Arriva

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Arriva

“Fujitsu helped us define a clear strategy and pinpoint the areas we needed to improve. Fujitsu’s consultants tuned-in to our needs completely. They understood the issues the rail industry faces and even ‘spoke our language.’ We are now recognised as an organisation with a clear vision of the future.”

The Challenge

When Arriva Trains Northern (ATN) won a 12-month franchise to operate urban and inter-city passenger rail services across the North of England in February 2000, it also inherited a raft of problems. The franchise was under-funded, under-resourced and under-staffed with a severe shortage of train drivers. The driver shortage led to the introduction of an emergency timetable, and the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) levied a fine for poor performance. A 12-month franchise window seemed too short to fix many of the problems, so the company’s focus turned to tackling internal issues and fire-fighting the day-day issues. Fire-fighting immediate problems meant that ATN had not articulated its vision or business plan for over 18 months. Then came a single ray of sunshine – an extension of the franchise promising time to get the business back on the rails. It was time to focus on the future. The management team resolved to make fast, dramatic change in all departments, impacting every discipline in the business - safety to sales, service to operations - and to create a goal-oriented business plan for the next 12 months.

The Solution

Fujitsu proposed the ResultsChain-based Benefits Realisation approach, which is a powerful planning method that would enable the management team to articulate its vision of the future and create rational, longer-term business plans to get them there – quickly. The ResultsChain technique helps develop and map key initiatives to desired outcomes, showing the linkages and dependencies between them. The output provides an integrated and visually powerful ‘roadmap’ of how objectives are achieved, generating and returning business value to the organisation. “This was a simple, yet holistic approach, which encompassed all the obvious things we needed to improve, and enabled us to view the entire business – on a single page,” said Dyan Crowther, Managing Director of ATN. Through a series of workshops with the senior management team Fujitsu set out to find the business priorities for ATN, beginning with the expected business outcomes and objectives. The workshop enabled the team to develop the plan dynamically and agree key milestones. The process enabled the team to identify the ‘levers of control’ which became the pivots of the ATN business plan, and included ‘safety, service, people and pounds.’

The Benefits

Both tangible and intangible benefits were achieved as a result of the rigorous approach to business planning. Some tangible benefits included:

• Increased revenues and reduction in marketing expenditure due to implementation of a marketing database.
• Increased revenues from a new distribution strategy, which increases productivity in ticket sales at the point of sale, reducing time to sell a ticket from an average of 23 minutes to just 2 minutes in one station!
• Improvements in performance and reliability as a result of initiatives implemented around performance – reliability of ATN's services now stands at 99.2% and punctuality at 92%.
• Improved fleet performance has led to reduced costs in the provision of alternative means of transport for cancelled services.
• Improved employee morale as a result of the thread of initiatives around employee satisfaction, which has led to a 4% reduction in staff sickness.

Intangible benefits included a significant shift in perception of ATN by journalists and the SRA from that of a 'troubled rail operator' to that of an efficient, effective business. A more positive and confident culture pervades ATN, which has helped increase staff productivity, and managers and employees now see the company as one that tackles problems head-on.

The Implementation

Supporting the visually powerful ResultsChain is the Benefits Register, which lists all initiatives and accountabilities in a user-friendly database, which enables the client to track and measure delivery against the outcomes agreed, including metrics to deliver their financial impact. “The Benefits Register is a strategic approach that acknowledges the importance of tactical necessities to deliver change,” added Dyan Crowther. Milestones and targets were set for the group, and progress was tracked using the familiar traffic light signalling model, so red, amber and green tags were used to monitor actions and changes.

The Expertise

Dyan Crowther summarised, "Fujitsu didn't sell what they wanted to sell, they listened to us and sold us the right solution for our needs. It wasn't over-engineered or complicated, which is borne out by the fact that we have been able to run with it. Busy people don't have time to read business plans written on reams of paper. The ResultsChain is a 'plan on a page,' which we were able to display and articulate our plans to everyone in the business, so everyone literally had a picture of what was expected of them and where they fitted in."