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Business Monitor International

Financial publisher

Headquartered in the City of London with foreign offices in Singapore and New York; Business Monitor International (BMI) is an industry leading, independent publisher of proprietary data, analysis, ratings, rankings and forecasts covering 175 countries and 22 industry sectors worldwide.

Increased Effeciency

Agile development, improved communication and team collaboration, streamlined business processes

Strategic Advice

C-level consulting to board Directors and business stakeholders

Objectives

Redevelop the existing, outdated core technology infrastructure by making it more efficient and easily scalable across all of BMI's technology systems, processes and people. Whilst ensuring that the new infrastructure would be robust enough to handle rapid business growth.

Provide clear and concise technical devel- opment guidance to BMI's internal and off- shore development teams, in order to make sure that projects were delivered on time and in agreement with user requirements.

Improve the IT helpdesk and service de- livery model for both internal and external customers by making the service more efficient, by implementing a feedback and metric system to encourage service improvement.

Plan and implement a technology roadmap to ensure a formal, board level represen- tation for the Directors and other senior business stakeholders.

Our solution

CG Consultancy worked with BMI over an 18 month period to deliver the following headline items:

  • Technology strategy and guidance at C-level (board / executive stakeholders). CG Consultancy assigned an interim CTO (Chief Technology Officer) reporting to the CEO.
  • Provide technology strategy and guidance at C-level and reporting to the CEO. CG Consultancy was also assigned as interim CTO (Chief Technology Officer) during our 18 month project period with BMI.
  • Deliver initial technology plan and short term roadmap aligned to business objectives.
  • Assign a full-time Technology Infrastructure consultant to BMI to execute short term emergency projects. We also upgraded the existing business critical Novell platform, replacing hardware and implementing a disaster recovery policy.
  • Manage the external recruitment process for the permanent Head of IT position, keeping in-line with long term company objectives.
  • Manage the external recruitment process for the permanent Chief Technology Officer position, ensuring a succession and seamless handover plan from CG Consultancy.
  • Review external audit points before replacing legacy systems and implementing industry recognised accounting (NetSuite) and CRM systems (Sales Logix).
  • Manage the procurement of a new company-wide subscription -fulfilment platform (THINKSubscription). This was to include; the migration of the existing legacy subs system, external vendor selection, new system implementation, data migration and testing (to include accounts / general ledger reconciliation), staff training and handover.
  • Compile a full review and plan for BMI's internal software delivery capability. This included; restructuring the development team, implementing Agile methodology, creation of short-term project delivery plan, introduction of BMI Programme Office with formal project governance (PRINCE2) and reporting to business stakeholders.
  • Assign a full time, short term 18-month position, Technical Project Manager Consultant to run business critical internal software projects, managing internal developers and BMI's offshore development capability.
  • Conduct a thorough in depth audit of the editorial thru production process. The results identified a number of initiatives to be undertaken by CG consultancy. These included; forming a task force to trial a pilot project, project management of the pilot concept and board level reporting of results. Subsequent roll-out of pilot to live business users, documenting an RFI/ RFP for industry recognised editorial CMS and staffing plans detailing restructure and additional hires.

The Results

Execution of the CG Consultancy's short/ medium term plan (in partnership with the board) along with new supplementation of key permanent staff, now means that BMI benefits from a truly scalable technology platform that's robust enough to withstand the company's continual growth. This is thanks to some important key actions;

  • Replacement and retiring of old legacy systems in order to roll out new and more efficient, industry acknowledged accounting (NetSuite), CRM (Sales Logix) and subscription-fulfilment (THINKSubscription) systems.
  • Adoption and formalisation of the Agile methodology has improved overall efficiency and response time within BMI's project teams have improved significantly.
  • The IT helpdesk now follows recognised ITIL standards and continues to deliver to end customers (both internal and external) with continuous improvement and measurable results.
  • A key validation of our work with BMI was the subsequent due diligence audit carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers. This was conducted as part of the deal process between our client and Spectrum Equity Investors. Spectrum went on to make a substantial non-controlling equity investment in BMI in September 2009 see the press release for more details.

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