Finance transformation in an ICT support organisation |
In 2009 ICTRA’s Finance Department embarked on a journey to radically transform itself, with the help of Deloitte. The same year Deloitte and Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School also began a journey together. They jointly founded the Deloitte Research Chair “Bringing ICT to Board Level”, with a commitment to producing world-class research on topics at the heart of the relationship between business and ICT.
A year later Nathalie Demeere, Manager at Deloitte, started her own journey to complete an Executive Master Class in Controllership with Vlerick. These paths come together in this article. Sammie Courtens, ICTRA’s Head of Finance, kindly allowed Nathalie, as part of her Vlerick course, to investigate the ins and outs of ICTRA’s Finance transformation. She chronicled this two-year project through interviews and close collaboration with the team involved.
The following pages distil the essence of this research. They are the product of a joint effort by Deloitte and Vlerick to closely engage with the business and scrutinise what matters to it and to ICT.
ICTRA is short for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Rail1. Operating as a shared services centre, it provides ICT development and support services to the entire Belgian Railways Group.
This article first outlines the external and internal challenges ICTRA faced that provided the context for the finance transformation. It then describes how ICTRA set out to realise its ambition of becoming a reliable partner to the business. Finally, it discusses the outcome of the finance transformation and offers advice for ICT organisations with similar ambitions.
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Finance transformation in an ICT support organisation