Xantus
Xantus is an independent consultancy dedicated to helping large organisations make effective decisions about their IT services and technology.
Xantus' experience, gained through our work with leading UK and global enterprises, enables them to deliver trusted advice on commercial, technological and business issues to deliver strategic benefits.
Xantus’ services and skills are tailored to address the complex challenges of today’s CIO organisation. Their strengths lie in advising clients on strategic and operational change to enable the identification, sourcing and delivery of optimal technological solutions and services.
Their clients include FTSE 100 companies, global corporations and government bodies.
Services
Xantus' services are designed to offer advice and support throughout the IT lifecycle, from Strategy through to Sourcing, Change Delivery and Service Management. Put simply, they help clients plan, buy, build and run their IT systems and technology to achieve optimum results.
As a wholly independent organisation, Xantus are always objective about issues of hardware, software, suppliers and service provision; their advice and the solutions they present are always based on what is best for their client.
People
Xantus people are business driven, commercially astute as well as technologically able, bringing a combination of teamwork and real world experience to bear on every project.
Benefits
The result of Xantus' work is high quality decision making; more effective solutions; increased project pace; more efficient project management and often, significant cost savings.
accreditations & policies
Management Consultancies Association Member 
Corporate social responsibility Diversity Supplier Environmental policy in-depth profile
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case studies
Xantus Consulting Case Study & NationwideEngaged initially to support Nationwide in the sourcing of its network services, Xantus was asked to review its desktop strategy and implement a new sourcing model. The programme delivered commercial benefits exceeding £15M, plus significantly improved customer services. The new contract delivers competitive ‘per user’ desktop pricing,...
Content Management vendor selectionA leading UK based financial services company needed to urgently update its retail banking web channel platform (online banking etc). The existing systems for designing, building and managing web content lacked the required functionality and suffered from high management and maintenance costs.
To implement a web content management solution capable...
Keeping England MovingTasked with keeping England’s traffic flowing, improving journey times across the country and ensuring information is accurate and accessible to all, the Highways Agency is a high profile network operator.
To support the Agency’s business objectives of ‘Safe Roads’, ‘Reliable Journeys’, and ‘Informed...
Delivering Value from Day OneWhen Birds Eye iglo Group [BEiG] changed hands from Unilever to Permira in November 2006, it faced an unenviable challenge: to separate all its IT systems and infrastructure from the former parent company, and establish a completely new IT environment. Limited in-house resource, strict severance deadlines with financial penalties and the need...
The development of the Global Voice and Audio Visual Technology StrategyThe development of the Global Voice and Audio Visual Technology Strategy and Key Operating Procedures was undertaken by an in-house team but with increasingly tight time frames to meet existing audit schedules, Xantus was commissioned to support the in-house activity and review the existing documentation in preparation of new, structured documentation...
Global Financial Service companyThe IT Service Support organisation for this Global Financial Service company is a major business in its own right and has the job of supporting users across the globe on a 24x7x365 basis using a mixed in-house and outsourced model. It provides an end-to-end service management function encompassing services such as Incident, Problem, Change Management,...
Improving user experience and cost control throughThe Client is a UK-based financial services group and one of the top ten largest banks in the world. The Client aimed to replace 3,500 desktop and laptop PCs across 60 UK sites with a standardised build, and to renew the associated backend infrastructure in a move to a centralised application architecture. The main business drivers were to improve...
IT services and infrastructureOpen a new Ireland office and refresh IT services and infrastructure to meet the new corporate standards.
European TelecommunicationsThe client - A dynamic marketing-led brands business - one of the largest spirits and wine companies in the world.
Provide an Interim European Telecommunications Manager to carry out routine responsibilities and delivering improvements in service delivery, supplier relationships, and network stability.
Data CommunicationsA leading Health and Beauty retailer with more than 1,200 stores across the UK and Irish Republic. The Company’s stores are supported by a significant network of warehousing, distribution and central support services, all of which are connected to centrally hosted applications using proprietary networking technology. From October 2007,...
Delivery ProgrammeThe Client is one of Europe's leading credit card and consumer lending businesses. In 2007 the Client launched new “Joint Venture” credit cards with two major UK retail partners as part of its strategy of developing and protecting its core UK business.
Due diligence exercise in support of a technical and commercial evaluationThe Client is a world-leading leading food and beverages company. Xantus was commissioned to undertake a due diligence exercise in support of a technical and commercial evaluation of RFP responses for global telecommunications and IT processing solutions.
European telecommunications provisionGlobal financial services group based in southern hemisphere. European operations are managed from there.
Renew European telecommunications provision, managed through a single outsource service contract. Match the contract with the current needs of the business, and facilitate investment in IT infrastructure.
IT systems that meet business needsThe Client is a Central Government Department with multiple agencies which employ over 100,000 staff. The Department aims to develop and deliver IT systems that meet business needs, reflect industry best practice and exploit technology opportunities. A principal target is the effective answering and servicing of customer calls.
Improving flexibility of network infrastructureOne of the UK’s financial services group engaged primarily in banking, investment banking and investments.
The client wanted to be able to support its business needs for more bandwidth and improved flexibility of its network infrastructure, to cater for existing demands and future developments, whilst substantially reducing its cost base.
Implementation of new global applicationsThe Client is one of the world’s largest brewers with brewing interests or distribution agreements.
Developing IT architecture solutionsThe Client is one of the best-known retail names in the UK, providing health & beauty retail production. The Client had outsourced its IT infrastructure services. A key element of the outsource model was to retain the function of IT Architecture in-house to maintain control of technology strategy across the Organisation.
A large retail organisation with many operations throughout the UKThe Client was undertaking a rationalisation project to refresh their server estate. Xantus was engaged to undertake an independent Opportunity Analysis to enable the Client to better understand the potential benefits that may result from such an exercise.
A leading financial services groupThe Client had initiated an IT transformation programme, focused on the design, transformation and transition to a new IT operating model across all technology areas supporting the business.
Xantus was engaged to develop the service strategy for the programme and was subsequently retained to develop service definitions for each function, and hence...
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thought leadership
After a long period with the ‘financial brakes’ applied, how can companies ensure they optimise returns as investment in IT gathers new momentum? Let’s be clear from the outset. In its simplest terms, growth = increased expenditure. After a period which extends further back than the global recession, corporate IT departments have...
Although it seems that the UK may be starting to rise out of a period of economic recession, the recent financial crisis and the ensuing large rise in national debt will leave a severe burden on the public and private sectors for many years to come.
Indeed, the government has already admitted that the public sector is facing impending and significant...
Anyone can do IT, very few can do emotion – but outsourcing decisions very rarely take emotions into account. In Xantus’ experience, when looking to outsource IT services there are five major challenges that spring to mind; each one of them involves behaviour and vision and has little to do with IT itself.
Challenge One
Historically,...
Mergers, Acquisitions and Divestments – a mirror image?
Until the financial ‘crash’ annual merger, acquisition and divestment activity was approaching a staggering 10 percent of the global equity market. While this has certainly taken a knock in recent times, it is set to continue as the global economy begins to recover. This will...
As the ‘Credit Crunch’ turns to recession many may ask who is to blame?
But the fact remains economic pressures will have a lasting effect on budgets across all departments of an organisation. With such a large proportion of an organisation’s expenditure going on technology either through change or service, the cost reductions will...
No business, however small, is immune to the threat of an internal IT security breach. Even in the smallest office environment, the use of a shared server to store company financial information, customer lists, personnel and payroll data for example must be considered a risk. It is also fair to say that generally, the larger the company, the larger...
When it comes to the use of PDAs, smart phones and even pendrive memory devices, the use of mobile appliances in the workplace divides users and the IT community alike into two camps; those who view them as an indispensable business tool, and those who believe they are an unnecessary expense and introduce security risks and management headaches.
Depending...
The Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) IP VPN is fast becoming the industry standard for business grade site-to-site WAN connectivity. With so many service providers offering so many service variants, it is difficult to compare like for like and identify the right partner for long term success. Through its years of experience in helping organisations...
India’s pre-eminence as an offshoring location is well documented. Many companies have shifted business processes to India, whilst many others are weighing up the pros and cons of such a transition. But, before any company makes the move, they should look beyond the promised cost savings.
Objectives should be clear and measurable, and time should...
But the fact remains economic pressures will have a lasting effect on budgets across all departments of an organisation. With such a large proportion of an organisation’s expenditure going on technology either through change or service, the cost reductions will be expected ever more so within IT.
Over the last five to ten years IT departments...
The IT industry has undergone a massive shift in the last decade, as the use of outsourcing has moved beyond the data centre to all aspects of the IT organisation. However, an increasing number of companies are finding that outsourcing has left them without the skills and resources they need to truly get the best from their outsourcing contracts.
An...
Most, if not all IT organisations, have service-related issues at one time or another. For some they are transient or small-scale, for others they maybe enduring and significantly affect overall business operations and, in the worst cases, impact both revenue and profit. How the IT function manages these issues, or hopefully minimises or avoids them...
Whilst often seen as a protective and reactive practice, Business Continuity planning should also be approached as proactive, assisting an organisation in the continuous improvement of their efficiency and resilience. This positive approach will ensure that Business Continuity becomes an enabler rather than an overhead to the enterprise. With the right...
Phil Crozier, Director of Xantus Consulting, talks about how IT leaders can develop a selective sourcing strategy that adds maximum value to the organisation For many CIOs, the most difficult aspect of IT sourcing isn’t finding the right suppliers, or even negotiating the right price – it’s maximising value and demonstrating that...
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