Change in your business
requires smarter thinking

About Topicas

Topicas believe the best results come from close working with our Clients and aligning our outcomes

Topicas provide independent advice but work with our Clients to enrich existing processes and frameworks rather than imposing new methods for the sake of it. Topicas are well versed with operating in complex regulated environments whilst introducing and maintaining the right level of programme governance and reporting.

The major consultancy brands tend to sell solutions to their customer “problems” using their boiler-plate generic models across all industries and markets. Typically the thought leadership is developed by the Partner community and applied through their bright but inexperienced team in the field. Much of the consulting skills are learnt “on the job” namely at the client expense and for each inexperienced team in the field comes an associated cost of the management team.

Our three key principles are:-

We make it our business to understand our Clients business so that we deliver what is in your best interest
We always provide the right team of experienced consultants for the job and we expect our Consultants to remain for as long as required;
We integrate with our Client team and set-out, up-front, how we will transfer knowledge through ongoing mentoring and specific deliverables

Topicas offer an alternative model of consultancy:-

We deploy Subject Matter Experts who have many years of Industry plus major Consultancy/Systems Integrator experience
All of our consultants are “heavyweights” – a number are permanent employees and others come from our respected community of specialists
The size and dynamics of our team is built to best meet our client requirements not to utilise available consultants

Topicas work with you – using your methods

Specialists in the delivery of Business Transformation in these sectors

Energy & Utilities

We have experience of Smart Energy including the structuring of governance for major transformation projects, delivery of Smart Foundation projects, Data Cleanse of legacy metering data and Smart Meter deployment.

Financial Services

Our consultants have been involved with Strategic reviews, Systems Consolidation and Scaling, Data migration, Application Development and Maintenance, Digital Services, PPI remediation, Operating model optimisation.

Communications

We work with fixed and mobile Network Operators and Service Providers across networks/OSS/BSS, eTOM modelling, asset management, Interconnection, IVR, Service Delivery & Management.

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How about Some Fun Facts about Topicas?

70%

of our team have over 20 years Consultancy experience. We know that experience matters to you.

2

of our team worked together on a short term engagement in the Caribbean that was extended by our Client to over 2 years!

50%

of our team are fluent in a language besides English.

1

of our team worked on developing the technology that is now exhibited in the London Science Museum!

TOPICAS are the experts dedicated
to handling change within your business

Who we are?

We are Topicas

The Topicas team are well seasoned consultants who have spent a proportion of their careers in “Big 4” firms. We also have a range of Industry Subject Matter Experts. We have the agility and focus of a smaller organisation. We are passionate about delivering excellence and making a real difference. Our team comprises of Directors and Practitioners.

Tang YuJing

Financial Director

John Cheshire

Programme & Practice Director

Martin Williams

Business Strategist

Kevin Pattison

Sales & Marketing Operations Professional

Stuart Beech

Change Management Professional

Nick Daperis

Business Test Manager

John Alexander

Customer Service and Change Leader

Peter Ingram

Telecoms Consultant

Debbie Gatt

Systems Integration Consultant

Vishal Mittal

Senior Consultant

Naveen Mittal

Senior Consultant

Martin Holiday

Programme Manager and Agile Specialist

Case studies of work we’ve done for
forward thinking clients

SEROCOR PROGRAMME

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<h2>Serocor Programme March 2013</h2>
Background and Vision
A £120m turnover multi-disciplinary human capital management company, Advanced Resource Managers (ARM) operated as a single business unit. To enable the implementation of the Board’s 10 year strategic vision and to provide the foundations for accelerated and sustained growth, a new group structure was envisaged, consisting of a holding company (Serocor Holdings) with associated trading brands.
The Serocor Transformation Programme would enable:
<ul>
<li>creation of new brands</li>
<li>stronger market presence</li>
<li>simplification and strengthening of the business messages</li>
<li>offering of Entrepreneurial opportunities to new/existing brands</li>
</ul>
The aim of the Programme was to deliver a fit for purpose systems infrastructure and associated business processes, and to address the associated people change, to enable the new brands and corporate structure to be launched and operate from 1 March 2013 such that the new business entities could operate independently, efficiently and profitably.
Individual Business Units
The Programme was to create all new brands which were complementary to the core Serocor brand whilst continuing to maintain fully operational business units.
<ul>
<li>The ARM UK brand, comprising of Engineering and IT divisions. This remained as ARM.</li>
<li>The ARM International brand, focussing on Mobile Applications, Internet Applications, Telecommunications. This became Bloc</li>
<li>The ARM Consulting brand which included Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Training Process Outsourcing services; and Managed Service Provision. This became Optamor</li>
<li>A specialist Search and Selection company focussing on Executive level appointments. This became Hawker Chase Executive</li>
<li>The Support Services brand providing all internal brands with Business Services and Support across Compliance; Legal; Marketing; Business Projects; HR, Finance and also providing Technical Project Services and Support, across Information Systems and Technology; Telephony and Mobile Communications. This became Serocor Solutions</li>
</ul>
Programme Scope
The scope of the Programme surrounded the needs of the Executive Board; the individual Sales brands; and the centralised support services: Compliance; Legal; Marketing; Business Projects; HR, Finance and also providing Technical Project Services and Support, across Information Systems and Technology; Telephony and Mobile Communications.
The guiding principles were:
<ul>
<li>Ensure the running of separate human capital management companies – i.e. ARM, Optamor, Bloc, and Hawker Chase as well as an infrastructure into which new acquisitions could be integrated or new companies created.</li>
<li>Create a full end to end integrated solution to manage the employee, candidate, client and supplier lifecycles for each new company in the group</li>
<li>Restructure the systems environment and re-engineer the processes to enable the demerging of the different business streams from one limited company to multiple limited companies and from a single company systems architecture to a group systems architecture.</li>
<li>Be suitable for the continued growth of the Group and the component businesses.</li>
<li>Enable a Group wide invoicing and payment solution to be in place so to aid group consolidated reporting and produce segmental reporting linked to the individual brands.</li>
<li>Build into the Support Services Business Unit the flexibility to support varying Group demands whilst providing cost effectiveness and remaining competitive and profitable.</li>
<li>Minimise BAU systems downtime during the Programme with cutover restricted to a weekend.</li>
</ul>
Role of TOPICAS Consultants
Topicas Consultants delivered the Serocor Programme to extremely challenging timescales. We were engaged with the Board and key stakeholders, delivered the solution design and managed the diverse Project Team with hands on technical project management.
The Programme fulfilled the following key objectives:
<ul>
<li>Implementation of system changes such that all critical systems so the companies could manage the relationships with their clients and candidates, Invoice clients pay suppliers, contractors, and staff, account financially for the separate businesses entities, produce individual brand and consolidated group reporting</li>
<li>Re-engineering of associated business processes to achieve the required business outcomes</li>
<li>Close co-ordination with the multiple business functions through the complete Programme lifecycle</li>
<li>Management of the people side of change and associated communications required for the migration of employees, contractors, clients, and contracts etc. to their relevant brands/companies.</li>
</ul>
We helped to achieve a successful transformation Programme through the following:
<ul>
<li>Delivered Information Systems Programme and Project Management – strategic change planning, scheduling, resourcing, driving positive change via championing of BPR to realise ROI opportunities</li>
<li>Presented to the CEO and Board: full budgetary, benefits and schedule accountability, with decisions for RAID, and undertaking, fulfilling and reporting on strategic feasibility studies.</li>
<li>Implemented a governance structure that utilised a PRINCE2 framework with a Scrum (Agile) delivery methodology, ensuring consistent controls and visibility</li>
<li>Successful concurrent project management of CRM, SAP, MI/BI and data migration projects using a best fit combination of APMP, PRINCE2 and Scrum methods</li>
<li>Guided supplier developers (6) and the project team (10), (BAs, Environment Mgr, Test Mgr, Testers, SAP/SQL lead) at a fast pace in weekly iterations of code delivery across unit, functional, integration, performance, regression, UAT. and PAT.</li>
<li>Managed the internal permanent employees that were seconded to the Programme.</li>
<li>Cutover significant (100 Ms) records migrated across SQL databases with full data mapping.</li>
<li>Led strategic/tactical brainstorming, achieving dynamic solution design and implementation.</li>
<li>Close 3rd party management, ensuring accountability for timely quality deliverables</li>
<li>Specialist team creation and management, from writing of job descriptions to interviewing, selecting and on-boarding of specialists.</li>
</ul>

UK Challenger Bank

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<h2>UK Challenger Bank September 2015</h2>
The Challenge
PPI complaints handling has been the largest remediation programme ever undertaken by British banks with more than £33 billion in redress identified, calculated and paid to millions of customers. Industry wide this has proven to be a significant and highly underestimated challenge in terms of cost and scale of operations.
Regulatory focus initially targeted the ‘Big 4’ Banks, Lloyds, Barclays RBS and HSBC, who account for c.80% of all PPI sales. In recent years the FCA has investigated the second tier, ’challenger’ banks, with Section 166 actions, enforcement orders and even fines for miss-selling.
Challenger banks, whilst agile, do not have the available resources and capability to manage the scaling, planning, oversight and control of PPI remediation within the strict timelines demanded by the regulator.
Most challengers have resorted to 3rd party support and expertise from outsourcers and the larger consulting practices to manage and run PPI remediation. This in itself can pose challenges.
Topicas’s role
The Bank needed to bridge the gap between its own executive and management team and a number of potential solution providers. Who to choose? Who to trust? Who can deliver?
Topicas was able to provide a seasoned interim with extensive experience in the field to support the Bank from through strategy through to execution.
How did we help?
<ul>
<li>Wrote the Request for Proposal to be issued to four experienced suppliers</li>
<li>Wrote the contract to drive the best value from the selected supplier, including quality and productivity targets</li>
<li>Managed the supplier selection process to enable the Bank to make an informed choice</li>
<li>Mobilised the supplier operation to scale to a 400 desk site within 6 months of contract signature</li>
<li>Acted as the relationship manager for the Bank with the supplier in day to day operations ensuring that quality, production targets were met and policy / process changes were effectively implemented and controlled</li>
<li>Provided and managed a team of 6 FTE to enable the Bank to complete a comprehensive and effective Past Business Review</li>
<li>Provided advice and guidance to the Bank’s executive on total costs of redress and operations to inform provisioning</li>
<li>Ongoing advice and guidance to the executive on all aspects of PPI from the implications of the Plevin case to managing Bank policy, process and procedure down to case level where required</li>
<li>Interfaced with the 3 Lines of Defence to ensure Bank policy continues to drive the optimal customer outcome whilst meeting all regulatory demands</li>
<li>Promoted the development of a culture of focussed delivery, controlled change and celebration of success</li>
</ul>

SSE

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<h2>SSE Retail Transformation August 2015</h2>
The Challenge
The Big 6 Energy companies all face growing regulation and fierce competition from independent energy companies who have fewer obligations and the freedom to choose their target customers with no legacy technology. In order to face these challenges Energy Companies need to drive up efficiency whilst future-proofing their technology estate.
In 2009, the Department of Energy and Climate Change announced its intention to have smart meters in all homes in Great Britain by 2020. The rollout is considered to be the largest programme ever undertaken – involving visits to 30 million homes and 2 million small businesses to replace meters for both gas and electricity. To complicate matters, the evolving nature of the Smart metering equipment technical specifications (SMETS1/2) means that meter and In Home Display manufacturers are playing catch-up with the standards which has a knock on impact on Energy Suppliers.
Topicas’s role
Smart projects are delivered using a combination of waterfall (IT Gated process) and agile techniques with a combination of in-house and Systems Integrator delivery.
The Executive challenge was to have a better understanding of the interdependencies across the Smart portfolio and to control portfolio risk.
How did we help?
<ul>
<li>Trialled and rolled out a standardised approach to risk reporting and analytics</li>
<li>Undertook deep dive reviews of major transformation projects to ensure that these would deliver according to their business case</li>
<li>Restructured the Smart governance and reporting to improve the effectiveness of Executive Steering Group</li>
<li>Took interim charge of the Smart PMO whilst a permanent team were put in place</li>
<li>Provided best practice advice on the management of Third Party’s</li>
<li>Interfaced with the Industry Regulatory Team, calling out Industry wide regulatory risks</li>
<li>Promoted the development of a culture of change and innovation</li>
</ul>
<div class="w-testimonial">
						<blockquote>
							<q class="w-testimonial-text"> John provided professional guidance to myself and my team and brought a confident can-do attitude with considerable capability. He has a very strong work ethic and tackled the most complex problems within very tight timescales. </q>
							<div class="w-testimonial-person">
								
								David Penny
								Director of Smart Metering
							</div>
						</blockquote>
					</div>

Smart, independent consultancy and advisory services require
a good mix of combined skills

Our Services

Programme Assurance

The Topicas Programme Assurance capability ensures that our Client’s deliver their expected outcomes with desired business benefits.

Programme Governance Diagnostic

Our Programme Governance Diagnostic provides assurance that a programme is set-up to maximise the quality and success rate of the end result.

Programme Turnaround

If your programme is going off-track and looks unlikely to realise the benefits it was designed to achieve then there are a number of potential root causes.

Programme Office

Topicas provide Consultants that are experts in Portfolio Office/PMO implementation and have been facilitating and implementing project, portfolio, and program management over many years.

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Companies we have worked with

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2A Zodiac House, Calleva Park Aldermaston, Berkshire RG7 8HN

+44 (0)7710 027597

info@topicas.co.uk

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We bring a personal and effective approach to every project we work on.

Change in your business requires smarter thinking