What we did

Rexam’s Vice President of IT for Beverage Cans Europe & Asia and project sponsor, Bo-Arne Olsson, recognised they needed an expert interim IT Programme Director to lead Phase 1 of the project. This involved three lines of the business (glass, plastics and beverage cans) across 13 countries, together with the core group-level systems.

Within just 14 days, Intramezzo provided a shortlist of three candidates, all hand-picked for their ability to meet Rexam’s exacting requirements.

Bo-Arne asked Intramezzo to help and, within just 14 days, we provided a shortlist of three candidates, all hand-picked for their ability to meet Rexam’s exacting requirements. Of these, Jon Upfold was selected for his impressive pedigree in international IT leadership and management. His technical expertise, combined with experience of different cultures, geographies and skills as a leader and diplomat, brought the necessary direction to the project.

What Jon did

On arrival at Rexam, Jon reviewed and revised the initial timelines to ensure a realistic expectation of delivery and results was set. Jon’s was not simply an IT challenge, but also one of relationship building; with the business leaders internally, suppliers, programme resources and the team as a whole. His approach was to keep strict control over all those involved in the project, establishing accountability and empowering the team to succeed. Jon believes that, in addition to regular communication, social evenings help bond a team and he devised a ‘Scalextric’ event to bring the Rexam and HP project teams together to create a ‘one team’ mentality.

In addition to building a team that would deliver results, Jon participated in complex commercial negotiations and devised a strategic plan that focused on a number of objectives:

• the need to implement a platform with the capability and flexibility for major growth
• improved performance;
• scalability;
• service levels;
• resilience; and
• flexibility.

Jon delivered a data centre that provided Rexam with 99.99% uptime

With multi-million pound capital expenditure, Jon delivered a data centre that provided Rexam with 99.99% uptime and established systems with built-in effective disaster recovery solutions and security processes to support their operations 24/7.

During the project Rexam divested the glass line of business, adding a layer of challenge and complexity not expected at the outset. Having assembled a strong and integrated project team across Rexam and HP, Jon developed the strategic vision to build a platform designed to support planned business growth moving forward. The second phase is now well under way and Jon has established a new Project Office Management framework to support this.

From start to finish the project took 18 months to complete, with the data centre transferred to its new Hewlett Packard-hosted facility in very good order.

The results

By effectively managing the transition, Jon helped Rexam implement a solution that created scalable SAP and Wintel environments for the production, assurance and development of the lines of business – and future-proofed their IT environment for further consolidation of systems within the business.

As a result, Rexam saw a dramatic improvement of over 30% on their return on IT investment – a factor which more than paid for the project costs and Jon’s specific project fees. Furthermore, the project met the rigorous requirements of implementing a platform with the capability and flexibility for major growth, including acquisition and divestment.

The data centre is now well-established to support Rexam’s ongoing strategic aims.

Rexam saw a dramatic improvement of over 30% on their return on investment