Skandia UK
Navigant Consulting
Effective and transformational European IT outsourcing
Summary
Skandia UK, a leading provider of investment products, was growing rapidly but had realised that its IT infrastructure was starting to hold it back. The only way Skandia could access world class IT services quickly and without risk was to outsource the entire function. This was to be the largest total IT outsourcing deal in Europe - a huge undertaking – and in 2005 Skandia brought in outsourcing experts Navigant Consulting Financial Services (formerly known as Troika) to help them select a partner.
Indian firm, HCL, was chosen and over a nine month period Navigant assisted Skandia with various aspects of the deal including contract negotiations, internal and external communications and the development of the retained IT team. In spite of a very demanding timeframe, the contract with HCL was signed in December 2006 and one month later all of Skandia’s IT services were transferred.
“Whilst Skandia has a number of sourcing arrangements, we had never done an IT outsource. Navigant brought this experience to the project,” explains Tim Mann, customer service and IT director, Skandia UK. “Navigant also provided a formidable negotiating ability in the form of Warwick Clews. The Indians described him as ‘the Little Devil’. They respected him and they enjoyed negotiating with him. He always looked after our interests.”
The contract guarantees Skandia a 40 per cent increase in IT development capacity over five years and cost savings have already been made.
Navigant Consulting won the ‘Best Outsourcing Consultancy’ category at the Management Consultants Association Awards 2008 for its work with Skandia
What was the problem /opportunity faced by the client?
In order to support the growing business Skandia urgently needed to improve their IT function’s capability (skills and technologies) and capacity (resources) whilst reducing costs. A decision was made to outsource IT services to HCL in India but Skandia had not done this before and needed assistance to ensure that the deal was successful.
