IT Manager ABB Benelux
Robert Hunter & Associates has helped us in developing a more professional Benelux ICT organisation. They assisted in the concept of a standardised service and product catalogue. This has enabled our internal ICT organisation to provide us with services that are world class and are competitively priced. For the first time our users have an insight in the cost structure, the quality we provide and their monthly expenditure.
Robert Hunter has developed tools that assist our helpdesk and purchasing department. We have become more effective and efficient.
It has enabled us to reduce our ICT expenditure with more then 20%. Non standard products and services have become projects and are charged on a project basis to our customers. Thanks to the contribution of Robert Hunter & Associates we have exceeded our goals.
Erik de Brouwer
Head of IT Unilever Benelux
Why Robert Hunter & Associates is different from other IT Consulting firms. Robert Hunter & Associates has supported Unilever in various areas. Prime examples are the First Sarbanes Oxley compliance and test improvement projects. The implementation of a test management strategy based on TPM, the creation of a new ways of working communications guide as well as the delivery of professional project and change managers are an examples of their value add.Robert Hunter & Associates differentiates itself from other consultancy companies. It uses a broad network of seasoned and professional consultants who are expedient and prove their added value time and again.
Andrea Sundermeijer
Useful for IT organisations like BAM
A number of Royal BAM Group project managers have been experiencing the QPM tool set of Robert Hunter Associates. The information department at corporate head office was looking for a tool that could consolidate its reporting requirements. After the initial pilot the users have embraced the tool. QPM supports industry standards like Prince II which is being used at BAM. It supports all formal phases from initiatives until project closure and steps can be monitored.
Royal BAM Group
Royal BAM Group ranks among the largest construction firms in Europe. The Group is market leader in the Netherlands and has acquired significant market positions in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, Germany and the United States. Royal BAM Group unites operating companies active in Construction and Property, Civil Engineering, Mechanical and Electrical Contracting and Consultancy and Engineering. The Group also has an interest in a leading dredging company with international operations. The operating companies initiate, develop, build and maintain projects to do with living, working, transport and recreation. In all the markets served by Royal BAM Group, the Group’s endeavour – working in close and lasting partnership with clients – is to secure a reputation and recognition for the quality and reliability of its products and services and for the commitment, expertise and experience of its 27,000-strong workforce.
Using Robert Hunter QPM
People determine the agility of the project organisation according to Wico Heemskerk. He has been one of the first users of the QPM tool at Royal BAM Group. There is a multitude in approaches of project management which tends to differ from person to person. And although set up and use are flexible in QPM it provides a structural framework for projects, issues and activities. It improves the effectiveness and efficiency of the organisation. The overview and insight is instantaneous and discards searching in various files. Status and issues per project and team member is very well reported so follow-up becomes easy. BAM has been looking for some time for a standard control and reporting tool for the IT project organisation. BAM being one of Europe’s largest construction companies is a project organisation by itself that uses a lot of project oriented systems. QPM is very useful for IT organisations like ourselves according to Heemskerk. This especially true for our environment with large and small projects. You can choose your own level of detail of the information that is being used in projects and reports. The client server design is well designed. The application is intuitive and user friendly. Wico Heemskerk’s experience is that a single key user with a responsibility for set up Works best in terms of set-up and service coordination. The set-up and configuration is easy to do and the support from Robert Hunter in choosing the right set up is professional and service minded.
Robert Hunter has offered VBI structure of information.
You are probably in a similar situation, customers, departments, projects and teams. Dealing with appointments, focus groups, chasing action items, reporting on status. You probably deal with them on a daily basis, meetings and minutes. We used to have a lot of individual notes and action lists. Everybody is busy and working hard to get all issues of their plate. We at VBI, part of Europe’s largest concrete products manufacturing companies had a lot of information that everybody stored in their own formats and spreadsheets. We had everything under control but had a feeling we could improve.
There is a lot of software available to handle these sort of issues. Most are task oriented or handle specific parts of the process. From a managerial perspective we had a recurring reporting requirement on activities, progress and issues. Most of the software did not fulfil our requirements. QPM has offered us the ability to structure our information. All issues, actions responsibilities can be recorded and is available on the press of a button. By logging general progress we are able to report on different levels that exactly fills the requirements of management. We are able to report general progress or group the status issues and progress by internal customer by project group or per employee. This has given us the handles to become more productive, and very effective to say the least.The other things we like about QPM is the ease of use and the ability to use it without any specific training. It was installed in the blink of an eye. We installed it on one of central servers giving multiple users access to the same data. We can now share our overview on progress and activities without having different views or out of date information. The user guide was very straight forward and is easy to use. Any questions that we had were handled adequately and Robert Hunter helped us with our choices in setup and extensions. At VBI we are extremely satisfied with the QPM product and its support.