Multi-year Transformation Roadmap

Functional Area

Google Apps

Client

A British builders merchant, listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. The Company operates several retail businesses in the building materials sector in the UK from over 1200 sites.

Challenge

The company had been considering a move to Google for a number of years. Extensive product demos, deep dive sessions, sales pitches and offers had been put forward, but limited traction was being made at the senior levels of the organization. The size and complexity of the company operations made it difficult for management to grasp the vision of how Google could transform their business and the path that they should take to get to that vision. They needed help from a team with deep expertise in making Google work in large enterprises.

Approach

The company ran a competitive RFP to identify the best partner to plan their transformation. White Stratus was selected, and began the execution of a comprehensive Google Transformation Diagnostic. The approach included 3 parallel streams of work:

1) Platform Consolidation Analysis - existing IT platforms were analysed to identify opportunities to consolidate current and planned IT systems onto the Google Platform. Where compatibilities with the Google platform were identified, cash-savings costs were calculated and input into a comprehensive 3 year financial model that determined RoI, IRR, Breakeven for different consolidation and rollout scenarios.

2) User Scenario Analysis - Workshops were run with end users to assess opportunities to use the Google Apps platform in the business. A total 42 use cases were assessed across HR, Finance, Marketing, Sales, Store Ops and other areas. Compatible use cases were identified and prioritized with the best use cases validated with senior management, to garner support for the transformation.

3) IT Strategy and Roadmap - based on the platforms identified for consolidation, and the use cases validated with the business, a 3 year IT strategy and roadmap was developed. Dependencies and milestones were aligned with contractual constraints from existing vendor contracts and product exit strategies were factored into the plan.

Results

The Google Transformation Diagnostic resulted in a clear strategy, roadmap and business case for moving forward with a comprehensive Google rollout. The rollout includes Google Apps deployment, Sharepoint migration, .Net Application rebuilds and MS Office remediation.

The company CIO was able to get the Board of Directors to sign off on the initiative and White Stratus is now moving forward with the transformation of the company to a Google-centric enterprise.

Benefits

The Google Transformation Diagnostic resulted in a deep understanding of how the transition to Google would work, when it would happen and who would benefit from the move. This created significant buy-in amongst senior members of the organization. The level of commitment that the project generated was sufficient to enable Google to withstand a last ditch competitive attack from Microsoft that included drastic price cuts and free implementation.