Our client, a large utility provider, is critically dependant on vendor-supplied services and contractual agreements underpinning key business processes that have a heavy reliance on IT, making technology costs a key contributor to the business bottom line.
A particular challenge within this space is regulatory compliance, such as ‘OJEU’, which affects high-value contracts. The business faced a mounting challenge to control their IT costs and rationalise their vendor landscape, but a lack of visibility or robust process meant this could not be done alone.
Issues included:
• Contracts, POs and Financial data not aligned; spread across disparate spreadsheets
• Little to no supplier governance due to weak process and poor data
• Low visibility on actual contract and vendor costs
• Unsanctioned purchases, out-of-compliance contracts and ‘Shadow IT’ hitting the IT budget
Astute IT assessed the current data and process maturity and began vigorous data consolidation exercises. We engaged with key stakeholders to understand their pain points and employed our agile sprint methodology (”The Astute Way”) to renegotiate contracts in quarterly rounds. We delivered quick wins while keeping the client in control, due to our weekly IT leadership Governance Forum. At the end of our initial engagement, we began implementation of Apptio Vendor Insights™ which consolidates IT and financial data to provide a transparent picture of the vendor and contract portfolio.
Within the initial engagement, Astute IT achieved high savings that impacted the IT bottom line across multiple financial years. On average, our team paid for itself roughly every 6 days of the engagement. We successfully implemented Apptio Vendor Insights™ in just under 5 weeks, and were then asked to implement Apptio Cost Transparency™ and Apptio ITFMF™, to further enhance the client’s IT financial management.
