the IT function to become one of the cornerstones of a new global, shared service IT offering.

The task? Simple: transform the function; cut costs; improve service; drive value; improve governance, transparency and capability; deliver on promises made; provide services beyond the borders of the UK.

I started with the people. That’s where you should always start. I reorganised the function, adding new capabilities and skill-sets, and recruited to fill those. I changed the management team, bringing in some fresh, external ideas to a group that he been in control for many years. I also started to rebalance the team too, adding more women into the function, including at the leadership level. Then it was a case of getting into governance and service. I put in place a new regime for Project Management, for Demand and Resource Management; I introduced ITIL. There were new forums for interacting with our customers, putting more control into the hands of the business. And when it came to service, we started measuring what we were doing in a better way, and then told the business how we were doing. We started to increase the SLAs when we found we could hit them more reliably. Over time, the trust and respect came back. And for our people, it started to be a great place to work.

Results? We cut costs by about 15% while increasing headcount (to c. 150). Our project delivery went from 20% success to >80% success. All our service metrics turned from red to green. On the service desk, for example, our first time fix rate was regularly over 90% – against a weekly demand of c. 3,000 tickets. And we sold our services outside the UK, implementing a warehouse management system for France and Italy. Personally, I was then asked to lead a global service management initiative across our four international technology centres.

It was brilliant. And our people were brilliant – so it’s all down to them in the end.

Took two years to get really motoring. We were done in about four.

The proudest achievement of my career. The kind of thing I love doing most of all…