“Data is an strategic asset”,  “Use data to drive digital transformation”, “Become a data-driven business”. These are just some of the things we hear across many industries and sized organisations. I think we can all agree that data is important, the real question is:

• how do I realise some value from it?
• Will data really help shape my transformation?
• Does my organisation really see data as an asset and invest in its management?
• What does data driven even mean?

Fundamentally every organisation, whatever their size and data culture, needs to use its data efficiently and effectively. The amount of data collected by organisations grows larger by the day, where once a few hundred gigabytes spread across an organisation was regarded as exceptional, now collating terabytes to petabytes of data is regarded as normal.  The ability to sift through large amounts of well organised, easily searchable data to generate timely, impactful business insights – from improving operational efficiency to gaining some form of competitive advantage – requires a solid data foundation. 

What do we mean by a solid data foundation and how can you build one?

The elements of a data foundation

Here at Peru, we follow our own approach to data management developed utilising well known frameworks from EDM Council & DAMA as well as our own experience. We’ve found it the most practical way to help shape data programmes and take positive steps to increasingly likelihood of success for data initiatives.

The four main tenets of data foundations are:

Strategy Alignment & Data Culture: this involves the unique identification of “things” (products; customers; entities, transactions; etc.), assigning precise definitions of meaning to these things and the development of comprehensive inventories (where data resides) using data discovery techniques

Data Management Practices & Architecture: this covers identifying and developing essential skills and crucially securing executive support, ensuring that data governance is enforceable (authority), driving culture change which according to EDM needs to be “sanctioned by executive management, based on standards, harmonized across the lifecycle, governed by policy and monitored by audit”

Data Quality & Data Sharing/Ways of Working: this covers establishing a formal discipline of best practice for data quality, clearly assigning accountability for quality assurance by identifying ownership and stewardship and where possible using automation to minimize manual processes.

Analytics, Insights & Risk Management: this involves coordinating with business stakeholders as the business will be the ones to drive cultural change, finding relevant partners and suppliers to help get most from current and new technology investments (such as data catalog platforms) and championing cross organisational collaboration across business units.

This is all underpinned by assessing an organisations maturity against core aspects from business strategy alignment through to skills, culture and funding streams and execution components such as architecture, quality and governance. This enables organisations to understand what they have in place and where to improve and focus their resources for ultimate effect.

RPA is tactical, Automation should be strategic

Tactical automation such as RPA isn’t necessarily short term but monitoring tactical automation and ensuring you don’t build costly technical debt related to automation is essential.

Whenever commissioning new process automations via RPA, we tried to put a review date on them to ensure that as the landscape evolved around them, they weren’t forgotten and were incorporated into strategic solutions.

To a man with a hammer, everything is a nail

My role was primarily working with business leaders where I would typically do one of two things, either explain how automation could benefit their area, or remove assumptions that RPA was the answer to all problems.

An organisation’s specific environment will make some automation technologies more suitable than others, and as you start to automate processes there will be themes and patterns you can establish to deploy the right technology for the right process. This leads to more strategic, less risky, and more maintainable automation solutions.

Process benefits cases exist, or they don’t

As organisations mature you are able to reduce your total cost of ownership for automation, through things like economies of scale as well as the continued commoditisation in this area which  make it cheaper to automate. As an example, Image Recognition used to be something you’d need data scientists to build from scratch, you can now buy it off the shelf from Microsoft. That said, there will always be a breakeven point, and if the process can’t make it above that line, it’s going to cost you more to operate than it does today.

The total cost of ownership of an Automation is much greater than a licence

While we are on the subject of process benefits, a key objective for most automations is that the run cost doesn’t exceed the expected benefits. The fully loaded cost of owning an automation is much greater than the licence, there are economies of scale to be found in ongoing support, development approaches and factories, and platform strategies.

Benefits tracking will be important one day

Benefits tracking might not be a top priority at the start of your ‘pilot’, ‘proof of concept’ or ‘innovation’, but one day someone will be interested in whether Automation is beneficial.

With that in mind, work out the benefit at the most granular level you can as early as possible – if an automation saves you £x or hours/seconds/minutes on each transaction, capture this information when you are doing process analysis.

Tom Knight is a Senior Consultant at Peru Consulting and has worked across the software development lifecycle, culminating in applying his experience to building a global Centre of Excellence for Automation, including RPA and machine learning.

Peru Consulting’s Steve Watson, was recently interviewed by Future Processing’s Michal Grela about his recent 3-part article “Business At the Speed of Light”.

Enjoy the podcast audio of the interview by clicking here, which covered topics such as the importance and benefits of reliable fast fibre broadband in these challenging times and the wider opportunities for digital transformation to drive innovation and disrupt the marketplace.

This article was originally written some 6 years ago but never published at the time. The original intent of the article was to help businesses, particularly small and medium sized businesses, better understand the opportunities for business innovation through the use of high speed fibre broadband, at a time when too many were overly focused on its availability rather than drawing up plans for its exploitation.

Fast forward 6 years, and as well as reflecting on some of the predictions made in the original article which have now come true, we’ve all suddenly been reminded of something that perhaps we had taken for granted; with many more of us reliant on home working, home schooling and home playing, and where the daily commute is now from the bedroom to the study, the importance of high speed fibre broadband services has been cast into sharp focus once again…

In 1825, the Stockton and Darlington railway – the world’s first railway to use steam locomotives – was officially opened and duly changed the course of history. The line, which carried coal from the collieries at Shildon, was rapidly extended to the port town of Middlesbrough and beyond. Local colliery owners, never slow to identify a business opportunity, were able to cut the cost of transportation by a third compared to moving coal by horse.

The widespread adoption of rail infrastructure enabled the transportation by steam locomotive of coal and other resources – coal being the fuel that fired the second industrial revolution, and which saw, between 1870 & 1890, the greatest increase in UK economic growth in history.

Fast forward to today: fibre-optic cable is the infrastructure transporting information “at the speed of light”, fuelling a revolution which transcends the domain of business and impacts every facet of how we work, live, play and learn. Business transactions, thoughts, relationships, ideas can literally move “at the speed of light”. Back in 1825, that original 9-mile journey took 2 hours; today information transported over superfast fibre optic broadband can leave Stockton and arrive in Darlington 1,000th of a second later. In the time taken to transport coal from Shildon Colliery to Stockton terminus, information can be transported between Durham and Singapore over 30,000 times. Today, in that same 2-hour period, approximately 25 billion emails are sent, 456 million Google searches are conducted, 3.5 billion WhatsApp messages are sent, and 36 thousand hours of video are uploaded to YouTube.

Paradigm Shift

As the availability of high-speed fibre broadband infrastructure becomes as ubiquitous in the 21st century as the railway infrastructure of the 19th century, businesses – in particular small and medium sized businesses – need to urgently focus on the benefits realisation opportunities this technology transformation presents; nothing less than a paradigm shift in thinking is required.
Where to start? Business leaders need to ask themselves the three simple, but fundamental, questions that underpin the dynamics of any for-profit organisation, namely, how can the adoption of high speed fibre broadband reduce my business’s operating costs, increase revenues, and/or improve our ability to innovate?
Secondary questions related to these key points include understanding the opportunities to broaden and deepen the business’s target market, optimise the supply chain, identify opportunities for collaborative research & design, win new customers and deliver products and services in new and innovative ways.
Ultimately, it’s the impact on the bottom line that will determine the answer to these questions – what are the cashable benefits businesses can realise by grasping the business change and transformation opportunities available?

Return on Investment

In this respect, the Evaluation of the Economic Impact and Public Value of the Superfast Broadband Programme Report (August 2018) commissioned by the Department of Culture Media & Sport is a useful indicator of the potential business benefit opportunities. The report estimated that the Superfast programme led to a net increase in national economic output (GVA) of £690m by June 2016.

This figure, however, is potentially understated in two key respects:

Firstly, the report focused on the GVA impacts directly attributable to public investment in fast broadband, however approximately 76% of homes and businesses currently have access to fast fibre broadband infrastructure, mainly as a result of private, commercial investment, with over 20m homes and businesses subscribing to fibre services.

Secondly, the economic impacts measured in the report focus mainly on incremental improvements in business productivity; the opportunities for businesses to increase revenues and improve profitability were not fully factored into the calculations. Whilst this is understandable, this understates the totality of business benefits to the same extent that stating the only benefit attributable to the availability of rail infrastructure was a 33% reduction in the cost of coal transportation, whilst ignoring the fundamental transformation in business models the industrial revolution heralded.

Business Exploitation

How businesses exploit the opportunity of fast fibre broadband is predicated on a number of variables including the business sector, business model maturity and market maturity, but also, crucially, on the ability of business leaders to innovate and transform their business – to make that paradigm shift in thinking.

The task of developing new models of business is no mean feat and can possibly be best summarised in the well-worn saying “we don’t know what we don’t know”. It is, however, worth reflecting on the lessons learned from the first wave of widespread broadband infrastructure availability.

When the UK started to transition to first generation broadband in the mid to late 90’s, who could have predicted the phenomenal success of e-businesses such as Amazon, eBay, and Google, much less the explosion of social media?

In this respect, the now infamous quote from Donald Rumsfeld regarding “Known Knowns, Known Unknowns and Unknown Unknowns” is a useful starting point for the business opportunities afforded by fast fibre broadband.

Known Knowns

The lessons learned from the first wave of broadband are still being applied and constantly enhanced by entrepreneurs with great business ideas and a bit of tech-savvy (or consultancy). Take for example e-commerce; everyone gets the Amazon business model and the phenomenal success that it has delivered, however not all businesses can be an Amazon mark two…but all can build on the fundamental principles that Amazon laid down.

The All in One Company, based in Northumberland in the North East of England, is a great example. The company was founded by Kate Dawson in 2008, based on a brilliant business concept – unable to find onesies for her own children on the high street, Kate decided to set up a business to make onesies for people of all ages and sizes. The company’s mission statement is simple: “to bring warmth, fun and happiness into your life in a luxurious and functional way”. The company’s interactive website allows customers to custom design and personalise their onesie using the website’s “Onesie App” and then have it professionally made by the business’s in-house production team and shipped directly to their home.

The concept has been hugely successful, however as the business started to take off it hit a major snag. Whilst sales and revenue were strong in the Autumn and Winter seasons, orders dropped off a cliff in the warmer months. This presented the sort of cash-flow and demand-fluctuation challenges that have downed many a lesser business.

The All in One Company solution? By enhancing and enriching their web presence and extending both their supply chain and customer base to Southern Hemisphere businesses and customers – all supported by fast fibre access (both locally and across their customer and supply chain), the company was able to transform itself from a seasonal-dependant business to a 12 month round business; the All in One Company became the All Year Round Company “at the speed of light” and has subsequently enjoyed phenomenal success.

Known Unknowns

Having established that the lessons learned from the first wave of broadband and internet adoption still resonate strongly today, what about the Known Unknowns – as Mr Rumsfeld put it “things we know we don’t know about”. Again, a lesson from history provides a useful signpost to potential future business opportunities.

Rediffusion was a business which distributed radio and TV signals through wired relay networks and was originally established in 1928 under the trading name Broadcast Relay Services Ltd. One year later the company introduced its first cable radio service in Hull to customers frustrated with the difficulties of tuning into weak radio broadcasts, however the paradigm shift for Rediffusion was in the post-war era when they started delivering TV over their cable infrastructure to large parts of the UK which had very poor or no TV reception due to the limited broadcast transmitter network. Rediffusion became the world’s first cable-TV company.

At the outset of this venture Rediffusion was losing money at a staggeringly fast rate as their investment in the cable network vastly outweighed the revenues from their initially small customer base. By 1964, when Rediffusion changed its name to Rediffusion London, the efforts of the owners had left them sitting pretty with a very profitable and cash rich business.
Over time the Rediffusion business model was eroded by improvements in the TV transmitter network and the death knell was sounded by the arrival of the new kids on the block; cable TV companies such as Telewest and NTL, later to merge and become Virgin Media.

Today we are going full circle; with the increasingly widespread availability of fast fibre broadband, streaming media providers such as Netflix and Amazon are revolutionising the way TV is broadcast and consumed by customers. Now, high definition TV can be streamed “at the speed of light” over fibre broadband on demand, at the exact time and place customers want to view their favorite TV program or film. Millions of DIY enthusiasts now tune into YouTube not the BBC for home improvement ideas and step by step instructions.

Even that great institute of Public TV Broadcasting, the BBC, transitioned BBC3 to digital-only, with the channel being exclusively streamed over the fibre broadband network. Over the last decade, monthly BBC iPlayer streaming requests have risen from circa 50m to over 350m.

This leads to the known unknown; how long now before all of the UK TV transmitter network is switched off and replaced by 100% fibre broadband streamed TV in High Definition which can be “Multi-cast” to several locations in the home and is fully interactive (Do you like that menu on Nigella’s latest show? Have it download instantly onto your tablet along with a full video tutorial and recommended wine pairings). A reasonable guess at the “how long” question would be 10-15 years, but the era of the TV transmitter network is rapidly coming to an end.

The opportunities this presents for businesses are staggering in their breadth. How about hyper-local TV broadcasting? Either business to business or business to consumer; a hyper-local TV channel for every business/consumer segment your organisation touches? – not a problem. TV not only available on demand but actually created on demand – in real time – following social media trends – reacting to ongoing events in the business marketplace – created, delivered and consumed “at the speed of light” – not a problem.

Unknown Unknowns

This is where we inevitably make something of a leap of faith, a step into the dark, and where science fiction becomes blurred with science fact and business reality. Literally almost anything is possible when business leaders start thinking “at the speed of light”.

Here’s a proposition which absolutely has the potential to morph from science fiction to business fact; how about the concept of the 1 second business? The 1 second business is a company that is created, executes a number of profitable transactions and ceases trading in under 1 second. What happens in one second? It’s the time it takes a honey bee to flap its wings 200 times, the time 13 cars are manufactured across the globe and the time 24 babies are born… it is also the time it takes to execute up to 1,000 business transactions between Stockton and Darlington “at the speed of light”.

Whilst this business model faces undoubted legal, regulatory and other challenges – how does the Inland Revenue collect corporation taxes for the 1 second business? – history has shown us time and again that ways are found to overcome such obstacles by the joint efforts of misty-eyed entrepreneurs and far-sighted legislators.

Opportunity and Threat

If we accept the premise that “business at the speed of light” offers up a vast array of business possibilities, we also need to acknowledge that the failure to grasp these opportunities – the potential failure of UK Plc to exploit the possibilities afforded by fast fibre broadband – represents a very real threat to businesses.

One only has to look at the decimation of the high street – faced with the twin threats of online and out of town shopping (and superbly articulated in the final part of Robert Peston’s BBC2 series “Robert Peston goes shopping”) – to appreciate the real and present danger to businesses which fail to exploit the opportunities afforded by fast fibre broadband; put simply, those business will largely cease to exist. Across the globe, at a conference in Sydney, Gartner analyst Janelle Hall summed up the situation businesses face succinctly “Every industry will be digitally re-mastered. It is not optional. It will happen to you whether you like it or not, so your opportunity is to lead it or fall behind. You cannot escape. This is not something you have a choice about.” Business Leaders need to start drawing up their business exploitation plans “at the speed of light” to ensure their very survival.

The most recently published statistics (source: “Eurostat Digital economy and society statistics – households and individuals, 2019) provide firm evidence that UK consumers are leading the rest of Europe in respect of their desire to transact online. The report showed that the UK comes out best of the EU “G5” (which also includes Germany, France, Spain, and Italy) in almost every online usage metric:

• Percentage of individuals accessing the internet on a daily basis – UK is top with 91% (Germany 2nd with 84%)
• Percentage of individuals who bought or ordered goods or services online in the last 12 months – the UK is top with 83% (Germany 2nd with 77%)
• Percentage of individuals who use the internet for social networking – the UK is top with 70% (Spain 2nd with 58%)

The European Commission’s executive vice president for digital, Margrethe Vestager, recently stated “Digital technology won’t just transform our society. It will revolutionise our economy. We may not have a tech giant like Facebook or Google in Europe. But we do have thousands of world-leading companies. Europe’s 25 million small and medium-sized businesses make our economy tick. They account for more than half of our GDP, and two-thirds of our business jobs. Digitisation can bring challenges for them – only one in six SMEs in Europe is highly digitised. But it also has enormous opportunities to offer.”

The opportunities and threats of “business at the speed of light” are therefore clear to see: embrace the opportunities for innovation afforded by technology or get left behind as rivals exploit digitisation to disrupt the marketplace.

Into the Light

In his seminal trilogy, “The Baroque Cycle”, author Neal Stephenson writes of the period in world history between the late 17th century and early 18th century which became defined as the dawn of the age of scientific enlightenment. As they were then termed, “Natural Philosophers” such as Sir Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle (one of the founding fathers of the Royal Society), Christiaan Huygens and Gottfried Leibniz strode the world stage and civilisation moved out of the Dark Ages of witch trials and alchemy and into the light of scientific reasoning.

It was research undertaken by both Huygens and Newton during this period, underpinned by Newton’s epic work “The Principia Mathematica”, which provided the foundations for Einstein’s subsequent special theory of relativity – the definition of the speed of light.

Today we bear witness to a new dawn: in the early 21st century we are at the beginning of the age of working, living, playing, and learning “at the speed of light”. The crucial question for businesses is: “are you ready to grasp the opportunities for disruptive and radical business innovation that fast fibre broadband presents… are you ready to start earning at the speed of light?”

Fast forwarding the 6 years since this article was originally written, what now are the opportunities for digital transformation, underpinned by the near ubiquitous availability of superfast fibre broadband and the growing availability of ultrafast broadband services? Put simply, the answer is that they are almost limitless in their scope, however I believe they will revolve around 4 fundamental concepts:

• Collaboration – the new normal will involve a gradual sunsetting of the large corporate business model – this isn’t going to happen overnight, it may take many decades, but it will happen, and in its place will rise an eco-system of interconnected small to medium-size businesses collaborating to generate or outstrip the productivity, gross value add and innovation capabilities of larger enterprises. This model will be fundamentally underpinned by the ubiquitous availability of ultrafast broadband services.
• Change – business leaders looking to innovate and disrupt, will first need to closely assess their organisations’ capacity for change. For example, if the business capacity for change only affords for 2 major changes per year and the new strategy calls for 5 changes per quarter, there will be trouble in store…the adoption of digital transformation across organisations, enabled by ultrafast broadband, will help businesses to grow their change capacity, but in the short to medium term, will also place great stress on that change capacity.
• C-suite to shop floor – going forward as others innovate and disrupt, business leaders will come to realise that they will only get one chance to execute correctly on their new strategies. Simply put, they will not be afforded the luxury of time to go back and try again, if the first attempt at execution of the strategy fails. Therefore, executives will need to put in place mechanisms to closely monitor the “golden thread” between the board level vision and the operational implementation of that vision. In the new normal, where the workforce may be agile and highly distributed, rather than centralised and tightly coupled, business leaders will need to consider how to digitise monitoring of the golden thread.
• Communication – The way in which some organisations and individuals have excelled in terms of communication, whilst others have closed down channels of communication is an interesting phenomenon, which may well be linked to the fundamental psychological “fight or flight” reaction to crisis. What is for sure is that going forward, the old phrase of my mentor “communicate until your gums bleed”, will ring truer than ever. For example, and to the points above, when business leaders are trying to understand the impact assessment of change, they will need to pay close attention to the stakeholders involved in operationalising that change, particularly when they may no longer be in line of sight. Needless to say, great intra-company collaboration processes and systems will need to be embedded in organisations, and needless to say, this will be underpinned “at the speed of light” by ultrafast fibre broadband.

Digital Transformation key to Business Strategy

A report last year by accountants Grant Thornton highlighted that almost 9 out 10 mid-market businesses made major changes to their business models during the first lockdown with half of these organisations expecting these changes to remain even after the pandemic has passed. Perhaps unsurprisingly half of all businesses surveyed have implemented home or flexible working and over 40% have had to adjust their business strategy.

The research also highlighted that almost 50% of organisations were looking to digital transformation to underpin planned changes in their business strategy. That’s all well and good however many mid-market business leaders feel unprepared and frankly not well supported in taking the leap of investing in digital transformation and don’t have the budgets to hire a magic circle consultancy or IT partner to help them.

The Hop, Step & Jump of Digital Transformation

To use an analogy the digital transformation journey has parallels to what is arguably that most technically demanding of all track and field sports, the triple jump…or as it is sometimes known, the “hop, step and jump”:

• The Hop: Does the business have a clear vision of how digital transformation will support the wider business strategy and objectives? Is the current state well understood? Has a technology roadmap been defined to understand how the business will get from the current state to the envisaged future?
• The Step: How will the business source the required technology to deliver the future state requirements? Is the go to market strategy understood? Have the right suppliers been identified? What are the optimal commercial terms?
• The Jump: How will the business deliver on the transformation roadmap? Are the timescales for change realistic? Are the foundations in place to deliver the required change? What is the impact on the operating model and ways of working across the business?

Just as is the case with the triple jump, if businesses make a misstep on either their digital, sourcing or change strategy, the required business benefit outcomes will be in jeopardy…get the hop wrong and you risk misalignment with your business objectives, make a mistake with the step and you risk sourcing sub-optimal solutions and mis-time the jump and your transformation programmes may fail to deliver on the vision.

How Peru Can Help

We’ve helped many businesses shape their IT strategy, buy better technology services and deliver on their investment in digital. We have a passion for helping companies achieve their business goals through the adoption of digital technology and our advisors can help businesses improve productivity and strengthen their business strategies to achieve their overall goals.

Recognising the challenges faced by mid-market businesses setting out on their digital transformation journey, we at Peru Consulting have developed an “IT Advisory as a Service” approach tailored specifically to the needs of your business and providing maximum flexibility to engage our services when you need them, aligned to your business priorities, objectives and resources.

When you engage our “IT Advisory as a Service” subscription service, we’ll work with you to undertake an initial Health check to understand your business goals and identify the right package of IT advisory support focused on your specific needs and drawn from our extensive experience of the digital technology marketplace.

So, if you are confident that you have got your “hop” right, but just need help perfecting your “step” or fine tuning your “jump”, then you’ll have the flexibility to draw down from our advisory support to suit your specific business needs. You’ll also have access to an advisor “on demand” with regular service reviews to ensure your technology strategy remains on track for a gold-medal winning performance.

Interested in understanding how our “IT Advisory as a Service” can help your business invest in the right digital outcomes? Ready to turn your “Leap of Faith” into a well-executed digital transformation strategy? If you would like to find out more about our business transformation consulting services, please book a meeting to talk through how we can help your organisation. You can also find out more about our IT Advisory as a Service subscription service here: www.peruconsulting.co.uk/services/it-advisory-as-a-service/

Given that most organisations are often critically dependent on IT suppliers to underpin their business operations, a lack of understanding of the relationship between organisation and supplier can have a fundamental impact.
In fact, not only could a lack of understanding undermine an original business case, it may lead to a lack of service, deterioration in the supplier relationship, protracted disputes and, in some cases, costly legal action.

Failure has become an option

There are many reasons why contracts fail and supplier relationships go off the rails, often spanning the full contract lifecycle. Some of the key issues are:

Notice that all of the above contract failures are primarily caused by the customer. While IT suppliers are no paragons of virtue, in reality, the causes of contract breakdown are generally more nuanced.

The Devil’s in the detail

On September 23rd, 1999, communication with NASA space probe Mars Climate Orbiter was lost as it descended into Martian orbit to study the planet’s climate. The fault was subsequently found to be computer software producing output in imperial units instead of the metric units specified in the contract. Consequently, the Orbiter flew too far into the Martian atmosphere and disintegrated.

Know the knowns!

For most businesses, the impact of poor contract management may not be quite as catastrophic as NASA’s. However, an ongoing understanding of what’s written into (and often left out of) a commercial contract is critical to avoid:

• Automatic renewal of contracts beyond the initial period, locking customers into outdated, unfavourable terms
• Failure to leverage key contractual rights such as audit, benchmarking, or technology refresh
• Poor management of the IT assets stipulated in the contract, leading to significant “regret spend”
• Lack of alignment between the customer and the supplier, resulting in the customer’s failure to adhere to contractual obligations and consequential poor supplier performance
• In essence, the “we’ve signed the contract, it’s now the supplier’s responsibility to deliver” approach is wrong on many levels.

Choose the right line

Most internal business operations have codified governance documents, with organisations often creating an entire process handbook or repository which defines “the business of doing business”.

However, if business processes are not aligned to fulfil your contractual obligations, you’ll be left with below-par supplier performance. Contest this with your supplier and they’ll be well within their rights to point out the ways you helped contribute to their failure.

Good commercial contract management is not just about enforcing obligations. Done well, it’s a vehicle for significant business process improvement within your own organisation, which can reap benefits well beyond the scope of the contract itself.

Contract Management from “cradle to grave”

The potential benefits of rigorous management are substantial: better handling of supplier performance risks, identification of cost saving opportunities, improved supplier relationships and, ultimately, optimised business processes.

Avoiding the contract management nightmare that can result in the early demise of your supply relationship – and possibly even your business operations – requires some forethought.

In Peru Consulting’s experience, a little pre-planning of contractual roles and responsibilities can reap significant rewards. Even in the day-to-day lifecycle, regular contract reviews and another read of the small print can ensure mutually successfully commercial outcomes “from cradle to grave” of any client/supplier relationship.

For some time now, more and more organisations seem to have been recognising the importance of data. Businesses generate, receive and process so much data it follows that it needs to be managed and governed effectively so that organisations can extract the maximum business value out of their data. Knowing where the data is, what it means and how to use it for business insight is the practice known as ‘Data Management’.

Lifecycle of Data

Data may be obtained from interactions with the outside world or from operational activities within the organisation.  This data needs to be checked, organised, cleansed, stored, then transformed, reorganised, and utilised for activities such as reporting or selling before it is eventually retired at some point in the future.  During this time, which in some cases may be many years, it needs to be kept secure, accessible, and in a state that is usable by the business.  It is this lifecycle of data that constitutes Data Management – the day-to-day operations of keeping data moving around the organisation.

Data Frameworks

In the realm of Data Management, it is common practice to adopt an industry standard framework.  One such leading framework is provided by the EDM Council, DCAM (the Data Management Capability Assessment Model), which defines Data Management as:

Data Governance

This is typically an IT led process with direction taken from the business, and it is at this interface with the business where Data Governance is applied.

• Data Governance sets the rules, strategies and guardrails determining how your business will manage its data.  For example, who should be able to see Personally Identifiable Information, (PII) or what type of orders you are prepared to accept without a related client physical address.
• The ultimate purpose of Data Governance is to formalise Data Management practices as an established function of the business; not only establishing the rules of engagement, but also helping prioritise funding for data initiatives.
• The problem is that while it is usually easy to measure the cost and effectiveness of Data Management activities, it can be difficult to measure how much effort and cost is appropriate for Data Governance. For example, too little governance could result in an organisation receiving regulatory fines or facing reputational damage as a result of not taking appropriate measures to secure data properly.
• Additionally, too little governance may impact data quality, allowing multiple occurrences of each customer in the sales system, meaning excessive time is spent manually preparing summary reports, increasing financial burden and reducing trust in reporting systems.

Data Management and Data Governance work together to ensure that an organisation has access to the data it needs to run cost effectively, whilst meeting compliance and regulatory obligations.

If you need help understanding your challenges around data, want to build a better culture of Data Management or just want to find out how data drives better business decisions contact our data practice. We’d love to find out more about your challenges and requirements.

My 2014 article “Corporate Culture & the Bottom-line” ended with the following prediction:

“The digital revolution is changing many aspects of our lives irrevocably, including how and for whom we work…if organisations don’t change their culture they risk losing their key staff, as employees increasingly choose to build the business that they would wish to work for, and crowd-source themselves a better future.”

Fast forward six years and SMEs accounted for 60% of all private sector jobs in the UK, a total of 16.6 million. Across Europe SME’s in the European Union employed approximately 66 percent of the workforce.

Over the last twenty years the number of SME businesses has increased by almost 45%. Over the same time period large business growth has been just 7%.

So, is the future of business likely to be dominated by SMEs? Well yes and no…I believe the future of business is likely to belong to an eco-system of interconnected SMEs.

What is an eco-system of interconnected SMEs and why do they have the potential to outperform large corporates?

Well first the “what”…an eco-system of interconnected SMEs is a group of businesses who actively develop and nurture collaborative relationships to co-create, co-elevate and co-market their services. Typically, this will involve organisations who offer complementary services and works best when there is a good match of cultures and values between the companies.

To be clear this is not about supply chains or buyer chains…suppliers supply, buyers buy, eco-systems of interconnected SMEs co-deliver. It’s also worth noting when it comes to these eco-systems, organisations that might otherwise be deemed outside the generally accepted definition of an SME (<250 employees) can be “in the club” if they have the right value match, relatively flat/delegated management structures and a flexible approach to business.

Why do these eco-systems have the potential to punch above their weight in the marketplace? Well the large corporates have some inherent disadvantages that they struggle to overcome such as multiple levels of management impeding rapid decision making, a corporate culture that tends to focus on short term financial targets over long term strategy and organisation structures which act against a coherent vision being shared at all levels of the business. Traditionally these disadvantages have been offset by factors such as diversity of product and service portfolio, market penetration and buying power, however that may be changing…

Eco-systems of interconnected SMEs are increasingly able to match and better the traditional advantages of large corporates whilst retaining the culture, agility, and challenger attitude of an SME. These days, through a combination of digital transformation and collaboration, interconnected SMEs can develop hybrid propositions (co-creation) and aggregate their capabilities in ways that deliver more than incremental value (co-elevation) whilst getting their message to an increasingly wider audience through joint marketing initiatives (co-marketing).

Could the future belong to an interconnected eco-system of SMEs?

66% of the workforce of the EU seem to think so.

As a financial institution what does the EU Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) regulation mean for you? And how do these fit in with requirements such as GDPR, NIS and PSD2?

DORA is an attempt to make 3^rd party risks management processes more efficient and to create a recognised standard. The key requirements include a focus on

• Risk Management
• Incident Reporting
• 3^rd Party Risk Management
• Operational Resilience testing and
• Information and intelligence sharing.

In the UK, through the PRA and in Ireland via the CBIs consultation paper 140 these recommendations are being adopted.

At a recent roundtable on the topic hosted by Digital Europe , stakeholders from policymakers to FS and tech providers discussed some of the impacts that this regulation will bring. Overall there was an acceptance that there was a need for such regulation given to scale and proliferation of cyber-attacks over the last year but there was a feeling that their response to it:

• should still take into account the need for Innovation and Competitiveness and not hinder it
• that there should still be opportunity to use 3^rd country technologies and refrain from introducing localisation measures such as data residency.
• That there should be a proportional response to the regulations and should be aligned to organisations risk profile and appetites and
• that there needs to be more consistency between DORA and other regulations

The most challenging part of the regulation focuses on 3^rd party risks and Operational Resilience testing.

For 3^rd party risks Financial services firms should look:

1. to refresh existing third-party contracts to support the required obligations to implement and test DR solutions
2. develop robust supplier exit strategies
3. develop and implement a 3^rd party risk framework and
4. get a view on those providers that are deemed critical for the digital operational resilience of their organisation (a key part of Operational resilience testing).

For Operational Resilience testing organisations need:

1. to have effective policies in place
2. regular testing of end-to-end DR and operational processes (including training and awareness programmes),
3. Define testing approaches and tooling
4. Identify critical business services and mapping them to underlying technology, applications, processes, people and third parties

UK Banks will feel well positioned given previous adherence to previous guidelines, however as well as additional scope, the DORA umbrella will stretch further across the likes of insurers and fund managers. There are some overlaps with existing regulations but understanding where they are and how this work together is difficult to navigate. At Peru Consulting our experience is not only in financial services but across many other sectors – through our cross-sector experience in regulatory compliance, supply chain management and operational resilience we are well placed to support FS clients need.

Financial Service and other organisations have nothing to lose in getting ahead of the game by defining their critical suppliers, assessing contracts, reviewing supply chain risks and/or defining and delivering resilience testing

Peru with our partners, have a wealth of experience in maturity assessments in regulated environments and quality assurance/delivery of Operational Resilience plans. Please get in touch with Steve Warren or  Ian Robinson for more information.

For many organisations, Supply Chain Risk Management has been an undervalued activity, perhaps part of a wider supplier classification exercise and, for some, a means to an end but where the end was keeping the auditor at bay. Experts in this field, however, realise that the real power is in mitigating risk, not just keeping the audit teams happy.

Along came the Covid-19 pandemic and turned this logic on its head, perhaps forever. Proactive supply chain risk assessment is now critical to keeping businesses up and running, especially when it may be uncertain whether a critical service provider or manufacturer in your supply chain will still be trading next week. In organisations that do not put supply chain risk higher up the agenda, the chance of missing failures such as the sudden collapse of Carillion two years ago is much higher.

Of course, it’s not quite as binary as that. The impact of disruption can also be measured in terms of impacts to the time, cost and quality of supply chain service or product delivery even when your suppliers remain solvent.

OK so you think you might have a problem, but how do you get concerns regarding supply chain risk higher up the agenda when there are 1,001 other urgent, real-time priorities to deal with.

One solution might be to rush out a tool to conduct a Supply Chain Risk Assessment, perhaps backed up by some bright people…many have. However, this approach overlooks two of the most fundamental challenges with supply chain risk assessment, namely the lack of time and focus and that’s where Albert Einstein comes in:

“Given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes understanding the problem and one minute resolving it.”

At Peru consulting, we have applied our combined experience and expertise gained over many years to help organisations address this problem.

Peru’s Supply Chain Risk Assessment advisory service, supported by our advanced, adaptive software solution, helps you focus on what really matters when time is of the essence. Our approach is broken down into 3 main Stages:

• Stage 1 – analyses the influence of your supply chain in terms of their potential impact on your revenue, profitability, and outputs – Focus established
• Stage 2 – analyses the quality of the risk assessment questions to ask and the availability and reliability of the answers – Key Lines of Enquiry established
• Stage 3 – completes the risk assessment based on the right questions for the right suppliers, which in turn drives a prioritised mitigation plan for stakeholders to implement – Resolution established

To find out more about how you can proactively enhance your ability to track & act on your key supply chain risks, focus finite resources on the suppliers most critical to your business and gain the clearest insight on risks in your supply chain, please get in touch.

Rethinking the Tender Process

Talking to our channel partners at Future Processing, they, and I suspect many others, have spotted that IT buyers are showing marked reluctance to enter into long term contracts in the current trading environment. Its little wonder given the constantly changing dynamic of the pandemic and its multi-faceted impact on everything from consumer buying habits to work styles and business strategy…who would want to be locked into a 5-year contract when the market outlook over the next 5 weeks is difficult to predict.

So, if that is the obvious problem what is the answer? Fixed term contracts in a form broadly similar to today’s have been around since the latter half of the 19th century. Buyers have liked the certainty of provision of goods and services over a well-defined term and naturally suppliers…and suppliers accountants, like the concept of predictable annuity revenues.

So somewhere between these extremes of not entering into any contracts and not wanting to be tied down to long term contracts when the future is so uncertain, something has to give right?

Well how about the concept of an endless contract? An endless contract is a contract with no fixed term or expiry date (in practice parties may agree to put a longstop date in, old habits die hard). In an endless contract the focus shifts from time to metrics such as service requirements, commercial requirements and innovation. Both the customer and the service provider agree a schedule, let’s say initially once a quarter, whereby they review those key metrics, identify any changes required and course-correct the terms to align to any changes required.

Naturally, there may be occasions where the course correction is just too large for one or both parties to absorb, but at least working to the endless contract principles means this will be identified sooner rather than later allowing for managed exit provisions to be undertaken.

Over time, as the level of uncertainty and change hopefully reduce, the review cycle can be relaxed to bi-annual or even annual, with normal service governance arrangements backfilling the quarterly contract reviews.

Clearly there are number of other considerations to endless contracts. We would be really interested to hear everyone’s views on this concept: unworkable or the only way forward in the new normal?

The weekend brought the desperately sad news that the former Formula 1 racing driver, Alex Zanardi, had been involved in a handbike accident in Italy, when he apparently collided with a truck on a state highway near the town of Pienza to the south-east of Siena. He remains in a serious but stable condition in intensive care.

For anyone who does not know the story of this truly exceptional man, he is someone who’s story transcends motor racing and transcends sport itself and has made him one of the most inspirational people around today.

Zanardi, drove in both formula 1 and the American CART series where he was a two times champion, but he was involved in a horrific crash in 2001 which resulted in the amputation of his legs. However, his determination resulted in a return to racing in less than 2 years and he subsequently secured 4 wins in the World Touring Car Championship.

In addition to his return to motorsport he took up handcycling and subsequently won the New York Marathon in 2011 at the age of 45, and four Paralympic gold medals at London 2012 and Rio 2016. He was in training for the Tokyo Paralympic games when this weekend’s accident occurred.

In my 2014 article “To be inspirational, take time to be inspired”, I wrote about inspiration being very much like a battery and that you need to charge your inspiration battery as often as possible. Whenever I am feeling a bit low, and in need of inspiration I need only remind myself of Alex’s remarkable story to be inspired once again.

Forza Alex

To read the Sky Sports news article click here.

In our previous article on metadata, we explored what it actually is and how you could use it to add value to your organisation’s activities. This is the foundation of why metadata management is so important, and why many organizations have introduced a repository to centrally manage their metadata. In recent years, the data profession has moved on from a metadata management platform being a passive repository, to provide more to the consumers (system or end users) of its content.

In this article we will explore metadata management capabilities and this shift from passive to active metadata management.

Metadata management activities

Before we discuss the market shift it’s worth taking a step back and defining what we mean by the “management” of metadata. We’ve defined in our last article what meta data is and how it can be used but what activity needs to occur in organizations’ looking to manage this type of data?

Meta data management should consist of several activities:

• linking metadata initiatives to clear business outcomes (e.g .discoverability, dissemination)
• establishing an effective accountability and responsibility model (ownership vs stewardship)
• using metadata tooling to automate and accelerate the creation of metadata (integration and business rules)
• defining and applying data standards (principles, policies, regulation)
• building an on- going repeatable operating model for the management of metadata management (metadata lifecycle management)

As the capacity of organizations to collect and store data increases, the role of Metadata in data management grows in importance. To be data-driven, an organization must be Metadata-driven.

Market shift

In 2021 Gartner replaced the magic quadrant for metadata management with ‘the market guide for active metadata management’​.

By doing so, they implied that metadata ownership transfers from the CIO to the chief data officer (CDO) making the distinction that data is not the preserve of IT but a data asset to be managed and leveraged for business benefit. Therefore, as data is now owned and managed by accountable and responsible business users, the need for a usable and accessible metadata solution becomes paramount. Crucially, these solutions need to be more geared toward user experience and collaboration than ever before.

Whereas traditional data catalogues collect metadata and bring it into a “passive” tool, active metadata platforms act as two-way collaboration platforms. They not only bring metadata together into a single store, but also leverage “reverse metadata” to make metadata available for operational processes. ​

Active versus passive.

Active metadata is built on the premise of actively finding, enriching, inventorying, and using all of this metadata, taking a traditionally “passive” technology and making it truly action oriented. The cornerstone of any active metadata platform, the metadata lake, is a unified repository to store all kinds of metadata, in raw and further processed forms, which can be used to drive both the use cases we know of today and those of tomorrow. The metadata lake is accessed and consumed by Open APIs and interfaces.

Sourcing Recommendations for active metadata tools

So if you are thinking about making an investment into metadata management solutions then our advice would be to look for the following critical capabilities:​

• Ensure candidate systems can share metadata by identifying tools and platforms that can export their own metadata and in turn can import metadata to run to processing instructions.​
• The ability to share internal metadata to support broader platform-to-platform orchestration, and integration with BI (business Intelligence) tooling.​
• The ability to accept parameterized instructions to alter design inputs such as job flow, resource allocation, and manage dependent calls to third-party tools.​
• Enable support for automated system changes in adjacent data management systems with tools that support metadata workflow management capabilities, including collaborative design capabilities

Additionally other common capabilities we have seen our clients explore are collaboration and workflows, common language / vocabulary, connectivity, data Lineage, ownership and compliance, security and user experience.

The need for Active metadata management

We welcome the shift to active metadata management as the value of meta data is in its ability to be change and evolve, something that is acted on and valuable, and that is reflected our experience of helping clients build up their metadata management capabilities – successful implementations are those where collaboration, learning and availability of metadata are prioritised.

Metadata management has become a critical functionality in all data-enabling technologies and metadata analytics, augmented and automated design will become the critical foundation of data management platforms.

Peru Consulting are award winning IT management consultants helping turn your digital strategy to reality, we specialise in providing advisory and delivery services in data, cloud, architecture, operating models, sourcing and supplier management. Our 700+ years of collective experience provides unrivalled knowledge for our clients to leverage and embed into their teams.

Contact Us today to discuss your metadata requirements and how these can be actively managed

IT Leaders have it tough! Have you ever seen a cloud services billing and activity report from AWS, Azure or Google Cloud?  If it’s for your company’s Platform as a Service (PaaS) or Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) billing, reports for a large organisation can build up into an impressive tome. Perfect for insomnia but, the devil always in the detail. So, is there a lurking danger of over-paying for the services you are receiving?

In many commercial sectors, with seasonal swings, new competitors and new digital offerings, cloud service demands can spike and fall. Recognising value for money with cloud-based services within your sector is complex and it requires constant monitoring, smart forward planning and firm management of your cloud providers.

Cloud – huh! What is it good for?

Traditionally, for most large enterprises, “Cloud” has been used for email services and other self-contained Software as a Service (SaaS) applications, such as Salesforce or Dynamics. Over the last few years Peru have also seen a steady rise of digital transformation efforts and with it a focus on DevOps ways of working driving the use of cloud in handling CI/CD models, increased automation, containerised apps and microservice architectures. These “new” approaches have an increasing need for more robust security, resilience and elastic type services where large amounts of resources are needed for relatively short periods of time. This is particularly true of retail organisations dealing with Black Friday type rushes but are seeing similar requirements for health organisations (for research purposes) and legal firms (in multi-jurisdiction litigation) and needing a significant increase in processing, storage, data and sales management capacity.

Another trend we see is in who is procuring cloud services; you may think that this remains the preserve of IT departments the world over but Peru have seen this become less the norm as business and operational teams (Sales, Marketing, Finance and HR) become more aware of cloud SaaS services and have the budget and autonomy to select and use services as they see fit. The problem with this, from an IT perspective is the increase in complexity of the estate and the ongoing cost of maintaining what are generally tactical solutions. Over the last 12 months undertaking application rationalisation projects, we see hundreds of procured applications with their own processes, data siloes and duplicated capabilities which IT departments are being asked to look after with the same number of resources and budgets.

More importantly, ensuring value for money from your multiple cloud providers is a major challenge, are you really seeing the promised higher value at a lower cost? How can your business ensure that it’s driving out cost in the long term not adding to it?

Costly cloud

As far as the cloud providers are concerned, the cloud is being managed cost-effectively.  Well they would say that wouldn’t they, given that they have their margins covered. So, you can’t really expect them to be losing sleep worrying about how much you are spending on their SaaS, PaaS and IaaS services.

Let’s take Cloud security as an example of cost management. Exactly what level of protection do you need now, and what could you need in a years’ time? Taking default or cheaper options could destabilise business operations. So, expert support at this stage may be required to accurately assess and plan network security, resilient architectures, back-up and disaster recovery (DR), encryption services and flow-logging? It may be short term pain, but the long-term cost gain could be significant.

No room for cloudy management

Let’s be honest, using Cloud-based services and solutions does add to the complexity of your IT estate to some degree and won’t make it any easier to manage.  But cloud delivers the agility and flexibility of service that suits the dynamics of most businesses.

Handling a blended or hybrid Cloud environment will throw-up a variety of complications and intricacies relating to the integration of multiple systems and platforms – particularly with legacy systems.

There are now a host of monitoring tools that can help, some more scalable and effective than others. It’s important to remember that it may not always be easy to access every element or set of metrics relating to the cloud applications or services you have purchased, or end user activity, via your cloud provider.  Being able to have a genuine usage view of the cloud-based services you are purchasing may need a change in service monitoring, logging, event tracking, failure strategies and high availability approaches, including a reliable fall-back in case the worst happens and your cloud provider falls over.

When the service stops, stop!

Often, the cost of Cloud is not in services being provided, but those that have stopped. This is particularly true for the short-term “burst” services. While you may believe the service can be turned on and off as required, does your commercial contract with the provider reflect that? And, even if it does, do you have the time and resources to read through your novel-sized report to be certain you are not being charged for service down time? This is where ‘pay as you go’ really does become ‘pay more as you go’.

Become ‘Cloud Smart’

We have experienced a significant number of organisations, that recognise all of these issues too late in the game, resulting in unexpected additional expenditure, costly solution re-engineering, poor purchasing decisions, or unbreakable contracts. Avoiding these pain-points means becoming ‘Cloud Smart’.

The Peru Consulting team believes it is vital that IT leaders set the Cloud agenda from the start: building, as part of an effective Cloud Strategy, costed contracting strategies and creating effective service management and service reporting regimes before implementation is even considered.

In essence, IT leaders and their teams have to recognise all the implications of a Cloud first model they are bringing into their businesses and work out how best to manage them. For most, this will include building the new capabilities within existing teams.  It’s no use making an Opex saving on Cloud services, only to hire a new and costly team to constantly manage configuration issues of your various SaaS solutions.

This makes it even more vital to equip yourself with the Cloud Management expertise that delivers the fine control needed to get the best value from your Cloud spend. The quote “Cloud is not a destination it is a strategy” has never rung truer and your organisation needs to equip itself with the expertise to help.

Peru has expertise and services developed, from our Cloud Strategy and Readiness Assessment through to Provider Benchmarking, Sourcing and Commercial support, Cloud operating model reviews and Cloud Factory Migration Methodology. Contact us today to discuss.

“What Customers Want” is a consultancy that heeds its own advice. Find out how we are doing that at Peru Consulting in the areas of collaboration, change and communication.

I recently presented at an event in Dublin focused on teams delivering digital transformation and it was great to hear from technology leaders about the changes taking place in their own organisations. We all saw the shift in how technology enabled change is now being delivered –moving away from the IT organisation into the business.

Working with a lot of IT teams in many organisations it struck me that this was an opportunity and not a threat. For many years, as an architect, I’ve always talked about the continual need to engage business stakeholders and truly align to business strategic goals, not sit in our ivory towers waving our arms and drawing unusable models. This provides the opportunity for IT to become an enabler of this change, to foster the environment where transformation can happen and succeed.

So what is the shift over the last decade and how should IT respond?

The shift we’re seeing is not only in how transformational change is delivered but also by whom. We understand the shift from traditional to continual delivery, from finite to persistent teams, from control to autonomy, from a focus on delivering functionality to delivering value. We’ve also seen the shift in how these teams are funded and governed, moving from a gated model to a more continuous self-governing model, essentially the shift from the project mindset to the product or service mindset.

What’s new, particularly over the last few years is the shift in who delivers the change. In a recent survey by Gartner they asked organisations where the technology teams were and they found a surprising 42% of people in technology roles no longer sat in IT but within the business. That survey was published in 2020 so we can expect that number to of risen since then. When you think about it this is probably no surprise especially with the advent of new technology platforms for as robotic process automation, advanced analytics, or low/no code platforms. These have given rise to new roles in the organisation such as the process automation specialist, data scientists and the citizen developers.

So what does this change mean for the IT organisation? Well I actually think it’s a real opportunity for them to not only embrace that change but to actually take a leading role. Be there to create the environment where transformation can succeed; providing the platforms for change and to bring their years of experience to bear. So I think there were five areas where the IT organisation should and can contribute:

1. Firstly it’s about setting clarity of expectations for those transformation teams – so helping to set the guardrails and boundaries for how change should be delivered. Providing guiding principles and expectations.
2. Secondly they should be providing the context to transformation teams, explaining how their product or service fits into wider strategic roadmaps but also showing how it could contribute to other areas of the business.
3. Thirdly they should be providing those platforms I spoke about earlier, RPA, Low/NoCode etc but also systems of record and data management platforms to help accelerate the transformation.
4. Fourthly providing insight on how best to architect a solution or service, defining standard and patterns but also building composable services that could be leveraged by teams to create new services or products.
5. Lastly doing what IT teams do best advising on how to build scalable, resilient and secure services and solutions (given they’ve been doing it for last 30 years or so!)

The IT organisation needs to allow these new teams to explore, self-regulate and contribute to technology capability of the organisation.

So, we’ve talked about how delivery has changed and those now responsible, we’ve also talked about IT’s new role in this but one area we haven’t delved into is the makeup of those transformation teams.

A recent survey from McKinsey (about what makes successful delivery teams) highlighted certain traits that seemed to be present in the most successful teams. One of these traits was identified as the “secret sauce” – Agreeability. They found the most important characteristic for successful teams was trust, a key tenet of agreeableness. Another main characteristic of being agreeable was straightforwardness: “being open and frank with one’s viewpoints while still being courageous enough to politely voice opinions that conflict with the team’s.”

Being agreeable is NOT about blindly agreeing without any thinking; it’s about testing ideas and listening to alternative perspectives, which improves task performance.

Agreeableness means saying “yes, and…” instead of “yes, but.”

If agreeableness is a key trait then what are the kind of roles that make up transformation teams? This can differ across industry and organisations but there are certain similarities across teams we work with. The agile/persistent team is usually made up of product owner, solution architect, UX lead and Agile PM with various specialisms in delivery team. The important piece though is to make sure that the team is made up of people from across business units and technologists in the business and IT. This team should also be supported a cross disciplined group to provide insight and steer. This cross disciplined group could consist of reps from integration and platform teams, strategy and architecture or even supplier and service  management. The key to successful teams is to have a broad set of skills and perspectives to drive innovation: business + technology + agreeability = innovation and success.

In summary I want to leave you with 5 main points to take away to help you when building and delivering your own transformation:

1. Focus on value rather functionality: build persistent teams where possible and focus on your customers and value they require
2. Focus on empowerment rather than control: do not try and control teams but provide the environment for them to feel empowered
3. Favour agreeability over other traits: think about the traits you want in your team instead of just hard skills required for roles
4. Build multi-disciplined teams wherever possible: try wherever possible to bring business, technology and other people together to drive innovation through diversity
5. Build the IT engine room to power change: the IT organisation has a big role to play in shaping strategic direction and guiding teams on how to build resilient and scalable digital services

In my next article I’ll be looking to understand more about diversity and different perspectives and how this positively impacts innovation.

If you want to find out more or discuss how Peru could help you in your own transformation journey please get in contact with us today.

GDPR and Risk Management are synonymous with each other, and traditional risk management approaches may not be appropriate in terms of speed and scalability. Gartner states:

“To support digital business’ growth and success, organisations need a set of new risk management principles. Executive leaders should ensure the organisation adopts these six risk management principles to better accommodate the success of their digital business initiatives”

and this framework can help to inform risk mitigation as part of a wider digital transformation strategy. 

Within GDPR[2], there are 7 key principles on the management of personal data, which can be aligned to the 6 Risk Assessment Principles shown above:​  

• Business Outcome Alignment & Risk Data Aggregation – Determining the organisation risk profile, development of GDPR policies & procedures, staff education, understanding responsibilities.
  • Lawfulness, fairness and transparency
  • Data minimisation
  • Accountability 
• Self Service & Cyber Judgement – decentralise risk decisions and create ownership, whilst ensuring consistent policies and education create constant alignment throughout the organisation. 
  • Integrity and confidentiality
• Process Automation & Adaptive Governance – The creation and maintenance of a secure environment, can be challenging in a fast paced, transforming digital business, making process automation a critical component in the overall risk management.
  • Accuracy 
  • Purpose limitation 
  • Storage limitation 

Without appropriate risk management, your organisation is at risk of non-compliance with GDPR, the consequences of which are significant, both reputationally and financially[3]. 

It’s common for organisations to assume that with the appropriate cyber protection in place, their risk profile is low, based on external cyber-attacks. However, risk management is far more than simply data security. It affects many other risks that companies deal with on a regular basis, so a framework for risk management is absolutely essential.  

One size doesn’t fit all. Your risk management framework must be proportionate and appropriate to the size of your organisation and key to that is understanding the overall appetite for risk. A GDPR risk assessment is the starting point to identify gaps in compliance. An assessment will identify, analyse and evaluate threats and vulnerabilities, allowing your organisation to plan the overall framework approach.  

Some of the key areas of note that should be addressed are: 

• Compliance: a fine of up to €20 million or the amount that represents 4% of the annual global turnover is a huge financial risk that will whet the appetite of most organisations in terms of assessing their GDPR maturity. 

• Reputational: organisations need to demonstrate their GDPR compliance to ensure client trust and assurance of processing their data. 

• Cyber security: a secure environment, ideally complying with ISO27001[4], where appropriate, is the absolute starting point for GDPR compliance. 

As a starting point, Peru offers a GDPR assessment[5] using our proprietary maturity framework. The resulting report will allow the leadership team to fully understand risks, gaps and work together to provide and implement action plan to remediate.  

Footnotes: 

1. Gartner – 6 Risk Management Principles to Drive Digital Business Success – ID Ref G00730415 
2. ICO – Guide to GDPR 
3. ICO Enforcement Action – Monetary penalties 
4. ISO/IEC 27001 – Information Security Management 
5. Peru Case Study – GDPR Compliance 

There are many articles on becoming a data-driven business but turning that desire into a realistic goal stumps many organisations. As typical with any trend in IT, people generally begin with the technology and tools and think that by introducing these tools that somehow, magically by osmosis, an organisation can reap the benefits of that technology. What is overlooked, every time, is the impact of human behaviour which when directed well can make or break the successful adoption of technology and deliver tangible business outcomes. Data is no different. Working with several of our clients we have seen the strategic intent to either “use data as an asset” or “to create a data-led culture” but making this a reality has proven elusive.

So how do we become a data-driven organisation and what does this actually mean?

Rule number 1: Business value first

Is to focus on the business value of the data you have and not on the mechanics of data management, technology and tooling. Focusing on your stakeholders, their journeys and usage of data and the results that they need to help take their business forward will reap most dividends. Understanding the decision-making processes that exist is crucial – it’s not just facts and figures that aid decision making but also human interpretation and behaviours. There needs to be a clearer understanding of how employees contribute, use and share knowledge in the organisation and understanding the data touchpoints in a typical journey can start to identify how data can enhance and improve both the customer and employee experience.

Rule number 2: Build for stakeholders needs

Is making sure you can articulate the value data will provide to your stakeholders both inside and outside the organisation. Successful data and analytics leaders directly tie their initiatives to their stakeholders’ mission-critical priorities. Understanding stakeholders’ needs should form a key part of a data strategy and should ideally articulate their strategic goals of growth, cost and risk; Their contribution to the overall success; their key performance indicators (KPIs) and how your data and analytics initiative will contribute to those goals in terms of a use case.

Rule number 3: Who owns the data?

Is clear ownership of data at an exec level. Many of the most successful data driven organisations have already appointed a Chief Data Officer or equivalent and have clear rules and expectations of data ownership. They also have defined policies and procedures around data privacy, data retention and data processing and have identified data stewards responsible for data management decision making, request triage and data quality reviews. These types of roles are critical in forming a strong data foundation on which to expand and build enhanced data capabilities. People, not technology, will drive change in organisations and building a data-driven culture is no different.

Rule number 4: Culture and Communities

Is having a culture of community and collaboration and it’s imperative to focus on making that data-driven culture change sustainable. Given the federated nature and autonomy in decision making across most organisations, you should look to start small and scale efforts to build momentum and enact learning from your data initiatives. Any initiative should also try to be separated from functional areas that it should support and be managed with representatives from across domains brought together with a common goal. One approach to this is to develop shared Communities of Interest and/or Centres of Excellence. These groups should be fully accountable for their focus areas and will be expected to provide a measurement of their progress against pre-defined KPIs. Suggested groups could be:

1. Data & Analytics CoE: a centre of excellence for the development analytics capabilities. Establishing trusted information sources and the delivery of central performance analytics. Fostering education through innovation and self-service capability enablement. Establishing technology standards and architecture.
2. API Management CoE: a centre of excellence for the development of API management practices, tools and techniques. Focusing on business aspects of APIs such as product strategy, operating model, metrics and service definition. Additionally, looking at technology aspects such as API platforms, architecture, API lifecycle and integration.
3. Community of SME Knowledge Owners: a community (or a number of communities) of knowledge owners focused on the development of knowledge pertaining to different corporate domains.
4. Community of Business Service Knowledge Owners: a community of business service knowledge workers from across the business services domains focused on employee experience and customer experience. Employee experience focused on HR, Finance and IT knowledge. Customer experience focused on marketing and sales information, bid support, customer feedback and engagement knowledge.
5. Data, Information & Knowledge Board: a governance forum with accountability to provide guidance, decisions and escalations for communities and CoEs focused on the use of data, the processing of information and the creation and dissemination of knowledge across the group.

Example Legal KM Community and CoE structure

How can you as an employer affect your employees’ behaviours positively to become more data focused?

One way is to build a change programme on data literacy, helping employees understand how to interpret but also act upon data. Data literacy is not just an appreciation of analytics and data but also knowing how to interpret data from a business perspective, building linkages, using standards, building communities for collaboration and measuring success. Gartner sees literacy as competencies across a whole spectrum of capabilities – focus on what will work best for your organisation’s maturity.

The skills needed to support a data-driven culture are varied and involve both hard and soft skills. Any knowledge worker or employee that touches data should have a certain level skill maturity to think about data, information and knowledge in a certain way. In distributed environments, Gartner expresses this as “distributed practice” competencies as outlined in Figure below.

Figure Gartner: KM Skills for Data-Driven Organisation

In Summary

So in summary becoming and moving towards being a data-driven business is about people and culture, not technology and should focus on the four rules:

1. Processes & Experience
2. Priorities & Articulation of value
3. Ownership & Accountability
4. Communities & Collaboration

Focusing on these and then creating learning plans to affect employee’s behaviours should provide the springboard needed to move your vision of a data driven business ever nearer. If you can affect people’s behaviours and make them interpret and think differently about data you can affect how data is captured, stored, processed and used. Data driven employees will always make the best decisions for your organisation.

As businesses and individuals alike face the challenges of rising costs, it is important to understand the root causes behind these economic shifts. Inflation, the rate of increase in the price of goods and services over time, is a key factor to consider. In simplistic terms, if inflation is 10%, then that means it costs 10% more to buy certain goods/services than it did a year ago. So, when inflation rises, the purchasing power of our money decreases, making it more difficult to afford the things we need and want.

Inflation is measured in a few different ways, but one of the main measures is the Consumer Prices Index (CPI). CPI tracks the price of certain goods and services, which include a list of things from food, clothing, and household services. Typically, the Bank of England aims to hold the CPI level to around 2%.

Inflation is influenced by a range of factors, including supply and demand imbalances, increases in production costs, and geopolitical events that disrupt global markets. Inflation tends to rise when there is a demand from consumers that cannot be fulfilled, i.e., not enough supply. This increase in demand over supply leads to pressure to increase prices, and this is known as ‘Demand-pull’ inflation. The best example is to think of rare items and how they command a high price compared to common items, which are much cheaper.

Similarly, when producing goods/services becomes more expensive, then this can also drive up the cost. We have seen this recently with the hikes in energy cost, which has led to things becoming more expensive as the cost to produce them has gone up too. This type of inflation is called ‘Cost-Push’ inflation. Recently we have had the pandemic, Brexit, and now the conflict in Ukraine, all of which affect how easily we can access and produce goods/services. Understanding the different types of inflation, such as demand-pull and cost-push inflation, can help organisations anticipate and manage their financial risks.

So, how can we manage inflation? Well, the current levels of 10% are excessively high (in October 2022, we exceeded 11%, which is a 41-year high!) and way above the Bank of England’s target rate. One tool that central banks use to manage inflation is adjusting interest rates. Interest is the amount you would pay for borrowing money or what you could receive from saving money with the banks. Interest rates are shown as a percentage of the amount you borrow/save over a year period. For example, if you save £1,000 with your bank for a year, and the rate of interest is 1%, then you will have earned an extra £10 in the year, i.e., you will have £1,010 in your bank account at the end of that year.

By increasing interest rates, the Bank of England aims to reduce borrowing and encourage saving, which, in theory, should lead to less spending and, therefore, decrease the demand for goods and services and help bring inflation under control. However, this approach is only effective in managing demand-pull inflation, not cost-push inflation caused by production cost increases.

We have heard about the continual increases in interest rates, which have been increasing at 0.5% increments, but the good news is this is beginning to slow, and the forecast is for this to remain steady going forward. It is important to note that inflation is a complex issue, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Central banks must balance the need to manage inflation with the risk of economic recession. Organisations, too, must navigate the complexities of inflation and increasing costs to stay competitive and financially viable.

It is difficult to forecast what will happen with inflation, but it is expected to drop to about half its current level mainly due to the increases that have already happened (i.e., the increases in energy/goods/services for last year won’t be factored into the coming year’s calculation). However, the current prices of goods/services may keep inflation high for a bit longer.

At Peru, we understand the challenges organisations face in managing their finances in a rapidly changing economic landscape. Our team of experts can help you navigate these complexities, contact us today to learn more about how we can help.

When I first heard about International Women’s Day (IWD), a few years ago now, I have to say, I wasn’t supportive. It all felt a bit meaningless, a PR stunt. And guess what, I’m not sure my view has changed. 

It seems to be something that a lot of companies want to be seen to be participating in, and celebrating, but does it make a tangible difference or is it a single point in time to state your allegiances, without changing long-term behaviours or positions? After all, it’s great to put out a statement or press release that a company supports International Women’s Day and is doing some activities, but in many companies, board members continue to be majority male. How do you ensure a consistent message and a consistent drive to #breakthebias? 

I have worked in technology for over 20 years, and have written several articles and blogs regarding Women in Technology, which are always the same –  “Why are there not more Women?”. One hopes that with the COVID pandemic, hybrid working and homeworking have come to the fore and that the benefit for the primary caregiver for workers with children (usually, but not always the woman), will be the presentation of a more flexible working life, which provides more opportunities for women to enter or return to the workforce. But I guess the question remains – how do you encourage women of any age to work in technology? From programming to engineering to management – there is a wealth of diverse opportunities for women in technology, yet it’s still very much seen as a “man’s world” and dare I say, “geeky” or “nerdy”. GSCE computer science doesn’t help. Mostly taught by male teachers (in an occupation where women outnumber men!)[1], and, in 2020, the number of girls choosing to study computer science GCSE was 16,919 – just over 21.4% of total entrants – compared with 61,540 boys.[2] With so few women in technology to inspire the younger generation, how can this change? 

Here in Peru, we have a permanent workforce of 34 staff. As a technology consultancy, we are already breaking the bias as just over 32% of our workforce are women – almost double the national trend. Whilst almost 50% of the female workforce occupy senior roles, Peru, like many organisations, faces the challenge of balance, particularly on the board, and is actively discussing how this can be addressed. We are promoting several policies that support women in the workplace – maternity, homeworking, and something new to many organisations, a menopause policy. However, the challenge is getting women to apply for roles – with the bias starting from school age, how do we move forward? 

Peru has the benefit of being small, being communicative and being open to change, actively working on diversity and inclusion. No topic is off-limits. No challenge is too big and we are working, together, to look at how we can #breakthebias. This isn’t something that is restricted to an issue for the women of Peru to resolve. This is something we are ALL looking at. We don’t have the answers, but we have started talking and I hope that International Women’s Day 2023, will be a very different message. 

References:

[1] Key UK Education Statistics – BESA (British Educational Suppliers Association) 

[2] The Guardian – Why aren’t more girls in the UK choosing to study computing and technology? 

Peru brings years of commercial experience allied with a deep knowledge of the IT software, IT consulting services, managed services and outsourcing marketplace to help suppliers deliver the optimal proposals aligned to the needs of your customers, here’s how:

Read the full two page document here.

Peru brings years of commercial & supplier experience allied with a deep knowledge of risk assessment methods to help clients identify the supply chains most critical to their own products & services, ask the right questions to assess risk effectively, and accurately gauge levels of risk exposure, here’s how:

Download the document here.

Supporting SME’s to maximise their investment in digital technology

A Challenging Time for SME Businesses

A recent report from the Enterprise Research Centre, “The State of Small Business Britain”  is an important examination of the impact of Covid-19 on SME businesses but also, more importantly, examines the challenges that business leaders need to focus on in 2021.

The first key issue highlighted is that of digitisation and it is not surprising that the report notes a marked increase in the adoption of digital solutions with around 50% of SMEs introducing new digital technologies as a priority in the last 12 months. Additionally, 40% stated they had made some changes in their use of digital in response to the pandemic, with many adopting technologies they had never previously used. It could be argued that this trend was born of necessity rather than any strategic decision and many SMEs have struggled with adoption given that new technologies often require both organisational change and potential modifications to the business model.

As a small business ourselves, we at Peru Consulting fully understand the challenges that SMEs face when it comes to defining, investing in, and delivery digital technology. In an increasingly digital world, the myriad of technology options can seem daunting, suppliers are often more focused on selling their products rather than solving your business challenges and that “out of the box” solution you were promised can prove to be anything but: That’s where Peru Consulting comes in…

How We Can Help

We’ve helped many businesses shape their IT strategy, buy better technology services and deliver on their investment in digital. We have a passion for helping SMEs and mid-market companies achieve their business goals through the adoption of digital technology and our advisors can help businesses improve productivity and strengthen their business strategies to achieve their overall goals.

We appreciate that every business has unique challenges, and a “one size fits all” approach simply doesn’t work…in recognition of this we have developed an “Advisory as a Service” approach tailored specifically to the needs of SME’s through to mid-market businesses and providing maximum flexibility to engage our services when you need them and aligned to your business priorities, objectives and resources.

When you engage our “Advisory as a Service” subscription service, we’ll work with you to undertake an initial Health check to understand your business goals and identify the right package of IT advisory support focused on your specific needs and drawn from our extensive experience of the digital technology marketplace.

You’ll then have the flexibility to draw down that advisory support when it suits your business, and you’ll have access to an advisor “on demand” with regular service reviews to ensure your technology strategy remains on track.

Why Peru?

We’ve been advising SME and mid-market businesses across multiple sectors to achieve their business outcomes including:

• helping a business in the building & construction sector develop their IT strategy and roadmap to ensure their technology investment was fully supporting their current and future business objectives
• working alongside an IT service provider to help them deliver a compelling tender response for a large public sector telecoms deal ultimately resulting the award of a multi-million pound contract
• providing IT outsourcing services and advising a managed service provider on the optimal commercial and contractual approach to secure a complex IT outsourcing deal with a leading private healthcare provider
• undertaking a detailed review of the suitability of a critical application for a traffic management business to ensure their IT solution was fit for purpose to support their business expansion goals.

Interested in understanding how “IT Advisory as a Service” can help your business invest in the right digital outcomes? You can find out more here: www.peruconsulting.co.uk/services/it-advisory-as-a-service/

Successful businesses embrace change in order to grow and thrive. Under normal circumstances a business will implement change in order to stay ahead of it’s competition but we are living through a period in time where change has become necessary just to survive.  Traditionally the legal sector has been slow to accept change however two events have forced the sector to re- think change and the need for it.

COVID-19 has brought the need for change to a whole new level. With lockdowns and social distancing we can no longer work in the way that we previously did. Unlike BREXIT we have had no time to plan for the impact of COVID.

Some organisations will have dealt with this better than others, and typically these will be those firms that have been investing in technology in previous years.

However, technology is not the answer to all problems created by COVID. The legal sector has traditionally clung on to manually intensive processes because they worked and there was no need for change. Typical examples would be:

1. The movement of documents around the organisation
2. Billing and cash collection processes
3. Approvals and signatures for payments
4. Management reporting – forecasting, resource planning etc
5. Clients have also had to adapt: reducing staff levels (furloughing), interact with the legal teams using video technology etc.

But what COVID has shown is that the sector can adapt rapidly when necessary and in many cases has seen benefits from the change:

• Workers have positively embraced the technology and arguably are more productive with an improved work-life balance e.g. no commuting
• Improved cash collections due to prompt time recording and improved WIP reporting
• Appetite for change has improved dramatically

What happens next?

Have BREXIT and COVID merely been inconvenient challenges that have forced us to change our behaviour or have they been the catalysts for positive change?

Assuming that we exit Europe at the end of 2020 with a good working relationship in place, and that we find a sustainable response to COVID, how will we maintain the momentum for innovation and change?

Are there further opportunities to be secured as a result of these two challenges?

Recent published articles and briefings within the legal sector have identified the following challenges focused around culture, information and optimisation that could point to the next tranche of opportunity:

Our consultants are experts in the business of IT: how to prepare, transform and sustain success. Our experience in law and other sectors demonstrates that by focusing on the right approaches and using the right frameworks leads to value quickly.

So how would we approach these challenges?

The legal industry is going through significant change and those willing to embrace and invest in change during this time are set to reap the benefits and thrive.

Addressing the challenges of culture, harnessing the huge potential of your data and optimizing your spend and processes will deliver a significant ROI.

Over the coming weeks we will be releasing a series of articles that explore these topics in more detail and provide you some insight about how to begin addressing your own challenges.

For more information please contact Peru Consulting:

Email: legal-sector@peruconsulting.co.uk

the original sway article can be found below

Historically Service Desk and other key functions have been outsourced, along with organisations’ ITSM toolsets and data. But, how can they manage the services they receive –  let alone be accountable for performance to customers and regulators – if they have limited control over their data or a complete understanding of it?

Sharpening the tools

Cloud-based solutions are becoming increasingly popular, not least because the low start-up costs make ITSM tool ownership more palatable.  However, finding the sharpest tool for the right purpose – such as ServiceNow or BMC Remedy – means examining some key measurements:

• The business case – Cost savings alone may not be enough to create a compelling business case. Other justifications – such as percentage reductions in high-severity outages from better managed change – may be needed.
• Visibility – a balance of risk against customisation may be required to avoid total visibility of the whole ITSM estate to all suppliers
• Currency – Resource planning MUST include integrity testing across applications and suppliers to ensure upgrades can be introduced effectively.
• Support – gaining support from existing suppliers during transition may come at a cost – particularly if they won’t be used subsequently – and this could affect the business case

Managing the stakeholders

ITSM may be a function of IT, but changing Service Management tools will impact a diverse set of users. That means optimising stakeholder management from the start and establishing a team of stakeholder representatives early in the process.  Nirvana is having all stakeholders, including suppliers, using the same ITSM tool directly.

Test, train, communicate

These three elements are essential in ensuring all suppliers and internal teams support the journey of change in ITSM. Delivering this requires:

• Having the right resources available at the right time, with a clear understanding of what they need to do, will deliver a successful outcome.
• Keeping testers engaged by setting their expectations up front and ensuring clear outcomes from each test iteration.
• Building a comprehensive Training Plan, including various delivery timings and methods (e.g. early bespoke training for testers, classroom for Service Desk, CBT for assignment groups), with a separate plan for reporting users and group owners.
• Careful thought about communication to all stakeholders – users, suppliers, retained IT and business functions.  Start by giving your programme a name!
• Time for translation of any training materials and communications to local languages, and have these translations approved by native speakers.

It’s a wrap

Once the change implementation is completed, the job is over, right?  Wrong! Post-launch management of any ITSM tool is just as critical, even if steady-state owners have been key stakeholders from the start of the project. While outsourcing may be an attractive option to overcome in-house capability gaps, never lose the ability to manage your own estate.

If you are over a certain age, you probably remember using cameras containing film. Because of cost you would take a limited number of photos and send the film off to be developed. When the packet of photos came back, you carefully selected the best and placed them in the family album.

Fast forward to the modern day and we now take hundreds of pictures, keeping most of them stored on our phones and in the cloud. For example google photos enables unlimited photo storage.

We have changed our approach from filtering on the way in (selecting a few photos for the album) to storing everything and filtering on the way out (store thousands in google photos and search with a simple query). There are many other examples of storing large volumes of data and filtering on the way out, such as our searching of emails or journey planning on our mobiles.

This new approach helps us drive innovation, particularly in our use of data and data management. However, we need to avoid constraining our thinking by applying assumptions and rules on the data we use, rather than looking with an open mind at what the data is telling us.

A recent example for me may help make this real. Working with a data science team, we were exploring how to transform the detection of fraudulent insurance claims. Although things were improving it wasn’t significant until we changed our approach to the problem and the data.

Analysing all the data again provided great metrics on certain customers we could be 99%+ confident were making a genuine claim. This allowed us to transform their experience by fast tracking these customers through the claims process and allowing our claims teams to focus on the more borderline claims. It was only by removing the narrow focus on detecting fraud that yielded the benefit!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on how you avoid constrained thinking and please share any real world examples you have come across!

Today, we held our inaugural Lean In Circle (via video call of course!). With our ever growing team of fantastic Peruvian ladies, we want to ensure we can regularly connect together as a group to provide support and encouragement, a chance to learn new skills, share ideas, a safe space to discuss any challenges and ultimately help us continue to develop and achieve our goals.

After a fun game, we explored few of the challenges in the workplace and what goals we can focus on collectively to support us – as a group and as individuals. We are already planning the next session and will be reaching out to our female role models to join us and share their insights and experiences.

Automation works best where margins are low, and volumes of transactions are high. In Japan (which leads the world in the potential for automation given their working practices) it is estimated that 56% of activities and occupations could be undertaken by autonomous programs and bots – transforming the workplace, for better or worse, depending on your point of view.

Automation comes in many different forms/applications: from Robot Worker to Tactical Systems Integration, from 3rd party automation (yes, your outsource providers are no doubt leveraging automation to reduce their overheads) to unattended or attended automation. Across industries, automation is being used to reduce headcount and/or free up bandwidth for knowledge workers.

Reap The Benefits

As firm’s grow the challenges of business process management and automation increase, however the benefits of rationalising and optimising processes, “the size of the prize”, are amplified also. At Peru, our experienced practitioners have real-world expertise in areas such as operating models, business process improvement and the application of automation technology that can help you identify and maximise the opportunities from change.

For more information please contact Peru Consulting:

Email: info@peruconsulting.co.uk

For more detail on our experience please visit:

Web: https://www.peruconsulting.co.uk/case-studies/

It is widely acknowledged that “data is the new oil”. Ever since Gartner analyst Doug Laney defined big data as three dimensional (volume, velocity and variety) organisations of all stripes have been trying to understand how to manage and generate insights from their own pool of “oil”. Law firms are no different.

Data held by law firms is often fragmented and complex, coming as it does from public sources such as courts and regulators as well as their own internal processes for timekeeping, billing, matter management and the like.

Other professions, such as medicine or consumer marketing, have years of experience integrating data analytics into their businesses and using analytics to provide competitive advantage. When it comes to law firms and in-house legal departments, however, data-driven decision making is relatively new and uncharted territory.

Improving the management of legal data can often shine a light on inefficiencies within legal firms (e.g. a utilisation report might illustrate a shortage of billable tasks being completed each day) and can also showcase opportunities to save money within the firm, as well as providing valuable forecasting information. Ultimately, it’s the same data presented through a different lens.

You understand that you have data but how best to leverage it and reap the rewards?

The data-driven law firm links the practice of law with the effective use of data (irrespective of source) to measure performance, overcome inefficiency and improve profitability. These outcomes are typically driven by the development of a “legal analytics stack” covering analytics in Research, Judicial, Practice Management, Matters, E-Discovery, Compliance, Contracts, Document Automation, Risks and Tax (LexisNexis Nov 2019). But regardless of where you develop your analytics capabilities ultimately using data in the right way can lead to improved litigation outcomes, better client experiences, improved pricing strategies (particularly in current market conditions) and margin improvement through the use of automation tools that improve billable resource utilisation.

So how do you get the point where you are realising these benefits? You understand that you have data but how best to leverage it and reap the rewards?

It’s not rocket science – put simply you need to create a strong data foundation and then utilise this in whatever use cases support your firm’s strategic intent. What do we mean by a strong data foundation?

Sponsorship

We have seen on several occasions that most data management initiatives are run under the auspices of transformation programmes (HR, Finance, Sales). This is typically putting the cart before the horse – data initiatives should be initiated ideally under the sponsorship of a CDO or COO or even better the CEO. You need high level sponsorship to marshall the necessary resources and effort needed to create a sustainable foundation.

Ownership

A large proportion of legal data is held in the solutions that are used throughout a law firm: case management and document management systems, e-billing solutions, risk registers, law firm reports, and emails. Data is being created in other pockets too, with the explosion in the use of legal technology software or legacy productivity systems. With the plethora of data that exists there needs to be assigned ownership for decision making and governance process adherence.

Architecture

Data architecture is how you define how your data will support the business intent: It should leverage industry standard frameworks, be agile and iterative and identify a path to strong foundation maturity. Typically, architecture looks right across the data stack from data collection, integration and storage through to data access and the development of an enterprise data marketplace. The most important aspect though is to understand what is important to your business first and then build architecture in support of your goals. For instance, if you are looking to respond quicker to regulatory compliance you may want to focus on data security and consent, metadata and governance. If as a business, you want to improve utilisation of data and aid automation practices your focus may be on data acquisition and integration and semantic discovery.

Quality

Without data quality there is no data trust which destroys your ability to get people to do the right things. DQ is about improving decision making achieved through 360° profiles of your customers/employees, continuous monitoring and profiling, ontologies and master data management.

Tooling

You cannot achieve sustainable data management practices without investment in some kind of tooling. There are numerous tools that can help with data processing, metadata management, data discovery, data quality workflows, analytics etc. Choosing the right technology vendor to support your endeavours is a critical step – avoiding vendor lock in but also making sure the platform(s) will be fit for purpose and commercially viable for your future needs.

Data, like technology, is not a panacea. It requires a use case that is material to advancing efficient, reliable, fast, scalable, processes that benefit clients and law firms alike. Data and technology are essential components of modern law firms and must be adopted, embraced, and utilised to service clients in the digital age.

Data analytics, and the insights they enable, has the potential to transform incumbent legal culture and provide a step change in client engagement.

Will firms invest in a strong data foundation? Will they adapt to leverage data as the basis for making decisions that drive internal change and enhanced client delivery? One thing is certain: in the digital age, legal providers that fail to make this investment will be firmly in the rear-view mirror of those that do.

Here at Peru Consulting, our industry experts are ready and waiting to help your firm use its business data to create a better, more efficient and more profitable business and we have already published a number of data insights articles covering Data Strategies, Reference Data Architecture and Data Trends.

Peru has a proven data architecture toolkit based on leading industry standards – we can help you assess your current level of data management maturity and develop a data maturity roadmap & strategy aligned to your firm’s business strategy.

To get started on creating a smarter, more data driven business, please contact Peru Consulting:

Email – info@peruconsulting.co.uk

Or for more information on our experience and expertise, please visit:

Web – https://peruconsulting.co.uk/

Previous articles on Peru’s insights into the Legal Sector can be found here.

It was a privilege to be asked to be a guest panellist at the recent Global Sourcing Association webinar, “Managing Collaborative Relationships In a Crisis”. All of the panellists were asked for their key take-aways from the event, here are mine:

Stay Close To Your Customers

During times of disruption its more important than ever to stay close to your customers and understand their (quite possibly) changing needs – at the end of the day disruption is essentially about change – suppliers who are inattentive to their customers changing requirements during times of disruption are those who are most likely to get left behind… I would call it the “what happened there?” effect.

Flexibility is Key

Flexibility is key when it comes to contractual rights and obligations in your supply chain contracts – In the normal course of commercial relationships I’ve seen both extremes of contract management, from customers who file their contracts away and largely forget about their rights and obligations to clients who manage their contracts to the letter and have established sophisticated processes and governance for obligations management. However, the reality is that if both parties to a commercial agreement are willing to be flexible, contracts typically have a number of mechanisms to support this in a structured, transparent, and auditable way, for example, contract change and waiver provisions.

Act Tactical, think Strategic

Act tactical, think strategic – During these uncertain times, many organisations are understandably looking to batten down the hatches, with a focus on cost reduction and keeping cash in the business etc., however out of adversity comes innovation. Those that use times of disruption to innovate and consider how they can strategically re-position themselves for the “new normal” are those that are most likely to thrive.

Bad Behaviour Won’t Be Forgotten

Don’t believe that people will forgive and forget bad behaviour during these times, I’ve personally already started making a list of services that, in the “new normal”, I will not continue to use and those I will use more of based on how suppliers and service providers have behaved… this includes at least one sternly worded letter to an industry regulator as some sectors have demonstrated such risk averse postures – almost in fear of the shadow of their regulators – that they are actually creating more risk than they are mitigating.

Collaborate to Succeed

Almost 20 years ago a not for profit organisation, the Myelin Repair Foundation (which was established to identify drug treatments for MS) pioneered the Accelerated Research & Collaboration (ARC) model to accelerate the development of drug trials through global collaboration between charities and biotech and pharmaceutical companies. The scale and scope of worldwide scientific collaboration over the last 20 years has seen research and development timescales reduced by orders of magnitude – research into vaccines that might have previously taken over a decade is now condensed into months. Consider the opportunities to collaborate in your own lines of business to accelerate research and development and share best practice. Start thinking of other businesses operating in your industry vertical as potential collaborators not competitors.

At Peru Consulting we have a wide range of services to help IT suppliers and service providers collaborate with both their customers and their supply chains to create win-win outcomes and thrive in the “new normal”.

To find out more about our range of services tailored specifically for suppliers and service providers please read our ‘What Customers What – How to Thrive in Times of Disruption’ article here.

To find out more about our overall sourcing and commercial services, capabilities and experience visit our Sourcing & Commercial service page.

Kicking off 2022 by welcoming Lorna Jones to our Peru Consulting team!

Lorna is an experienced commercial IT professional with excellent communication, negotiation and contract management skills gained from public, private and charity sectors. Lorna has demonstrated commercial awareness through successful management of suppliers and budgets at local, national and global level. A positive and motivational leader with a passion for stakeholder management, we are looking forward to working with Lorna.

Go to Meet the Peruvians for further information on Lorna and the rest of our expanding team of highly experienced Consultants.

We are delighted to welcome Paul Sykes to the Peru Consulting family.  Paul has a wealth of knowledge and experience in IT Service Management, Operational Management and Project Delivery in large, complex and regulated environments in the Finance and Utilities sectors.  Paul has established and led multiple IT functions and has a passion for the delivery of excellent IT service through collaboration, , well-designed operational processes and strong supplier management.  Paul loves to work with stakeholders to truly exploit the potential of IT in their organisation to drive efficiency and deliver outstanding customer outcomes.

Go to Meet the Peruvians for further information on Paul and the rest of our expanding team of highly experienced Consultants.

We are delighted to welcome Simon Downes to our family at Peru Consulting.

Simon brings over 15 years of experience as a data specialist, having worked in Enterprise and Data Architecture functions for both public and private sector organisations, providing design and governance for major change initiatives.

We look forward to Simon applying and sharing his experience with our clients and colleagues.

Go to Meet the Peruvians for further information on Simon and the rest of our expanding team of highly experienced Consultants.

I am a strategic procurement and end to end sourcing expert and have gained experience in a range of sectors including Charity, Education, Public Sector and Finance.  I have vast experience in developing policy, process and strategy whilst ensuring focus remains on agility and speed to market, without sacrificing strong governance.

Fresh to Consultancy, I bring a keen advocacy of mutual benefits when at the negotiation table and have an avid interest in contract law.  I have a strong interest in ethical sourcing and am passionate about ensuring sustainable supply chains and promoting the values of ESG in all sourcing activity, whilst ensuring I always drive the best value for the clients’ requirements.

Over the last two years, I have also written exam questions and marked papers for CIPS, which has assisted in keeping my theoretical procurement expertise current.

In 2021 I was honoured to receive the ‘Most Inspiring Returner’ award at the Women in Insurance Awards, for my mentorship, coaching and contributions to the Procurement industry.

I live in Farnham, Surrey with my husband and two beautiful daughters, although I can often be found on the Jurassic coastline visiting my sister, and even sometimes braving the murky waters to join her for a sea-swim, whatever the season.  I always enjoy taking on new challenges and am currently in training for the Turkey Half Iron Man in 2022.

Go to Meet the Peruvians for further information on Ngaire and the rest of our expanding team of highly experienced Consultants.

April has been recognised as ‘Stress Awareness Month’ since 1992 in a bid to increase public awareness on the topic. Thirty years on, millions of people in the UK still experience high levels of stress which is damaging to physical health, mental health and to the economy. By strengthening our awareness we may be able to better understand was causes stress and what steps we can take to reduce it.

What is stress?

When people speak about stress, it can mean many different things to any one person. “My children are ‘stressing me out’ or ‘that was a stressful meeting’, all the way to clinical diagnosis of extreme PTSD. But what does stress really mean? And how can we avoid or at least manage it in the workplace?

Spotting the signs of stress is the first step in reducing or mitigating it entirely. It must be mentioned that what might be a walk in the park for one person might be another’s living hell. For example, many people gain a lot of enjoyment from driving, but others may spend each journey foreseeing accidents that never occur or panicking about where/ how they’re going to park when they reach the destination. Even following a sat-nav, which may seem a simple task to some, may be anxiety inducing to others. They may feel their heart racing and palms sweating. We thus must remember that comfort levels and panic zones differ for everyone. We must also recognise relativity, and not to invalidate someone’s feelings as ‘there’s someone worse off in the world’ will always be the case whether you’re stressed about a messy house or suffering a bereavement- how someone feels in the moment should not be compared to others.

A 2021 Censuswide survey of 2,000 UK adults found an overwhelming majority of UK adults feel stressed at least one day a month- a mammoth 79%, with women topping the charts averaging ten days of stress a month opposed to men’s (still too high) seven days.

Detecting Stress

How can you spot the signs? You might think you know when you’re stressed. “I get angry or withdrawn”, “my heart rate increases,” “I start to feel an overwhelming sense of panic”. However, it is possible we might not recognise signs of stress, either in ourselves or in others.

Typically, indicators can range from physical to emotional to behavioural, and can range anywhere from a day to years. There is no time-limit, and one person’s experience is likely to differ vastly from somebody else’s.

Some physical indicators might present in headaches, fatigue, constipation, susceptibility to colds and cold sores, high blood pressure or pulse.

Whereas some emotional indicators might be crying, anger, anxiety, petulance, difficulty breathing, heartburn, sweating or simply being sad.

Behavioural indicators could include changes to diet or not sleeping properly, becoming withdrawn, or no longer enjoying activities that were previously pleasurable.

It is possible for whole groups of people to experience stress communally. Signs of team-stress might include high volumes of arguing, high attrition rates, or above average staff absenteeism and lack of motivation. There may be a significant drop in performance or simply a substantial number of complaints being made.

The CIPHR study found that there were 376,048 ‘Fit Notes’ (doctors notes on a person’s fitness for work) issued for mental health and behavioural disorders in 2019 in England alone.  (Not all are down to stress.)

What Causes Work-Related Stress?

An Labour Force Survey referenced in HSE’s 2020/21 report determined the predominant causes of work-related stress are workload (in particular tight deadlines), too much work, too much pressure or responsibility. 449,000 of the 822,000 workers recorded as suffering from work-related stress reported it was caused or made worse by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

Other factors identified in the survey as causes for work related stress included, ‘lack of managerial support, organisational changes at work, violence and role uncertainty.’

In addition, 39% of adult in the UK state lack of sleep and money worried are the primary causes of their stress with 23% stating work in general makes them feel stressed (source).

How Can Stress Affect You?

As discussed, stress can affect people in a variety of ways. It can make it harder to make decisions or affect one’s ability to focus. Some people find stress impacts their memory, or they constantly worry or have feelings of dread.

Snapping at people, nail biting, skin-itching, teeth-grinding, loss of interest in sex, eating too much or too little, drinking more than usual, feeling tearful or feeling restless are all common affects of stress.

Looking After Your Wellbeing

Again, reiteration that different methodologies work better for different people, but absolutely key for everyone is to be kind to yourself. Make time for the things you enjoy and for relaxation and reward yourself for your achievements, however small they may seem. Spending time developing your interests and hobbies not only acts as a distractor but can also be a great method of meeting new people, which in turn can prevent feelings of isolation and loneliness.

Spending time in nature has been proven to benefit both mental and physical wellbeing and can even improve confidence and self-esteem.

Relaxation may seem easy to achieve to some, however a lot of people struggle to know when or how to relax. Mental health charity, ‘Mind’ has some great tips on relaxation here, in addition, there’s a multitude of apps which can also be a great help- for example, ‘headspace’, which has a variety of applications, such as helping to fall asleep or get back to sleep.

Looking after your physical health is often cited as a leading stressbuster. This doesn’t mean you have to start running marathons every week, however light physical activity has a range of benefits including increasing your brains feel-good neurotransmitters known as endorphins, whilst simultaneously releasing ‘happy hormones’ dopamine and serotonin.

In addition to exercise, taking care of your physical wellbeing includes, crucially, getting enough sleep. If you’re not a ‘natural’ sleeper, there is different mechanisms which can be learnt for getting to and back to sleep, for example ‘box breathing,’ breathing in for a count of three and breathe out for a count of six whilst visualising a ‘box’ being drawn in your mind- one side for each inhale and exhale. If that fails, using a sleep app, though have it pre-loaded as screens at night are not recommended. There is a reason sleep deprivation has been used as a form of torture, thus it is integral for your own mental and physical wellbeing that you endeavour to get an adequate amount of rest, to allow your brain to repair itself.

Work is a leading cause of adult stress despite organisations having a duty of care to their employees, though we have a duty to ourselves to take practical steps to manage our own mental wellbeing. For example, taking regular breaks away from your screen is a great way to ‘reset’. Thinking about your routine and the tools you can apply to differentiate between work and home is especially important, with the increase in home working we no longer have the commute to debrief and digest our day, thus and action as simple as getting changed as soon as you close your laptop might help switch your brain to home time mode.

If you constantly have unmanageable workloads, it’s integral to inform your line manager. They won’t know unless you tell them and the root cause is likely to either be a training need or too much going on, either way it won’t be resolved if you bury your head and don’t communicate. Whilst it’s normal (and acceptable) to have phases of over-time, when it becomes the norm is when it needs to be addressed.

We should also take the time to check in on our colleagues (and, where appropriate, clients). It may feel like we don’t have capacity, but a 15-minute coffee and chat might make more difference to someone that you realise.

Over-working is a vicious cycle, you work late, you’re tired, so you take longer to do the work the next day, which means you must work late again, which means you produce sub-par work, which means you must work late again… and so it goes on. The best way to break this cycle is to be honest with yourself and your line manager- don’t be afraid to speak out, you will be judged harder by submitting poor quality work than if you raise a hand and ask for help. There is absolutely no shame in doing so, it should be encouraged, and we need to break the thinking that there’s a negative stigma in needing support.

Mental health and workplace stress is an incredibly vast topic, this only lightly brushes the very top of the surface, however if you ever feel you need a listening ear or have concerns about someone else, there’s an extensive range of resources available such as Mind, ACAS, Fit for Work and Samaritans- this list is far from exhaustive. Or, if you would be more comfortable talking to a colleague, encourage your organisation to invest in Mental Health First Aider training to ensure the right support is available. Whoever you talk to, the most important thing is you do talk.

Let’s make a conscious effort to take the time to take care of ourselves, and of each other.

Metadata may just be the biggest business resource you’ve never heard of. So, what is it, and why do you need to pay attention to the way your business manages its metadata?

What is Metadata?

Metadata has been defined as the who, what, where, when, why, and how of data.

If we agree that an organisations data assets are resources, then the metadata is the details on those resources: what they are, what to use them for, what to use them with.

When your business, collects, uses, or transforms data in anyway it generates metadata, that is data that describes, categorises, and explains your data, making it easier to reuse, repurpose and manage.

Some simple examples of metadata are:

• Where did the data in this report come from?
• What does this piece of data mean for our business?
• How is this data used?
• How is this business KPI calculated?
• Where can I find reliable customer spend data?

In other words, metadata lets you get to the point of having all the contextual information you need to reach a decision more quickly.

In a study of 1500 IT (Information Technology) decision makers by Veritas, they noted that workers wasted two hours a day searching for information, costing their organisations over 2 million dollars a year. Metadata management is one of the tools in your toolbox to help reduce this figure.

Without metadata, a data asset is a liability: lots of numbers and words taking up space without clarity on what it is, where it came from or what it can be used for. This is the foundation of why metadata management is so important, and why many organisations introduce a repository to centrally manage their metadata.

What can you use meta data for?

• Leverage more value from your data – Understanding which bits of data are the most important allows you to extend the lifetime value of data and ask smarter questions of your data (Gartner)
• Respond to regulation – Where is all your sensitive data kept, how is it secured in flight or at rest, and who is it being shared with? The potential reputational and regulatory impacts of data mismanagement are greatly reduced when you understand your metadata.
• Understand your customers – Meta data can help you understand changes in customer behaviour enabling your sales teams to respond to customer needs proactively.
• Discover actual use of data – Be able to quickly find the information about where data is going, who is using it, and in what context, improving efficiency and productivity on the way

This is the foundation of why metadata and additionally metadata management is so important, and why many organisations introduce a repository to centrally manage their metadata. In the next article we’ll explore the concepts of metadata management and the changes from passive to Active Metadata Management.

Peru Consulting are award winning IT management consultants helping turn your digital strategy to reality, we specialise in providing advisory and delivery services in data, cloud, architecture, operating models, sourcing and supplier management. Our 700+ years of collective experience provides unrivalled knowledge for our clients to leverage and embed into their teams.

Contact Us today to discuss your metadata requirements and how these can be actively managed

Race the Distance (‘RTD’) was an organisation created to motivate everyone to participate in exercise, by any means, to improve their health, fitness, reach goals, improve mood and increase energy levels and wellbeing.

They are keen to introduce ways to get children into fitness, given the unfortunate UK child obesity statistics, and firmly believe that by involving children and making them understand the causes they’re running for will help them a great deal.

RTD contributes to charity, with a vast selection of their virtual races donating a percentage to relevant charities. As of the end of 2020, Race the distance had raised just shy of £300,000 for charity and have supported a vast array of causes.

The 2022 2022 Mile Annual Challenge is a virtual challenge which can be completed from any location, using any form of exercise- run, jog, cycle, swim, wheelchair- whatever you chose and however you chose to complete the distance (2022 miles) there is no restriction on discipline. Participants can keep trach of their progress in real time, includi9ng tracking ‘journey’s’ with a fully interactive map.

First across the finish line, Ngaire tells us about her experience with the 2022 mile challenge.

Early January 2021 I suffered an unfortunate incident involving my, then, 1 year old jumping off a sofa onto my knee, causing a dislocation. I didn’t deal with it appropriately and 8 months later I had to undergo intense physiotherapy. The physiotherapist was pleased with progress, even suggesting I’d be strong enough to run a marathon in no time. I don’t think she expected me to take it quite so literally.

Fast forward to December 2021 and I logged onto Race the Distance, deciding I needed a new goal for 2022. Having already completed a few of their challenges, I saw the 2022 mile and it seemed the perfect option.

The new year saw a new routine. At 4.50 am, I would start the day with 20 minutes intense cycling on an in-home exercise bike. Over the weeks, I steadily increased this to half an hour, then 45 minutes then an hour. As the days turned into weeks, I started cycling in the evenings too.  I found reading or texting whilst exercising a therapeutic way to spend my time, it almost felt like cheating! My target went from 10 miles a day to 15, then 20. Every week I seemed to be able to add another five.

Four weeks in and I discovered the interactive map, it became my new homepage and I became obsessed with seeing where I was in the UK. I definitely improved my geographical knowledge of the UK as a bonus, whilst also learning of some hilarious names of villages/ towns along the way!

One of the biggest challenges I found was keeping up my calorie intake- I recognise it sounds like a First-World problem but I often found myself dizzy and shaky, having to reach for an energy bar.

I had originally set out to finish in June, but every week I seemed to manage to somehow stay ahead of my target, and as the miles clocked up the target kept being brought forward. Somewhere around Aberdeen I started to feel the finish line was actually within reach. As I began the descent and entered back into England I set the target end date as 23^rd March (the day before my works 10 year anniversary, so I could double up on the celebration), meaning an average of 33 miles per day was required. By Newcastle, with 6 of my toenails having fallen off completely, I had managed to set a new completion target date of 17^th March, which became the final target.

Then on the 16^th of March disaster struck and my husband and 4 year-old daughter tested positive for Covid, with my 2 year old showing symptoms too. I had 28 miles remaining until Mayfair. I slept downstairs with the windows open in a desperate attempt to avoid catching the ‘rona.

I failed.

So on the 17^th March having tested positive I refused to admit defeat, having spent three and a half months working so hard it all boiled down to this one, final push.

It was the hardest ride of my entire journey, my lungs felt like they were working at half capacity, it took me twice as long as it usually did, I was tired, I ached and I was overcome with flu symptoms. With every ounce of energy I could muster I could finally see the virtual finish line, and with one decisive push I made it over the line. How poorly I felt was overshadowed with the enormous sense of accomplishment and achievement, I couldn’t believe it had come to an end!

I would strongly encourage anyone thinking of taking part in a challenge to do so. If you’re on the fence or have any self-doubt I can only attest to my own experience. Aside from the pride experienced in completion, I’m also in much better shape and the positive endorphins resulting from exercise have certainly helped me be a more fun mum to my two girls. Whatever your age or current health status, if I can do it, anyone can. (And who doesn’t secretly love a shiny medal?).

Well done Ngaire! We are very proud of you!

Go to Meet the Peruvians for further information on Ngaire and the rest of our expanding team of highly experienced Consultants.

The North East of England has long been a hotbed of innovation. In 1825, the Stockton and Darlington railway – the world’s first railway to use steam locomotives – was officially opened and was pivotal in precipitating the second industrial revolution. In 1879 Sunderland-born Joseph Swan had a light-bulb moment when he publicly demonstrated his incandescent carbon lamp and his house in Gateshead was the first in the world to have working light bulbs installed.

Fast forward to today and the North East of England still remains at the forefront of innovation with a strong reputation in sectors such as advanced manufacturing, life sciences, energy and digital. In 2020, the North East regional capital, Newcastle, was ranked above Hong Kong, San Francisco and Dublin in the Smart City Index, which measures the technological provisions of cities in terms of health and safety, mobility, activities, opportunities and governance. Code not coal fuels the region’s IT and digital sector estimated to be worth an estimated £2bn to the North East economy.

Whilst the area has its share of big names including the likes of FTSE-100 financial software company Sage and Motor Manufacturing giant Nissan, the vast majority of the circa 67,000 businesses located in the North East are SMEs and Mid-Tier organisations.

With the fastest growing IT and Digital sector in the UK, second only to London in size, the North East of England has firmly established itself as a centre of excellence for digital innovation, however the challenge for SME and Mid-Tier businesses in the region is how they exploit and embrace the potential opportunities of digital transformation relevant to their own sectors.

As a small business ourselves, we at Peru Consulting fully understand the challenges that SMEs and Mid-Tier businesses face when it comes to defining, investing in, and delivery digital technology. We’ve helped many businesses shape their IT strategy, buy better technology services and deliver on their investment in digital. We have a passion for helping companies achieve their business goals through the adoption of digital technology and our advisors can help businesses improve productivity and strengthen their business strategies to achieve their overall goals.

Recognising the challenges faced by SME’s and Mid-Tier businesses in the region setting out on their digital business transformation journey, we at Peru Consulting have developed an “IT Advisory as a Service” approach tailored specifically to the needs of your business and providing maximum flexibility to engage our services when you need them, aligned to your business priorities, objectives and resources.

When you engage our “IT Advisory as a Service” subscription service, we’ll work with you to undertake an initial Health check to understand your business goals and identify the right package of IT advisory support focused on your specific needs and drawn from our extensive experience of the digital technology marketplace.

You’ll then have the flexibility to draw down that advisory support when it suits your business, and you’ll have access to an advisor “on demand” with regular service reviews to ensure your technology strategy remains on track. As a consultancy already working with North East based businesses, such as Gateshead’s Aspire Technology Solutions, we look forward to helping many more North East businesses have their “Lightbulb moment”.

If you are Interested in understanding how our “IT Advisory as a Service” can help your company and you would like to find out more about how our subscription service can help light up your business, please book a meeting to talk through how we can help you. You can also find out more about our IT Advisory as a Service subscription service here: www.peruconsulting.co.uk/services/it-advisory-as-a-service/

Three pieces of legislation in particular are set to transform retail banking as we know it:

1. The CMA order for retail banking organisations to encourage more competition (Open APIs)
2. The EU payment service directive (PSD2) – effectively a regulatory requirement to provide access (on customer consent) to customer data with authorised incumbent providers (PiS & AiS)
3. General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR) focusing on allowing customers to take back control of their own data.

Innovation stimulation

This raft of new regulations is about stimulating collaboration and innovation via API-connected communities of existing and incumbent providers of financial services.

While banks will be obligated to share their data to enable third parties – such as  Google, Amazon, Facebook or Apple – to build the next generation of financial services, this should never be at the cost of poor security. In fact, security is an issue closely linked to customer loyalty, as Peru recently highlighted.

Embracing disruption

Although it may seem the traditional banks are at a disadvantage, actually they are uniquely placed to take advantage of this disruption by:

• Becoming a “Bank Channel” using APIs to deliver traditional banking products
• Leveraging the app market and exposing their own services through Open APIs to third parties
• Distributing integrated/bundled financial services combining own services with third parties
• Aggregating data and multiple financial service providers data through a single owned API
• Offering banking as a platform to other financial institutions

The danger in creating financial ‘mash-ups’ – as witnessed by the telecoms sector – is that incumbents don’t see the benefits in collaboration and try to hinder any meaningful cooperation to protect their market position.

On the up

According to the Open Banking Working Group (OBWG). which has recently launched The UK Open Banking Standard, services may be affected in six main areas:

1. Current account comparison services
2. Personal fiscal management – budgeting and financial history
3. Access to credit – best loan rates
4. Affordability checks – speeding up loan process
5. Online accounting
6. Fraud detection

For UK banks and challengers, this standard will roll out in phases across 2019 to cover Data, API and Security standards and younger customers who expect more flexibility and fluidity from service providers will undoubtedly seize the opportunity to move.

Staying secure

The main challenge to data security is in data consumption, particularly via web and mobile applications.  While the Open Banking initiatives will force banks to develop new APIs to allow transfer and access to customer data, hackers will be hard at work seeking vulnerabilities and entry points.

As regulations become more widely understood, banks must provide a balance between openness and security by hardening existing web and mobile applications and defending new APIs to the same level as legacy back office systems. A complete API review and assessment, combined with appropriate controls, will stand banking organisations on a firmer footing.

In addition, strategic sourcing and identification of the right technologies and partners; the design and development of appropriate and scalable architectures; and clear integration governance will all be crucial in delivering robust, flexible and future-proof digital retail banking.

Peru Consulting is delighted to announce our new partnership with Brooklyn Vendor Assurance (Brooklyn). With Peru’s deep experience of advising clients on the optimal approach to managing their commercial contracts and supplier governance allied with Brooklyn’s Enterprise Vendor Management (EVM) platform, our clients will benefit from a full service solution that allows them to digitise all Vendor Management disciplines in a single, easy to use, and quick to deploy cloud platform and implement a best practice approach to contract, supplier and risk management.

“We look forward to working together with Brooklyn to enable our clients to mature their approach to contract and supplier management” says David Upton, Operations Director at Peru Consulting. “Our experienced advisors have always promoted a best practice approach to ensure commercial value is maximised for our customers. Together with the Brooklyn platform we can now offer a solution that enables this best practice to be accelerated by leveraging the advanced AI and automation capabilities of Brooklyn”.

“As an innovative technology organisation we are delighted to announce our Partnership with Peru Consulting to solve customer’s sourcing challenges” says Jesse Lee, CEO and Co-Founder at Brooklyn Vendor Assurance. “Organisations are increasing under pressure to efficiently deliver third-party outsource value and regulatory compliance. Our partnership combines the automation and AI of Brooklyn with the experience of Peru Consulting to maximise business value and risk management for our customers. Peru’s deep expertise, plus Brooklyn’s next-gen software capabilities, all solely dedicated to modernising and digitising supplier management – that’s a powerful combination for  organisations to transform the governance of their supplier contracts, relationships and costs.”

About Brooklyn Vendor Assurance:

Brooklyn Vendor Assurance is a fast-growing company whose award-winning Enterprise Vendor Management (EVM) SaaS Software platform enables vendor managers to maximise business value whilst delivering absolute compliance across their 3^rd Party supply chain. Brooklyn streamlines and automates vital aspects of managing Contracts, Risk, Performance, Relationship, Compliance, Innovation, and Sustainability.  Brooklyn was named 2020s Vendor Management Platform of the year, and is a Global Member of the Digital Top 50, for Best Enterprise Business Model Innovation.

Read more about BVA here https://www.brooklynva.com/

About Peru Consulting:

Peru Consulting are transformation experts, helping private and public sector organisations modernise and transform their teams and technology. We specialise in helping our customers digitise their business, source the right capabilities and deliver lasting change. Peru’s sourcing specialists have on average 15+ years IT sourcing experience and collectively we have advised on multiple deals in all major sectors and have supported clients to develop their governance strategies to maximise the commercial value of their supplier ecosystems.

In our earlier article “Together Alone: Moving Forward to Work in the New Normal” Jo Cribbin touched on the possibilities provided by Agile / Remote Working and signposting that in the future, if location is no longer a significant barrier, then new opportunities abound.

Whilst this might sound like something of a flight of fancy, the Bajan government has just recently announced a scheme to attract remote workers to take up a 1 year stay on the island of Barbados, which generated a lot of excitement when the article was re-posted on LinkedIn. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelerobson/2020/07/09/working-in-paradise-barbados-offer-year-long-stays-for-remote-workers/amp/)

More prosaically consider you are a Birmingham based IT managed services company that has recently expanded its portfolio of clients in Spain. Consequently you need to hire a Spanish speaking country manager to look after your accounts and business development.

A traditional approach may have cast the net in the Birmingham area – after all you like to see your country manager in the office, when they are not meeting a greeting clients in Spain. According to the 2011 census data less than 0.5% of the circa 1 million population of Birmingham are native Spanish speakers, which equates to about 5,000 potential candidates.

Of course when you whittle this down to those with the relevant IT managed services skills and business development experience it will be much smaller number and a smaller number yet will that will be actively looking for work. Let’s say for the sake of argument that 0.5% of those Birmingham-based native Spanish speakers have the right IT experience and are actively looking for a new role, this equates to 20 potential candidates…but then how many see you job advert? Let’s say 25%, which brings the field down to 5 candidates.

A more progressive approach would be to cast the net wider to include Spain itself, population 46.94m. Adding the Spanish numbers into the equation and applying the same assumptions around experience but a lower assumption regarding readership of the job advert (5%) nevertheless widens the field to over 11,500 candidates.

Wait a second though, Spanish is the native language in some 20+ countries world-wide…adding in just four of the largest countries: Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Colombia, increases the population count to 286m including the Spain and Birmingham numbers and even lowering the experience match to 0.25% and job advert readership reach to 2.5%, still yields around 18,000 candidates.

Perhaps in the new normal of remote zone working whilst we all head for a life of remote working in the Caribbean, Latin America may be heading our way…

Many businesses are resistant to change, but none are more set in their ways than firms in the legal sector. In a time of such huge societal change, firms are at risk of falling behind and losing clients to their competition. This is why it is vital for legal firms to adapt and innovate in order to stay one step ahead of the curve.

Law firms used to thrive off the personalized experience between client and lawyer. Coffeeshop meetings, friendly face-to-face interactions and pure expertise was imperative to creating client trust in a firm and its partners. It was this connection that separated the good law firms from the truly great ones.

The recent COVID pandemic has turned this entire system of working on its head. Without personal connection, clients can no longer be persuaded to stay loyal to one firm over another. There’s no safety-net of loyal customers.

COVID has also forced the tightening of clients’ wallets. With an economy in the throes of a recession, clients don’t want to spend money where they don’t think it’s needed. Soft budgets are out of the window, and firms cannot afford to fail to adapt to this change in clientele.

To differentiate themselves from others, law firms have to start creating new products and sales techniques beyond legal advisory services. The reputation built up by partners over innumerable years of work must be supplemented by a wider range of services to fit the current needs of clients.

This reluctance to change, or to try a new approach, is unsurprising for an industry that heavily relies on their history to guide their future. Good law firms and good law practice is built on the foundations of precedent. Cases are often resolved successfully when previous instances of similar cases are studied and learnt from, producing an entire sector that is guided on the actions and outcomes of events before them.

Technology is one of the main areas where law firms have been particularly slow to adapt. Seen as a tool rather than its own division of business, technology is woefully under-utilized when we consider the leaps and bounds that it has developed over the past 20 years.

Technology is no longer limited to basic financial and billing services or document storage. These are now basic, automated functions of any IT service in any business. In fact, technology can offer invaluable services in the forms of:

1. Automated processes, relieving fee-earners of repetitive, non-chargeable work.
2. Real or near-time client conflict checks, reducing exposure to risk.
3. Using data to provide actionable business insights, helping to steer the firms’ strategic goals.
4. Better resource management, allowing the firm to make best use of its chargeable pool
5. Improved service levels and reduced costs from 3rd party suppliers, simply by bench-marking existing contracts.

By embracing and implementing new and improved working practices, in-house legal teams are managing to stay afloat in the storm of the pandemic. But with BREXIT on the horizon as well as a COVID-induced recession, firms will have to go even further to future-proof their business.

Our research has identified 3 key habits of successful change ready organisations, that if enacted can help set you on the right path.

Peru is a catalyst for your firm adaptability in uncertain and unpredictable times. Our consulting services are tailored for each client to provide a personalized route to innovation, better team management and a change in culture that can ensure firms are ready to adapt to not just the societal change brought on by COVID, but to all those changes that are yet to come.

For more information please contact Peru Consulting:

Email: info@peruconsulting.co.uk

For more detail on our experience please visit:

Web: https://www.peruconsulting.co.uk/case-studies/

Sue Shellenbarger’s article on the increasing trend of recruiters deploying robotic screening of job applications gives rise to an interesting question for those of us in the EU in terms of how this squares with GDPR legislation and in particular an individual’s right not to be subject to solely automated decision making.

Now whilst Brussels legislators probably had scenarios such as credit ratings and mortgage application decisions front of mind when drafting the regulations, it is equally relevant in the sphere of recruitment where AI robots are automatically rejecting candidates’ CVs based solely on factors such as key word search.

In point of fact, the UK Information Commissioners Office published guidance on GDPR in respect of automated decision-making and profiling cites “e-recruiting practices without human intervention” as an example of automated decision making which would have a significant effect on individuals and would therefore give rise to legitimate grounds for an individual to object to such processing…in the all too typical scenario that their carefully crafted CV submission was met with a wall of silence from employers and/or recruitment agencies.

Whether an individual raising such an objection – and being able to prove they were screened out on the basis of automated processing alone – would be likely to raise many waves in the world of recruitment is questionable, but it would be interesting to see what would happen if a larger group of disgruntled job seekers raised a GDPR “class action” against recruiters / agencies who deploy such automated profiling practices.

At Peru Consulting all of the resumes we receive are reviewed by expert ‘Peruvians’ (this being a collective noun describing Peru employees, not a pet name for an AI Algorithm!). Peruvians involved with candidate selection and interview include our Talent and Operations Manager, the Management Team and our individual experts who are skilled in an area relevant to the candidate’s application (e.g. IT Strategy and Architecture, Sourcing and Commercial Management, Digital Transformation, etc).

This personal touch helps to ensure that the right candidates are shortlisted based on their knowledge, experience, cultural fit and interpersonal skills, not just by virtue of a keyword search, which in any event can be easily “gamed” by applicants. When you apply for a role at Peru Consulting, your CV may be reviewed by ‘Roberts’ but never by Robots!

We are all aware that securing our organisations people, assets and data is a fundamental requirement for all organisations today. But when you highlight that more than ¾ of consumers agree that security is a high priority when choosing an organisation to buy services from, it takes on a more dynamic perspective.

While there is a clear necessity for companies to secure and protect their environment from a reputational and operational risk perspective, there is also an opportunity to enhance customer retention and even attract new customers concerned about the privacy and safety of their data.

The Cyber Security Report from 2019 highlighted that a ransomware attack occurs every 14 seconds , security breaches are up 11% from 2018, 57% of attacks are on larger organisations, 48% of UK manufacturers are cybercrime targets.

Of the breaches we know about: 1.5 billion Indian citizens exposed in Aadhar data breach, 1.16 billion email addresses and passwords exposed in Collection 1 data breach in 2019, 540 million Facebook users exposed through AWS S3 storage buckets, Marriott breach exposes 500 million user accounts….and the list goes on.

You will notice that no sector is immune as government bodies, social platforms and consumer brands are targeted and exposed with worryingly regular occurrence. The size of these organisations, the number of digital services offered and for some their connectivity to legacy infrastructure leaves them wide open to vulnerabilities being exploited.

On the flip side organisations are dedicating substantial amounts of their capital on mitigating vulnerabilities and are mainly more cyber-resilient than smaller organisations. This puts these larger organisations in a strong position to push that resilience and the trust it engenders as a market differentiator, creating potential USPs around security, authentication and data protection.

Where’s the threat?

Most cyber-attacks are performed by three types of perpetrator: hacktivists, criminal organisations and governments. All three are likely to launch Denial Of Service (DOS) attacks, exploit technical vulnerabilities to extract data, orchestrate phishing scams for financial gain or simply siphon money straight from one place to another to swell their own coffers.

However, a substantial proportion of breaches still begin from within the organisation – either through disgruntled employees or the lack of appropriate controls, processes and awareness, with insecure devices connecting to networks.

Although perimeter controls are obviously important and form a large part of investment in cyber-attack prevention, equal attention should be given to shoring up internal vulnerabilities and minimising the impact of a breach. Also, with the move for more services outside the traditional secured perimeter to cloud services accessed over public internet the focus for layered defence is critical.

It is no longer a case of if your organisation will be breached but when, and planning for that eventuality is critical to minimising reputational and operational impact.

More threats, greater scope

Recent years have also witnessed an increase in the scope and scale of protection requirements. Growing use of third party suppliers, cloud services and workforce working habits add to the pressure of new regulatory demands such as GDPR, DPA, Consumer Contract Regulations and Privacy and Electronic Comms Directive. The result is a challenging task for organisations to implement controls to protect an organisation and their customer data assets. With limited budgets and resources, it is imperative that security investments are made based on business requirements, risk appetite, likelihood of impact and assessment of key vulnerabilities. There is no ‘one size fits all’.

Who’s in charge?

In most major enterprises, the role of data and systems protection generally sits with the Compliance or IT teams as, rightly or wrongly, this is where most vulnerabilities are perceived to lie. Although seen as a board level risk, cyber security is generally left to the specialists and that generally means the CIO/CISO and their team.

However, for security prevention to be truly effective (particularly for GDPR), security needs to break traditional boundaries and be embedded throughout an organisation and beyond to partners and suppliers.

Security needs to be linked directly with the business itself, going beyond the compliance mandate to make it a core value that it is every employees’ responsibility. Embedding security practices through mandatory cyber-security training as part of the on-boarding process is one solution. This should cover information security practices, phishing scams, data privacy awareness, etc.

Security should also be woven into the fabric of all roles through performance management or mandating that all employees are accredited once a year. IT leaders need to be vigilant in their duty around cyber security and educate their peers and board members of the importance of understanding persistent threats, addressing security skills shortage and mitigating breach impacts.

Responding appropriately

For all CISOs, security is a holistic activity. Paul Swarbrick an award-winning CISO says: “It’s a big mistake to think of security as tin and wires, anti-virus and firewalls. Security is a holistic process that touches on absolutely everything.”

From a Peru Consulting perspective, we break this process into a number of discrete areas:

• Technology – Knowing the current IT estate; identifying key data and applications; understanding the main vulnerabilities, assessing their impact and developing an appropriate response. Addressing these elements will provide a clearer picture of the security investment priorities. Additionally, ensuring the right testing strategies are in place across the estate, with patch management and quality assurance, will reduce risk and deliver certainty. Surprisingly, more than 30% of senior technology leader respondents in our recent research believed that data recovery processes were not tested on a regular basis.
• Architecture – Appropriate security governance processes covering security principles, requirements and risk models should be embedded within the organisation. These will help inform investment decisions on the optimum tactical and strategic technologies, which to divest and, crucially, in assessing application resilience. In essence, this answers the questions: “How long will our investments stand up to current and persistent threat? What is the ROI of shoring up existing investments vs investing in more secure and stable architecture now?”
• People and skills – Investing in small teams of security experts covering core areas such as security strategy and cyber response whilst outsourcing the more commoditised areas such as the Security Operations Centre (SOC), vulnerability management, environment scanning, etc. This approach has pros and cons, but finding the appropriate skills remains a persistent challenge for the retail banking sector and IT in general. If an IT outsourcing service is the preferred route, it’s essential to develop an effective sourcing strategy and regularly review the benefits of every relationship.
• Sourcing – Reviewing existing third party contracts for responsibilities and accountabilities (especially in light of new regulations) will protect unnecessary organisational risk. Assessing supplier compliance regarding the bank’s specific security needs will help nurture stronger and more transparent relationships.

Everybody, all the time

If you take just one thought away from reading this article it should be that “Security is everybody’s objective – good management, user education and governance can help mitigate security risks.”

Whatever approach is taken, a new way of thinking about organisational security is needed: not just as something that affects IT and Compliance departments alone, but as a cultural shift across all aspects of the organisation. All companies that look after customer data have a duty of care to protect not only their own data but that of their customers as well and this has to be balanced with delivering engaging customer experiences.

Investment in secure technology, appropriate internal processes and controls, securing the right skills and people and embedding security governance into organisational architecture not only mitigates risks and protects the business, but will help attract and retain customers through loyalty to, and dependability on, the brand.

“Raindrops on roses, and whiskers on kittens. Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens. Brown paper packages tied up with strings. These are a few of my favourite things” …it’s unlikely that these iconic lyrics from the Sound of Music are going to have an additional verse including HMRC anytime soon; in fact the introduction of changes to what are known as the IR35 regulations – which apply to the private sector from April – are likely to have many a contractor and business wishing the tax man was banished to the Tyrol.

These new regulations are likely to have a radical impact on the UK flexible labour market. The changes have, for a long time, gone under the radar, and have struggled to make it into mainstream news media, although the recent high profile legal case involving news broadcaster, Lorraine Kelly, and the rapidly approaching date when these regulations come into effect, have started to raise the public consciousness.

The changes impact the way in which Income Tax and National Insurance is paid by what are termed as ‘off payroll’ workers – more commonly known as contractors. One of the key changes is the shifting of legal responsibility for deciding tax status and ensuring the right taxes and national insurance are collected, to hiring businesses. Up until now, it has been the contractors’ responsibility to prove their status and ensure they were paying the right tax.

People can find themselves ‘contracting’ for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it’s a conscious decision to seek greater freedom and variety in the work they do, maybe working for multiple ‘clients’ at the same time, but sometimes it is out of necessity as the right permanent position wasn’t available when it was needed. Whatever the reasons, four things are certainly true about this way of earning a living:

1. There is a significantly higher risk to income. Contracts frequently get cancelled, delayed, postponed or changed in some other way and this, combined with the downtime sometimes associated with finding new work, can create ‘income gaps’;
2. There are costs which ‘normal’ employees who pay tax through PAYE may not have, potentially including accountants / legal fees, Private Healthcare, increased pension costs etc.
3. There is an opportunity to pay less tax and National Insurance as a percentage of gross income overall than those on PAYE, although it must be said that some of these advantages have been eroded in recent years; and
4. Contractors have far fewer employment rights and benefits

There are also significant benefits to hiring companies in having these flexible arrangements as an option. Contractors often work on one-off change projects which need either a short-term increase in capacity or niche skills that it would be unrealistic to retain in-house. Contract workers are often funded from CapEx budgets whereas internal resources are seen as OpEx spend and this can be a key factor for many businesses where there is major focus on reducing operational expenditure. Contractors are also often the first to lose their work when a downturn, or even a budget squeeze comes along and this gives hiring companies significant flexibility.Contractors being the first to be targeted for enforced furlough at Christmas or business aligned seasonal quiet periods

So, what’s changing…and what is the best way to deal with the changes?

For some time, these factors have broadly been in balance. Those who choose a contracting lifestyle understand how these factors interact and they made their own decisions about risk appetite, reward, flexibility etc. Likewise, hiring companies know they may have to pay a little more for contract resources, but it’s a great way to access specialist skills and meet peaks in demand without permanently increasing costs. The IR35 changes, first implemented in the Public Sector in 2017 and from April 2020 in the rest of the economy, change this equilibrium and we’re seeing the effects across the marketplace.

How are hiring companies reacting?

The Blanket Approach

The more risk-averse hiring organisations are taking a blanket approach to dealing with the issue, and determining all contract roles as ‘Inside IR35’. By insisting that contract workers either join the payroll (although interestingly this is rarely as a permanent employee with all of the employment rights and benefits this attracts) or work through an umbrella company, they are seeking to maintain the flexibility they have enjoyed in the past whilst insulating themselves from any of the tax / NI risk. From HMRC’s perspective such blanket decisions may not constitute the reasonable care they expect from employers in checking workers’ status for tax, so ironically, they could be in breach of the legislation. A recent ContractorCalculator survey indicated that contractors believed only 13% of hiring organisations were carrying-out compliant assessments on an individual basis.

The effect on Contractors is to impose a significant reduction in net income without a corresponding change in the other balancing factors described above. I understand why organisations would take this ‘risk-free’ approach, but the blanket way some companies have implemented this is, I believe, having an immediate effect on this part of the employment market and could potentially come back to bite businesses through a loss of flexibility in the workforce.

The irony is that there is a real risk that all three parties (contractor, hiring organisation and HMRC) will lose-out in the medium term. The individual loses because there is either less work, or it is in effect less well paid. The hiring company loses out because they may find it more difficult to attract the right contract workers to support their change programmes, and HMRC will lose out because less work and / or less well-paid work means a reduction in tax and NI takings. Some work may even be undertaken by Offshore outsourcers, meaning a decent chunk of the money leaves the UK economy altogether, potentially never to return. The ContractorCalculator survey suggests 41% of hiring organisations had placed at least some work offshore as a result of IR35

There’s a personal impact here as well. Many of these workers are highly skilled and experienced but they are really struggling to find work whilst the market is in turmoil/state of transition. The ContractorCalculator survey indicated some 18% of contractors are currently out of work, and of these 75% attribute this to IR35. For some, this is having a knock-on impact on mental wellbeing, which increases the longer they go without work. The prudent amongst them will have a ‘war chest’ to see them through income gaps but current market conditions are testing this for many.

Whatever the motivations of HMRC in making these changes, the effects are far-reaching. This isn’t just about ‘fair tax’; it’s having a material impact on the flexible labour market and this impacts all parties. In time, the market will adjust – it always does – quite how, and by when, is less easy to see. Maybe there will even be adjustments to the changes themselves as unintended consequences become apparent.

Personalised Fair-assessment Approach

In the Lorraine Kelly case, she successfully appealed a £1m+ tax bill – arguing that her work for ITV was a contract for services and therefore outside of the scope of IR35, however most people don’t have the budget to hire a highly paid team of lawyers to mount their defence. At Peru Consulting, we’re seeing the effects of IR35 from a number of angles, and we’re trying to make it work for all concerned.

For our clients, we’re having a number of discussions about how we may be able to support some of the Transformational change that might historically have been undertaken by contractors. I don’t see this as taking work away from contractors as I’ll explain below. We can typically undertake this work in a risk-free way as we contract on an outcomes basis, and where we do use contractors ourselves alongside our permanent employees, we’ll always make a thorough and honest assessment of the status; we use IR35 Shield to do this but there are other tools available. For some clients, just moving the responsibility to complete the assessment from them to us is a significant benefit. Please contact me directly at david.upton@peruconsulting.co.uk if you think we may be able to help.

For contractors, we make the commitment that we’ll undertake an individual, fair assessment which should protect everybody in the supply chain; we’ll never make a blanket assessment. We’re confident that we can secure work that they may struggle to directly – as a Small Company we have some exemptions that the bigger guys don’t. We’ve reviewed our contracts and made some changes to ensure all parties are protected wherever possible.

We’re also having a number of conversations with contractors who have decided that the IR35 changes and uncertainty just change the equation too much for them, and they’re interested in permanent employment. Smaller consultancies such as ours are a ‘half-way house’ between the corporate world and working alone. If you are in this position, contact us at contact@peruconsulting.co.uk to explore permanent roles with us.

For many companies, the option to move to “statement of work” based consultancy arrangements – essentially a packaged piece of work with specific deliverable milestones, where the focus is on the project, not the individual, may be the answer. We believe there is a way for all parties to retain some of the balance that has been in the market for some years through taking a positive approach and challenging the possibility that everybody will lose-out because of these changes. If you’d like to discuss, get in touch.

So, we are having one of the best summer’s in living memory which was proceeded by one of the best spring’s in living memory. Covid-19 infection rates are gradually reducing as are, mercifully, fatalities and in response to this the UK government has relaxed lockdown restrictions including the 2m social distancing rule, hallelujah!

This is particularly good news for the hospitality industry, albeit it may regrettably, be short lived, when the almost inevitable second wave of coronavirus strikes in the Autumn.

However, think differently and there may be a sustainable long-term solution: Specialist Homes of the Future. What is a Specialist Home? It’s a home where a room or rooms have been specially adapted to the profession(s) of the occupiers.

So, in the scenario of the hospitality industry this is how it could work:

• Diners turn up to restaurant and fire up the menu app
• Diners order from the menu
• Diners order is sent to the next available chef working in the home kitchen (within say a 10 mile radius)
• Chef accepts the order and gives an estimate time to complete
• Diners watch food being prepared via a webcam through the menu app
• When order is ready a driver turns up to collect (based on original time estimate)
• Driver delivers order to the restaurant
• Diners enjoy their meal, pay, hopefully tip, and eventually leave

In this scenario the restaurant no longer needs a kitchen “on premise” so they can now use all of that former space to create more tables (or socially distance the ones they already have).

Now consider how the concept of a specialist home can be extended to many professions: a scientist with a laboratory standard room in their house, a hairdresser with a beautician’s room (already happens), an architect with a CAD/CAM room setup at home etc.

As well as addressing social distancing, agile working, and environmental footprint issues what other benefits can people see for this emerging workstyle…or is it “pie in the sky”?

It doesn’t take much to convince IT professionals that it is a good idea to have an applications and system portfolio that is optimised: containing the most suitable technology to support the business and little in the way of duplication and technology legacy. A typical corporate IT systems portfolio will have a wide range of applications ranging from enterprise level behemoths to local ones serving small groups of users; so the question arises: what can be rationalised and optimised, and how do we start the process of pruning and reshaping?

The top concern is, of course, systems that are simply too old, that are well past their ‘sell-by’ dates, with either the hardware or software (or both) being obsolete. In itself age is not the issue, but the fact is that such systems often fail more frequently, take longer to bring back to normal service and rely on a dwindling number of people around with the right skills to feed and water them. Surprisingly often we find systems like these still supporting vital business processes, and with every passing month the likelihood of a serious impact on the business as a result of a substantial failure increases. It is unlikely that such systems can be upgraded easily or cost effectively, so the system’s retirement is usually the best option, with a replacement system procured to perform its functions and services.

The flip side of that same coin is, of course, when a business needs to re-engineer its processes to improve productivity, profitability or customer services, and finds its current technology cannot be reconfigured easily to support the new ways of working. Again, ‘retire and replace’ is likely to be the most suitable strategy, with utmost care taken in developing the business case and implementation plans to achieve the necessary results.

Like tree rings or geological rock strata, applications can build up in layers within a business. At one end of the spectrum organisations that have grown through acquisition and consolidation inevitably build up portfolios of applications that duplicate workflow and services provision. Here, a forensic assessment of the landscape needs to be done, with the support of the business’s leadership and other internal stakeholders, to identify those applications that should be retained (and possibly enhanced) and those that should be divested or retired. The costs associated with duplication can be significant, and such a patchwork of systems is often vulnerable to cyber-attacks, because plugging every gap is such a vast and complex undertaking.

At the other end of the spectrum is the applications portfolio that has grown like mushrooms in a dark cupboard. Where there is a lack of ‘governance light’ all manner of side projects, sub spend-limit procurements, prototypes, experiments, quick fixes and so on may proliferate. The issues facing the organisation will be many: excessive operational costs, security breaches, unmanaged vendors, poor support contracts etc., alongside the lost opportunity costs due to lack of technology standardisation and common working processes. This is always a difficult scenario to face, but as with all good journeys it starts one step at a time: identify some ‘quick wins’, systems that are dormant or with few active users, and begin to decommission them. In parallel start building a roadmap for the key applications and plan out how they need to evolve over time, and what other services may be subsumed into them. Weed out duplicated business processes, shut down non value-adding vendor relationships and put the change management engine into overdrive with internal stakeholders.

The trigger for application and system rationalisation is often not that it is a ‘good thing to do’ financially and operationally, but because other changes are afoot like reaching the end of a hosting contract, implementation of a cloud migration strategy, business divestment etc. But we suggest that, ideally, it should be a core activity of ‘good housekeeping’ that is far easier done on a regular basis, rather than through a big, disruptive effort every few years.

“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”

This quote from the famous industrialist Henry Ford sums up the ingredients needed for enduring, successful supplier and customer relationships. However, how do customers and suppliers, particularly in these times of change and disruption, manage to maintain strong and relevant relationships?

What could future relationships look like?

Perhaps one where:

• Customers and suppliers have a clear idea of each other’s needs
• A joint action plan is proactively maintained
• Each party appreciates the impact of actions and behaviours on the other team

Let’s take a look at how we achieve that.

In our earlier article, “What Customers Want“, we identified that, now more than ever, customers, suppliers and service providers need to be totally aligned but that’s easier said than done, particularly when there are a thousand and one other priorities clogging up your inbox.

It may sound blindingly obvious but reaching out and talking to each other is a crucial first step. Particularly in a world that is changing fast, it’s likely that your customer and supplier needs will have changed too and a lack of dialogue risks falling out of step with what is most important to them. After all, how many people have you heard say “At first our relationship was great, but over time we drifted apart, we seemed to have different priorities and needs”.

Working together to understand how and where their requirements have changed, and how both parties can adjust the relationship to address changing priorities, is an important precursor to improving the direction of relationships. Just as in life, it often helps to bring in an independent arbiter to objectively identify the gap between customer demand and service provider supply – whether that be in terms of the services or products provided, service levels, commercial terms or simply flexibility to change and innovate in the relationship. As the famous saying goes “We were born in a time when if something was broken, we would fix it, not throw it away”.

Get some therapy

There are many people who are sceptical about therapy but, once they have tried it, discover it can be a powerful force for change. Supplier/customer relationships are no different.  Independent counselling between customer organisations and service providers can provide all parties with a clearer insight into their working relationship. At Peru Consulting, we call this a “Customer Relationship Review”.

This therapy equivalent can create the catalyst to develop, strengthen and enhance dialogue between all parties in a supply chain and repair damaged relationships, ultimately helping to develop effective partnerships that deliver greater value, reduce costs and ensure better quality services. Crucially it can also provide all parties with the intelligence to proactively engage and create new commercial arrangements that really do lead to win-win outcomes.

As with any therapy, there are techniques that can be used to help the process. To that end, Peru has developed proven tools that can analyse supplier/customer relationships and identify issues. This includes structured interviews with key service, technical and commercial stakeholders from both service provider and customer teams, based upon seven core components:

Part of the review toolkit also includes an electronic ‘perception survey’, combined with a thorough analysis of documentation, including contracts, change control notes, governance minutes and service reports.

It’s good to talk 

Once both parties’ views are established and verified, a detailed analysis is almost certain to highlight differences of opinion. A facilitated workshop would follow, where both parties are presented with the combined views, discuss the reasoning behind the differences of opinion and work together to develop and agree practical resolutions to the identified issues. This approach is at the very heart of collaborative problem solving where, classically, the biggest obstacle to progress is one or both parties not having a clear understanding of the others perspective and the rationale for that perspective. As Stephen Covey said in his famous book – The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – “Seek first to understand, then to be understood”.

Working in this collaborative way, the plan is owned jointly and driven by all those who will deliver it, rather than being imposed from above or by a third party. It is essential that stakeholders from both parties embrace the process and are open and honest throughout. As independent facilitators, organisations like Peru can ensure the process not only aids the definition of the correct remedial activities, but also allows frustrations to be identified positively and constructively. This enables the relationship to continue and both sides to move forward as a partnership.

Making up is hard easy to do

A properly constructed customer relationship review should enable the following outcomes to be achieved:

• A thorough understanding of the issues and causes of the issues, with agreement to tackle these through a joint action plan
• An appreciation by both sides of the impact of actions and behaviours on the other team and the service received as perceived by the end user
• A ‘clearing of the air’ where both parties can express their frustrations and concerns within a safe environment.
• A true appreciation of what will make the relationship work for both parties, and what will destabilise it
• A stronger long-term relationship built on trust, understanding and clear targets and goals
• The basis for service providers to proactively engage their customers with improved service and commercial terms in return for an extension to their contract

A successful supplier/customer relationship is hugely valuable; it is built on trust and solid foundations, with clear contracts and realistic service level agreements. Whilst it will deliver measurable benefits to both parties and ensure consistent delivery of high-quality services, more importantly it will help to deliver the ultimate goal: a re-imagined relationship that works optimally for service providers and their customers alike. As the famous quote from John F. Kennedy goes “A rising tide lifts all the boats”.

Steve Watson is a Principal Consultant at Peru Consulting and specialises in all aspects of the commercial lifecycle from sourcing through to contract & supplier management optimisation. He has worked in both supplier and client roles with organisations including British Airways, BT, Walgreens Boots Alliance, Travis Perkins, and Musgrave.

Supplier management is the process that ensures that as a minimum the expected value is received for the investment that an organisation makes with its third-party relationships.

Definition of Supplier Management – IT Glossary | Gartner

What is a framework?

A supplier management framework assists to manage a supplier’s performance and relationship to help ensure best practice contract management and that all parties stay true to their obligations. This framework provides you with a set of control measures, checkpoints, and a consistent manner in which to govern and manage a contract.

What are the elements of a supplier management framework?

Four key focus areas;-

1. Supplier Data: Ensuring all key contractual milestones, obligations, critical dates and contacts are fully understood, calendarised and appropriately documented.

2. Supplier Classification:Assessment of the impact and operational reliance of the customers business to services from their suppliers which will classify the supply landscape into a tiered structure against which the governance framework and control measures will be defined. This classification process can extend to a complete Supply Chain Risk Assessment.

3. Governance Framework:A framework is constructed against the tiered classification structure defining the governance protocols, control measures and actions to be applied against each supplier in each tier.

4. Supplier Management Library: A central repository where copies of all contracts, change note, performance reports, obligation trackers, contract calendars, review meeting agenda with supporting pack and minutes, risk registers, contact details and supplier annual results are stored not only for reference, but to serve as an audit trail to track attainment to the defined governance framework.

What is the purpose of supplier management?

The purpose of Supplier Management is to plan, manage and review suppliers of goods and services and to monitor the agreed service levels.

Who is responsible for supplier management?

The Supplier Manager is responsible for ensuring that value for money is obtained from all suppliers. They make sure that contracts with suppliers support the needs of the business, and that all suppliers meet their contractual commitments.

What is Supplier management consultancy?

Supplier management consulting is the provision of services that help an organisation define their approach to managing third party relationships and contracts to ensure they are receiving the services they entered into the contract for, and that these services are being delivered to the correct standards, quality, and timeframes.

What is successful supplier management?

Successful supplier management, and the associated contract management disciplines, will see the supplier relationship mature and become more of partner with shared risk across both parties and innovation driving improvement to services and operating practices.

Supplier Relationship Management | CIPS

GSA UK – Home (gsa-uk.com)

What is supplier relationship management (SRM)?

The supplier management function is often seen as the conduit, or even mediator, between suppliers and internal resources with regards to extracting the best value from the contracts in place for both parties, ensuring the customer’s requirements are reasonable and inline with the contract whilst also ensuring the supplier discharges the obligations they signed up to as part of the agreement.

What tools are used in Supplier management?

Assess the benefits of software tools to support the vendor management processes. For Example, Enterprise Vendor Management | Brooklyn Vendor Assurance (brooklynva.com)

Supplier management has moved beyond just ensuring contracts support business needs. The most effective organisations today focus on building stronger relationships and deeper collaboration across the whole supplier ecosystem. Regardless of the organisation size or sector, supplier management is a vital part of a company’s capability – how you onboard, manage, measure and talk to your suppliers is important in reducing supply chain complexity, building productive relationships whilst removing unpredictability from supplier behaviour.

In today’s connected multinational supply chains, we see organisations just focusing on a handful of more “strategic” suppliers, but this can just expose your organisation to greater risk. Here are some of the risks we see occurring now or on the horizon:

• Reliable supply chains can have hidden risks – and we can all give examples from the last 18 months! Without sound due diligence and a full understanding of the supply chain ecosystem supporting your business product and services, operational risks  go undetected. This doesn’t just apply to physical supply chains  – people, services and software all have hidden risks. Inefficient  or unreliable suppliers can become costly in terms of revenue,
  time and potentially reputation – identifying these suppliers quickly will mitigate any risk exposure.

• Legislative & Regulatory compliance in the Financial Services market has seen the demand for increased governance and management of suppliers. Outsourced arrangements are of particular focus by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) with new rules to apply from March 2022 driving new banking compliance requirements. In order to comply a regulated organisation will, amongst other demands, need to make sure their supplier governance processes encompass…
  • regular materiality assessments as to the impact of the outsourced services to the business
  • increased due diligence surrounding audit, rights of access and cybersecurity
  • enhanced oversight of sub-contractors
  • enhanced business continuity
  • a structured approach to Exit Management, Exit Plans, potentially extending to knowledge of suitable alternative suppliers
• ESG considerations – News from COP26 (Nov 2021) included a commitment in the UK for companies to show how they will hit net zero carbon,. To be compliant will extend beyond a company’s own footprint into their supply chain. Putting a provision in the contract isn’t enough – managing, monitoring and proactively measuring compliance will be required
• Supplier Relationships are critical and build long-term trustful relationships that bring mutual beneficial results. Going beyond transactional performance measurement should be the norm. Ineffective communications, or lack of clarity on terms and conditions can lead to a break down in relationship unless handled tactfully and openly.

For ESG commitment, conducting contract landscape reviews, and providing in-depth supply chain analysis should help you to identify opportunities and risks, to strengthen not only your progress towards your sustainability obligations and commitments, but also that of your entire supply ecosystem. Proactively managing suppliers will result not only in an increased return on investment (through improving the longevity of suppliers capabilities), but also improve the triple bottom line (Profit, People, Planet). COP26 has reinforced our need to focus on ethical obligations ahead of short-term gains and to ensure a sustainable future

So, in summary we would like to leave you with some food for thought: actively ensuring your supply chain is mirroring your own risk, regulatory and ESG commitments will protect you and continuously improve your supplier management practices. From this foundation will grow a more engaged, reliable and proactive supplier ecosystem as well as an uplift in your own organisation’s brand value.

Selecting the most appropriate supplier, be it of services or technology, can be a minefield if you do not have an effective supplier selection strategy underpinned by a strong procurement organisation and culture. We have seen many examples where organisations have decided against competitive tenders and remained with incumbent suppliers or where poorly defined business requirements have resulted in bad contracts and poor service. To help we have compiled a step-by-step guide to effective supplier evaluation and selection (timings are indicative only and are dependent on project complexity and scale).

Step 1: Initiation & Planning

The value of investing sufficient time in upfront planning before embarking on a supplier selection process cannot be underestimated.

Begin by confirming the scope of your project and then identify your internal stakeholders, including appropriate purchasing managers. Engage your stakeholders in defining the governance plan for your project and in developing the project plan, including identification of key milestones and stage gates. You should also create your communication plan, covering who you will communicate with, what you will communicate and when.

The scope, project plan, communications plan, and governance structure – including who will fulfill the role of Chair – will need to be signed off before you move to the next step.

Step 2: Tender requirements

It goes without saying that clarity over what you will buy as a result of your selection process is vitally important. Engage your stakeholders and subject matter experts to define the service scope and requirements in as much detail as possible to avoid the possibility of delays and/or ambiguous supplier proposals/commercials. You may find this achieved best through a series of SME workshops – where you can also take the opportunity to gather input to and validate your business case, and to agree on success criteria, i.e., the key financial and non-financial objectives of the exercise.

You should now be able to produce a high-level overview of the tender requirements to be used as a brief for potential suppliers.

Step 3: Tender Qualification

A market assessment provides an opportunity to validate your requirements against what is available in the market, build relationships with potential suppliers, and demonstrate that you are serious about tendering.

The assessment can be formalised through a request for information (RFI) or more informally through one-to-one sessions with potential suppliers. At this stage, it may also be prudent to check the financial health of potential suppliers and to request case studies to evidence previous experience in delivering similar services.

The assessment may lead to revisions to your requirements based on supplier feedback and will enable you to confirm a shortlist of suppliers that will be asked to respond to the tender.

Step 4: Tender Selection

You can now finalise your tender document ensuring that requirements and key commercial principles are clearly articulated, and issue it to your shortlisted suppliers. Ensure that the submission timescales are clear, along with the consequences of missing the deadline.

You should also establish a Q&A mechanism enabling suppliers to submit and receive responses to any clarification questions they may have. All clarification questions should be logged, and responses shared with all suppliers.

Step 5: Tender Evaluation

Once responses are received, you may wish to complete a ‘cold’ review and scoring exercise-based purely on proposal content and in advance of any further clarifications. Your internal stakeholders should be fully involved in the review and scoring process in order to provide a balanced view.

Your evaluation process may also include supplier workshops, providing suppliers with the opportunity to elaborate on their proposed solution and enabling you to verify solution designs and to ask clarification questions yourself.

Now is also a good time to take up any supplier references to provide further insight on potential supplier performance and capabilities.

When all proposals have been reviewed and the scoring matrix is complete, document your findings in an evaluation report including a recommendation for down selection of 1-2 suppliers for review and approval by your stakeholders.

Step 6: Tender BAFO & Selection

Down selected suppliers should now be invited to submit their Best and Final Offer (BAFO) which should include any revisions to their proposed solution and commercial offer. This is also a final opportunity for each party to ask any further clarification questions. Suppliers may also wish to complete a due diligence exercise to validate any assumptions made regarding metrics, their solution, resources etc.

Once again, for balance, ensure that stakeholders are fully engaged in the BAFO review and scoring. The BAFO evaluation will need to be documented and a deal summary produced including a preferred supplier recommendation for review and approval by stakeholders.

Communicate your decision to all suppliers and provide an opportunity for the unsuccessful supplier to receive feedback.

You are now ready to move to the Contracting phase!

Step 7: Contract Preparation

For the contracting phase, you will once again need to identify and confirm your stakeholders and the subject matter experts (SME’s) that will need to be engaged. The governance structure required once the service commences will also need to be agreed upon and documented.

Work with your stakeholders and nominated SME’s to develop negotiation and contracting plans. If Key Commercial Principles were not agreed during the Tender Selection phase this needs to be completed now along with identification of any deal principles or objectives, e.g., pricing certainty, service performance, transformation delivery etc.

For a complex procurement exercise, you may also need to identify and confirm the workstreams required to simplify management.

A mechanism should also be in place to track progress throughout the contracting phase.

Step 8: Contract Documentation

Engage your Legal Team for assistance with agreement of the contract structure and format.

Starting with either the suppliers or your own contract terms and conditions, draft the Master Services Agreement (including charges, services and performance metrics). Underpinning schedules should also be developed jointly with the supplier. These schedules may cover the service, solution, SLAs/KPIs, Transformation, etc.

Step 9: Contract Negotiation

Contract negotiation may not be without its challenges as you will engage with your chosen supplier to clarify and negotiate the details of their proposal. Keep a log of all issues, and where disagreements arise ensure that these are escalated and resolved. Your senior stakeholder will be accountable for decision-making throughout. Details of recommendations and negotiated topics should also be documented.

It is likely that your supplier will also wish to clarify any obligations that you (the client) will need to meet as part of successful delivery.

Step 10: Contract Finalisation

Once negotiations are complete and, hopefully, both parties are happy with the outcome, take time to have a final checkpoint review of the documentation and to verify defined terms. Review the commercials again and be clear on the impact on the business case. Ensure that the obligation tracker and plan are finalised and that all obligations on both parties are included.

Now would also be a good time to mobilise the transition team and to ensure that all governance meetings are diarised.

Finally, prepare deal sign material documenting the agreed service(s), and costs highlighting how these compare with the agreed business base and the market.

Step 11: Contract Signature

You are now ready for both parties to put pen to paper.

Begin by presenting the deal summary material to brief your senior management and your key stakeholder. Verify and provide assurance that all outstanding items have been resolved and ensure that all the necessary approval gates are negotiated.

Finally, you can then arrange a suitable time for both parties to complete the formality of contract approval and signature.

Step 12: Project Closure

So, after months of hard work, finally, the job is complete……not quite!

There are still several important steps to be taken, starting with socialising details of the agreement/solution to all interested parties to ensure that everyone knows what to expect.

There is also the need to create a contract handbook, essentially a contract guide/summary of sufficient detail to enable anyone to understand what is in place and how the contract should be managed.

The obligations management process and accountabilities will also need to be established alongside a plan/mechanism for tracking benefits. Obviously, the organisation will want to understand that the contract does what it said on the tin and that any benefits are realised.

Governance should now be initiated and handover to the transition team can be completed.

Finally, you may want to share any lessons learned so that supplier selection processes can be updated, if required, for the benefit of future exercises.

Further Reading

If you are interested in further information about the potential pitfalls of a major contract procurement exercise, take a look at our earlier Contract Procurement article.

A bit about Peru Consulting

Peru practitioners are sourcing and supplier selection experts and specialise in helping our clients from all sectors and industries successfully manage, leverage value and pro-actively govern their third-party arrangements. Our people reflect our values, and we guarantee a collaborative, quality, agile and trusted service. As Peruvians we differentiate ourselves through our “Triple A” consulting principles: Accelerate – Identify and deliver value early, Assure – the right things and provide certainty and Augment – be a part of the team and hit the ground running.

In January 2018, a British construction and facilities management services company entered into what became the largest ever trading liquidation in the UK. The insolvency resulted in project cancellations and delays in the UK and overseas, thousands of job losses, financial losses to joint venture partners and lenders as well as circa 30,000 suppliers of the service company, some of whom themselves were pushed into insolvency. The liquidation also impacted 27,000 pensioners and may cost UK taxpayers up to £180m.

As of May 2020, the services company’s auditors are facing a £250M lawsuit for alleged negligence in their audits. The claim is being brought about by liquidators working for the UK Government against the services company’s auditors at the time of the collapse.

Why such an unprecedented level of claim? Normally, independently verified facts such as a signed off financial statement provide the highest level of assurance for those in either the supply chain or the demand chain and any organisation undertaking a risk assessment would place a high degree of store in the fact that, in this case, the service providers accounts were – on the face of it – sound.

Bearing in mind the UK economic growth in 2018 was circa 1.3% – a modest but improving picture – and bearing in mind as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic the UK and the rest of the world faces a recession of the kind unseen since the Great Depression, it might be pertinent to re-evaluate the financial and other risks in your supply chain. Given the audit failings highlighted in the case outlined here, it may also be worth giving consideration to risk indicators other than just the – until now – comfort blanket of audit findings.

At Peru Consulting we have developed one of the most sophisticated approaches to Supply Chain Risk Assessment available in the marketplace. By allying our advanced risk assessment playbook with the decades of experience our advisors bring, organisations can rapidly take a fresh look at the inherent risks in their supply chain to enable them to put the right mitigation strategies in place.

In the mid-nineties, a large UK-based utilities company providing drinking water and waste-water services entered into a contract for the supply of a customer information and billing system with a large British computer hardware, software, and services business. Central to the computer services business solution was a billing system to be provided by a 3rd party organisation (4th party to the utilities company). The computer services business signed a contract with the utilities company to deliver the solution within a fixed period of time to the customer’s specified requirements. Furthermore, the services business assured their customer that it would enter into a back to back contract with the 3rd party billing organisation but had not done so by the time the contract with the utilities company was signed…oh dear.

The 3rd party organisation providing the billing system had been kept in the dark about the contractual commitments the services business had made to its customer, including timescales and requirements, and when these were finally shared – in an attempt to form a back to back contract – they refused to agree to those terms in their contract. In the opinion of the 3rd party billing software organisation, it was simply impossible to deliver the system to meet the utilities company’s requirements in the timescales set out.

Subsequently, the computer services business failed to deliver the solution to their customer who promptly took them to court and ultimately won the case, as it was judged that the computer services business had fraudulently misrepresented their ability to deliver such a system without a back to back contract in place with the 3rd party billing software organisation. The computer services business was subsequently ordered to pay the utilities company circa £2m, essentially the full value of the contract minus some adjustments. Victory for the utilities services company you might think…? Well not really.

Almost 5 years after the original contract was signed the utilities company did not have the new billing system it required and had to make do with all the inherent limitations and inefficiencies of their old system. The utilities company lost out and perhaps more importantly, so did its customers. There was no winner here.

Lesson Learned : The failure of the utilities company to undertake a Supply Chain Risk Assessment of the 3rd party computer services business, let alone the 4th party billing software organisation, meant they blindly accepted the assurances of the computer services business with no actual commercial basis to do so. Some due diligence on the supply chain or even a condition precedent clause in the contract – if time was of the essence – would have mitigated the 3rd party and 4th party supply chain risk. Sin in haste, repent at leisure.

At Peru Consulting we have developed one of the most sophisticated approaches to Supply Chain Risk Assessment available in the marketplace. By allying our advanced risk assessment playbook with the decades of experience our advisors bring, organisations can rapidly take a fresh look at the inherent risks in their supply chain to enable them to put the right mitigation strategies in place.

There has been an unremitting focus on benchmarking by many sourcing professionals for a number of years, with a spotlight on the necessity to include a clear benchmarking clause in any contract.

Yet understanding of benchmarking, it’s application and value is still largely unappreciated.

A benchmarking clause will typically include wording to either allow the buying Party to conduct market comparisons or require the Supplier to do so at intermittent intervals.

Why should we include benchmarking clauses?

Though typically perceived as a more beneficial for the buying organisation, benchmarking can also be advantageous to the Supplier by highlighting how competitive their pricing is. Sciencedirect.com details an additional benefit to the Supplier in gaining a better understanding of the customer wishes and expectations.  By identifying areas for improvement, could allow suppliers to rectify service gaps and increase their customer value. It may be the supplier simply hadn’t been aware of market pressures or changes prior to a benchmarking exercise.

With the fast pace in which we see technological advancements, the volatile political landscape and precarious economic environment these clauses ensure the right service/ product at the right price is being provided. What might be the best option on the day on contract signatory, may not be three years later.

The buying organisation may also utilise the benchmarking to avoid the costly process of re-tendering at the end of the contract term and evoke the benchmarking clause to instead simply renew with the incumbent, safe in the knowledge they remain competitive, and the solution is fit for purpose.

Evoking a Benchmarking Clause

All too often a procurement team will spend time and effort negotiating a robust benchmarking clause only for the contract manager to neglect to take advantage of the process, often due to unfamiliarity of the process or value it can provide.

The process itself can be broken down into the following steps:

1. Determine the scope

As with any project, defining what the aim of the exercise is will be crucial in determining the data set. It may also be sagacious to review the clause at this stage, to identify roles and responsibilities of both Parties, the defined metrics, if any, and to ensure no breach in frequency.

2. Determine the Benchmarking Partners

In line with step 1, once the aims of the project have been defined, the comparators should then be decided. Choosing the right peers to compare against is critical to ensure a fair and valuable benchmark is achieved. It would be a poor use of resource to compare apples with pears! You need to ensure you’ve got a like-for-like comparison, and preferably a wide range of data sources to gain the most value.

3. Determine Data and Data Collection Methodologies

Some constraints in this step might be determined by the resource and data available. You may wish to partner with external benchmarking experts who will be dedicated wholly to the process and can advise on which data will provide the best return on investment.

4. Data Gathering

There may be a variety or limited number of locations from which you can obtain base data. Though not exhaustive, sources may include industry reports, google searches, previous similar exercises or partnering with competitors to share information for mutual benefits. Again, the key is to ensure commonality for best results.

5. Analysis

Conducting the analysis is essential to the success of the benchmarking exercise and must be performed without bias. It is important to keep focus on the goals identified in step 1 to avoid the pitfall of over-analysis, which can lead to scope creep and unnecessary use of resource. As soon as results have been verified, present the findings in a factual manner, using results as a basis to strengthen the Buyer- Supplier relationship as opposed to employing the results to win gains at the other Parties expense.

6. Action Plan

Once the results have been presented, work together to agree an action plan for continuous improvement and to address any identified opportunities. Benchmarking can be an excellent tool for driving innovation and creativity, benefits of which should be realised by both Parties. Assign action ‘owners’ to help drive the changes and to ensure momentum is maintained.

7. Monitor

Monthly or quarterly governance meetings can be used to monitor progress and preserve impetus. It’s important to consider benchmarking as an on-going commitment, not a silo exercise to maximise the gains.

Peru Consulting has delivered vast savings for clients through our expertise in benchmarking , fostering a strong methodology for maximising the value that can be obtained from a benchmarking exercise whilst maintaining and improving the integrity of the relationship. We negotiate with confidence, capitalising on market expertise and adopting innovation for our clients, but above all promoting a win-win outcome.

As we see the emergence of longer contract terms, rapid changes in the economic and political landscapes and disruptions across supply chains, the need for benchmarking has never been as important as it is today.

As we see a rise in political instability, economic turmoil and environmental volatility for all businesses it is necessary to not only adapt to the changing market but to also remain one step ahead of competitors by differentiating their services..

As experts in sourcing, we often receive a high number of tender responses simply differentiating the product or service by price alone – this is no longer enough. Suppliers need to go the extra mile to stand out from their competitors. Highlighted here are some examples of how suppliers have distinguished themselves to ensure they were remembered by Peru’s sourcing experts.

1. Be engaging- make sure you’re remembered

It’s a simple concept, but one that works. The number of times we’ve sat in supplier presentations where they’ve exhibited a ‘death by PowerPoint’ slideshow. Whilst clearly nice people, it’s not the most engrossing sales pitch.

Suppliers who not only display expert knowledge in their field but deliver with passion are much more likely to be remembered than those who might show expertise but no enthusiasm.

Furthermore, going the “extra-engagement-mile” can show a supplier in a much more positive light. For example, sending through an article you think might of interest or dropping an email out of the blue just to ask how a customer is displays a caring side not often seen, , though make sure it’s appropriate!For instance don’t do this during a tender where it could be perceived negatively.

2. Mutual gains

Since the dawn of time, procurement and sales have been pitted against one another, being judged on how large a saving (procurement) or high a price (sales) is achieved at the point of contract signature. This immediately induces an adversarial relationship from the offset. Focus should instead be on the value gained, on a win-win outcome rather than the traditional approach of ‘sacrificing’ one negotiation point for an alternative win.

Think about alternative benefits for both parties:

• Is there an appetite for collaboration or innovation?
• Is there any even training you can undertake together?
• Can you share some costs?

Raising the expertise of both Parties can have achieve significant long-term benefits not just commercially but through building strong relationships.

Consider what you can do for the customer, not what you can gain from them (and vice versa from the customer perspective) and this will serve to improve rapport and potential for longer term value.

3. Quality of tender responses

When responding to invitation to tenders suppliers can spend significant amounts of time crafting the responses. Given that most responses will be unsuccessful suppliers tend to rely on a library of previous bid responses and adjust according to the new tender requirements. However, suppliers must make sure they proofread every response as we have seen on several occasions references to other bids and client names. This lack of attention to detail has serious implications as tends to highlight a lack of attention to detail and cast’s doubt on suppliers’ competence. So the rule here is read, re read and check again before sending responses back

4. Change

As Bill Clinton once claimed, “The price of doing the same of thing is far higher than the price of change.”

If you’re not prepared to be in a state of constant transformation you’re standing still and even for a short period could lose competitive advantage. For suppliers it is critical to maintain market awareness, and where possible, innovate to stay ahead of the competition. If you’re the only supplier offering a particular service using a ground-breaking new methodology, communicate your approach and successes to prove your value and you will give yourself a greater opportunity to be etched in the minds of the buying teams.

5. Be Unique

The Trusted Advisor relays a story of a supplier who made significant efforts to submit unique bids by ensuring the bid was always hand delivered, and in a format unique to the organisation – for example in a pizza box to an Italian Restaurant head office, or a Saddlebag to a Law Firm. These unique approaches as opposed to boilerplate approaches can sometimes be the difference between ‘good’ and ‘memorable’.

6. Listen

When Sourcing experts go out to tender there is always a requirement to find a solution, whether that be a upgrade, an alternative or a new service or product. Whilst vendors may be invited to offer solutions, it is critical to fully understand the ask before offering a solution. It is more common than you think to receive bids which have had hours of effort put into them, only to discover the vendor has based their proposal on the solution it thinks the customer should have, not what the customer was actually asking for. Whilst suggesting alternatives is a great way to stand out, it should never be to the detriment of the requirement.

7. Trust

Putting time and effort at the start of a relationship to developing trust  invariably results in longer term gains. Simple acts such as admitting you don’t know the answer to a question rather than attempting to convince the buyer you do is a great way to foster trusting relationships. Trust is not easy to gain yet can be easy to lose. By showing you’re committed, expert, passionate and truthful will create better relationships and more successful bids..

This list is by no means exhaustive however provides insight into some actions and characteristics adopted by suppliers which have led to them being indelible. For extended discussion or to gain further insights into our Sourcing services please contact us directly, we’d love to help!

What do we want? (We’re not sure) When do we want it? (Yesterday!)

If you have ever worked in IT you know there are IT people and there are “users”. For suppliers, customers are their “users” – a good customer offers clarity, takes the time to develop a relationship and most importantly (although not essentially), offers long term value.

Is price the main differentiator?

When bidding for business, you can expect to be in a competitive  commercial process  8 times out of 10, and there is an assumption that any selection process will be based on who can offer the best price. Whilst technically correct, the best price isn’t the cheapest price!. Other factors are equally if not more important for many customers:  the quality of product or service, the synergy with other clients and most recently, sustainability. Can you demonstrate that you are working to reduce your carbon footprint, or how do you contribute to your local communities for example? These questions are now becoming a de facto standard as part of sourcing.

Flexibility & engagement

Wouldn’t it be great if all customers gave their requirements, a supplier provided a price, everyone signed on the dotted line and the deal is done! Expectation versus reality is usually very different. Obviously there are many transactional relationships between customer and supplier which can be successful in terms of turnover and productivity. But the more complex requirements – complex projects, transformation pieces – is where the supplier/customer relationship truly develops and a deeper understanding is required. It’s in these scenarios that customers expect flexibility and proactive engagement. There is the old adage that the customer is always right, which of course is true (!), and most suppliers will agree through gritted teeth, as generally the saying is synonymous with an unexpected increase in delivery costs, eating into margins. But whilst the customer may not be always right, they do expect a certain level of flexibility and collaborative engagement to discuss their requirements and look at those late changes to scope or requirements. Your ability to respond with understanding, openness and with clarity in communication is fundamental and leads to deeper and more trusting relationships and ultimately higher customer lifetime value.

Peru or you?

Peru offers services to both sides of the commercial divide. Our consultants have been both supplier and customer, so we are in a unique position to understand what suppliers need to win and retain business, but to also determine what customers require from their supply chain. We differentiate ourselves through our Triple “A” consulting principles; Accelerate, Assure & Augment – we’re part of your team. Our culture, values, and behaviours ensure people come first – and always before the process and we work hard to ensure the customer experience is the best – whether you, the supplier, are our customer or advising you on your own customer engagement. Sometimes having an objective unbiased view is the ideal way to cement a relationship.

To find out more please contact us directly,

In these challenging times, as organisations seek to become more efficient, some will revisit the issue that they may well have wrestled with previously: how to migrate business applications and data from unsuitable locations or out of date facilities to more modern centres. There are two basic common pathways: a consolidation of systems to a smaller number of internally managed data centres, or a more radical move to externally hosted infrastructure (the cloud) managed by third party suppliers.

In the past, companies have been rightly cautious about migrating their applications and data to third parties, until the market and its service offerings had matured. Now, secure and stable platforms are the norm, underpinned by reliable infrastructure and flexible application management services. Corporations are increasingly grasping the power and benefits of such ‘utility’ computing and many have already offloaded the provision of system management to external partners.

Five or ten years ago moving systems was more challenging but, these days, migration to any desired target environment can be conducted relatively straightforwardly, at lower risk than ever. The necessary technical tools, process knowhow and competition amongst providers are all well established. So, whether the ultimate destination for systems is to internal strategic data centres or to the cloud, the pain of migration is significantly less than it used to be.

Good for business

Suitably assured by these developments, company boards are increasingly attracted by the positive business cases which detail the significant cost, performance and service benefits that consolidating systems can realise, whether systems are migrated to large internal strategic data centres or to the cloud, or a rational combination of both.

And it is not just about cost: organisations are increasingly understanding that automation and agile technologies will enable them to develop and deploy solutions that help and serve their people and their customers, from the new environments.

Nevertheless, there are still legitimate questions and concerns that must be answered before a business takes the plunge and migrates its applications and data.

During the migration process the risks of excessive system downtime, loss of data, interface errors and so on have not completely vanished; they need to be managed so their probability of occurrence is minimised and their impact mitigated if they do happen.

With a reputable, experienced provider the risks posed by the new hosting environment and the services performed should be reduced and the user experience enhanced, compared to the current state.

Hurdling the Obstacles

Below are some of the reasons that may be given for not migrating, with the counter arguments that hopefully go some way to allaying those concerns….

1. ‘This application is too complicated; it has a host of environments and tens of interfaces; it won’t work properly after being moved’

This is a perfectly legitimate concern, often made worse by missing or incomplete system documentation and the age of some system component parts.

In reality, experts from firms that perform migration services have people, tools and processes that are targeted at gathering all the information about the innards of systems and replicating them exactly in the new environment. Given their experience in having conducted hundreds of corporate migrations there are very few surprises and little they have failed to migrate – no matter how complex.

2. ‘This application contains sensitive information. There is no way we can have this offsite, in the cloud’

We have seen plenty of terrible examples of organisations operating ‘data centres’ in complete unsuitable locations: in the basement of buildings flagged for demolition, below the waterline in riverside offices etc.

The question must be posed: “is the in-house infrastructure, at every layer, more secure than that offered by global hosting services providers whose business and reputation depend on the integrity of their systems?” To which an honest answer is usually enough to reduce the obstacle. Often the reticence to consider migrating such material is based on internal policies and practices which are often, on closer inspection, too restrictive or out of date. The demands of external regulators at country or EU level – GDPR for example – must of course be complied with, but Peru Consulting’s experience shows that this has rarely disallowed a migration.

3. ‘The Users don’t want to risk moving it. There’ll be technical issues, like latency, that concern them, and they won’t support it’

Like most of us, users are wary of change; they simply want the IT that supports them to work well and reliably. Naturally, any perceived threat to this will be a concern. However, the top migration partner firms listen to, and work together with, users and application owners every step of the way to address such issues. We have seen many examples where, from an initially sceptical position, users have embraced the change enthusiastically, especially when the performance of the application is actually enhanced by being situated in a more modern environment. Take latency for example, an often-quoted concern, it usually transpires that it is either improved or it has no impact on the way users use the application.

4. ‘This can’t be touched, it’s our ERP system and must be in-house’

There is no denying that the business case for migrating certain ERP systems presents some unique challenges and the benefits may not be so clear cut. However, if the programme is taken as an opportunity to consolidate and rationalise disparate country or departmental systems, for example, then the additional effort involved could be worth it. We have worked with a migration partner and client that were faced with this challenge and demonstrated, through patience and careful migration structuring, that migrating ERP systems was entirely achievable.

5. ‘Our IT function have the applications covered, there’ll be no service delivery or cost benefit from moving them somewhere else’

Often IT departments spend too much of their time and budget tending legacy and unstable systems, using workarounds and heroic efforts to keep everything up and running, and keeping the users happy. Undoubtedly reduction in costs of ‘keeping the lights on’ is a major driver of the migration business case, and this will almost inevitably impact headcount.

However, the opportunity that migrating applications presents is that both money and talent can be refocused to improve the business, sharpening its ability to compete and innovate for its people and customers. Such initiatives are inherently more interesting things to work on, thus offering a more attractive environment in which to recruit and retain IT professionals.

A compelling case

The rationale for migrating corporate applications and data to an external hosting environment is becoming ever more compelling, with many historical concerns having been allayed. The CV19 pandemic has focused minds on accessibility and bandwidth as well: in-house data centre ‘plumbing’ may be found wanting when many more workers are ‘hitting’ the systems from outside. On the other hand, the internet has clearly proven its resilience in that sense; and that means access to cloud data centres has been relatively unaffected.

Systems for which migration outside an organisation’s boundaries would not have been countenanced a few years ago are now being migrated routinely. Certainly, the right tools and know-how are needed, along with the vital involvement of users and owners. Given these enablers, there are few reasons why obstacles cannot be overcome, and greater overall business benefits achieved from the migration process.

Implementing a new ERP solution, or upgrading a legacy system, can be a painful process. Peru’s Ian Robinson offers some helpful tips to reduce the pain.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions require massive, cross-business capabilities. While often highly configurable, the most successful implementations or upgrades generally use ‘out of the box’ vendor software, but require new business practices or processes.

Successfully implemented, they can transform the daily business operation. A failed or out-of-date ERP implementation can stop a business in its tracks. And, as a business grows, the ERP solution needs to grow with it.  Upgrading an ERP system can be a painful process, but, there are some key elements that can help take away the headache:

1. Choice

Every ERP solution has different strengths depending upon specific requirements and client sectors. Understanding these is critical to minimise the amount of customisation required.

Choosing an ERP Delivery Partner and lead systems integrator is just as important as the vendor themselves and every vendor has a comprehensive list of partners, but they may have different strengths and weaknesses.  Peru’s Strategic Sourcing product may help with the choice.

2. Growth

A detailed understanding of your current and future business plans will influence the choice. Unclear plans can impact the choice of ERP version.  Fundamental changes to the Chart of Accounts, for example, must be established as an implementation first step. Involve key decision-makers as well as their leads early in the process.

3. Hearts and minds

ERP implementation can be a distraction to day-to-day business, so everyone involved needs to be engaged and incentivised. If possible, appoint a dedicated, business-wide core team and ERP ‘champions’. Without winning hearts and minds, implementation time increases, costs inflate and the system may not meet business requirements.

4. Data

Understanding, owning and managing data is critical and generally requires the integration of data from multiple systems, leading to schema changes or data mismatches. While specialist tools can help, the data owner needs to define the rules, review the data and sign off on any revisions. This requires business and IT collaboration.

5. Just the beginning

Avoiding the pain of similar upgrade upheaval five years down the line requires a small, dedicated resource constantly monitoring business change, user need and vendor product upgrades, as well as continuous assessment of the solution supplier contract.  The vision should be a constantly evolving solution delivering continued ROI and added value to your business.

The UK has committed to reducing greenhouse emissions to net zero by 2050^[1], so all organisations need to look closely at how their operations affect their emissions. looking to the future, companies of all sizes, need to understand the environmental consequences of their actions or inactions- this is key to developing an appropriate sustainability strategy. Part of that strategy is looking at your Corporate Carbon Footprint, and Peru have recently engaged with Carbon Footprint Ltd^[2], to help us look at our own carbon emissions and work towards being carbon neutral.

We were assessed from data spanning 1^st January to 31^st December 2019, which given the Covid Pandemic, was the most recent dataset representing “normal” business activity. The outcome of that assessment is shown below:

In summary:

• Peru Consulting’s total emissions are 136.43 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.
• The most significant emission source is flights, accounting for 54% of Peru Consulting’s carbon footprint.
• The second most significant source of emissions is cash opt-out car travel, accounting for 15% of Peru Consulting’s carbon footprint

Whilst there are some obvious changes that have been identified – reducing overall travel profile, travelling economy when flying and look at the overall footprint of airlines used, there are some other initiatives we will be looking at with the aim of becoming a carbon neutral business:

• As all our staff are home based, we will be engaging with everyone to ensure they understand our net neutral goals, and where possible, how they are able to support our strategy at home, by adopting sustainable, energy saving practices in their home environment.
• Continue, where possible, to embrace remote working for client engagements.
• Identify carbon offset projects that, as an organisation, we can lead and get involved hands on within our local communities.
• Look at opportunities for Peru to have a direct impact in offsetting carbon emissions, such as reviewing our suppliers to ensure they are also sustainable, working with local communities to give back and help them understand the importance of being carbon neutral.
• As an organisation, continue to educate ourselves in the overall environmental impact of decisions that we make as a business.

Being Carbon Neutral isn’t a badge of honour, it’s an important ethos and standard that all companies should adopt. Although it’s only a small contribution from one company, if all organisations adopt similar aspirations and change, we can all play a part in securing the future of our planet for generations to come.

[1] gov.uk – UK becomes first major economy to pass net zero emissions law

[2] Carbon Footprint Ltd

We’ve all read recent articles from McKinsey, Gartner, Forbes and HBR about how diversity and innovation are closely linked and how diverse organisations are more productive and profitable. The impact on transformational change is equally compelling – organisations that have a diverse workforce tend to be more successful at change. It’s not just diversity across the more commonly traits  of age, gender, ethnicity, race and sexual orientation but other types of diversity are equally important: industry backgrounds, specialisms, career paths, experiences working in different cultural settings.  Research has shown that diverse teams are more innovative and creative than homogeneous teams because they bring a wider range of perspectives, experiences, and ideas to the table. When people from different backgrounds and cultures work together, they bring different ways of thinking, problem-solving, and approaching challenges. This diversity of thought can lead to more creative and effective solutions to complex problems.

In addition to bringing different perspectives, diverse teams can also challenge assumptions and biases that may be holding back innovation. By exposing different ways of thinking and working, diverse teams can foster a culture of curiosity and open-mindedness, which is essential for innovation.

However, simply having a diverse team is not enough to ensure successful transformation. It is also important to create an inclusive environment where everyone’s voices are heard and valued. This means ensuring that everyone has equal opportunities to contribute, regardless of their background or identity, and that there are no barriers to participation or advancement.

But if this is so true why aren’t more organisation and transformational leaders doing more to attract and retain a more diverse workforce? One of the main barriers to attracting a more diverse talent pool is the pervading culture of an organisation – if the C-Suite aren’t committed to diversity that will be apparent through the interview processes and via informal networks of connections. Additionally does any organisation activity promote and reward the required behaviours (agreeability, challenging, action-oriented) thereby fostering the culture they need?

At Peru we believe this is an imperative and forms a key part of who we are and what we want to be – we are far from diverse organisation we need to be but the board and management team are committed to making the changes necessary as we see this as fundamental to our own growth plans and our ability to deliver the highest quality outcomes for our clients.

What are you and your organisation doing today to build more diverse teams to help drive innovation and transformation success? Here are a summary of the reasons why diversity is so important:

1. Diverse perspectives lead to more innovative ideas: When you have a team with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives, you have a wider range of ideas and approaches to draw from. This can lead to more innovative solutions to business problems and opportunities.
2. Diversity leads to better decision-making: Studies have shown that diverse teams make better decisions than homogeneous teams. This is because they are more likely to consider a wider range of factors and viewpoints, leading to more thoughtful and informed decisions.
3. Diverse teams are better equipped to serve diverse customers: In today’s globalized economy, businesses need to be able to serve customers from a wide range of backgrounds and cultures. Having a diverse workforce can help businesses better understand and meet the needs of their customers, which is critical for long-term success.
4. Diversity helps attract and retain top talent: In today’s competitive job market, talented employees are looking for workplaces that value diversity and inclusion. By prioritizing diversity in business transformation efforts, companies can attract and retain top talent, leading to a more productive and successful workforce.
5. Diversity promotes a culture of innovation: When companies prioritize diversity and inclusion, they create a culture that values different perspectives and encourages innovation. This can lead to a more dynamic and creative workplace that is better able to adapt to changing market conditions and technological advances.

Diversity, innovation and transformational change are interconnected. Diverse teams can bring a wider range of perspectives, experiences, and ideas to the table, leading to more innovative and creative solutions. However, creating an inclusive environment is essential to ensuring that everyone can contribute to the fullest extent of their abilities.

Of all the Latin terminology much beloved of lawyers and contract managers, the phrase that resonates most for me is “Caveat Emptor” which translates as “Let the buyer beware”. When it comes to the procurement of major contracts such as business process outsourcing, managed IT services and large-scale transformation programmes, the failure of organisations to apply some fundamental procurement principles can often have disastrous consequences.

Whilst the “sins” presented below are by no means an exhaustive list, they are amongst the most likely ways to undermine a successful sourcing outcome. In the original seven deadly sins, pride is said to be the sin from which all others arise…when it comes to sourcing, the root cause issue of the sins can often be attributed to a failure to plan appropriately…as the saying goes “sin in haste, repent at leisure”.

1. Don’t run a competitive process

Unless you are in a sole source marketplace or are in a distress purchase situation (perhaps caused by a failure to plan?) then not running a competitive sourcing process is generally a bad idea. Firstly, organisations are highly unlikely to achieve best value from a non-competitive process, and in fact even assessing good value can be very difficult without appropriate market benchmarking. Secondly, any supplier faced with the open goal of a non-competitive tender is not going to offer their best price when there is little risk of losing the business to a competitor. The same can be said of service levels, transformation timescales or just about any other key metric of the contract. Thirdly, if a non-competitive procurement stalls, for example, if contract negotiations hit the buffers, where do you turn to…?

Having said that its surprising how frequently the concept of a non-competitive process is courted by organisations, either in the erroneous belief that the tender process is too slow and costly and won’t achieve any better outcomes than an exclusive engagement or because senior executives have had their heads turned by an unsolicited offer from a supplier which looks too good to be true (and if it looks too good to be true…)

Let’s be clear, the tendering process does take time and needs to be carefully planned out, but to assume an exclusive supplier engagement is a silver bullet is a mistake. Requirements still need to be formulated, contracts negotiated and drafted, and commercial terms agreed. Going through a tender process such as a Request for Proposal (RFP) will help refine the requirements which will ultimately land in the contract. In a typical procurement the percentage of time which is exclusively related to the competitive element e.g. suppliers responding to the tender and evaluation of supplier responses is typically no more than 20% of the end to end sourcing process.

2. Don’t have a sourcing strategy

Embarking on any major procurement exercise without a clear sourcing strategy is inviting trouble. After all you wouldn’t go on a major journey without some careful planning and preparation unless you wanted to risk a) getting lost b) ending up on the bad side of town and c) incurring additional costs rectifying a and b!

A good sourcing strategy should set the framework within which you conduct your procurement exercise. Ideally it should be aligned to/informed by your business strategy and objectives. In this respect one of the key things to establish is the balance between the objectives of reducing costs, improving quality, and innovating to drive top line growth. Early agreement on the balance of these objectives will flow down into subsequent stages of your procurement process, e.g. the approach to evaluation of suppliers.

A sound strategy should also set out the high-level requirements to be met, the timescales and resources required for the sourcing exercise, an analysis of the supply market and your recommended sourcing approach.

3. Don’t be clear about what you want to buy

Although it may seem like a fairly basic consideration, it is surprising how often organisations embark on major procurement exercises with only a rudimentary understanding of what they want to buy. A failure to define requirements up front can result in delays to the sourcing process, ambiguous supplier proposals and sub-optimal commercial terms.

The key again here is good planning to ensure the right business stakeholders are engaged who can clearly articulate the business requirements. If the service being tendered is currently contracted out to a supplier, this may simply be a case of deciding what needs to improve and/or be added and anything that is no longer required going forward. However, if you are tendering a service for the first time it is likely that more effort will be needed to develop the requirements up front.

Whilst there may a temptation to keep requirements high level at the tender stage, a lack of detail can result in widely varying supplier interpretations of the requirement which make comparing/evaluating suppliers proposals nigh on impossible and it only delays the inevitable detailed requirements development to the contracting stage, by which point you may well have committed to a preferred supplier only for commercial negotiations to fail as expectations weren’t clearly set earlier in the process.

4. Don’t engage/test the market

Failing to understand the market for the services you are looking to procure is a sure-fire way to undermine your sourcing strategy. Engaging with suppliers in the market early can not only help shape your requirements – based on a better understanding of what the market has to offer – it can also demonstrate to the market that you are serious about tendering or re-tendering your services.

It is important to bear in mind from a supplier’s perspective that there is a significant cost of bidding for large contracts and they will be weighing up this cost against the likelihood of winning the contract. Particularly if you have an incumbent supplier for the services you are tendering, you may need to convince the market that you are serious about re-tendering otherwise suppliers could get cold feet and decide to concentrate their resources on more “winnable” opportunities.

This market engagement process is often formalised through a request for information (RFI) process prior to tendering, however a more informal “soft market test” engagement will be extremely helpful in developing relationships with key suppliers as well as further refining your requirements prior to tender.

5. Don’t be realistic about the timescales and effort involved

One of the most prevalent failings in major contract procurement is to under-estimate the time and resources required to achieve a successful outcome. Assuming there is an incumbent supplier in place, initial planning for re-tendering a major managed services or IT outsourcing contract should typically commence 18-24 months prior to the end of the existing contract term.

Leaving it too late to start the sourcing process is often the root cause of one or more of the other sins outlined here such as failing to detail requirements or not engaging the market and it also risks your organisation sleepwalking into a cliff edge scenario with your incumbent supplier, where you are left with little alternative but to extend an existing contract on unfavourable terms.

One mistake organisations often make is to squeeze the amount of time that suppliers have to respond to tenders in order to hit an arbitrary deadline. This is a false economy however, as it inevitably leads to a reduction in the quality of supplier proposals resulting in more effort being required in the subsequent stages of the process and/or a sub-optimal contract.

Good planning starts with sourcing consulting and your sourcing strategy which should set expectations early in the process around the time required to successfully complete the procurement and the key resources needed to support the process. It’s worth remembering that as well as the core team involved in the sourcing process, there will be requirements for input from business subject matter experts and supporting functions such as finance, HR and legal. These people will all have day jobs, so their involvement in the process, including in some cases backfill arrangements, needs to be carefully planned out.

6. Don’t stay close to your incumbent supplier

As the well-worn saying goes “keep your friends close and your enemies closer still!” That’s not to say that your incumbent supplier is or should be considered an enemy – hopefully far from it – but whatever your view of their performance, you should in most cases resist the temptation to exclude or drop them from your re-tendering process too soon.

Whatever your view of them and how they have performed to date, the fact they are your incumbent supplier almost certainly means that they will have a better understanding of your requirements than anyone else. For sure their performance may not have always lived up to your original expectations, but can you honestly say you’ve been faultless in managing them? (For more information on some of the challenges of major contract management see my earlier article on contract lifecycle management). If you can learn from your own shortcomings in this respect this may provide invaluable input into your requirements going forward.

Let’s face it, even if you are intent on changing supplier you will need your incumbent’s support during the re-tendering process, both in terms of providing information about how the current service is delivered and for supporting an orderly transition of the service to any successor supplier. Whilst your existing contract may give you certain rights in this regard, a contract isn’t a substitute for goodwill.

7. Don’t have a clear evaluation process

How you are going to evaluate supplier proposals is a key consideration in any major contract procurement. A failure to develop a clear evaluation approach can risk you making the wrong sourcing decisions and in the worst case can leave your whole procurement process open to challenge from suppliers (as can be the case in public sector procurement).

For major contracts simply relying on the lowest price alone is unlikely to yield the right outcome. The goal is to achieve best value, this being the optimal combination of service quality, price and commercial terms. The starting point for getting this balance right will be when developing your sourcing strategy and the weighting you have placed on the relative importance of the objectives of reducing costs, improving quality, and driving top line growth. Clearly when procuring a contract that is key to supporting your organisations competitive advantage, the quality of the supplier’s proposed service/solution is likely to have a significantly greater weighting than price alone.

Getting agreement on your evaluation approach ahead of receiving supplier proposals reduces the risk of key stakeholders in your organisation retro-fitting the evaluation process to match their subjective assessment of suppliers and can demonstrate a clear line of sight between your key business objectives and your sourcing outcomes.

Sins into virtues

Traditionally the seven deadly sins had seven contrary virtues such as humility, kindness and abstinence – the practicing of which was said to protect one against temptation towards the sins. When it comes to major contract procurement, as already mentioned, the key to overcoming the sins is careful planning – know when your major contracts are up for renewal (or plan sufficiently ahead when tendering a new service) and develop a clear sourcing strategy to guide you through the process and keep your key stakeholders aligned.

There’s no getting away from the fact that major contract procurement is complex and challenging. It’s worth considering if and where you would benefit from independent professional advice and support through the process. Peru has a wealth of experience in supporting clients through complex procurement projects as our case studies highlight and we can help you to avoid many of the common pitfalls. Don’t leave it too late to start developing your strategy and plan…Carpe Diem!

“We like to give people the freedom to work where they want, safe in the knowledge that they have the drive and expertise to perform excellently, whether they are at their desk or in their kitchen. Yours truly has never worked out of an office, and never will” – Richard Branson.

Since the middle of March, the way many of us work has changed beyond all recognition. Government lockdowns worldwide have seen people flocking to home working – overcoming technical challenges such as the availability of laptops, secure remote connectivity, and broadband performance, with organisations accelerating home working projects originally planned out over years, into weeks.

However, true agile working is about more than just technology…it’s the intersection of IT, facilities and, crucially, HR and culture change. Whilst traditionally many organisations have zeroed in on the technology and facilities aspects, the HR and cultural dimension has often been overlooked or has developed organically rather than via a clear enabling HR strategy.

Culture Shift

Too many organisations do not have an HR culture which is supportive of agile working and this can be evidenced in the many comments seen on LinkedIn from those whose companies have only reluctantly allowed them to work from home during the pandemic, often only agreeing to do this when mandated by government.

I have acquaintances who have moved to home working, but have felt compelled by their company culture to retain the paradigm of the office – for example working a fixed nine till five schedule due to concerns that if someone tries to contact them in those hours and they are not available, that person will immediately assume they are using home working to “slack off”.

Sometimes technology constraints can limit the freedom of homeworkers – for example those with poor home broadband will find video-conferencing works best in the mornings before the rest of their street hops onto their contended broadband service – but more often than not constraints are driven by company culture.

Key factors that might be holding organisations back include:

• A culture of presenteeism rather than an outcomes focused approach to performance
• A lack of clear performance management policies and objectives
• A command and control culture and micro-management of work
• A fundamental lack of trust and respect for employees

Clearly, until organisations firstly recognise and then act to address the above cultural challenges, home working is unlikely to evolve into true agile working. This organisational change will be more challenging for some businesses than others, but as the saying goes “There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”

How we work as well as where we work

What this crisis has demonstrated is that remote working can be made to work, even if it has been easier for some than others. But home working is not the same as agile working – it’s just one facet. The principles of agile working apply back in the office (when we are able to go back) in terms of facilities (e.g. hot desking areas, team zones) and outside of both the office and home, for example working on client/customer sites and working whilst travelling.

The principles of agile working encompass both work locations (the where) and work styles (the how). Right now, business leaders are reviewing business processes deemed not critical to their organisations in the current circumstances and asking whether they are redundant in the longer term; this is a tactical shift in the “how” but there are also more adaptive and innovative shifts which could be considered in the medium and long term.

Adapt and Innovate

An example of how organisations may adapt the “how” as well as the “where” is the adoption of the agile approach used in project management. Agile methodology breaks down projects into small pieces that are completed in work sessions (often referred to as sprints) which typically run through a design, build and test lifecycle. But why should agile be confined to projects? Many standard business processes can lend themselves to the agile approach with a little imagination. By breaking the business process down into modular “chunks”, tasks can be distributed and fulfilled in a multi-sourced fashion, thus increasing business productivity.

Next, consider how adaptation can segue into innovation through the intersection of the how and the where…if this pandemic has proved that remote/virtual working can be effective, geographical boundaries become less relevant. So, in the future when recruiting for your Spanish account manager, you may wish to consider candidates in, for example the LATAM countries to find your ideal candidate. Sure, there are time zone challenges to overcome, but now business leaders need no longer be constrained to the same extent by specific proximity to either the workplace, or their customers.

Taking this a step further, how about the concept of zonal working? Zonal working is a build on the how and where of agile working which contends that, if tasks can be modularised and geography is not a major factor, then work can be production-lined 24×7 with like-skilled professionals collaborating on the completion of activities – whether these be developing a technical design, coding software, or testing a solution in sprints – with handover points across time zones…a kind of agile working “pass the parcel” that could dramatically reduce cycle times.

At Peru Consulting we have professionals with many years of experience in agile working from both a technology, facilities and people perspective and also skilled practitioners in the “how” of agile working as well as the “where”. Once organisations embrace the culture change that comes with agile working, and the opportunities it presents, the world could truly be their oyster.

In these times of disruption it is more important than ever that businesses carefully review the risks in their supply chain in a consistent and robust fashion. Find out about the top 5 supply chain risk pitfalls to avoid below.

Our highly-experienced consultants work hands-on as part of your team to deliver focused cost reviews that identify potential savings and to produce detailed cost optimisation plans to realise those savings, here’s how:

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Read the full two page document here.

In January 2020, over two years ago, a life changing virus began spreading across the world, and humanity found itself in the midst of a deadly global pandemic.

In March 2021 during the beginning of the National COVID-19 Vaccination Program rollout I took up a volunteering role, along with my husband Baljit, with The Nishkam Healthcare Trust (NHT) in support of this national effort.

During the first few weeks, the centre was open 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, and manned by over 40 volunteers per day. During its busiest periods over 800 patients a day walked through the doors. To date almost 40,000 vaccinations have been delivered to the public

and over 250 volunteers have been involved.  The volunteer contribution towards this great medical & civic effort throughout the pandemic has been truly remarkable. Volunteers from all backgrounds, including clinical and non-clinical, dedicated their time and energy to this worthwhile cause. Over 79 vaccinators have been involved, including 16 Doctors, 9 nurses, 4 dentists and 22 pharmacists. To meet the demand, 25 non-clinical volunteers were trained to become vaccinators.

In 2021, the Centre was recognised as the only fully volunteer-led vaccination centre in the UK, with Dr Emily Lawson, National Director of the Vaccine Deployment Program, stating ‘It is clear to see that you and all the team at the Nishkam Vaccination Site have truly gone  above and beyond for your local community and are making a real difference to many  people… Please thank all of your colleagues who are volunteering…. What you have setup and achieved is fantastic…’

The Vaccination Centre is situated in a part of Birmingham with the lowest uptake of COVID-19 vaccine, and yet has managed to attract patients from a wide spectrum of ethnicities but especially BAME backgrounds. These are the very same communities that have been worse affected by the global pandemic and described as ‘hard to reach’. By working collaboratively in good will, the volunteers have managed to make a small but significant impact to try and redress the health inequalities that have plagued the local communities.

I felt extremely honoured to be asked to get involved in such a program back in March last year where my duties started off with ‘meet & greet’ patients, stewarding, sanitising, and checking patients in at reception, i really got a feel for these pivotal roles that had such an impact on the professionally led centre.

Only a few months into my regular Sunday shift, I was asked to take on Shift Lead, with it came general responsibility for volunteers, patients, and overall smooth running of the shift at the centre.

Typically, the shift starts at 7.30am, I am met by a cheery security guard who unlocks the centre and gets to work immediately, locating the laptop for printing the patient lists by vaccine for the day, making sure all PC’s are up and running, all supplies are fully stocked ready for the clinicians in their stations, greeting the other volunteers and assigning them to their posts and but most importantly – armed with a pen and paper for the coffee run! At 8am the centre is ready to go with the first patient who is eagerly waiting to be let in.

I feel that the skills needed to volunteer – would be to stay upbeat, organised, be able to put people at ease and being able to adapt your style to suit different personalities and situations.

In many ways the skills are similar to those in my consulting job – organised, teamwork, good communication and empathy for the fact that you don’t ever know someone’s back story, how they’re feeling about having the vaccine or what might have happened in their family as a result of Covid. It could make quite a difference to how they approach coming in for a vaccine and might trigger all sorts of emotions. In my role I have come across nervous people, excited people, quiet people – all sorts, for me it’s been able to read people so that they can approach them accordingly and another thing which I felt that always helped was a smile. I feel totally humbled by the people I meet as they are so thankful.

Me and my team of volunteers are faced with anything from 200-450 appointments booked in for the day and that’s not including any walk-ins – so at times the team are able to catch up with each other… I call them my friends now, who are also now regulars on the shift, and there are times when there isn’t a moment to come up for air – but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Quite soon after I was put forward to train as a vaccinator, after completing online training and nervously practising on satsumas my trainer pulled me into one of the stations during a quiet period and told me to administer the next vaccine, my very first one on an actual patient, the feeling was very surreal and all the time was thinking and scared about the discomfort I was going to cause the patient – I have now administered a fair few vaccinations and all my patients leave smiling, I have photographic proof of this and common feedback received from patients is that they didn’t feel a thing.

I am extremely thankful to the NHT, never ever in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would be doing something like vaccinating!

All the volunteers have one focus, to do whatever it takes to get people in one door and out the other, friendly but efficiently and always supporting a positive patient journey – and most importantly they are saving lives.

Promoting faith-based values and ethos, the health centre has an aura of positivity about it.  When you read about 700,000 vaccinations delivered in one day, Places like this will have played their part.

The entire team continue to go above and beyond to ensure the vaccine is accessible to all, whilst providing a truly excellent service with the patient experience at the heart of the operation.

This, in return has given me a huge amount of purpose and enjoyment especially given the last couple of years through this pandemic, there is something about being part of the COVID-19 effort that gave me that extra boost of motivation!

At this historic time, we all have a part to play in helping the nation move back towards some kind of ‘normal’.

I am immensely proud to be working for Peru Consulting who has fully supported this from day one, in fact Peru have given me the time to take up an extra shift mid-week which I have humbly accepted.

(The Nishkam Healthcare Trust (NHT), based in Handsworth, Birmingham, aims to positively transform lives and empower people through faith-based values and ethos. The Trust provides a single-facility, multidisciplinary community healthcare centre, which focuses equally on patient experience (values-based care) and the delivery of high-quality care (clinical excellence).)

At Peru Consulting we are family! Three generations of Peru laptops folding proteins while we work, two generations of Peru mobiles crunching data while we sleep. All in aid of speeding up vital COVID-19 and cancer research trials.

Folding@Home and DreamLab are great examples of crowdsourcing the distributed computing power of thousands of people in the UK – and millions worldwide – to accelerate scientific research and development projects into a number of diseases including cancers and Covid-19.

Folding@Home is designed for desktops and laptops and is particularly effective used on gaming PCs, where the power of these device’s Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) can be utilised. Conversely, DreamLab is designed for iOS and android mobile devices, and is completely free to download and is fully secure.

Both platforms provide great examples of harnessing IT computing power for good causes and we at Peru fully endorse them!

https://lnkd.in/gPDttHb

https://foldingathome.org

Pandemic events have impacted the personal and working lives of every individual around the world as well as for everyone at Peru Consulting. We have and will continue to dedicate effort to supporting our treasured team members (self-named ‘Peruvians’).

As part of that commitment, in October 2021 we implemented Great Place to Work’s Trust Index Survey, to find out how our team are feeling and how they feel we can enhance our culture and keep it special.

The results of the survey show that ‘Peruvians’ still have confidence in our wonderful culture and that we are indeed a great place to work.

“We are absolutely thrilled and humbled to achieve such an accolade built on the feedback of our team members. Not only are we incredibly proud of the culture and community that we’ve built together, but of the commitment, dedication and input that every team member has put into making Peru Consulting a successful and positive workplace. This outcome is truly down to the collective efforts of our team members.

Taking part in the GPTW project enables us to cherish what we’re good at and plan how we get even better. At Peru Consulting, we don’t believe any of us are ever the ‘finished article’, and that is certainly true for our business, too. We will work hard to continually improve our culture and working environment, build on our strengths and address any areas needing improvement, confident that we will continue to inspire our treasured Peruvians and bring real satisfaction from our work. “

• Adam Knowles, Managing Director

BT’s decision to switch off PSTN services in December 2025, presents an opportunity to better understand the limitations of PSTN networks and through migration capitalise on the features of a Digital Network.

The key limitations associated to the outdated PSTN services are:

• The design was engineered primarily for voice services which it does really well, however, data services are possible but speed is limited and less efficient than digital networks
• PSTN lines require dedicated lines for making and receiving calls
• Bandwidth is limited on PSTN technology
• Scalability is limited requiring complex infrastructure
• Costs to implement, run and maintain PSTN lines is much higher than digital networks
• There are only a limited amount of features available as standard with PSTN networks without incurring added costs
• PSTN is not designed to support integrations into software systems such as CRM and Marketing tools

Fortunately, transitioning over to digital networks (Voice over IP) VOIP, helps you overcome these limitations and also adds many more benefits:

• VOIP is easier to upgrade, when new features are released and/or scale up as your business grows.  There are a range of tools available that can provide analysis and can track a range of statistics, essential when determining requirements to ever changing environments.
• Customers will receive a better experience when engaging with your business with an enhanced range of options and facilities associated with VOIP networks.
• Increased portability by allowing office, home and ‘on the road’ based staff to access your telephone system including integration with business mobiles.
• The overall costs of the services will be considerably lower than PSTN networks with extra features built in as standard within VOIP services, which would otherwise be separate charges in a PSTN environment.
• Future Proofing as any investment from transitioning from legacy PSTN networks will be safeguarded for the foreseeable future.

If you would like to know more about the BT Switch off and how we can support you with this challenge click here or contact us to speak with one our specialists.

“If you know what women want, you can rule!” – This quote from the hilarious, if somewhat politically incorrect (against men!) film “What Women Want” could so easily apply to the supplier – customer relationship.

Whilst there is a plethora of sound advice available regarding good financial management practices in these difficult times (such as from the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply: https://www.cips.org/supply-management/news/2020/march/coronavirus-three-procurement-mistakes-to-avoid/ help and support for suppliers and service providers looking to maintain their customer base and secure their sales pipeline is much thinner on the ground.

Now, more than ever, suppliers and service providers need to be finely attuned to the needs of their customers and develop the agility to change rapidly to address disruption in the marketplace whilst grappling with the profound issues in their own organisations wrought by the current circumstances.

Some of the questions that suppliers need to ask include:

• How do I ensure that my strategy and the strategies of our customers are not heading in opposite directions?
• Service excellence and delivering the services customers want, when they want them, is more important than ever…how do I ensure I’m doing things right and doing the right things?
• A modest increase in my bid/win ratio could have a significant upside on my revenue. How can I secure my pipeline in uncertain times?
• If we are too risk averse in times of disruption, we may end up exposed to more risk not less – how do we ensure we are risk aware not risk averse?
• Strong stakeholder management and communications and the right organisational design have never been more important – how do I know the right governance is in place to assure this?

and fundamentally:

• In these challenging times I need to retain the customers I already have and secure my pipeline of new business. How do I ensure that I truly understand what customers want and align my services to their needs?

Do we at Peru Consulting have all the answers – no, and it’s probably best to treat anyone who claims to have all the answers in these unprecedented times with a large dose of scepticism. What we do have however is many decades of combined experience working with some of the largest, most well-known organisations in the UK, Ireland and Europe.

What this experience gives us is a unique insight into what really matters to customers…and what doesn’t. We’ve advised blue chip clients through many major procurement exercises, helped customers to mend broken supplier relationships and identified improved ways of working that have helped customers optimise cash outflow, maximise operational efficiency and innovate to drive top-line revenue growth.

Our Peruvians, prior to joining us, have also worked in some of the largest supplier and service provider organisations in the world – for example helping suppliers to identify and root out inadvertent errors in their bid financial modelling which were making their proposals commercially unattractive to customers. Many Peruvians also have a client-side focus and can appreciate the pressures clients are facing in these times and how to relate to their priorities, goals and strategies.

At the end of the day we believe supporting suppliers and service providers to better align their services to meet customers’ needs is a virtuous circle – both suppliers and customers win. Let’s be honest, we are a supplier too and as such need to heed our own advice. Helping organisations thrive is what we do, its hard-wired into our culture…its common sense, business sense and no nonsense.

Leveraging our collective experience, we have started to shape some of our services we believe will best help suppliers to stay aligned to their customers’ needs. The infographic below represents our emerging thinking in this area:

Intelligent Automation, ‘hyper automation’, ‘cognitive process automation’, ‘robotics’, or just plain ‘automation’ can all describe the same thing…which at Peru isn’t a single thing. In many places ‘intelligent automation’ has become a way to describe a single technology, typically Robotic Process Automation, however at Peru we think of Intelligent Automation as an approach to problem solving rather than a single technology.

It’s an approach that can use many technologies, some of which may surprise you as they’ve been around for many years now – others are more contemporary, but ultimately the tools that might be utilised together to help you automate intelligently will be specific to your organisation’s objectives, challenges, and existing technology landscape.

However, to give an idea of the kinds of technology an Intelligent Automation strategy might involve, we’ve listed a few of the most common types we see below:

Process Optimisation

A tool that is common to all organisations, we always include optimisation in our approach rather than purely using technology for the sake of technology. Often, we use Process Optimisation to ensure that the target version of a process is leveraging technology to its maximum potential, rather than taking an existing process and reproducing like for like.

In-Platform

Many modern applications are starting to build automation tooling into the core products, so where a process is completed end-to-end in a single application the least risky approach is to look at that application’s capabilities before applying external tooling.

Low Code

Where processes stretch across multiple applications you may find ‘low code’ platforms meet your requirements. Platforms like Microsoft’s Power Automate empower users with pre-built connectors to make creating an interface between applications as easy as a single button click…however, whilst these are convenient, they also carry risks as power users may develop complex business critical processes with little thinking about support or maintenance.

Machine to Machine

Machine to Machine, or APIs, are prebuilt connectors that a system may have in the background that can make connecting and automating processes relatively straightforward with very little investment. These connectors are often very well documented and supported by software vendors making maintenance less of a headache.

Robotic Process Automation

Robotic Process Automation or RPA is the most frequently associated type of automation with this area. RPA is ‘trained’ to reproduce the exact way a person currently interacts with systems on a computer desktop, literally mimicking the same key presses and mouse clicks. This makes it attractive as a tool that can automate lots of different processes.

Cognitive

Cognitive includes other technology you may have heard of like AI, Machine Learning, Computer Vision etc. and is a term to describe automating parts of processes that require the kind of thinking and decision making that traditionally only a person can make. For example, most automation can handle rules-based thinking very easily but if you have a process that you need to identify a customer’s sentiment before deciding what to do next in a process, you might use a cognitive skill like natural language processing to reproduce the subtle clues that, before now, only a person could identify.

Human

In an end-to-end Intelligent Automation strategy, it’s important to remember that where technology can’t do something because it’s too complex is probably the perfect place to deploy people. Moving people from the repetitive transactional work that can be automated easily allows you to use people for complex problem interpretation and understanding.

Tom Knight is a Senior Consultant at Peru Consulting and has worked across the software development lifecycle, culminating in applying his experience to building a global Centre of Excellence for Automation, including RPA and machine learning.

Digital Transformation has led many organisations to review their business strategy and technology operating model, to drive enhanced customer experience, foster innovation and create new opportunities for monetisation, all whilst improving efficiency and driving down costs through the adoption of new technologies and ways of working.

More than 55% of CIOs identified Digital as their top business priority for 2022, building on the growing trend on investment in project- to- product ways of operating.

Major transformation and change programmes have seen more focus on better data & analytic outcomes, enabled by advanced technologies and delivered by adopting collaborative styles and agile ways of working in which cross functional business and technology working groups are established, and organisations integrate more closely with partners. The need to evolve – if not revolutionise – is required, but how is this achieved?

The Digital Operating Model

An operating model describes how people, process and technology are organised to achieve strategic objectives. A digital operating model places the customer at its core and drives cohesion across the C-Suite, IT and Operations to embed digital thinking up-front.

Digital operating models meet the needs and expectations of today’s customers  by progressing an enterprise wide approach that sees key processes, organisational structures, data models and technical infrastructure fundamentally realigned to support customer journeys.

This is the opposite to the approach we find within many organisations, where digital transformation is based on a doomed assumption that smooth co-operation can be achieved using traditional improvement methods that fail to systematically address complex functional and geographical siloes with fragmented accountabilities and inconsistent incentives.

Digital transformation is not just a technology challenge; it is a business-wide cultural one.

The challenges of implementing a new digital operating model

Instead of working on separate initiatives inside organisational units, companies must think holistically about how their operations can contribute to delivering a distinctive customer experience. The best way to do this is to focus on customer journeys and the activities that support them.  This typically presents a paradigm shift for most organisations, challenging existing norms and cultural values.

Supporting individuals throughout the digital transformation demands proactive approaches to communications and engagement so they can feel included, and able to contribute to the change.  Transparency and openness on key aspects of business strategy, in language understood by everyone, allows individuals to recognise their contribution to success.

Where to start

We often find that companies fall into the trap of simply trying to improve existing processes and reorganising pockets of the business. Instead, they should focus on entirely reimagining the customer experience and identify opportunities to unlock value.

Operating models are multi-faceted arrangements and need to be viewed from a number of angles that incorporate a series of inter-related attributes; processes, clearly essential, have a proportionately small contribution to the successful sum of the parts.

Engaging early across all key stakeholders to understand current operating practices and mapping to future aspirations clarifies critical concerns within the operating environment, potentially highlighting:

• Financial management and risk that facilitate necessary motivation and empowerment
• Commercial partnerships that allow focus on core business values
• Skills and capabilities that support the new digital environments
• Collaboration and ways of work that improve effectiveness and reduce waste

Building an integrated operating model is a complex and typically lengthy undertaking requiring committed investment of time and money in order to sustain a change journey that delivers in accordance with business strategy.

In the next article we will focus on suppliers, looking at when it’s appropriate to outsource and when it could be detrimental to your digital transformation.

IR35 stands for ‘Inland Revenue Press Release no. 35’, which was issued in 1999 – this is not new! It relates to ‘Countering [tax] Avoidance in the Provision of Personal Services’ and aims to ‘level-up’ the amount of tax and NI paid by ‘off payroll employees’ – contractors – to be equivalent to on-payroll employees. It has been implemented in the Public Sector since 6 April 2017 and in the Private sector from 6 April 2021

It looks to determine which workers are ‘disguised employees’ i.e. they may not be on payroll, but they perform duties and potentially enjoy benefits that you would normally associate with being an employee. These workers are then deemed to be ‘inside of IR35’ and Income Tax and (Employers) National Insurance become payable in the same way is if they were on-payroll.

It only relates to taxation, not employment rights. This is one of the most controversial aspects of the legislation because some fear it opens the way for unscrupulous employers to push roles into an ‘off-payroll, inside IR35’ status and thus excuse them from the need to provide all of the benefits and protections employed staff enjoy, such as pension contributions, paid sick leave / holiday etc. etc. whilst allowing them to direct how the work is undertaken.

The key mechanism used in determining whether a role / worker is inside or outside of IR35 is whether the service they provide is a ‘Personal Service’ (inside of IR35) or a ‘Contracted-out Service’ (outside of IR35), determined through completing a Status Determination Statement (SDS)

How is IR35 applied?

There are many different scenarios possible. Here are just a few which relate to small consultancies and their clients:

Small Client Exclusion

The legislation provides for a Small Client Exclusion. The important word here is Client… it does not apply to the person / company providing the service, nor does it apply to an intermediary i.e. an Agency. It only applies where either

• The end client meets the criteria, or
• The SDS has determined that this is a contracted-out service, and hence the company providing the service i.e. a small consultancy could apply the exclusion as it has become the client of the worker

This exclusion may become to be seen as a loophole by HMRC and hence its quite possible, even probably, that the loophole will be closed if the market responds to exploit it i.e. lots of small consultancies rapidly become bigger consultancies! The exclusion applies if any 2 of the 3 tests applies:

• Test 1 company turnover <= £10.2m p.a
• Test 2 company balance sheet <= £5m
• Test 3 company has <=50 employees

Determining Status

The determination as to whether a job is inside or outside IR35 is made through a Status Determination Statement (SDS). We’ve seen how the responsibility for completing the SDS moves depending on the scenario. Those organisations that have issued blanket ‘no contractor’ decrees are largely doing this because they don’t want the overhead of (correctly) completing the SDS, as well as the potential for PAYE and NICs. It’s imperative to complete the SDS in an accurate and honest manner.

Any HMRC investigation will look at actual working practices and if these differ from the SDS, there is a possibility that whoever has completed it will not just be liable for PAYE / NICs but could potentially be prosecuted for Facilitation of Tax Avoidance under the Criminal Finances Act. The SDS should be completed and agreed between all parties, and all parties should keep a record of it. There is only a requirement for an SDS if a ‘non-employed’ party is delivering the work.

The HMRC CEST tool can be used to determine status.

Status is determined by a combination of factors. The three primary ones being:

• Personal Service – can the service only be provided by a specific individual? Were they interviewed and selected by the client? Can the client refuse a substitute? Is the worker a ‘Role Holder’?

• Mutuality of Obligation – does the individual expect to receive future work from the client, and does the client expect the individual to be available?

• Control – What, Where When How…Can the client control how the work is undertaken? Can the client stipulate location and working hours?

Less important but still contributory factors include:

• Financial Risk – does the worker get paid if the work is not of adequate quality?

• Provision of Equipment – does the client provide the tools required?

• Basis of Payment – is the worker paid a standing amount or for work done?

• Length of Contract – longer contracts can indicate MOO

• Right of Termination – Is there a lengthy (over 30 day) termination period?

• Integration & Benefits – does the worker enjoy employee benefits or hold managerial responsibilities?

• Non-exclusivity – Is the worker free to work for other clients?

• Intention of the Parties – does the contract clearly set out the intent that there should be no employment relationship?

IR35 Myths

All the following statement about IR35 are false – could you spot them?

• ‘All independent contractors will be caught by IR35’: False – even HMRC estimate that only 1/3 of ‘off-payroll’ workers will be deemed to be inside IR35. However, evidence from the Public Sector suggests the that the figure is as low as 15%
• ‘My contract / Statement of Work says clearly that I’m outside IR35 so I’m safe. My Accountant says I’ll be fine’. False – it’s really important get use the contract to frame how work will actually be undertaken, and aligned with the SDS. However, working practices will overrule what the contract says. So if the contract allows substitution but the end client doesn’t accept it, it’s a Personal Service. Is the Accountant an IR35 expert?
• ‘I’m using an offshore Umbrella company so I escape having to pay UK tax’. False – good luck with that one! There are a number of Umbrellas that have set-up using all sorts of sharp practice to try and get around the legislation. Bottom line is that if net earnings after NI (but not tax) are more than 85%, its probably illegal
• ‘If I’m deemed to be inside IR35, I’ll be entitled to sick pay, holiday pay etc etc.’ False – this legislation is about raising more tax and NI – it’s nothing to do with employment rights. In the Public Sector, there have been legal challenges to this and there have been some cases settled out of court for small sums but no ruling has set any precedent regarding employment rights

What clients are doing to approach the challenge

We have seen clients taking one of 4 approaches to the issue:

• Avoid – this is what the large banks are doing. By taking a ‘no contractors’ stance they hope to avoid having to do any assessment and avoid any tax risk / cost. The clear danger is that they lose valuable talent and can’t get transformational change implemented
• Embrace – many clients will recognise what needs to be done i.e. put time and effort into the assessments and as a result keep much of their contract resource on todays terms. There may be additional cost for some critical resources
• Fudge – some clients will apply blanket or role-based assessments as a short-cut. This will come back and bite them as HMRTC look at individual circumstances
• Ignore – I fear many clients may be in this space, especially overseas clients. Whether through ignorance or a belief that this is somehow somebody else’s problem, they won’t take any action

Where they are the end client, they have obligations that they cannot avoid, specifically completing the SDS. We have written about this on our insights page outlining how the perceived pain of this legislation can be mitigated by some simple approaches.

To understand more about IR35 and talk through implications and how we can help please book a meeting with us today.

It’s quite common to associate Automation with cost saving programmes and whilst there are certainly opportunities to disrupt your traditional workforce with a digital one there are also plenty of opportunities to use automation in other ways. You may be able to increase organisational agility, efficiency and regulatory compliance and reduce reliance on third parties before looking at internal savings.

Digital Worker

Instead of looking at how Automation can help save money through displacing work done by people, this is about looking at what about your current team does and how Automation could add value to that team.

Some tasks start to become so large that you either outsource them or stop doing them and replace them with things like spot checking, or perhaps not adapting your processes at all and accepting risk.

For example, a client that wanted to automate the background checks performed on suppliers as part of the onboarding process, this would remove about half a week’s work from a team member and was only being done by a person because the various background systems were unable to be integrated with the Procurement system of record.

During the discovery phase of the project, it became clear that the supplier list exceeded 15,000 vendors, many of which had been onboarded over five years ago. The organisation had been unconsciously accepting a risk that those original background checks remained accurate for the tenure of doing business with those vendors.

This resulted in the automation being amended to not only help onboard new suppliers, but also to refresh the background checks of vendors as soon as they were greater than a year old and any significant changes were then reported to the team member previously performing the checks. The automation was able to run 24×7 until the backlog was cleared while the team member investigated and applied experienced oversight to those suppliers whose risk profile had changed over the years.

Tactical System Integration

Whether you are launching a new digital journey or assimilating a recently acquired company into your larger organisational systems landscape, integrating into legacy or complex systems is likely to be timely and/or expensive. A strategic integration needs to be robust, maintainable, and planned correctly to ensure the best performance….however, this can be prohibitive to agility.

Through using automation tactically, you can implement integrations between systems relatively quickly and cheaply. At some clients we have seen business objectives almost completely decoupled from technology delivery using automation, where the business can launch new products to their schedule rather than the ERP’s next release.

Knowledge Worker Augmentation

When looking for the first place to start automating, an organisation may disregard processes that have complex decision making involved that rely heavily upon experience. Though this can be a mistake, often the same person that makes the complex decision will fulfil the repetitive part of the task without adding any further value.

In a financial services client, Peru solved this issue by breaking the process in two, the first part which required interpretation of a trading document and the second part matching the output of that document in three systems before processing a payment. By re-engineering the process in this manner, it still allowed the application of expertise to extract the correct information which they handed to the automation to process the matching. Not only did this allow the knowledge worker more time on other tasks, but it also improved the end-to-end time of analysing all the trading documents.

 Outsourced Tasks

There are lots of ways to assess how your outsourced processes can be automated. A key way is if you are paying for more than one whole person in another organisation to complete a process it’s likely that process is a candidate for automation. Ultimately though, if you had to write a process into work instructions, those work instructions could probably very easily be turned into an automation.

Peru has a range of automation advisory services aimed at helping businesses uplift automation maturity with a focus on identifying the right opportunities for your organisation.

BT has announced plans to switch off all Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) services, that has been the bedrock of business communications for many years, by 31^st December 2025.  Although the final switch off is in 2025, BT has already started to phase out PSTN networks preventing businesses from ordering new circuits at some exchanges. The switch-off includes Integrated Service Digital Networks (ISDN) which allows access to the internet and phone calls (Data and voice) over the same line with the added ability to have multiple channels over one line.

Many Businesses and homes rely on this outdated technology and BT’s decision to cease supplying these analogue services will result in several challenges including:

• A considerable number of devices rely on this technology which include such things as telephone systems, security systems, CCTV, lift phones & alarms, traffic lights, ATM’s, door entry systems, hospital equipment and fax machines
• In larger organisations, there may not be an up-to-date register of all devices and connections operating on the analogue network with a distinct possibility that areas may be overlooked
• There are certain areas within the UK which rely on ISDN to supply their internet connection due to availability issues with other broadband internet services
• Broadband services such as ADSL (Part of Wholesale Line Rental WLR) also rely on PSTN and will also require an alternative solution
• Certain hardware currently in use, will no longer be compatible and require replacement or conversion to work with digital services
• Current contracts will need to be reviewed with consideration o technology upgrades to support the new technology
• Potential disruption of service from migrating over to support the new digital environment
• Transitioning over to a digital network from an analogue network may expose vulnerabilities to power cuts is some cases
• New devices with more sophisticated features will begin to roll out to support the transition to digital, which will require staff training to familiarise them with the new features they offer

By taking action now your organisations can undertake this in a planned orderly fashion avoiding stress on resources close to December 2025.  We can support you with this challenge.

Click here to find out more  or contact us to speak with one our specialists.

With the night’s drawing in, and the uncertainty of the ongoing impact of COVID this winter, Principal Consultants Tom Knight and Simon Downes, avid runners, found themselves struggling to get motivated to exercise.  Between them they agreed that some accountability was needed and that for 1 month they would actively encourage each other to get as much movement in prior to the Christmas holidays.

With their kick-off coinciding with Mens’ Health Month they opened the challenge to the whole company to enable others to benefit from the community support.  The challenge was based on an honesty system with each participant posting their daily exercise efforts (type of exercise, duration, distance) on a Microsoft Form.  Tom created a PowerBI dashboard which represented the latest status in several ways including journeys from Leeds to Lapland completed, the number of viewings of Elf that could be completed in the time spent exercising and most importantly the number of Christmas dinners that the team had earned!

Twenty Peruvians took part in the month long challenge each with their own personal targets ranging from being in ‘Club 30’, exercising every day but 1, competing on mileage or having completed the most diverse range of activities across the month.    Walking was the most common form of exercise, but the team kept it interesting with a bit of Disco Dancing and Cosmic Mermaid Yoga!

The challenge was a resounding success, providing the motivation for the team to proactively get moving and feel the benefits in their physical and mental health. It was agreed that canoeing should be saved for the summer months however!

Thanks for organising Tom and Simon!

In the week of World Earth Day 2021, we begin our journey with independent environmental consultancy Carbon Footprint Ltd to support us in doing our part in the fight against climate change, and becoming a greener and more efficient business.

Despite the respite given to Mother Nature during the COVID-19 crisis, when the air became cleaner, and undisturbed vistas not seen in years were once again visible, there are concerns a more polluted future could lie ahead as a result of COVID-19.

With lockdowns easing, the benefits have already begun to dissipate.  Factories have been pushed to make up for lost time, resulting in pollution in China returning to pre-crisis levels.  In a bid to avoid public transport, where social distancing is hard to maintain, some countries have seen an increase in car usage over pre-Covid levels.  Also, with the still-unfolding health and economic crises, leaders’ attentions have been pulled away from the slower-moving disaster of climate change.

It is imperative that now, more than ever, we take responsibility and make change to protect our planet.  Every one of us needs a healthy planet to support our jobs, livelihoods, health, survival, and happiness. A healthy planet is not an option — it is a necessity.

Change starts with action.

We are carrying out a Carbon Footprint Assessment of our organisation to provide a thorough understanding of our organisation’s current green-house gas emissions, and a set of recommendations to reduce and offset our carbon footprint.  With our ultimate goal to become a certified carbon neutral organisation, carbon offsetting will involve funding solutions that have an immediate impact on reducing carbon emissions, helping to combat global climate change, as well as caring for local communities. In many instances providing much needed employment, health improvements, biodiversity, reforestation and broad social benefits to impoverished communities.

Keep an eye out for updates on our journey.