CCLA transforms IT operations thanks to high-value, low-cost Causeway Application Management Service
The Challenge
CCLA is a London-based asset manager, providing specialist investment services to 41,000 not-for-profit organisations. It currently manages assets worth around £4.2bn. Recently the company embarked on a transformation programme to improve the delivery of new and on-going IT operations.
As CCLA’s chief operating officer, Sean Curran, explains, “Our IT situation internally had become untenable. There is such a wide range of technologies we need to deploy and support that it is impossible, and certainly not cost-efficient, for our own IT people to have all the skills we need.” In effect, CCLA wanted the flexibility to be able to draw on the exact services it needs, on demand, at a reduced cost.
The Solution
A decision to consider alternative, more cost-effective routes for sourcing IT services brought CCLA into contact with Kainos and their Causeway Application Management Services. Causeway offers a comprehensive range of IT services and combines highly skilled near-shore facilities in Northern Ireland with local account management in London.
Causeway assumed responsibility for CCLA’s business critical dealing and registration system. This worked extremely well, and now CCLA outsources a large proportion of its IT activities, including its IT infrastructure, as a complete managed service to Causeway. As a result, CCLA has reduced IT headcount from ten to just three staff.
The Benefits
Cost saving: As a result of the reduction in the IT operational costs and the increase in business user efficiency as a result of the high service levels significant cost savings have been achieved.
Increased service: The primary intention for the partnership for CCLA was to gain access to greater more flexible IT expertise. “We selected Causeway because we wanted a better and more flexible level of service than we could provide internally,” Sean explains. “That’s exactly what we got. We now have a high-quality flexible IT service that is dependable and sustainable, and we meet hard deadlines.”
High quality staff: Kainos is renowned for the high calibre of our staff and Sean values this going on to say: “The relationship works extremely well. The people are highly professional and capable, and have access to a wide range of IT skills. Most importantly, their people understand what we need and what matters.”
A partnership: So integral is Causeway’s role to CCLA that our knowledge of the business extends far beyond understanding the technology; the team has pro-actively built up in-depth knowledge of asset management, and how cash and funds flow through CCLA’s systems. “The Causeway people know our business processes better than some of our own people,” Sean concludes. “When we introduced a new ethical fund, Causeway’s staff were in our offices on New Year’s Eve, as part of the team babysitting the launch. The line between where our organisation ends and Causeway begins is invisible to the majority of our staff. In our eyes, that’s the essence of a true partnership.”
The Future
Causeway is now transforming CCLA’s application platform for the future, which plans to make the core systems available to all staff and clients at any time and from any location, using web-based technology and the Internet. “We want to get to a point where location is irrelevant.”
As a strategic business partner, Causeway’s role is to help plan and implement the move to a web-enabled, hosted delivery model. “Being able to hand over this kind of work to Causeway is invaluable,” Sean says. “Moving towards a hosted model makes perfect sense for us as we make our business more flexible.”
