Metamorphosis worked with a national retailer to better understand the true cost of support for a key business application and strengthen its position to re-negotiate an enterprise IT outsourcing contract.
Client: The client is a fast growing national clothing retailer with operations across Canada.
Situation: In the past two years this national retailer had experienced rapid growth, outsourced all its IT operations, and implemented an enterprise-wide system. Alarmed at difficulties reconciling invoices to the services contract and an strained relationship with the outsourcer, the VP of IT asked Metamorphosis to assist with developing a baseline of IT support costs for the new supply chain system.
Approach: Metamorphosis provided expertise in IT cost management and outsourcing to develop a Cost Map for supporting the supply chain application. Working closely with the client’s and outsourcer’s teams, Metamorphosis reviewed services contract, change requests, monthly invoices, project documentation, support team structure and interviewed key stakeholders. A detailed cost model for application and infrastructure support for the supply chain application was developed and validated with the outsourcer and client. A final set of findings, recommendations and a go-forward road-map to assist with contract renegotiations were provided to the client.
Results: Metamorphosis was able to model the true support costs for the supply chain application within a two month period - something that the outsourcer had been unable to provide to the client. The working relationship improved between the client and outsourcer. Finally, the client felt they were much better prepared to achieve a positive outcome in upcoming contract negotiations. Metamorphosis has since been engaged to expand the Cost Model to include all other IT service costs.