Wessex Water

The client

Wessex Water provides water and sewerage services for millions of people throughout the South West of England. Widely recognised as the most efficient and profitable company in the sector, it was recently named best water and waste company in England and Wales for the second year running. Crucially, these accolades translate to commercial success, with 31% growth over the last five years seeing the company’s valuation soar to £2.4bn. Today, Wessex Water remains as focused as ever on boosting efficiency and sustainable development on behalf of its customers.

How we won the work

When the company’s long-standing Head of Information Services retired in 2010, it took the opportunity to conduct a wholesale review of its IT capability. At that point, Wessex’s Director of Regulation and Assets, who had worked with us in the past, sought our trusted advice to support the business through this critical process.

Scope and objectives

Together Berkeley and Wessex Water defined the scope of a new IT transformation project, identifying six key strands of work. These covered everything from championing the role of IT as a business partner to defining a revised operational model; from reviewing customer care applications to responding to shared service opportunities. Throughout, IT would still need to run smoothly day to day.

To begin with, our role was to deliver a new way of working within IT and to promote the function’s value as a service provider and business enabler, thereby enabling Wessex to release the full potential of its IT. Plus we were tasked with establishing exactly what Wessex would need out of a future Head of IS, then combing the marketplace to find the right person for the job. The Berkeley Partner on the ground at Wessex, Richard Marsden, took on the role in the interim.

The Berkeley perspective

Quickly establishing trust and credibility was of the utmost importance for both Wessex and us. For that reason, Richard – who trained as an engineer before becoming a consultant and subsequently worked to Partner level on CRM and other complex IT programmes – was the perfect choice for the assignment.

From day one, openness and transparency of communication were his watchwords as he engaged key team members to support improvements to the customer experience. Over six months, Richard collaborated closely with business, management and Executive teams to review the relationship between IT and the business.
Areas such as work and asset management, customer relationship management and more recently electronic billing have all been carefully reviewed, with key change initiatives set in motion. The recruitment marketplace was scoured for the prime candidate for the top job, focusing on the attributes needed to continue the transformation work. All the while, disruption was minimised and business as usual delivered.

The end of the initial six-month period saw strong progress against the initial brief, with a new Head of IS in place from 1st September 2011. Since then, Richard Marsden has moved into a second interim role, working as Head of Programme Management for three months to oversee the smooth implementation of some of Wessex’s most complex programmes of change.