Barbora Remisova

BORA REMIS CONSULTING – BUSINESS CASE STUDIES / PORTFOLIO OF FINISHED WORK 1. GLOBAL PROJECT RECRUITMENT - CALLING IN THE TROOPS CLIENT Tate & Lyle Plc. is a manufacturer and global supplier of food and beverage ingredients. They were globally implementing SAP, accounting, and ERP software. It was a significant business transformation programme across EMEA and the US. EMEA was stage one, and North America was stage two, implementing the same software at different times and by different teams. PROBLEM The client hired an expert transformation executive leader and needed to build a strong team around him. The hiring refers to the two initial stages of the implementation: EMEA and North America. Having been with the programme for 18 months as a PMO person, I had already supported the previous management. Knowing the background stories and being aware of risks, challenges, and issues, I joined the new leadership team and took ownership of the recruitment process. SOLUTION I contacted hiring managers and subject matter experts and obtained job descriptions with specific requirements. I worked closely with the client’s procurement department to shortlist preferred suppliers, review, and renew existing contracts, and make new contracts with selected recruitment agencies. Once the budget got approved, I managed the whole process from going to the market to making a final offer to the best candidate. I documented everything in the project repository using SharePoint. I applied the same approach when recruiting for North America. RESULT I successfully onboarded 40+ specialised contractors and consultants in the UK and the US. It enabled the client to resolve issues in the EMEA region and implement the SAP tool in the US within the desired time frame and budget. Project teams could deliver work more effectively, and business teams were able to get back to their daily focus. More importantly, for the client’s headquarters, implementing the SAP platform meant improved reporting, which led to smooth decision-making on a global scale with one reporting tool across all the client’s international branches. 1 BORA REMIS CONSULTING – BUSINESS CASE STUDIES / PORTFOLIO OF FINISHED WORK 2. OUTSOURCING IT SERVICE TO INDIA, MIGRATING APPLICATIONS INTO CLOUD SOLUTION - KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER BETWEEN GLOBAL TEAMS CLIENT Legal and General Investment Management is a UK company based in the City of London that wanted to outsource its IT Infrastructure to India. PROBLEM The IT business transformation programme had two stages: 1. Transition of knowledge, skill, and service from the UK team to the Indian team 2. Migration of applications, tools, and data centres to the cloud solution. The transition started, however, without a knowledge transfer between the UK and India teams. It caused significant delays and pushed the transition milestone out of reach. SOLUTION As a PMO member, I liaised with the PMO in India and worked out a plan and a schedule, and together, we organised the knowledge transfer for all 20 IT tracks. We collaborated face-to-face in London meeting rooms and via conference calls over an intense six-week period. I monitored the progress, supported the SMEs, and gave the project management team regular status updates. RESULT Knowledge transfer between the UK and India teams was accomplished and enabled the transition part of the project to move on to the next phase. Eventually, we reasonably reached the milestone, which was crucial for migration as it needed to start. The benefits of outsourcing IT to India were predominantly financial and cost-saving. An external service provider in Asia who manages your IT infrastructure based on SLA is cheaper than local inhouse experts or the EU market. The project created flexible staffing, provided secure business continuity and risk management, and facilitated internal staff development. 2 BORA REMIS CONSULTING – BUSINESS CASE STUDIES / PORTFOLIO OF FINISHED WORK 3. IT ENVIRONMENT ACCESS MANAGEMENT FOR SERVICE TRANSITION CLIENT Legal and General Investment Management is based in the City of London. They wanted to outsource IT Infrastructure to India. This major transformation programme had two stages: 1. The transition of knowledge, skill, and service from the UK team to the Indian team. 2. Migration of applications, tools, and data centres to the cloud solution. PROBLEM The transition started, however, without a knowledge transfer between the UK and India SMEs (subject matter experts). We were experiencing stagnation and pushing the transition milestone out of reach. The problem was the need for a dedicated service desk to support the project daily —the requirements still needed to be met. SOLUTION By taking ownership of this issue and receiving a crash course in the ServiceNow software, I managed all the tickets relating to our project. Tasks included: o Creating new IT tickets o Obtaining approvals o Chasing operators o Ensuring testing o Managing access to the environment o Communication between the global teams RESULT We successfully managed the access of one hundred and fifty new users from Indian teams onto the environment. We managed all in alignment with the client's policy and compliance. The Knowledge transfer was completed with minor delays, and the transition project could move to the next step giving the green light to the Migration stage. 3 BORA REMIS CONSULTING – BUSINESS CASE STUDIES / PORTFOLIO OF FINISHED WORK 4. ELECTRONIC INVOICING – BUSINESS ADMIN CHANGE CLIENT Legal and General Investment Management is a London, UK-based company with some out-of-date processes under review. Like many other big corporations, LGIM needed to gain flexibility and embrace the change sooner rather than later. PROBLEM The IT Business Management department had a rather dinosaur process where a team member would print invoices, along with a cover sheet providing instructions, and send them by regular mail to the accounts payable team in Cardiff. It could have been a faster, more efficient, sustainable workflow in 2015. I have also observed a need for more communication between the IT management in London and the back office in Cardiff. The change was necessary. SOLUTION As a believer in the force of change, I started reviewing and documenting the dinosaur process and actively working with both parties on the improvements. We co-created a new electronic process by asking crucial questions, identifying gaps, looking at options, and proposing new ways. Following management SOP approval, we initiated training and testing with a probation period of one month, where we could still tweak things until the process met everyone’s needs and ran smoothly. RESULT The quick wins of such change were increased efficiency, going green, greater productivity due to less paperwork, cost-saving, and enhanced team communication. Increased team productivity by approximately 22% and reduced department paper use cost by approximately 4%. 4 BORA REMIS CONSULTING – BUSINESS CASE STUDIES / PORTFOLIO OF FINISHED WORK 5. GLOBAL WORKSHOPS - ISSUE RESOLUTION AND PROJECT ACCELERATION CLIENT Tate & Lyle Plc. is a manufacturer and global supplier of food and beverage ingredients to industrial markets. The project was the global implementation of ERP software (SAP) across all Tate & Lyle locations. SAP meant a significant business transformation taking place across EMEA and the US. While the European branches were in stage one of the project, North America was planned for the second phase and executed by a different team. PROBLEM After the first SAP release in EMEA, some branches faced significant issues (i.e. not printing out documents) and needed simultaneous resolution in all affected areas. SOLUTION Programme Leadership and PMO chose to organise a large-scale workshop for issue resolution and project acceleration. We hired an office space near Heathrow Airport in London and created a massive hub. Our EMEA colleagues flew in and took part in daily sessions and forums. It was an intense oneweek event with up to 100 European participants. RESULT We all contributed to an accelerated SAP implementation with minor extra costs suffered. The software was fully released in 6 countries, and the EMEA business was able to get back to daily tasks using the new platform. Company reporting improved, and HQ could make decisions faster, thanks to one reporting tool across all branches. 5 BORA REMIS CONSULTING – BUSINESS CASE STUDIES / PORTFOLIO OF FINISHED WORK 6. NETWORK OF GURUS - SOFTWARE SUPER USERS CLIENT Tate & Lyle Plc. is a manufacturer and global supplier of food and beverage ingredients. Implementing an ERP software called SAP globally across all their locations. PROBLEM The client was globally implementing SAP, accounting and ERP software, and after the initial release, the client needed internal coaching and software gurus in the EMEA region. SOLUTION The PMO and OCM teams launched the SAP Super User Network in EMEA. This involved sessions for people to get to know each other, additional SAP training, a monthly newsletter, a holiday tracker and scheduled weekly forums for skills and knowledge sharing between super users. From here, each Superuser could bring all this back to their teams and disseminate it through their branches. RESULT The SAP Super User Network conducted international team building and business engagement. It improved across-the-board communication, skill and knowledge sharing and increased internal flexibility in transformation. 6 BORA REMIS CONSULTING – BUSINESS CASE STUDIES / PORTFOLIO OF FINISHED WORK 7. STREAMLINING EXPENSES PROCESS CLIENT Tate & Lyle Plc. is a manufacturer and global supplier of food and beverage ingredients to industrial markets. Implementing an ERP software called SAP globally across all their locations. PROBLEM Tate & Lyle's leadership and project managers needed help to submit their expenses. With no budget for a PA and project expenses running high due to regular travel to EMEA locations, there was a strong need for efficiency and saving time and money. SOLUTION Being familiar with the process, I proposed outsourcing a clerk in Poland at the company’s shared services centre (the back office) —a part-time admin position dedicated to the SAP project team but paid for from the shared services budget. HR carried out the recruitment process. I created a step-bystep process and delivered the training on submitting project expenses. Once the clerk got up to speed, I supervised the process until everything ran smoothly. RESULT This new process created a template for other departments, freeing up space for all the PAs in the company. The staff could spend time on complex and challenging tasks rather than simple admin processes that could be completed offshore at a lower cost. This solution created a job opportunity in central Europe. 7 BORA REMIS CONSULTING – BUSINESS CASE STUDIES / PORTFOLIO OF FINISHED WORK 8. STRATEGIC PLANNING - GATHER, VERIFY AND STRUCTURE MASTER DATA CLIENT Deutsche Bank AG is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany. The bank is operational in 58 countries and has a significant presence in Europe, the Americas, and Asia. PROBLEM Deutsche Bank's corporate real estate department in London recorded data in multiple Excel spreadsheets; no centralised system existed. Property managers struggled daily with a need for more data and always had to search and cross-check. Deutsche Bank's corporate real estate department had an online database tool, but no one ever did the job of data entry and management. I saw the need for master data centralisation and accessibility to all property managers. SOLUTION I took ownership of the sloppy situation, requested system training, identified gaps and looked into solutions. It took complete data management - collection, verification, entry and updates. I shared my knowledge and skills with the strategic real estate team and the lease administrators for some of the most prestigious properties in the City of London. RESULT The strategic corporate real estate department had the first online database with centralised master data about the bank's buildings portfolio. The online resource provided easy access to quality data for everyone in the team and leadership. Reporting features enabled smooth decision-making and improved client service for all 30+ buildings in the portfolio. 8 BORA REMIS CONSULTING – BUSINESS CASE STUDIES / PORTFOLIO OF FINISHED WORK 9. CRM FOR RECRUITMENT AGENCY - INTEGRATED AND COMPLIANT CLIENT Capable Core Talent is a recruitment company based in Oxford, UK. CCT specialises in business transformation, change and project management, executive headhunting and profiling, recruitment processes review, recommendation, and engineering. PROBLEM The agency needed an entirely new CRM software. Growing the business and hiring new staff meant keeping track of all conversations for audit and training purposes. With GDPR rules in place, having a CRM had become a compliance topic, and the client was keen to understand current offers on the market, the integration into the LinkedIn platform and pricing. SOLUTION I conducted market research for a suitable CRM and liaised with sales reps on my client’s behalf. Based on the criteria - GDPR compliance, integration with LinkedIn and configuration within the budget - I reported on all options and helped the agency owner with the decision-making. RESULT MS Dynamics 365 was the preferred route for ease of integration, but Salesforce also had this facility, and although it is not an MS-based tool, it smoothly integrates with MS Office and LinkedIn. Implementing a CRM has given CCT the platform to grow. New hires have a clear way of working and system governance to guide them. 9