Business Situation
The department merger prompted the need to move the newly merged departments to a common platform without impacting the business and to achieve it within the stated business case and plan. HRMC need to quickly mitigate the risk of reliance on out of support software (NT4), to ensure the two existing outsourcers worked together so that the programme of work achieved success and to the benefit of the department and knew their respective roles going forward. It was also necessary to reduce the cost of supporting the desktop estate. It was believed that the proportion of people, internal and at the outsourcers, supporting the estate needed a rigorous review so as to compare with industry standards

Solution
HMRC contracted Avanade to work with their multi-vendor ASPIRE team on this project. The initial Avanade team included Exchange Rangers who reviewed the plans and approach and made significant changes to both, feeling was it was too complicated an approach. The result was a much simplified plan of action.

At this stage, because of the Avanade deep experience, expertise and skill sets related to Microsoft Exchange®, desktop migration and Microsoft Active Directory®, the team was expanded considerably. The Avanade people worked closely in concert with the outsourcers and not as a separate team.

Results
The HMRC project delivery was successful as indicated in the following areas: 

• Within a year everyone was using a Microsoft® XP desktop, common email system, a managed desktop that has all the services they need to do their job. The platform is also a good springboard for planned productivity improvements.
• The programme finished on time and to budget.
• Disruption to business during and post migration was monitored to ensure minimal impact.