Case study

Johnson Matthey – ITOM

The challenge

Johnson Matthey (JM) is a global leader in sustainable technologies. As a FTSE 100 company with over £10bn in revenue it needed to transform a highly fragmented and federated IT community into a single global capability – able to provide a consistent, high quality and cost-effective support service to the organisation, while leveraging economies of scale.

IT within the company was organised as a loosely connected group of IT generalists with very little planned and coordinated sharing of knowledge, solutions and capacity. There was little overall visibility of technology spend globally, reporting lines were varied, and the 350 staff were located in 120 sites, across 40 countries.

Graduated cylinders and beaker filled with chemical compounds by Horia Varlan is licensed under CC BY 2.0

The result

We were commissioned to work with JM to establish a vision and develop the business case for the future global technology function.

Once the business case was approved we worked alongside the client to design the future target operating model, to develop the transformational programme, and then lead the implementation. The programme was delivered in line with the business case cost, but the benefits target was significantly exceeded – 45% over the original 5-year business case. This was achieved by a continued focus on delivery and timescales, and though a combination of operational/headcount savings and reduction in capital expenditure, e.g. re-negotiation of contracts, rationalisation of suppliers.

What made it successful

  • Change leadership – A strong and visible sponsor for the programme who was able to resolve and remove barriers to keep the programme on track.
  • Effective governance – Involving the right stakeholders and decision makers
  • Results Focus – Ensuring that there was a robust business case and future operating model that was regularly checked to confirm the direction of travel and progress
  • Flexible expertise – Providing Ignite specialist programme management resource to lead the programme, supplemented by specialist resources where needed. Resources were flexed to support the demands of the programme and proactively withdrawn as internal capability developed
  • Capability building – Having an agreed and monitored formal skills and knowledge transition plan for both individuals and teams – enabling the client to become operationally self-sustaining and to have a toolkit to enable large-scale change programmes in the future.
Ignite brought experience, expertise and creativity to the future design of the target operating model. The Ignite resources were flexed to meet the requirements and the stages of the programme and the team built solid and effective working relationships with the JM teams, enabling and underpinning the successful delivery.
Patrick Seeber

CIO, Johnson Matthey