Could Your Next IT Project Drive You to Your Knees?

Malcolm Brock
Managing Director Brovanture

 

For over a week now, the UK ‘High Street’ bank TSB has been reeling under bad press and customer pressure because its switch over to new IT systems, for both consumer and business accounts, has gone very badly wrong. In CEO Paul Pester’s own words:

The bank (TSB) is ‘on our knees’

This implementation failure is high profile because millions of consumer and business customers have been inconvenienced, but it is probably just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this type of failure. Most are ‘under the radar’ as they only affect the organisation concerned and are often kept secret to prevent embarrassment and / or loss of organisational creditability.

Maybe you are taking a good look at your existing IT projects right now? TSB’s problems will be a ‘wake up’ call for many. But how do you ensure current and future projects don’t become the problem that brings your organisation ‘to your knees’? There is much you can do internally and loads of great advice, standards and processes that will help keep your projects in line. The bigger problem is often outside your organisation as your success will also be dependent on the many vendors who provide both product and services vital to your IT projects.

At Brovanture we are acutely aware of our responsibility to the customer organisations we work with. We, of course, always aim for excellence in everything we do, but we have gone further in taking very proactive actions and investment to underpin our approach with standards and training.

As a company we have invested heavily in becoming an accredited supplier with G-Cloud and the Crown Commercial Service as well as maintaining and continuously improving our processes for ISO 9001 and 27001 accreditations. Right now, we are working hard on ensuring that our cyber security measures are up-to-scratch by getting them independently verified by an external body to achieve our Cyber Essentials Plus certification. Along with a number of ongoing activities, these measures will ensure that we have the correct processes and policies in place to manage your IT projects and your data, in a secure and auditable manner. And yes – that does include our commitment to GDPR!

Brovanture was also proud to become the 1st Oracle Fully Certified Cloud Excellence Implementer for Enterprise Planning and Budgeting in the UK & IRL.

For our staff we actively promote training and certification for all the products and services we provide.  Plus, across the wider field, we support them to qualify in accountancy and business examinations. To that end, we are forging ahead with our plans to become accredited with Investors in People which will further demonstrate and help define our continued commitment to our most valuable assets – the employees. The celebration of successful results is costing me a fortune! But, it is worth every penny when I see the quality of the work they do and the feedback I get from our customers. Like this from our customer Edrington-Beam Suntory UK:

“We have partnered with Brovanture for a number of years and always been delighted with the level of expertise and service. It was a given we would go to them for our next generation forecasting and planning solution and they have delivered again. It feels like their team are just part of our overall team as they are just as committed as we are to delivering great solutions for the Edrington-Beam Suntory UK business.”

– Fiona Rodger, Essbase Manager

If you are taking a look at your current IT projects or looking to projects in the future and would like to see how we can help, then please contact us.