Leading European Telecoms Operator

In 2006, the client decided to focus more closely on its primary markets and core business. For supporting processes including IT, it chose to move towards increased business process outsourcing and build a central IT organization. This entity has overall control of IT governance, while all IT delivery and execution is outsourced to a limited number of external partner suppliers. Its objectives were to rationalize all IT processes, improve operational performance while reducing costs and shorten time-to-market. This would be achieved through leveraging suppliers’ best practices, effective contract management, dividing work between the best performing suppliers, and reducing the number of contractors. The client invited full-service test suppliers to tender for a complete managed testing service, to take system and end-to-end test responsibility for all domains, programs and competencies – an important component of the IT performance. The main criteria for selecting a test partner were innovation, continuity of operations and teams, volume, and a commitment to work on a fixed price/fixed result basis. Sogeti was already a proven supplier to the client, setting up and staffing the client’s own test centers, providing project test resources, and so was selected as one of two partners on a multi-year contract.

The client’s deciding factors were:

• Sogeti’s ability to combine IT professionalism with local and offshore facilities
• Sogeti’s capacity to reliably provide large-scale IT services and specifically testing services
• Sogeti being a part of the wider Capgemini Group.

The Solution

The core of Sogeti’s winning proposition is their MTS framework, tailored to the client’s specific requirements, based on three important concepts:

• Commitment to the client’s business objectives, using Sogeti’s TMap NEXT® methodology – Business-driven Test Management
  Use of test lines dedicated to applications chains. Test teams, brought together in client-specific test lines, are resourced and managed by Sogeti and designed for maximum efficiency of test processes and flexible capacity. The client’s test lines offer stable, high-quality testing, continuity of knowledge, flexible capacity and a cost-effective way of working
• A client-dedicated combination of onsite, offsite and offshore test teams. By designing and executing tests where necessary at the client’s sites and where possible offsite or offshore, Sogeti can provide a pool of high quality talent and meet the high demand for qualified test capacity and contribute significantly to the goal of reducing costs
• The agreement includes test management, migration to dedicated highly-automated test lines, developing a test demand/supply model and knowledge transfer, and is focused on system, end-to-end and acceptance testing, as well as test performance improvement. The contract is underpinned by comprehensive KPIs focused on the cost reduction, the degree of industrialization, and customer satisfaction.

The Benefits

There are now seven test lines in four locations, on customer site, offsite and offshore, with over 160 Sogeti testers. With Sogeti as a key test partner, the client has made significant improvements to its control of costs and quality performance.

The key benefits achieved by the client to date in this contract are:

• Cost reduction: structural savings of 15% have been made, demonstrated by the client’s own KPIs and a reduction in overall IT development costs
• Transfer to Sogeti’s test lines onshore and offshore of in-house test operations, with 50% of the testing work now carried out offshore
• Dynamic improvement of test operations with greater control and a shorter time-to-market
• Establishment of a company-wide test operation and a more manageable number of test specialists
• Introduction of professional Quality Assurance, aimed at covering the complete system development cycle.