Case studies

Public Sector - IT and Telecoms Outsourcing

Orbys was asked, by a client it had worked for on other assignments, to provide commercial leadership for a very large (£3bn) public sector contract re-negotiation

Orbys appointed a very experienced commercial consultant who joined the client’s team, full time, as an interim senior commercial manager, reporting to the programme director. Our consultant was tasked with building and managing a commercial team, appointing external legal advisors and negotiating two very large contracts with two different suppliers in parallel (one for IT the other for Telecoms).

Major High Street Retailer Contact Centre Outsourcing

Orbys was asked to provide support to two outsourcing contracts for two UK based contact centres which were owned and operated by a major high street retail client

Orbys provided advice and direction to the client’s team responsible for negotiating the outsourcing deal and also took direct responsibility for drafting and agreeing the services schedule and the service level agreement.

Orbys Advise Government Offices on ICT Collaboration opportunities

The Cabinet Office and HM Treasury look at how they can benefit from co-operation between their ICT services

In line with Sir Peter Gershon’s major study into how the Government does its business, Orbys were retained to advise the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury’s ICT departments on the potential opportunities available from stronger collaboration. A detailed study was performed, including identification of potential savings, possible roadmaps to achieve these and a comprehensive risk assessment of all of the options.

IT Effectiveness Across Companies Worldwide

Orbys advised a global food and drink manufacturer on IT effectiveness and organisation

This Orbys client is an international food and drink manufacturing company that operates in 49 countries across the world with a turnover in excess of £6 billion.

Their IT operation employs over 1,200 IT staff in 100 companies/locations globally.

Orbys were engaged by the new CIO to perform a review of IT effectiveness across all the client’s companies worldwide and to establish a ‘baseline’ of costs and metrics in order to evaluate opportunities for improvement and service-based budgeting with the business units. Orbys were chosen due to their knowledge of best practice IT processes and management, their market knowledge for cost comparisons and the depth of experience and credibility of their consultants with senior management.

Orbys helps Allied Irish Bank set up its branch network in Poland

The largest single business project ever undertaken within the AIB Group.

AIB Poland acquired and merged two Polish banks, Bank Zachodni and Wielkopolski Bank Kretytowy, and proposed to build and deploy a new, comprehensive branch banking system across some 500 branches throughout Poland. The change programme involved was the largest single business project ever undertaken within the AIB Group.

"I would have no hesitation in employing Orbys again should a suitable opportunity arise, and can wholeheartedly recommend them for any assignment related to the commercial aspects of IT."

Orbys Delivers Benchmarking Assurance

Managing benchmarking risks to deliver maximum benefits

Syngenta is a Swiss-based global chemicals company with a turnover in excess of $7bn. They have strategic partnerships with two ‘Tier 1’ IT suppliers, one for Infrastructure and one for Wide Area Networks. Each of these deals has been running for a number of years, and is currently going through a major consolidation and upgrade program. Syngenta wanted to be confident that they would be getting value for money for the support of the ongoing services, once the change programs had been completed, but without having to go through the potentially disruptive process of re-letting the contracts. They therefore brought in (though an RFP process) their long-term IT research partner, Gartner, to carry out a benchmark on each of these services.

"It was extremely useful to have a neutral person in the process who could take the heat and the feedback without putting the relationship in danger."

Orbys Negotiates £30 Million F&A and IT Outsourcing Contract for Magnet

Completing the process within four months, delivering rapid ROI

Orbys’ outsourcing consultancy expertise allowed Magnet to:

• focus on core business functions of increased sales and improved customer service
• enjoy improved quality of service from outsourced finance & accounting and IT departments
• complete the outsourcing process against tight timescales, starting delivery of ROI in less than four months.

Joinery, kitchen, bedroom and home/office manufacturing and retailing business, Magnet, has announced the go-live of a £30 million project for the outsourcing of its IT and finance & accounting functions, negotiated and managed by outsourcing consultancy specialists Orbys Consulting.

"Orbys has been unswerving in their determination to achieve our goals."

Orbys helps Foster Wheeler Energy Limited to reduce the cost of hardware maintenance

Bringing two contracts into one

Keeping pace with a rapidly changing IT market can be difficult and companies often turn for help to those organisations who are intimately involved. When looking to reduce the cost of hardware maintenance for their IT servers, Personal Computers and peripherals, Foster Wheeler Energy Limited (FWEL) turned to Orbys for advice on the marketplace. FWEL had contracts with two organisations for different elements of their IT infrastructure hardware and were looking to bring these contracts into one. FWEL had already arranged a workshop to decide on their approach to the market and asked Orbys to contribute to the workshop and share their knowledge of recent changes in the marketplace with the FWEL team.

Orbys support FirstGroup Bus Division in carrying out a feasibility and high level design exercise for a new National Shared Service Centre

FirstGroup had grown rapidly over a ten year period to be one of the UK's leading passenger transportation businesses. Much of this rapid growth had been through acquisition, with limited centralisation and standardisation achieved to date. The UK Bus group identified a key project that challenges the previous status quo of fragmented processes and disparate systems and provides the foundation for achieving cost reduction and improved service performance through the establishment of a National Shared Service Centre (NSSC). This would initially provide finance and accounting services to the six UK FirstGroup Bus Divisions.

"Orbys' wealth of theory was very effectively turned into a practical, results oriented approach"

Orbys helps negotiate an offshore outsourcing deal for a major manufacturer

Successful offshore outsourcing to save money and get high quality software

Orbys helped a large multi-national manufacturing organisation - associated with many well-known high street brands - to save money and get a high quality software solution by negotiating an offshore software development outsourcing arrangement with a software company in India.

FirstGroup makes an informed choice

Services procurement success

FirstGroup plc bus division has completed the selection of a partner to provide data centre services for a portfolio of business critical applications. Orbys supported FirstGroup throughout the sourcing procurement, providing a proven process, market knowledge and a combination of commercial and technical skills.

Andy Rowe, Group IT Infrastructure Services Manager, FirstGroup, "Without Orbys experience and expertise, we just couldn’t have met our targets."

Orbys helps high-street retailer negotiate a 5 year extension with added value and control

Benchmarking the price and service - High Street retailer negotiates new deal with existing service supplier, reducing cost, improving value

Orbys helped a well known High Street retailer renegotiate a new five year deal with their IT services outsourcing supplier, saving on the previous competitively priced contract. Orbys was asked by the retailer to conduct a benchmark study of the existing contract with a renowned outsourcing supplier. The engagement was to review the existing price structure and service details, including desktop, network, help-desk and AS/400 operational services.

A leading healthcare manufacturer improves IT service quality with outsourcing

Healthcare manufacturer boosts IT data centre and help desk services - Support and guidance throughout the whole process

A leading international healthcare manufacturer has signed a seven-year European outsourcing contract for data centre and help desk services.

This client engaged Orbys for support and guidance throughout the whole process, from conception of the outsourcing idea to contract signature.

This support included data gathering from some ten European countries, deciding on the procurement approach, managing the competitive supplier selection process and negotiating the final service contract.

Vice President: "Orbys...got us far better terms than we could have achieved on our own."

Bayer plc improves facilities with outsourcing

Orbys provides support throughout

Bayer plc has signed a five-year outsourcing deal with Rentokil Initial Management Services (RIMS) for the management of its facilities services across a number of sites.

Orbys worked with Bayer throughout the process leading the Bayer team through the assessment of options, definition of services, selection of a supplier, negotiation of the contract, and transfer of services to the new supplier.

Steve Waite, Group Director of Finance and Administration at Bayer, "We needed to make significant savings in our facilities costs and to provide more flexible and responsive services."

Punch Group - "a most complex outsourcing project"

The Company and Industry

When Allied Domecq PLC decided to concentrate on the world-wide spirits market, it sold its UK retailing interests to Punch, comprising 3,500 pubs and 50% of its interest in a joint venture with Whitbread operating 3,000 off-licences.

As part of the purchase of the pubs and shops, Punch also gained the Allied Domecq Retailing IT division, Central Management Services (CMS). CMS had for many years provided services to the pubs, shops and breweries of Allied Domecq, and was contracted to continue to provide these services to the new owners for several years.

Orbys was asked to review the existing CMS organisation and, using the Orbys experience of the UK outsourcing market place, to identify whether CMS was of interest to the market, and whether any benefits would accrue to Punch if the whole of CMS were outsourced as a going concern.

Bayer keeps people services in house

Out is not the only fruit

Bayer plc is keeping in-house its payroll and occupational health services following advice from Orbys.

Orbys is frequently asked to conduct such studies to assess the potential benefits - and risks - where outsourcing might be only one part of a potential solution.

Orbys supports BP Amoco in major US finance outsourcing deal

Supporting in principles and in practices

BP Amoco (BPA) selected Orbys as their finance outsourcing advisers to supplement their in-house outsourcing expertise with in-depth experience of current best practice in the business process outsourcing market.

Initially, Orbys helped BPA to establish a set of global outsourcing deal principles that could be applied to all BPA’s finance outsourcing deals around the world, regardless of the supplier or the geographical location.

On successful completion of this task, Orbys were appointed as advisers and were a member of the negotiating team for the outsourcing to Andersen Consulting of BPA’s entire downstream accounting function in the United States.

Orbys joins the team to decide the best way forward for LASMO Venezuela

Setting up the team - Improving business processes, systems and back office activities with Orbys

LASMO established a presence in Venezuela when it took over as operator of the Dacion oil field. A rapid staff build up quickly occurred with the emphasis being on safety, increasing production and other operational requirements.

LASMO recognised a need to improve business processes, systems and back office activities and a multi-disciplined team, which included Orbys, was put together to determine the best way forward.

Chris Ryan, Accounting Outsourcing Project Manager, LASMO, "LASMO got an excellent commercial deal, largely thanks to Orbys."

Orbys delivers targeted value at Reading Borough Council

Market knowledge, key deliverables

Orbys delivered targeted value in the initiative to outsource desktop and communications services at Reading Borough Council (RBC).

RBC evaluated the benefits of outsourcing IT services as part of its continuing assessment of how it delivers services, to maximise efficiency and effectiveness for local tax payers.

RBC chose Orbys as outsourcing advisers, in the initial stages of the outsourcing project, to ensure an optimum start to the project. Orbys worked to support the Council’s IT management team delivering market knowledge and a number of key project deliverables, which were then handed over to the RBC team for them to manage.

Orbys support accelerates major finance outsourcing deal at LASMO

A new standard in competitive outsourcing

Orbys helped set a new standard in competitive outsourcing of finance services when UK energy company LASMO agreed a five-year outsourcing agreement with Andersen Consulting (now Accenture).

The outsourcing was an integral part of LASMO's restructuring of business which overall looks to reduce overhead costs by £30 million per annum.

LASMO chose Orbys as their outsourcing advisers, to provide support throughout the full lifecycle of the project - covering benefits planning (strategy and approach), confirmation of benefits (procurement and arrangement), and benefits realisation (transition and delivery).

Duncan Milroy, Group General Manager Corporate Finance at LASMO, "Orbys provided a highly professional and excellent value-for-money service."