Agile organisationA BT White Paper

By Jim Hardwicke, BTexact Technologies

2Contents1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32. The business environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43. Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54. Business need . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75. Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96. Business benefits of BT solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107. Case studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148. Business case model outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1910. Further information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1911. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2012. Author biography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

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To satisfy customers, and keep them that way,businesses need to be available all day, every day.Advances in technology and the creation of theever-present call centre have focused oncustomer needs, establishing a level of servicenever seen before.

Having created this beast, businesses now need to keep it fed and happy. The advent of the internet has led customers to expectinstant access to information and promptresponses. The only way for businesses to keepcustomers is to ensure that they get what theywant from them, better and faster than fromanyone else. This means allowing staff to

1. Introduction

work in new ways and take new approaches to customer relationships: innovations which will require significant cultural change. These‘agile’ organisations will benefit from improved internal processes, reduced costs and happy customers.

To compete in this fast-paced environment,companies require technology which supportstheir business demands without a significantoutlay of resources or money. BT is leading theway in this area by offering a range of desktopsolutions that enable organisations to focus theirresources on more critical issues, such asbusiness strategy.

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Today’s successful company needs to beprepared for every eventuality. Constant demandfrom staff, business partners and customersrequires 24-hour availability and the flexibility torespond to rapid changes.

For many organisations, information is their mainresource. Ensuring that they have the rightpeople, in the right place, supported with theright equipment is vital to their survival.Managing complex infrastructures and offeringenhanced services at any time, and from anylocation, requires high levels of technicalcapability which can be an expensive drain on resources.

No company can afford to let things slide – anysystem downtime will have an adverse affect oncustomer perception, whether it is a technicalproblem or simply a long wait on the telephone.Customers want organisations to come to them and they want immediate feedback: any business that can’t deliver will be dropped infavour of one who can.

Flexibility or ‘agility’ is key. To be agile,companies need a culture that supports theability to change quickly and easily. Technicalexcellence requires the latest technology and aflexible workforce. The biggest challenge forcompanies is learning how this can help themrespond more quickly to customer requirements.

The ideal agile business maximises businessopportunities by pre-empting customerrequirements, as well as by providing internal

2. The business environment

systems which are robust, integrated and fast.‘Agility is a two-way street,’ says Nigel Flood,managing director of the consultancy Nigel Floodat HSA Ltd. ‘Companies must focus not only ongetting their IT to the location where it’s mostneeded, such as the sales force, but also ensure that the people there know how to use it to best effect.’

However, technology is not the only key tobusiness agility. Internal business models are avital element in the race for agility. In a world of‘always on’ internet connections, mobile phonesand text messaging, the possibilities are growingand organisations must consider how theseprocesses could benefit their business.Companies must embrace new ideas, such asflexible working, if they are to remain agile and successful.

An agile organisation has a business culturewhich promotes and supports innovative, flexible work patterns. This paper explores the business benefit that integrated informationand communications technology (ICT), and åin particular its cost effective and efficientmanagement, can bring to an agile organisation.

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Gartner Group’s Age of Agility study (July 2002)notes that the current economic and competitiveclimate has focused organisations’ minds on theneed to become more agile, with 84 per cent (seefigure 1) of UK organisations regarding businessagility as vital to their future success.

Following the relatively buoyant economy of thelate 1990s, the recent global slowdown and agrowing sense of uncertainty have made UKorganisations increasingly conscious of the need to become agile and adaptable in the face of change. For many organisations,becoming agile is seen as enhancing theircapabilities and prospects and achievingorganisational excellence. For others, it isregarded as an essential strategy for survivingcurrent market conditions.

3. Research evidence

Figure 1. Is agility important to your organisation?

Quite important8%

Little importance4%

Very important39%

No importance2% Don't Know

2%

Critical45%

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Fundamentally, UK organisations seek to facethese challenges by enhancing the productivity oftheir assets – including people, technology,customers and knowledge. They expect asubstantial return. Executives interviewedestimated that investments in agility would resultin an increase in workforce productivity of up to4.8 per cent. Such a rise in productivity from theindustries surveyed would contribute up to £20billion to last year’s GDP. A 4.8 per cent increasein productivity would be worth up to £1600 inextra value added per worker.

Leveraging and extending the investments thatorganisations have made in informationtechnologies is fundamental to these efforts, with 70 per cent seeing agility as an importantpriority for their IT function. A remarkable 93 per cent of executives cited agility as a leading objective of current organisationalinitiatives. According to 72 per cent of executives,the need to match customer demands moreefficiently and effectively is the leading rationalefor becoming more agile.

Gartner cites Cisco, Tesco and EasyJet as leadingexamples of agile organisations. Cisco, by usingits own web-based products and services todevelop agility, estimates that each manager has

saved more than 25 hours a year, resulting inoverall company savings of more than $7 million.Similarly, EasyJet demonstrates a range ofbusiness agility examples. For instance, thecompany sells 89 per cent of its seats over theinternet, with e-tickets and targeted marketingissued online. Thus agility has promoted a newbusiness model; EasyJet was the first to introduceonline booking – now it is commonplace.

Tesco is another excellent illustration of agility. Itaims to enhance the visibility and speed withwhich information is given to suppliers andpartners, enabling them to respond quickly tochanges in customer demand – ahead of itscompetitors. Tesco believes this approach hasreduced lost sales by 33 per cent.

Each of these companies demonstrates a flexiblebut informed approach to customers andbusiness by maximising existing processes andofferings, regardless of the target market.

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Neil Blakesley, head of the Marketing Practice atBT, suggests that in order to become more agile,businesses need the following elements:

• Maximise cost efficiency

• Ensure effective systems (both technologicaland business models)

• Empowered employees

• Robust ICT platforms

• Confidence to use all assets (ie maximising the potential of stakeholders, customers and partners)

• The ability to reshape the business continuallyon an ‘as needed’ basis

Some of these rely on cultural changes and needto be tackled by education and appropriatemanagement direction and policy settings, but forall of them ICT technology plays a pivotal role.These can be met by addressing a number ofcommon business needs that we examine in therest of this section.

Effective communication throughout the organisation Having to constantly and quickly adapt to thechanges in the business environment produces amassive shift in the way organisations work.

Consider, for example, having to cope with thecurrent breakneck speed of change: decisionsthat were once made by managers must now betaken by frontline employees, since there issimply no time for hierarchical escalation. Amanager’s role is changing, from being the finaldecision maker to more of a facilitator andresource manager. As a consequence, frontline

4. Business need

employees need to have access to informationthat was once available only to a few in order tomake informed decisions.

Disseminating up-to-date information to a wideemployee base, that may be spreadgeographically and be quite diversified in skillsand basic education, is a challenge that an agileorganisation must face. The information can be ofvarying nature: technical, contractual, financial,etc, and so likely to have different disseminationrequirements. Just compare the diversitybetween a new product specification and anaddress by an organisation’s CEO announcing a change in policy. No matter what theinformation diversity, employees will need toaccess the right information at the right timeusing the right media.

An effective work environment Reacting to changing business needs impliesflexibility. Employees play different roles atdifferent times – consider an employee spending some time concentrating on preparing a customer’s bid, and then a few hours laterbrainstorming a project plan with theircolleagues. A fixed working environment setting cannot satisfy all the different needs. An employee may need different settings atdifferent times: privacy to work on a confidentialdocument, a collaborative environment forbrainstorming with colleagues. In today’sbusiness environment, a traditional ICTinfrastructure that implicitly ties an employee to a physical location and a particular role becomesa barrier to employee flexibility.

Employees who can interact and collaborate – from anywhereCollaboration is the glue that binds employeesinto a problem-solving team. Where relationshipswere once formed mainly through physical

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proximity, relationships now extend to people inboth formal and informal networks, many ofwhom never meet face to face. In a modernorganisation, teams are created and disbanded as a consequence of new projectsbeing created or delivered and this is happening in ever decreasing timescales.Physical event-based reallocation of employees is simply not an option. A strong business needfor a modern organisation is an efficient supportfor ‘virtual’ collaboration.

Employee ‘connectedness’ at all timesFor virtual teams to work, individual employeesmust be able to contact each other easily. Oncethe constraint of physical location hasdisappeared, so have some of the facilities that itimplicitly brings for free – for example, beingable to find a person with ease because theyalways sit at the desk next to yours. Reaching aperson who is no longer tied to a desk, andpossibly not tied to particular working hours (oreven works in a different time zone), brings newchallenges that need to be tackled by innovative‘presence’ technology.

Maximise employee effort on value creationIn today’s business environment, competitiveadvantage comes from people. The more timeemployees spend on revenue-generating work,the more competitive their organisation will be.

An important factor in increasing an employee’sopportunity to work is to reduce their administrativeburden by streamlining business processes toeliminate routine human involvement andproviding the right tools to access them.

Protect the organisation, without impeding agilitySecurity is often perceived by employees as aburden and barrier to the resources they need.This is extremely worrying, because without buyin from employees, security policies are verydifficult to implement effectively. An agileorganisation, with its greater flow and availabilityof information, must incorporate security into allits processes and systems without impedingemployees’ access to it. Organisations that fail to achieve this goal will compromise theirsecurity and jeopardise employees’ productivityand job satisfaction.

Modern ICT tools and techniques can supportthese business needs, but managing complextechnical solutions can distract organisationsfrom their core business. Outsourcing of thesetechnical aspects can deliver cost savings, theability to focus resources on essential businessfunctions or higher level strategic issues, ratherthan day to day operations, access to a greaterpool of skilled resource and access to the mostappropriate technology to suit business needs.

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The appropriate ICT technology, properlymanaged, will help organisations along their path towards increased agility. Every organisation has its own requirements, so thereis not a fixed set of technology that suitseverybody. Choosing the right mix of systemsand integrating them with the existing ones, orreconfiguring existing systems to suit the newneeds, is not an easy task.

Poorly implemented technology can lead tofrustration, even longer working hours, nobusiness benefits and ultimately resentmenttowards an ‘always available’ environment.

Another important issue to be considered is the cost of managing an ICT infrastructure where complexity is ever increasing: this requires scarce and expensive skills that are

5. Issues

often not embedded in the core competence of most organisations.

Agile organisations require a shift in companyculture and behaviour. Just think about the needsof empowered workers, for example. Managerscan oppose empowerment because they can see itas a loss of authority and less job satisfaction.Employees may not be comfortable with takingon new responsibilities. They prefer to depend onthe decisions of others. They might refuse to ‘getwith the programme’.

These are some of the issues that need to beanalysed and tackled by each organisation thatdecides to increase its agility. The good news isthat it does not need to do soby itself: BT hasyears of experience in assisting companiesworldwide as they drive towards agility.

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BT’s experience in the communications and ITarena make it well placed to offer innovativesolutions to support the demanding ICT needs ofan organisation implementing an agilityprogramme. For many companies, outsourcingenables them to focus on their businessoperations without detracting from their ITneeds. Yet for small- to medium-sized businesses it is often seen as too costly in both time and resources.

However, times are changing. There is a growingdemand for outsourcing from medium-sizedcompanies who recognise the importance of IT toenable them to compete in today’s fast-pacedmarket. Professor of forecasting and innovation atDe Montfort University, James Woudhuysenadds, ‘The smaller firms don’t have all theexpertise in-house that they need to compete, sothey have to outsource. Small companies can rivaland often exceed large ones in their myopic andcolloquial view of the world. Having agiletechnology allows them to “get out there”, meet their customers and competitors and winnew business.’

This section highlights the broad range ofsolutions available to agile organisations. A first problem that a company needs to tacklewhen embarking on an agility program is toselect the right mix of technologies to support its unique requirements.

A second important problem that is sometimesdangerously overlooked is that, once deployed,the technical infrastructure has to be maintainedand managed. To avoid offsetting the benefitscarried by such a program by mistakenlychoosing the wrong mix of services, or by thecost of creating ad-hoc technical skills to managethe technology over time, an organisation shouldconsider involving BT from the beginning of the

6. Business benefits of BT solution

program. BT’s invaluable experience insupporting agile enterprises across the world andin managing ICT cost effectively is the bestguarantee of success for an organisation.

The following section assumes that a modern IPintranet has been correctly implementedthroughout the organisation. Building upon thisIP infrastructure will help to realise a number ofbusiness benefits that can be delivered to thedesktop, as discussed below.

Easy access to informationTo enable employees to make informeddecisions, they must have easy access to timelyand accurate information. Appropriate technology has to be available to supportdifferent kinds of information with different time constraints and delivery requirements.Examples to support this include:

Intranet portals are one-stop destinations forcorporate information and services. They aresites featuring a suite of commonly used services,serving as a starting point and frequent gatewayto the web. Portal services often include acorporate search engine, directory, news, onlineclaims, ordering, asset management, HRfunctions and options for customisation.

Shared folders are a simple way to securelyshare information within a restricted group ofemployees, typically of most value when used toshare project documentation, for example.

Intranet TV brings streamed audio and videodirect to the desktop and creates an entirely newcommunication channel within the organisation.It uses real-time internet protocols to give on-demand and live access to sound and vision viathe desktop PC and corporate network. Executive

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briefings, work seminars and team meetings canbe webcast live and stored for subsequent on-demand viewing, enabling busy people to controlwhen and where they access information.

Work from any locationWork should be something you do, not a placeyou have to travel to. In an agile organisation,employees should be able to work in the settingthat best suits their needs:

• Home-based – employee works mainly from home

• Office-based – employee works mainly in theoffice. Different environments may be providedwithin the office to support different work-styles:team space for collaborative working, quiet spacefor individual working, private space forconfidential activities

• On the move – to suit workers that are oftentravelling to customers’ sites.

Enabling employees to work anywhere suits an agile organisation because it shortens reaction time and maximizes use of workspaceand resources. It suits workers as it allows abetter integration of work and family life.Successfully harnessing new technologies isparamount and will allow new lifestyles andbusiness models to emerge.

Examples of enabling technology are:

VPN services. A VPN (virtual private network)is a way to use a public telecommunicationinfrastructure, such as the internet, to provideremote offices or individual users with secureaccess to their organisation’s network. Whenconnecting home workers to the corporate

network, a VPN is commonly associated with abroadband connection that allows speed of access.

Roaming profiles are a feature offered by mostmodern network operating systems. A roamingprofile stores a PC-user’s personal settings (likecustomisation of applications, icons on thedesktop, preferred printer, PC layout and colourscheme, etc) on a network server. The profile isdownloaded over the network at log on time. Thatmeans that workers can use different PCs atdifferent times and they will look and behave likethe same PC.

Terminal services allow full secure access toremote personal desktop and applications fromany computer.

Laptops, PDAs, tablet computers are devicesthat suit people who are often on the move.Associated to technology like VPNs and terminal services they can be used to build‘virtual offices’.

Effective and efficient teamworkThe ability to work anywhere may have anegative impact on collaboration betweenworkers, if not supported by collaboration toolsthat take the new working reality as a startingpoint. The market offers pre-packaged solutionsof virtual team support tools that typicallyintegrate some basic components alreadymentioned. Others include:

E-mail and instant messaging services arecommon, much used teamwork tools. Theycomplement each other quite well, e-mail beingmore asynchronous, instant messaging moreinteractive. They are usually integrated, and oftenoffer additional collaboration tools such ascalendar services.

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Audio and video conferencing services createa virtual collaboration environment. Whencomplemented by electronic whiteboards thevirtual meeting room offers actually richercollaboration features than a standard one.

Employees can always contactthe right person easily using themost appropriate medium

An employee in an agile organisation who is nolonger tied to a desk or physical location will stillneed to be reachable by customers andcolleagues. In this aspect too there is technologythat can support an agile organisation. In additionto previously mentioned services, furtherexamples include:

White page directories are a fundamental toolto make everybody reachable. This powerfulintranet service allows searches for names, roles,organisation hierarchy and so on. The amount ofinformation displayed is customised according tothe organisation’s preferences.

One number This term indicates products thatallow a worker to have one telephone numberthat follows them in any context. The samenumber can be mapped to the desk telephonewhen the employee is working at a desk,redirected to a mobile phone when the employeeis on the move, to a home telephone number ifthe user is working from home, to a voicemailbox when the employee doesn’t want to bedisturbed, etc. Compared to simply using amobile number, this system is cheaper to operate,more flexible and offers richer features.

Reduce processing costs andworkers frustration

Knowledge workers are the most importantresource of an agile company. To maximise theseemployees’ opportunity to work, an organisationshould minimise the effort required by non-valuegenerating work, and this also tends to besomething that most frustrates employees.Examples of support systems that generate thisbusiness benefit include:

Self service applications These are most likelyto be accessible through an intranet portal, suchas online expenses, ordering, booking, etc. Inaddition to being easily accessible, theseapplications should have a quick and automatedauthorisation procedure (when required), that isalmost transparent to the worker.

Automatic application delivery Workersshould be able to install the applications theyneed by themselves. That implies an automaticapplication delivery system that can be used bynon-technically minded employees.

Laptop support Having to ‘fiddle’ with laptopconfiguration is a constant source of frustrationfor mobile workers. It doesn’t need to be.Technology is available to automatically take careof the most common source of problems, such asautomatically configuring a printer in the rightlocation, automatically synchronising the laptopwith a desktop computer, or automaticallyperforming backups when the laptop isconnected to a high bandwidth network.

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Increased but unobtrusive securitySecurity is a paramount concern for mostorganisations. To increase the support andcollaboration of workers in this respect, securityshould not be seen as a cause of frustration andpain. Tools are available to improve security andat the same time minimise the negative impact on workforce efficiency and effectiveness.Examples are:

Smart card/proximity card technology Bothare used as a security token, the main differencebeing the need to be swiped or just held close toa receiver. They increase security since they canimplement the most strict security standards, butat the same time are easy to use. They can beused to integrate access to ICT (such as networklogin) and physical resources (like access tobuildings or company sites) and become theunique security token required by a worker.

Single sign-on technology Users typically haveto sign-on to multiple systems, necessitating anequivalent number of sign-on dialogues, each ofwhich may involve different usernames andauthentication information.

System administrators are faced with managinguser accounts within each of the multiple systemsto be accessed in a coordinated manner in orderto maintain the integrity of security policyenforcement. Considerations of both usability andsecurity give rise to a need to coordinate and

where possible integrate user sign-on functionsand user account management functions for themultitude of different domains now found withinan enterprise.

Single sign-on technology provides coordinationand integration to benefit an enterprise by:

• Reducing the time taken by users in sign-onoperations to individual domains, includingreducing the possibility of such sign-onoperations failing

• Improving security through the reduced needfor a user to handle and remember multiple setsof authentication information

• Reducing the time taken by systemadministrators in adding and removing users tothe system or modifying their access rights

• Improving security through the enhancedability of system administrators to maintain theintegrity of user account configuration includingthe ability to inhibit or remove an individualuser’s access to all system resources in acoordinated and consistent manner.

Digital signatures Publishers need a means toassure authenticity and users need to verify it.Both needs are addressed by attaching digitalsignatures to online documents. These signaturesserve to identify the origin of a document.

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Lincolnshire Public/PrivatePartnership (PPP)

Since September 2002, St Botolph’s Church ofEngland School, Quarrington, has had its ICTinfrastructure delivered and managed by BT, part of a consortium involving Bovis Lend Leaseand HBOS, previously Bank of ScotlandCorporate Banking.

The contract, nominated for the prestigious 2002Public Private Finance Award in the under £20 million category, is BT’s first education PPPand will put Lincolnshire’s schools at theforefront of IT provision technology in a movetowards hassle-free IT.

Part of Dr Cheryle Berry’s role as director ofeducation and cultural services for Lincolnshirehas been in the involvement of the fastest evernegotiated Public/Private Partnership (PPP);between Lincolnshire County Council andFocusEducation (Lincolnshire) Ltd in a contractto build seven new Lincolnshire schools.

Dr Berry said: ‘Being cost-effective is obviouslyessential in education. We continually try tobenefit from developments in technology andprocedures, to become more efficient and workwith specialists to benefit both the childrenlearning in our schools, and the infrastructure inwhich we work. We are immensely proud to bethe first county council in the country to breakthis new ground. Reducing the hassle of runningour IT will allow us to concentrate on fulfillingour core education remit.’

The contract has been implemented using BTand Computacenter’s Subscription Computingservice, which enables medium sizedorganisations and businesses to minimise thehassle of managing complex new technology and

7. Case studies

reduce the cost of running their IT systems.Combining BT’s service and networkingcapabilities and Computacenter’s expertise of themanagement of IT infrastructure, medium-sizedorganisations are able to gain full advantage froma service that has, until now, only been availableto the large corporates.

Craig Rowland of BT, sees the success of theLincolnshire PPP as a very positive start to BT’s Subscription Computing offering: ‘Ourstrength in networking, remote management and helpdesk, as well as expertise in PPPsincluding our work with Lincolnshire CountyCouncil, exemplifies why Subscription Computing will benefit both businesses andpublic sector concerns.

‘Our partnership with Computacenter, and otherspecialists in relevant sectors, means we candeliver value-for-money services and our skills,experience, financial security, reach andresources, both technologically and in humanskill terms, gives us an unparalleled claim on along-term commitment to deliver.’

Various options that are being offered includecore IT infrastructure provision and service,including cabling and LAN equipment, desktops,printers, virus protection and e-mail. The servicealso provides comprehensive management of acustomer’s IT infrastructure to ensure thatconfiguration is always kept up-to-date and thatany problems can be dealt with immediately. Inaddition, and to meet the educational needs ofLincolnshire’s schools, the service will be tailoredto offer interactive whiteboards and web cams.

Proactive monitoring and maintenance of acustomer’s IT system, which is backed up bycomprehensive end-user support involving fullmanagement of e-mail, servers, printers and

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users as well as a telephone helpdesk staffed byexperienced IT advisers, is also a core element of the service.

Hewden StuartOperating and distribution efficiencies, astrengthening of its industry position, andincreased penetration of the UK market were just three of the key factors that spurred Canada-based heavy equipment distributorFinning International to buy plant hire firmHewden Stuart in January 2001.

The two companies continue to be managedseparately, but while their HQs remain ondifferent continents they are united by a singlegoal – winning a bigger slice of business in theheavy plant equipment industry. Hewden Stuarthas ambitious growth targets to be achievedthrough a firm focus on its core competenciesand strategic acquisitions. It’s a businessapproach that has seen Hewden taking a closelook at its assets and services. Its parentcompany already had an external IT supplier, andHewden decided to put its IT requirements out totender as well.

‘IT is a key enabler of Hewden’s business, butwhat it does best is hire tools and plantequipment,’ says Hewden’s BT account director,Graham Todd. ‘The time, money and brainpowerused to meet Hewden’s IT needs was eating intothe time it wanted and needed to spend on keyareas of business.’ Five companies wereapproached for the two strands of IT provision –technical service and support, and developmentof future applications. BT tendered for thetechnical services and support strand.‘What Hewden wanted from the supplier was not

only to improve the “business as usual” service,but also to consider Hewden Stuart’s future ITdevelopment strategy,’ says Linda Cairney, who,at the time of writing, was Hewden Stuart’s IToutsourcing manager.

‘Business as usual’ had many elements. Itinvolved managing help desks in Glasgow andManchester that answer queries from the 4500-strong depot workforce; desktop support in the form of repairs, procurement and advice;provision of IT infrastructure for Hewden’s widearea network, data centres and project builds; andmaintaining systems that allow helpdesk staff toperform a variety of tasks, including generatingand processing invoices, letters of credit andmonthly revenue statements.

Cairney and Hewden’s IT director David Shawwhittled the field of prospective suppliers downfrom five to two. ‘David and I independentlymeasured a whole range of areas of serviceprovision for each supplier,’ says Cairney. ‘At theend of that process, BT came out on top.’

For IT services required on a day-to-day basis,BT proposed moving the two helpdesk centresoffsite and into BT premises. BT also took on allof Hewden’s existing employees who providedthe service for this outsource. ‘This not onlyensured that internal customers were givencontinued support,’ says Todd, ‘but that Hewdencould reallocate the vacated space as it required.’The two helpdesks will eventually be merged,and their systems integrated, when BTintroduces a single call handling application.

For desktop support BT provided a repair serviceon site at the depot (Hewden used to sendcomputers out for repair from one location).

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‘People were sometimes without a machine forone to three weeks,’ says Cairney. ‘Now, in themajority of cases, the computer will be back upand running the same day.’

Finally, BT offered Hewden a refresh of itstechnology systems and a rebuild of the firm’sdata centre off site. And as part of the BTUltimus data security package, BT will storesensitive company data on secure servers withaccompanying firewalls, URL blocking and viruschecking in BT’s new high-tech data warehousein London’s Docklands.

Though cost was important, it was not the onlydeciding factor in choosing a supplier. It was BT’sappraisal of future strategic projects that was alsoa key consideration for Cairney and Shaw.‘Hewden had an IT development “roadmap”,which meant that projects such as creatingautonomous systems and refreshing the datacentre needed to be considered. These projectswere costed out by BT and wrapped into theoutsourcing contract. These innovations,alongside a high quality of “business as usual” services, provided the value-add for us,’says Cairney.On the strength of this wraparound service, BT

was selected and a five-year contract was signedin June this year. A three-month beta testingperiod followed, during which Hewden’s 17 ITsupport staff, including Cairney, moved to BT.

‘As part of the agreement, one of Linda’s jobs isto introduce innovations to Hewden Stuart fromwithin BT,’ says Lorna Mcpherson, head ofspecialists for BT’s Corporate Advance sector. ‘Asa sales specialist, Linda will be an expert on BT’srange of products, and her experience withHewden Stuart means that she will know boththe business and the types of solutions that aremost appropriate.’

This exchange of expertise, combined with theoutsource agreement, adds up to a win winsituation, says BT sales manager George Barr.‘Hewden Stuart can now focus on its corebusiness and rest assured that it has a safe andstable IT supplier. It has a long term strategicpartner whose people know its business and anIT provider who, just like Hewden, is doing whatit does best.’

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Moving the business towards being an agileorganisation will not be a ‘clean start’ and the firststep is to build a business case. A successfulstrategy for an agile organisation rests on astrong framework, an infrastructure built on asolid business case. Once you achieve buy-in tothe fact that the business will benefit, you canbegin to shape your strategy.

There are two dimensions to consider in shapinga strategy towards organisational agility –efficiency and effectiveness. The distinctionbetween the two is that efficiency means ‘doingsomething right’ and effectiveness means ‘doingthe right thing’. The business needs stated inchapter 4 can be classed as either efficiency oreffectiveness requirements. For example, drivingdown costs by reducing employees time doingnon-revenue generating work is efficiency.Winning more effectiveness can be achieved byimproving employee interaction and collaboration.

When considering the benefits of an agileorganisation, effectiveness is often ignored, as itis difficult to quantify and measure. However,improved effectiveness is at least as important toan organisation as efficiency. An organisation canbe 100 per cent efficient but if all the employeesare not working towards an end goal, all theefficiency savings will be lost.

Identify the core business needThe first step is to identify the core business needand a starting point is to pinpoint the benefits foryour business. BT supports the agile organisationby providing solutions that realise the businessbenefits as discussed earlier. As with mostchanges in organisations, an investment isrequired in order to reap the rewards. However,most solutions mentioned in this paper can bepiloted before large-scale investment is required.

8. Business case model outline

The following questions illustrate what typicallyneeds to be considered within an organisation.They can be used to evaluate current systems orworking practice and this will help in thedevelopment of a business case scenario.

• Is the cost of maintaining your ICTinfrastructure constraining your drive towardsagility? Do you think that maintaining ICT skillsin-house is a distraction from your core businessactivities? Businesses are seeking partners toassist in the challenges of designing, deployingand managing computer and telecommunicationsinfrastructures. As these systems continue toconverge, they become increasingly complex andcostly. Organisations recognise that they cannotstretch their internal resources any further andthat they need their employees to focus onstrategy and business, not day to day operationalneeds. They are therefore looking to form long-term strategic partnerships with serviceorganisations and reduce complexity byoutsourcing their non-core activities.

• Does your enterprise infrastructureaccommodate one person per workstation, andthen only from nine to five? If your companyoffers limited settings because the work ishomogenous and undifferentiated, then you donot have an agile workforce. Working from anylocation creates an effective work environment tocater for individual employee needs and locationbased business demands.

• Are physical barriers imposed on employees byfixed location of teams that keep functions andpeople apart? Is teamwork limited because noindividual and collective initiative is possible andfew resources are shared? Support for effectiveand efficient teamwork is essential in anyorganisation, more so if those employees are notfixed to a single location.

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• Can your internal business processes adapt asfast as the market demands? As organisationsstrive to develop and deliver valuable services totheir customers, the required ICT processesmust be highly flexible. These capabilities havebeen sadly lacking in most businesses.Attempting to migrate inefficient processes to the agile enterprise only propagates theinherent problems.

Steps towards an agile organisationAny enterprise moving towards becoming anagile organisation faces a huge challenge.Current investments in applications, workers,infrastructure and products are tightly bound tothe locations and processes that have evolveduniquely in each enterprise. The decision to moveto new models is risky and time-consuming.However, if a business does not become agile, itcan be guaranteed that its competitors will. FromBT’s own experience, seven steps have beenidentified which are key to success:

• Invest in a flexible IP infrastructure

• Understand your business needs and processes

• Develop a portfolio of basic and enhancedservices to support the business needs

• Ensure that the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)of the solution is taken into account, especiallythe ongoing maintenance and management; then you can build up a robust return oninvestment case

• Develop a commercial rationale towards thebusiness benefit

• Ensure that your solution has the ability to be scaled up or down as the businessenvironment changes

• Ensure that your chosen solution provider hasa spirit of partnership and has shared valuesclose to your own.

BT is a firm believer that a managed oroutsourced solution offers more flexibility for anorganisation that needs to cope with an everchanging business environment.

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Companies need a fully rounded ICT providerwho will provide the best consultancy and createand deliver the most appropriate leading edgesolution and then support it in life. BT’s desktopsolutions offer the experience and knowledge of aleading edge technology company that issupported by a global network of partners whocan provide whatever the customer requires.

‘We believe, here at BT, that we also have to think“outside the box” on behalf of our customers,’says Neil Blakesley. ‘This gives us the confidenceto introduce solutions to meet any business need.Whatever the issues, we can transform ourcustomers’ systems and processes to delivermaximum return from their investment.’

BT is a global company with operations andcollaborations in many countries providingsolutions that span the globe. Ultimately, theagility of a business will depend on its ability torevolutionise the way it operates. The biggesthurdle will be cultural change – the technology isalready available.

9. Conclusion

10. Further information

For more information, contact your BT AccountManager, phone us free on

0800 400 478

or find us at

www.bt.com/business

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For further reading and background to this paper see:

The Agile Workplace: Supporting People and TheirWork, Gartner & MIT, 2001

The Age of Agility, Gartner, 2002

The New Office, Francis Duffy, Conran Octopus,1997

Managing Uncertainty – Integrated PortfolioStrategies for Dynamic Organisations, FranklinBaker & William Sims, Cornell University, 2000

11. References

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Jim Hardwicke graduated from LoughboroughUniversity of Technology in 1991 with a first classBSc(Hons) in Computer Science and awards for‘Outstanding Academic Achievement’ and ‘BestFinal Year Project’. He moved to BT Labs (nowAdastral Park) in the same year and worked as asoftware engineer on a number of BT’s largenetwork management projects.He joined the Network Management Researchgroup in 1996 where he has lead teamsinvestigating the application of new softwaretechnology to network management. He nowleads a group that uses new and emergingsoftware tools and techniques to deliver solutionsfor managing ICT.

12. Author biography

Offices worldwideThe telecommunications services described in this publication are subject to availability and may be modified from time to time. Services and equipment are provided subject to British Telecommunications plc’s respective standard conditions of contract. Nothing in this publication forms any part of any contract.

©British Telecommunications plc 2003Registered office: 81 Newgate Street, London EC1A 7AJRegistered in England No. 1800000Produced by BT Major BusinessDesigned by Unigraph Limited D21188Published by Redwood

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