Avis Europe improves business agility and cost control with real-time project planning
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Customer success story
Avis Europe improves
business agility and cost
control with real-time
project planning
Customer profile
Industry: Car rental services
Company: Avis Europe plc
Revenue: €1.4 billion
Employees: over 5,600
Business Challenge Solution BENEFIT
Avis Europe is the leading In a difficult economic Avis uses CA Clarity™ The firm can implement
car rental company in environment, Avis needed Project and Portfolio major programmes,
Europe, Africa, the Middle to achieve better resource Management (PPM) to confident its IT resources
East and Asia. The utilisation and reduce manage IT projects, are being allocated
company serves over costs. However a lack of schedules and resources. cost-effectively. Increased
eight million customers transparency of costs and The solution provides visibility of its IT project
across a network that resource allocation for IT real-time project planning costs and resources enabled
spans 112 countries. programmes was and a systematic approach Avis to accelerate business
hampering decision making. to managing risk. agility and reduce risk.
we can
Avis Europe
Business
Avis — delivering the promise
Avis Europe is the leading car rental company in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, with more
than 30 years’ experience in its sector. The company serves over eight million customers across a
network that spans 112 countries.
Since Warren Avis opened ‘Avis Airlines Rent A Car Systems’ in Detroit in 1946, the company has
embodied its famous slogan ‘we try harder’, expanding into the international arena in 1965 and
achieving leadership in the Europe, Africa and Middle East market in 1973 — a position which Avis has
retained ever since.
Through its two brands — Avis and Budget — Avis processes seven million rental transactions a
year and has a presence at 75 principal European airports. The company’s success is attributable
to its continuous investment in its network, technology and people, and to its ongoing promise of
’We try Harder’.
Challenge
Poor visibility of project status, resources and costs
Avis has embarked on a major strategic initiative designed to help it weather the economic uncertainty
by streamlining its operations; focusing in particular on achieving better resource utilisation and
reducing costs.
The company recognised that there were potentially significant efficiency improvements to be gained
from the way it ran large programmes, which often covered multiple geographies as well as utilised a
wide range of resources and skill sets.
“It’s not always easy to know
whether our resources are being
properly utilised.”
Jenny Lane
Project Manager, Avis Europe
02Avis Europe
Jenny Lane, Project Manager at Avis Europe, explains, “With such a wide geography, project and
portfolio management can be a challenge. We have distributed project teams all over Europe and it’s
not always easy to ensure the teams are working well together, or if our resources are being properly
utilised. With projects running in parallel and people often working on more than one initiative at a
time, project and portfolio management is a complex exercise.”
The IT division was also going through a period of change, moving from a centralised to a matrix
structure. Although this new approach was better aligned to business needs, it added a level of scale
and complexity that was beyond the team’s existing project management tools and processes — many
of which were spreadsheet based.
“Our current approach was not only unworkable with the new structure it also meant that we had
no reliable means of gaining a consolidated view of our projects in terms of their status or their
performance against budget,” comments Lane. “That lack of transparency was making it difficult to
make management decisions and ensure every project was aligned with the company’s objectives.”
Avis recognised the need for a project and portfolio management solution that would drive greater IT
efficiency through best practice execution, resource optimisation, and financial governance.
Solution
Real-time project planning and analysis
Following an abortive implementation of a competitive solution, Avis chose CA Clarity PPM. “The
relationship with our former partner wasn’t giving us what we needed, but it did give us a much better
understanding of what we were looking for in terms of a solution,” comments Lane. “From there it was
a relatively simple decision to take CA Clarity PPM. It has the right functionality and is a fully
integrated product.”
CA Clarity PPM provides real-time project planning and analysis, a systematic approach to managing
risk and controls, and visibility of current and future IT service and resource costs.
With a number of key strategic programmes already scheduled — such as the preparation for chip and
pin at all European terminals — Avis’ timescales for implementation were extremely tight. Assisted by
Sandhill, a CA Technologies Platinum Partner, implementation began in October 2009 with the solution
fully operational by early January 2010.
03Avis Europe
For Lane, a strong success factor of the implementation was the close working relationship between
Avis, Sandhill and CA Technologies. “The partnership approach provided us with a better understanding
of how CA Clarity PPM’s functionality would work with our current and new processes,” explains Lane.
As with any major change, user education was also critical to the success of the implementation
and to deriving long-term benefits from the solution. “We needed to ensure everyone had a good
understanding of the functionality of the CA Technologies solution and how it would help them work
smarter,” says Lane.
20
major strategic projects are being
managed via CA Clarity PPM
Avis offered staff a wide choice of learning options, from ‘drop-in’ lunchtime demonstrations and Q&A
sessions, to user training classes and workshops for ‘power users’ such as resource managers and
project managers.
User engagement continued even after the solution was up and running, explains Lane. “Three months
after implementation we ran review sessions to get further feedback. We also set up mailboxes so
people could ask questions or get additional support if they needed it.”
04Avis Europe
The solution is used for a wide range of key processes from project management and resource
management to timesheet administration and financials for high level reporting.
Around 150 people currently use CA Clarity PPM to complete their timesheets, with 20 line managers
and project managers using it for reporting, project planning and resource management. “We’ve
implemented a number of processes that are now seen as ‘business as usual’ and we’ve produced
robust reporting where previously we had to allocate resources based on sometimes questionable
assumptions,” adds Lane.
As a result, the solution has a major role in ensuring Avis continues to remove cost and improve
efficiency across its operation. “CA Clarity PPM is already supporting 20 major strategic projects across
the business as well as around 10 smaller, tactical ones,” says Lane.
Benefit
Improved agility, assured efficiency
CA Clarity PPM allows Avis to easily track and manage projects throughout their lifecycles with
visibility for all key stakeholders. The result is a seamless project and portfolio management system
that couples top-down portfolio planning and analysis with bottom-up project, programme, financial
and process management.
“Being able to react more quickly to
changing requirements is
immensely valuable to Avis.”
Jenny Lane
Project Manager, Avis Europe
With these capabilities, Avis is able to rollout major programmes across multiple countries, confident
that its IT resources are being allocated efficiently and cost-effectively in support of its strategic focus
on cost reduction and improved utilisation.
05Avis Europe
As a result, Avis has been able to:
• Ensure project portfolios are more closely aligned to strategic objectives
• Facilitate faster decision-making, with transparent access to a single, reliable source of project and
programme data
• Improve risk management by identifying projects that are running late or over budget.
“CA Clarity PPM is helping us improve our business agility by giving us very useful information on how
our resources are being used, and where they can best be focused to support the business. Being able
to react more quickly to changing requirements, identify where there is too much or too little demand
for certain skill sets and flex our service accordingly is immensely valuable to Avis.”
Copyright ©2010 CA Technologies. All rights reserved. All trademarks, trade names, service marks and logos referenced herein
belong to their respective companies.
This document is for your informational purposes only. CA assumes no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of the
information. To the extent permitted by applicable law, CA provides this document “as is” without warranty of any kind, including,
without limitation, any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. In no event
will CA be liable for any loss or damage, direct or indirect, from the use of this document, including, without limitation, lost profits,
business interruption, goodwill or lost data, even if CA is expressly advised in advance of the possibility of such damages.You can also read
