Client

LineOne (now merged with Tiscali, the European ISP), has more than a million UK Internet subscribers, and provides a wide range of branded content, as well as basic Internet access services. Lineone had recently established a new senior management team charged with taking the company through the next stage of growth, exploiting its unique strengths to gain more revenue from content and transaction-based services, and to achieve break-even.

The fast moving and ferociously competitive ISP market-place requires considerable corporate agility, and the ability to maintain an unremitting focus on activities critical to achieving profitable growth. The new management team had developed a number of business plans to drive LineOne into the future.

LineOne wished to ensure that its IT plans fully supported the business objectives, that they were aligned to the overall corporate strategy, and that they were prioritised based on business needs. Accordingly, the Lineone Chief Technology Officer asked Charteris to undertake a short study to review these plans to ensure they supported and were aligned with the business needs.

Charteris Role

The Charteris consultant reviewed the IT plans and interviewed staff in each key business area, covering topics such as company organisation, budgets, marketing, IT support, and network performance. Charteris also ran some investigative workshops with the main board directors to review the costs and benefits of each planned new IT initiative, and to establish its relative contribution to the overall business objectives.

Solution

Charteris delivered a Management Action Report that identified the key IT challenges, issues and opportunities facing LineOne. The report answered four key questions:

• Are LineOne doing the right things?
• Are LineOne doing them the right way?
• What are the risks that these initiatives will not succeed?
• Will LineOne gain the benefits planned?

The report assessed how well the IT plans supported the business objectives.

The Management Action Report also recommended that the alignment between the IT plans and the business should be improved. This was agreed by the board and was adopted as the basis for planning LineOne's management and IT initiatives for the next year.

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