Case Study
Client
A global Web services company that operates some of the most popular Web destinations, offers a comprehensive suite of free software and services, runs one of the country’s largest Internet access businesses, and provides a full set of advertising solutions.
Project Overview & Objectives
The Member Services division created a transformation program focusing on increasing the levels of support for their customer base and improving the company’s profitability. The business cases for this portfolio of initiatives defined operational and savings targets which were tracked for eight months. The client did not have resources or defined structure to coordinate, manage and measure these workstreams to achieve the targets that were established.
Our Involvement
Synaptitude operated a Program Management Office (PMO) to coordinate, monitor and report on these initiatives, deliver a structured management approach across the enterprise and provide executive level deliverables describing operational progress and realization of the anticipated benefits. We designed, enhanced and implemented a set of management processes and tools to monitor and track against defined operational and monetary targets for the fiscal year. Performance reports were delivered at monthly Steering Committee meetings, where initiatives that are at risk of missing their committed targets were discussed and mitigation strategies were defined. Synaptitude also managed the program’s Change Control process that was required for any addition, deletion or alteration of a target commitment made by an initiative. This process assessed the change impact, scope, timeframe and metrics for an item that was being introduced as a result of a mitigation strategy, issue resolution or change in business approach. We performed additional PMO responsibilities that included preparing meeting materials, documenting meeting minutes, managing issues and action items, developing weekly status reports and maintaining a program document repository.
Results and Benefits
For the period of eight months that the PMO was in operation, 45 out of 46 operational metrics were met or exceeded which delivered a total of greater than $47M in savings to the organization. Synaptitude supported seven workstreams that implemented over 40 projects within the customer services division of the organization. The methods and structured approach utilized by this program will be used as a template for similar programs being implemented by the organization.