- Project assurance consultancy, Pelicam, opens new UK Information Office for press & analysts to provide commentary about achieving IT programme success
April 28, 2010 – It wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration to say that reports are published practically daily highlighting the whopping amount spent on IT projects in both the public and private sectors which over run, fail to deliver or are cancelled altogether.
UK taxpayers are reportedly footing a £26.3 billion bill for various computer systems introduced by the government which aren’t fit for purpose (1), with the total cost of IT failure worldwide estimated to be $6.18 trillion. (2) Research published by analysts, The Standish Group, on project success rates in USA industry shows that only 32% are delivered on time, to budget with the right features and functions (3).
Pelicam, the UK’s only specialist independent project assurance consultancy, announces the opening of a new Information Office for press and analysts interested in the whole area of business change enabled by technology who require commentary from experts who can talk through why there is such disconnect on projects and the steps that need to be taken to reverse the situation so that success is the norm not failure.
- Pelicam provides a range of project assurance services which include project health checks, troubleshooting, rescue and remedies, managed project delivery, capability assessment and improvement, along with specialist training/coaching for project managers. In a nutshell, Pelicam is typically engaged to fix projects which have gone off track or fix the people working on them through training or competency improvement.
- Working at a strategic level in tandem with internal (project) staff, Pelicam focuses on the critical actions that companies need to do to ensure success which comes from its team providing expert analysis and direction and Pelicam using its proprietary Project Intelligence methodology on all client engagements to assess the integrity of projects.
- Project Intelligence involves analysing projects holistically from reviewing accredited techniques and methods, a project team’s skills and relationships, supplier capability, the organisation’s culture and operational style. Through this rigorous independent assessment, Pelicam identifies which project elements are geared to success and those which can lead to potential failure so that remedial action can be taken.
- Established in 1998 and privately owned by its founder, Peter Mayer, Pelicam is a collaborative and plain speaking partner who has built up an impressive reputation working on multi-million pound projects in a wide range of sectors including finance, telecoms, retail, leisure, defence and utilities. Key customers include AXA, Barclaycard, Centrica, Eircom, Meteor, Vodafone, Nationwide and Parcelforce Worldwide.
- Examples of assignments include: programme assured a £250 m credit card outsourcing programme, turned around a complex technology integration project in trouble prior to a critical launch date, rescued a failed project to deliver retail systems across 350 UK stores, and assured a £90 m business system rationalisation project.
- Pelicam employs five managing practitioners with an additional group of 120 practitioners utilised on a project basis given the specific engagement and the skills sets required. Pelicam only recruits using an 'invitation only' method to guarantee quality of staff.
- Pelicam practitioners have a wide range of application expertise including billing, BPR, business intelligence, contact and data centre CRM, ERP, infrastructure, e-commerce and supply chain. The company has engagement experience in business and IT strategy, transformation, integration, risk, performance measurement, outsourcing, business continuity, security and service management.
Open during normal office hours, the Pelicam Information Office can support you by:
- Arranging briefings with senior practitioners who can provide from the ‘coal face’ commentary, without hype and hyperbole, about project delivery and execution.
- Providing access to customers who can speak openly about their decisions to work with a project assurance consultancy, their experience of doing so and the commercial outcomes;
- Offering views and opinions on topics including:
- The IT delivery disconnect: why this happens and the steps required to address it;
- Ensuring ROI, value and best practice on major change programs;
- Project assurance and project management;
- Training and support;
- Troubleshooting, rescue and recovery services.
As part of a mutually productive relationship, we have added you to the Pelicam press and analyst database and will you send relevant announcements accordingly.
(1) Labour’s computer blunders cost £26 bn, The Independent, January 19, 2010
(2) The IT Complexity Crisis: Danger & Opportunity, Roger Sessions, November 8, 2009.
(3) The Chaos Summary 2009 report, The Standish Group, published April 2009
