Major Central Government Department Drives Cost Optimisation and Governance with Synyega

The Challenge: Efficiency, Governance and Best Practice

A major central government department with 70,000 employees, the client’s original brief was driven by a need for cost optimisation in line with broader efficiency agendas.  

With more than 500 vendors, the department had previously commissioned several Information Technology Asset Management (ITAM) projects with different providers, all of which had under-delivered. 

Synyega was brought in based on its reputation, independence, and breadth and depth of experience, not just in ITAM but in FinOps. Because its ethos is grounded in continually building and extrapolating value via a fully independent and trusted methodology, the two parties agreed on a long-term partnership focused on optimising costs, consolidating governance and instilling best practice.

The Synyega value

“Synyega was initially selected based on its diligence and rigour, and a methodology which sees the team relentlessly go the extra mile to unearth new areas for both cost and governance improvements,” comments Holly Mascard, Head of ITAM at Synyega. “Following the success and confidence which came from the initial project, which resulted in savings of £6.3 million, the client attributed its decision to work with the team as part of a long-term strategic partnership on the following:

• Independence – because Synyega is vendor agnostic and experienced in a plethora of systems, the team is completely objective
• Trust – having delivered vast savings in the initial project, the client viewed Synyega as an extension of its own team 
• Transparency – every decision and course of action is completely open and accountable 
• Communications – the team consistently explain things clearly and concisely to secure stakeholder buy-in and instil confidence at every stage
• Cultural alignment 

“As well as rationalising the duplication of products and solutions, as any ITAM project would, the value Synyega brings is that at every stage, we re-set the baseline and investigate all variables and interdependencies to get the best outcome,” Holly continues. “Once a specific area has been completed, part of the evaluation involves a roadmap incorporating next steps. This means using the increased understanding and insight gleaned to channel into further optimising costs and making improvements in subsequent initiatives.”

By establishing channels for fluent communication with executives, Synyega has helped shape and future-proof the entire digital ecosystem by fostering understanding. 

“As dedicated problem solvers, with FinOps skillsets, we don’t just meet the core ITAM requirements and move on,” Holly explains. “We interrogate, apply assumptions, build models, query and test to ensure we have a complete, in-depth and meaningful picture. This then allows us to identify duplication and any pending overlap, to bring substantial deliverables from a cost, risk and governance perspective.”

Outcomes

Working closely with the central government department, Synyega continues to deliver value which extends way beyond the initial ITAM project brief to include the following:

·      Optimised low vendors where possible

·      Entitlement and data discovery

·      Benefits realisation process

·      FinOps advice provided to ECS

·      Integrating into projects

·      ITAM tool selection consultancy

·      Baselining data sources

·      E-mail and report management

·      ITIL maturity consultancy support

·      Urgent last-minute finance requests

Two years into a four-year managed service, which followed the initial licence migration and cost optimisation project, Synyega’s proactive and in-depth approach to ITAM, underpinned by FinOps ethos and skillsets, has delivered a further £4.4 million in savings in contract renewals alone. In addition, policies have been established to ensure that licensing profiles are optimised to align spending with system usage.

Reducing risk 

Against a broader remit to look at risk reduction, a further £7.3 million in savings was subsequently identified by Synyega. This included identifying vulnerabilities for which security measures and patches were recommended, as well as highlighting end-of-life systems. Further analysis and audit preparation have delivered an additional projected saving of £5 million.

In parallel, the Synyega team is working with the client’s finance team to shape and refine reporting. This focuses on establishing the right metrics and facilitating a dialogue between the CFO and CIO teams to build an understanding of ITAM as a core pillar of IT operations going forward, and the value it delivers.  

“The Synyega team consistently over-delivers to support the long-term strategic goals of this central government department,” concludes Holly. “Providing consultancy, auditing, data mining, forensics, and intelligence to unearth inefficiencies and bottlenecks, we consistently go beyond the brief to highlight unnecessary spending, reduce TCO and refine IT operations. We’re looking forward to building on this further as we continue to work with them on their improvement journey going forward.”