Technology risk assessment for leading global provider of professional assurance services

Our client is a respected international firm delivering expert verification and certification services, empowering companies to achieve compliance and operational excellence. Trusted by organisations in over 110 countries, it has established a reputation for integrity and reliability.

Serving industries such as technology, energy, transportation, and consumer goods, our client offers a range of services including audits, regulatory assessments, and certification processes to improve business efficiency and compliance.

With their global workforce of experts, our client possesses deep industry knowledge and insights, enabling it to support its clients in driving sustainable growth and competitiveness.

Challenge

Following completion of a major private equity carve out, our client wanted to understand and develop a plan to manage and remediate technology related risks inherited for its five most significant technology platforms – Finance, Business Operations, Customer Relationship Management, People/HR, and Integration.

Whilst there were a number of technology risks & issues known to our client from their rapid pre-deal due diligence process, further analysis and planning was required to fully quantify the challenges and prioritise appropriate responses as part of developing a case for the rationale for change.

To address this challenge, and bring much needed clarity and focus, we worked with the CIO, Chief Enterprise Architect, Platform Owners, and other key business and IT stakeholders across our client’s entire function to help develop and socialise a shared understanding of the risk profile, with detailed recommendations presented to the Execution Committee to drive alignment around an appropriate response.

Solution

Over a period of six weeks, we worked closely with business and IT stakeholders to understand the risks and issues associated with maintainability, supportability, complexity, cost, business change, and licensing. Where legacy technologies were in place, we also rapidly assessed alternative options for upgrade/enhancement, and what the impact would be on the IT function, business change, overall total cost of ownership, complexity, and the impact on valuation.

Our recommendations included the retirement/decommissioning and replacement of multiple major technology platforms, as well as the major upgrade of others, to achieve more acceptable risk levels. Recommendations were supported by high level business cases capturing the benefits to be delivered and the resources and activities needed to deliver these.

Outputs from our work included:

• A technology risk & issue assessment that clearly articulated the risk profile of the key technology platforms and, where appropriate, developed a clear rationale for change
• A rapid gap analysis to highlight the people, process, and technology challenges to be addressed as part of remediating and managing change
• Development and refinement of our client’s Technology Strategy
• An actionable plan to reduce risks to a more appropriate profile
• A Board Briefing pack, which we also delivered to the Executive Committee

Outcome

Our client’s Executive Committee, which comprised technical and non-technical business leaders, was able to understand the risk profile associated with the technology estate they had inherited and make informed decisions based on our detailed insights and analysis.

As a direct result of our work, a major upgrade programme was immediately launched for the primary business operations technology platform, which was used globally to support the delivery of key services to our client’s end customers.

We also worked with our client to update their technology strategy and roadmap to appropriately plan in other actions, such as the implementation of a replacement finance and customer relationship management platform, and the development of a new integration strategy to support our client’s ambitious data agenda.

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