Posten Norge Achieves Economies of Scale through Efficient IT Transition

Posten Norge is a Nordic mail and logistics group that develops and delivers complete solutions within the postal services, communications, and logistics industry, with the Nordic area as its local market. With a vision to become the world’s most future-oriented mail and logistics group, Posten Norge’s strategy is to develop an integrated and industrialized Nordic mail and logistics business. Therefore, its expectation from IT is not only to strengthen its corporate strategy but also to provide a platform that enables further growth — organically or through acquisitions. Posten Norge looked for an IT supplier to facilitate the setup of a distributed organization, enabling business across the Nordics and to provide a stage for effective coordination and the necessary organizational flexibility. This meant that the IT function at Posten Norge had to be consolidated, industrialized, and processed through a common functional and standard framework; Posten Norge aimed to take advantage of economies of scale.

Posten Norge took the first step in its transformative journey via the sourcing process followed by what is now known as the One IT transition – one of the largest sourcing process and transition across Scandinavia. This transition process engaged all its chosen partners, including Capgemini. The scope of transition included consolidation of networks, standardization of the workplace (desktops, laptops, and other Bring Your Own Devices (BYODs), migration of over 100 applications spread across 8–10 datacenters to one datacenter and introduction of standard processes, tools, and governance framework—including a new service desk and integrated services model.

Capgemini – with our world-class transition methodology, DELIVER™, and our global expertise in providing safe, secure transition with focus on business continuity and collaboration – was Posten Norge’s chosen partner for One IT transition for application development and application maintenance services for 50% of Posten Norge’s system portfolio. Capgemini had a huge responsibility to migrate business applications in Sweden and Denmark and business-supporting applications in Norway. The technology platforms to be worked with included iSeries (AS400), Windows, Unix, and Linux.
 

The Solution

The transition project comprised six transition packages, each consisting 10–12 applications on an average. Each of these packages was run as a transition subproject in its entirety. Capgemini and co-vendors worked with Posten Norge during the preparation phase of the project to put together a program plan for transition while the infrastructure vendor set up the foundations of the new datacenter.

From January 2014, Capgemini started migrating server-based applications and corresponding databases to the new infrastructure. Before the migration process for an application concluded, each team member involved in the transition process had to ensure that they had secured the right level of knowledge through hands-on practice and multiple sessions with business representatives and the incumbent IT team. The Capgemini team also worked with Posten Norge’s partner vendors to set up tools and processes and establish an effective and empowered governance model. These processes and frameworks were developed to ensure that Posten Norge could provide smooth, consistent service and continually improve the quality of services offered after the transition. In this process, the Capgemini team further evolved the application migration process during the transition of services.
 

The Result

The engagement has helped One IT transition to be completed on time. It has also been vital in supporting Posten Norge move all its applications to the new data center in Norway and successfully close other data center services spread out across the Nordics. The transition has enabled the establishment of an enterprise service desk and service management organization. Posten Norge is now in the steady state mode in IT and has already started to work with Capgemini on their new initiative of transforming the organization and rationalizing the application landscape.