Where were they?
During the late 1990s, Liffe’s derivatives exchange business came under intense competitive pressure from European rivals. To survive, the board decided that the organisation had to undergo a fundamental shift from face-to-face trading in an ‘open outcry’ floor market to electronic screen based execution. Time to market was crucial, and to be successful, it required over 200 exchange members to trade on the new automated platform without any interruption to their business.
Creation of this platform and the fundamental business change that went with it led Liffe to work with Berkeley to deliver a £50m business and systems transformation programme.
How did Berkeley help?
By taking management positions in conjunction with Liffe’s senior people, Berkeley drove the initial programme and took responsibility for the key areas in commercial and technical delivery.
Crucial to the success of the programme was Berkeley’s leadership approach. They worked with market users to define the best balance of functional scope, geographical reach and delivery risk to implement the new trading platform in the least possible time.
Berkeley oversaw the successful transfer of Liffe’s main flagship contracts onto LIFFE CONNECT®. They helped Liffe build a highly motivated team of up to 150 client staff, contractors and consultants.
A ‘factory’ approach was established to promote the rapid delivery of releases, with Berkeley shaping and managing the testing and implementation functions for the initial deliveries. Ownership was then successfully transferred to client staff and Berkeley left Liffe with a skilled team able to complete the migration of its contracts and successfully close the floor.
Where are they now?
The combination of Liffe’s content and technical insight combined with Berkeley’s experience of delivering complex projects resulted in a total alignment of the business around the change programme.
The highly successful and robust LIFFE CONNECT® trading platform is the world's most widely accessible trading platform, making the Liffe market available to around 20,000 traders at 797 locations in 29 countries worldwide.