Cloud Control
After many years of acquisitions, satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat faced challenges integrating various IT platforms and order management systems. The solution? A cloud-first platform enabling it to rapidly develop products — to be completed within two years.
Setting the scene
Inmarsat’s latest generation of satellites promised new and innovative products for its Global Xpress portfolio — but there were a number of issues blocking its operational efficiency and business growth.
A lack of consistency in the creation and assembly of products being developed by multiple teams around the world had led to a costly, drawn-out and inconsistent development and launch of new offerings.
To drive innovation and market success, Inmarsat needed to find a faster, more flexible and consistent way to get its products to market.
How we helped
At the heart of Inmarsat’s transformation challenge was the need for an IT platform powered by a more flexible, cloud-based IT technology. But, it also needed a programme that quickly enabled new ways of working to reach its business goals.
To achieve this, Inmarsat selected PwC as its overall transformation partner, charged with services spanning industry and technology strategy, transformation management, programme delivery, business change, customer experience, and design and delivery.
We drove the transformation plan, working closely with Inmarsat’s management team to identify and manage risks, and tackle challenges throughout the project.
We held more than 20 show-and-tell sessions to ensure stakeholders understood issues, and helped obtain continual stakeholder input and validation as requirements evolved.
One of the most exciting show-and-tells was with Inmarsat's CEO, who saw how our response allowed new products to be ‘assembled’ like toy bricks within minutes - a vast difference from the weeks that the traditional approach could take.
“IT is no longer a barrier, it’s an enabler. It makes it much easier for us as a business to operate, it’s easier for staff to work with, easier for us to support. And it’s much simpler for our customers to interact with.”
Making a difference
The team applied PwC’s BXT (Business, Experience, and Technology) human-led, tech-powered approach to create a fix that included the blueprint for a Digital Factory capable of both delivering transformation and running the new solution beyond the programme timescales.
Over 450 people across multidisciplinary teams in 10 countries worked in person and virtually to implement 12 new software components. These included, among others, a new customer experience portal, a Salesforce-based customer management capability, and a new order management platform.
Importantly, all components run on the same set of DevOps processes and tools, creating a consistent, flexible and transparent architecture that means commercial offers can be configured in minutes rather than weeks.
Inmarsat has been able to future-proof its technology foundation, respond to market forces and consumer trends, while generating multi-million-pound savings in operating expenses.
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