Remodelling IT through Culture Change

The IT function of a major investment bank was perceived by its customers as providing poor service and being unresponsive to changing business-driven needs. The company had been through five heads of IT infrastructure in just two years.

Partnership relationships had broken down between IT infrastructure and applications development and there was a lack of clear direction. There was also an apparent inability to anticipate and respond to rapidly-changing business requirements in overall growth; as well as a bullying culture that led to poor performance and low morale.

Bath Consultancy Group’s approach was to do a cultural assessment through one-to-one interviews and focus groups, which did not just identify but also helped to shift culture. This was played back to the top team at an off-site and led to a series of initiatives - both changing communications and leadership. A key part was connecting and supporting middle managers.

As a result, feedback from stakeholders improved significantly. In addition, computer network performance indicators improved as a result of improving leadership team working in Network Services - they were able to work on fixing business as usual and changing the bank for the future.

>> Back