“The IT department also deserves its integrated solution to manage and optimize its activities.”

Before Abraxio, our main difficulties revolved around three major irritants. Firstly, project management was too traditional: although our projects were governed by formalized methods, we used tools such as Access or Excel, making it difficult to consolidate information into a portfolio view.

Secondly, the difficulty of having a simple, effective process for managing the IT department’s budget, which remains complex and time-consuming. A process that makes it easy to construct and render the budget.

Finally, the challenge of opening up and decompartmentalizing the IT Department: it was imperative to move away from an overly self-centered approach and improve communication with the Business Units, other support departments and the Finance Department. To achieve this, we absolutely had to improve the relevance and professionalism of data management relating to the IT Department’s activities.

The first step in overcoming these difficulties is to realize that there is a gap to be filled, and to understand that the IT Department too is entitled to its own integrated solution for managing itself. We work throughout the year to help the company’s other departments choose and implement solutions adapted to their activities. We, on the other hand, are often drowning in our own Excel databases and files, or our own internal developments to meet our own operating needs. To my knowledge, apart from Abraxio, there’s nothing else like it on the market for effectively equipping IT Departments.

Abraxio filled the gap, offering an integrated solution tailored to our needs. What’s particularly appreciated is that the platform is based on our CIO issues. The Abraxio teams are very familiar with our business, as they have experience as managers and users on the other side of the fence. When we start using the platform, we can immediately get to grips with it and adapt its use to our own context.

I joined BERT&You at the end of 2015, and as early as 2017, a global roadmap for IS overhaul was drawn up. In 2021, we launched an ambitious program todigitalize our transport activities. This program, christened TED, which included three business projects run by pooled resources within the IT Department, represented a considerable challenge in terms of planning and meeting budgets. It also offered an opportunity to decompartmentalize the IT Department, conduct internal marketing and explain our activities in an educational way.

To establish the program’s credibility, we needed a governance solution capable of meeting these challenges and eliminating the irritants mentioned above. Abraxio provided concrete answers to help us meet the challenge, notably by improving project portfolio management, simplifying budget steering and facilitating the decompartmentalization of the IT Department through calibrated and harmonized reporting.

As part of the TED program, we began by equipping ourselves to manage a project portfolio. We were used to managing projects, but not to consolidating them into a portfolio. By integrating our projects into a portfolio, in this case that of the program, we were able to gradually introduce time recording. This has been crucial, because while we used to value external costs, we forget that the majority of project costs are internal. This made it easier for the Management Committee to understand the true and complete cost of an IS project.

Time recording was first deployed within IT teams, then extended to project business players via IT project managers, enabling simple but accurate reports to be generated on the monitoring of internal workloads for each project (number of man-days and €).

Next, we naturally addressed budget management, as all data is linked in Abraxio, followed by supplier and contract management.

The platform makes it possible to go a long way in managing IT department activities, both in terms of functional coverage and depth of functionality. Abraxio was instrumental in proposing and advising us on this implementation, suggesting that we not move too quickly, but rather step by step.

The first benefit is the success of our transformation program, with three projects successfully completed while meeting our commitments and objectives in terms of budget, schedule and quality. For example, Abraxio provided us with simple tools for monitoring workloads and managing capacity planning, enabling us to share critical points with the Management Committee and make effective decisions to keep to schedule.

To meet the challenges and manage the risks, we set up regular program reviews during which each project manager had to present us with a “health report” on his or her project. To do this, we adopted a very pragmatic approach, making widespread use of Abraxio’s Flash report template. This enabled us to set up a formalized reporting system, using the same key elements for the entire portfolio, and in a uniform PowerPoint format. This brings real added value in terms of governance, communication and education, particularly for steering committees and management.

The second immediate benefit is supplier management. With a single repository, centralized and shared within the IT department, but also with the purchasing and legal departments, we no longer waste time looking for the right contact details, working procedures for contacting support, and we no longer miss contract renewal deadlines thanks to automated alerts. The regular supplier evaluation and monitoring of “critical” suppliers, implemented in Abraxio, is particularly appreciated during follow-up audits or ISO certification renewals. It has also given greater autonomy to IT teams by opening up information and making it accessible to all. The bottleneck of the “know-it-all” disappears.

The third benefit, and a hugely valuable one, is the incomparable simplification of budget management. If I take the example of budget preparation for a new financial year, what used to take me several weeks of work in multiple Excel files with calculation formulas, links, TCDs and conditional formatting is now done in two weeks, with the production of a copy presentable to the Management Committee for the first arbitrations. I’ve also been able to delegate responsibility for their budget perimeter to my N-1s, which eases my workload and makes them more accountable. I am now obliged to produce monthly financial statements, which enable me both to easily compare deviations from the baseline budget and alert me to any deviations, and to anticipate budget preparation for the next financial year.

Projects are always in the spotlight, but we mustn ‘t forget the day-to-day activities of the IT department – Run and MCO, which “consume” the bulk of resources. Being able to communicate factual information on what’s occupying teams, sharing it and brainstorming with them on how to work differently, is fundamental to gaining efficiency and refocusing on higher value-added activities.

Abraxio has also greatly facilitated exchanges with management control and accounting, enabling us to implement more precise and proactive management of our expenditure tracking. Our commitment management means we know where we stand in real time, whereas previously we could easily have had 1.5 to 2 months’ lag time just to check invoices. Now, with just two clicks of the mouse, we can see our projected and actual expenses on a month-by-month basis, compare them with projected income, and obtain a cumulative figure with the variances. It’s very valuable.

Discussions with the CFO and the executive committee have become clearer and more fluid. If we manage our budget in cash out, we can also present it in P&L. The platform also enables us to manage Capex and Opex and explain their impact from one year to the next: it’s almost child’s play to show how investment is transformed into operations. All these views, immediately made available by Abraxio, contribute to a better understanding of our budget.

I clearly recommend Abraxio and would advise CIOs not to rush into implementing the platform, but toprogress gradually according to their management objectives, as the platform is very rich. To make it easier for teams to adopt the platform, and get them on board with changes in practice, it’s a good idea to start with aspects that make their day-to-day work easier, such as supplier and contract tracking, or time recording. And, of course, use the reporting modules to share results and make improvements. This immediately shows concrete benefits.