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Virgin Mobile - Press Release

Accurate, real-time project and resource information will help improve strategic planning, execution and performance measurement across the IT project portfolio.

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May 10 2005 - Bradford, England: Atlantic Global PLC today announces that Virgin Mobile, the UK's leading mobile virtual network operator, is to implement Atlantic Global's business portfolio management software - Corporate Vision.

The Corporate Vision implementation will provide the organisation with a single, real-time view of all projects within the IT department - including project status, performance against plan, resource utilisation, risk and cost. Virgin Mobile will use this information to continually ensure that IT projects are aligned with business strategy and effectively supporting strategic goals. In addition project and programme managers will benefit from the increased simplification and automation of key processes including resourcing, reporting, risk management, budgeting and planning.

Jim Robinson, Head of programme delivery at Virgin Mobile, said: "The mobile telecoms industry is more competitive than ever before, placing increasing pressure on Virgin Mobile to react quickly to industry developments with new products and services. The onus is on the IT department to build the applications that will support these new products and services quickly and cost-effectively, while maintaining progress with ongoing IT architecture renewal.

"With it's focus on delivering a high-level view of the IT project portfolio, supported by the ability to drill down into project, resource or cost issues, Atlantic Global's solution perfectly fits our vision for top-down management of IT project delivery against business priorities."

Corporate Vision will extend these capabilities to include a full resource management system, a high-level view of the complete project portfolio, which can assist the management team in monitoring the performance and costs of the IT programme and its alignment with business goals. In addition, Virgin Mobile will use Corporate Vision's scenario-modelling capabilities to understand the impact of engaging new projects or changing business priorities on costs and delivery timelines across the rest of the IT programme.

As it provides a dynamic system for project tracking, budgeting, resource management and risk monitoring, Corporate Vision will also enable Virgin Mobile to further automate and increase the visibility of a number of core programme and project management processes. For example, IT project managers will now be able to specify and request resources from the programme office directly within the system, rather than by email, and then monitor the approval process. They will also be able to enter progress against project milestones directly into the system rather than report to the programme managers on a weekly basis.

A by-product of the milestone-tracking feature is that other project stakeholders within the business will have access to up-to-date status information at any time. For instance, the marketing team relies on regular meetings with the IT programme office to find out about progress on the delivery of new products and services that are in the advertising or public relations schedule. Meanwhile, the finance department will be able to more closely monitor budgets against projects and their component milestones.

"In any industry where change is a constant factor, the IT project portfolio can no longer be effectively managed with Microsoft project plans and spreadsheets alone," explained Eugene Blaine, CEO of Atlantic Global. "In the face of change, IT directors and project sponsors need hard, fast information about the IT project portfolio and a means of modelling the potential impact of business change on the project portfolio. Virgin Mobile is one of a number of forward-thinking IT companies have been quick to see the value of this approach."