Blade Corporate Management

Business Strategy - International Telco - Programme Architecture and Implementation

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Author – Peter Brown

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The Challenge

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Colt Technology Services is a leading international B2B fibre broadband, data centre and Information Communication Technology (ICT) service operator.  As part of the renewed strategy for Colt, (a strategy which I had helped to develop), 6 strategic workstreams were identified as highest priority.  These were selected both to improve existing performance of the business and to usher in the necessary changes to the organic business (whilst inorganic developments were taking place separately). These needed to be established quickly to improve the existing business, in part to help in inorganic business development discussions. The workstreams spanned everything from brand development to sales optimisation for core business to improvements in IT delivery.

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The Solution

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Alignment and shared accountabilities and responsibilities were crucial.  Getting people to own their project and understand how it fitted into the big picture.  Working with a project manager and the designated leads for each workstream, I designed the programmes, the objectives, the targets, measurements, alignment with the company balanced scorecard (which I had separately helped put in place) and the monitoring system for each workstream and across the workstreams.  I organised bi-weekly steering meetings for all workstreams to track programmes while working closely with each designated workstream lead to identify and help resolve issues…all the time ensuring activities were aligned with the overall corporate strategy I had helped to articulate.

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The Outcomes

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• Quick wins for each workstream were identified and their implementation tracked.

• The alignment of all workstreams with one another, identifying and respecting dependencies, was maintained, so that successes in each workstream could be incorporated into other workstreams as envisaged and planned for.  

• Above all, we generated momentum in the business, coupled with the buy-in of the senior managers and the staff involved.  

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Complex, challenging and enormously satisfying!

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