IT TEAM SHOWS HOW ‘APPLICATION COUNTS’ IN THE DRIVE TO REDUCE COSTS

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Teams across the business are embracing Charge by identifying IDEAS that can be turned into ACTIONS to quickly generate CASH for our business.

An in-depth review instigated by project Charge has already cut monthly fees by £12,000 by decommissioning IT applications that were no longer required - and the team has also identified an additional £19,000 of monthly savings in the pipeline.

No stone is being left unturned, with over 800 IT applications under review to validate if they’re still essential business tools. So far, 140 have been identified as offering the potential to significantly reduce the overall IT services invoice.

Liam Hogan, Head of IT Strategy, comments: “The cost-savings challenge initiated by project Charge was the catalyst for a line-by-line review of how the company’s IT applications are serviced and supported. The Charge mindset of challenging every penny we spend has brought about a very accurate picture of our global IT applications landscape. Thanks to the team’s hard work we’re reducing avoidable IT support fees as we speak and, crucially, we’ll be able to check every application in the future, making quick and accurate decisions about whether they’re useful and if we should pay to support them.”

And the financial benefit will be felt way beyond the initial headline savings because, when we remove an IT application, all the technology needed to underpin it is also taken offline, for example, supporting servers which also cost the business money. These are valuable, extra wins.

IT Portfolio Manager Pete Linforth, who has been with Jaguar Land Rover for 38 years, has been at the sharp end of investigating the project, making sure that the changes are always carried out with the end user customer in mind, commenting:

“The team has taken a very analytical approach by studying usage levels, consulting with colleagues and ensuring nothing is actioned until everyone is sure that business will continue as normal. Through collaboration we’ve been able to remove costs for legacy applications that are not being used or are obsolete because another, better IT application is doing the work.”

Although it’s been a major undertaking for the team – with so many complex IT systems to review – Pete is confident that there’s more to come:

“I personally see Charge as the opportunity to save money across the entire business and it’s inspired a really great can-do attitude; in fact, someone in our team has just come forward with another very good proposal that could save us a further £10,000 every month.”

Having already risen to the challenge, the team is well placed to maximise the next Charge opportunity and continue contributing to Jaguar Land Rover's future success.

Teams from across the business are rising to the Charge Challenge, finding hundreds of creative ways to save cost, generate efficiencies and improve the way we work. In September 2019 we reached the end of the third phase of Project Charge, reaching our £2.5 billion savings target nine months ahead of our original goal.

Now, as we embark on Charge + we need to dig even deeper.