Case study

PA's work for Orange UK

Organisational Development Category - MCA Awards

Position:
Highly recommended

Year:
2003

To maintain a competitive edge in the crowded UK mobile phone market, Orange needed to deliver new infrastructure and customer products as rapidly as possible, while maintaining high reliability and quality standards. Realizing that resource bottlenecks - perceived shortages of people and sometimes equipment - had been delaying projects, Orange asked PA Consulting Group to help.
 
PA's role was threefold: to identify the underlying reasons for resource bottlenecks; to facilitate practical solutions that would rapidly improve matters; and to help Orange develop the internal capability to drive future change projects.

PA's preliminary investigation across Orange UK revealed an opportunity to increase capacity for project delivery significantly without increasing head count. Projects could be delivered faster, and in greater numbers, while maintaining reliability and quality. The potential increase in project throughput alone was estimated to be worth more than £30 million per annum in direct cost benefits. Further value would arise from the ability to deliver a larger number of projects with the same resource levels. The project also emphasized the transfer of skills and experience to Orange people.

"The approach and methodology PA employed to create these impressive outcomes demonstrated that simplicity and common sense are critical to success"

Steve Hopcraft, Director of Technical Transformation Programme, Orange