CASESTUDY
First Group PLC
The Company
One of the world’s leading passenger transport organisations, First Group is the UK’s largest surface transportation company with a turnover of more than £2 billion per annum and some 50,000 employees across the UK and North America. First Group is the UK’s largest bus operator running more than 1 in 5 of all local bus services and carrying 2.7 million passengers every day. It also owns three passenger rail franchises which account for almost 15% of the UK rail market and are used by some 280,000 passengers each day.The company also runs a fleet of more than 16,000 yellow school buses in the US and Canada, which between them carry over 1 million students across 33 states on a daily basis.
Totalamber has worked on a number of First Group projects; most notably on Cyborg Payroll installations at several locations across the UK. Carol Bradbury is the company’s UK IT Project Manager responsible for Payroll and Driver Allocation systems.
The challenge
The implementation of the Cyborg Payroll system across the Group had been ongoing for an extended period of time. So, when the time came to continue the roll-out of the software across its Scottish operation, the company decided to look for a faster and more cost effective way to move forward.
“At the start of the project, First Group was growing. Via a series of acquisitions, the group was expanding to encompass around 25 companies that were using a variety of different Payroll systems. Trying to standardise on Cyborg was taking rather longer than we might have hoped”, says the company’s IT Project Manager, Carol Bradbury.
The options
“Whilst we needed this ongoing roll-out to be done properly, it was important for us to try and accelerate the process. Cyborg had limited resources available to us at that time and the quote they gave us seemed expensive,” say Bradbury
“At this point we decided to look for alternative quotes and so we turned to totalamber. They had been providing professional services on the project for some time and we asked them to come up with a competitive quote. Not only were the consultants offered by totalamber of a very high standard – we had even heard of some of them – but their quote was also better in terms of price. ”
The solution
Working to tight deadlines, the project, rolling out the Cyborg platform to the company’s sites in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh, was duly completed on time and on budget, within just 16 weeks.
“The arrangement couldn’t have turned out better”, says Bradbury. “We have a great relationship with totalamber. We have never had any problems with any of the consultants they have supplied. They have always completed the work required of them extremely efficiently and you really can’t ask for any more than that"
One of the world’s leading passenger transport organisations, First Group is the UK’s largest surface transportation company with a turnover of more than £2 billion per annum and some 50,000 employees across the UK and North America. First Group is the UK’s largest bus operator running more than 1 in 5 of all local bus services and carrying 2.7 million passengers every day. It also owns three passenger rail franchises which account for almost 15% of the UK rail market and are used by some 280,000 passengers each day.The company also runs a fleet of more than 16,000 yellow school buses in the US and Canada, which between them carry over 1 million students across 33 states on a daily basis.Totalamber has worked on a number of First Group projects; most notably on Cyborg Payroll installations at several locations across the UK. Carol Bradbury is the company’s UK IT Project Manager responsible for Payroll and Driver Allocation systems.
The challenge
The implementation of the Cyborg Payroll system across the Group had been ongoing for an extended period of time. So, when the time came to continue the roll-out of the software across its Scottish operation, the company decided to look for a faster and more cost effective way to move forward.
“At the start of the project, First Group was growing. Via a series of acquisitions, the group was expanding to encompass around 25 companies that were using a variety of different Payroll systems. Trying to standardise on Cyborg was taking rather longer than we might have hoped”, says the company’s IT Project Manager, Carol Bradbury.
The options
“Whilst we needed this ongoing roll-out to be done properly, it was important for us to try and accelerate the process. Cyborg had limited resources available to us at that time and the quote they gave us seemed expensive,” say Bradbury
“At this point we decided to look for alternative quotes and so we turned to totalamber. They had been providing professional services on the project for some time and we asked them to come up with a competitive quote. Not only were the consultants offered by totalamber of a very high standard – we had even heard of some of them – but their quote was also better in terms of price. ”
The solution
Working to tight deadlines, the project, rolling out the Cyborg platform to the company’s sites in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh, was duly completed on time and on budget, within just 16 weeks.
“The arrangement couldn’t have turned out better”, says Bradbury. “We have a great relationship with totalamber. We have never had any problems with any of the consultants they have supplied. They have always completed the work required of them extremely efficiently and you really can’t ask for any more than that"
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