Case Studies
These case studies analyze the strategic decisions, governance tensions, transformation programs, private equity transactions, AI platform shifts, audit failures, and operating model changes reshaping the professional services industry. Each case study combines deep research, public sources, and board-level analysis to examine what happened, why it happened, and what it may mean for the future of professional services firms.
Case Study 15: How the Scottish Police Got £25 Million Back but Lost 3 Years on I6
15. September 2021
In 2013, professional services company Accenture was awarded a ten-year, £46.11m contract to provide the i6 computer system to Police Scotland by the Scottish Police Authority (SPA). The i6 system was intended to replace 130 electronic and paper-based systems covering 80 per cent of police processes for recording crime and missing persons. The program started
Case Study 14: How Texas Wasted $367 Million on an Unusable Child Support Enforcement System
24. Oktober 2020
After investing $367.5 million in a child support enforcement system, the only thing that the state of Texas has to show for is some hard-won lessons. Initiated by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) in 2007, “T2” aimed to deliver a secure, web-based system to automate manual functions, streamline daily operations, enable staff to
Case Study 13: Vodafone’s £59 Million Customer Relationship Disaster
30. Mai 2020
In October 2016 the British multinational telecommunications company Vodafone achieved an unwelcome milestone – the single biggest fine for “serious and sustained” breaches of consumer protection rules in the UK. It was the result of a troubled CRM and billing consolidation project. UK telecoms regulator Ofcom slapped a £4.6 million fine on Vodafone, payable within
Case Study 12: Lidl’s €500 Million SAP Debacle
5. Mai 2020
When Lidl launched its SAP transformation programme, the decision was framed internally as a necessary step to modernize the technological backbone of a retailer that had grown far beyond the limits of its legacy systems, but the ambition went further than modernization, because the programme was positioned as the largest transformation in the company’s history,
Project Failure Case Studies
11. April 2020
Before focusing primarily on professional services transformation and governance, I spent years researching failed technology projects and transformation programs across industries. This archive contains those case studies, a collection of lessons on execution failure, complexity, weak governance, and how large initiatives gradually lose control. > Case Study 21: The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) $250 Million CHESS
Case Study 11: How BBSI Blew Millions on an Oracle Cloud Solution
21. März 2020
Oracle and its partners KBACE Technologies and Cognizant were sued in January 2019 by Barrett Business Services, Inc. (“BBSI”) in San Francisco Superior Court, for fraud, negligent misrepresentation and breach of contract arising out of one of Oracle’s Cloud Service offerings. BBSI (NASDAQ: BBSI) is a so-called professional employer organization («PEO») in the business of
Case Study 10: LeasePlan Paid $100 Million for a SAP System That Never Went Live
31. Januar 2020
International automotive fleet management company LeasePlan has been hit by a massive bill for a failed SAP implementation. LeasePlan has since dropped SAP to pursue an alternative IT infrastructure, citing the “monolithic nature” of the ERP system as being incompatible with its more agile needs – but not before sinking almost €100 million into its
Case Study 9: The Payroll System That Cost Queensland Health AU$1.25 Billion
15. Dezember 2019
The payroll system implementation disaster at Queensland Health in 2010 is said to be the most spectacular technology project failure in the Southern Hemisphere and arguably the second worst failure of public administration in Australia’s history. The handling of the fires this year being first. Queensland Health is the public sector healthcare provider for the
Case Study 8: How Hertz Paid Accenture $32 Million for a Website That Never Went Live
18. Oktober 2019
Car rental giant Hertz is suing consultant mammoth Accenture over a website redesign that ended in something that never saw daylight. The U.S. corporation Hertz operates the car rental brands Hertz, Dollar, and Thrifty, and has approximately 10,200 corporate and franchise locations throughout the world. With the rapid growth of rideshare apps like Uber and
Case Study 7: The $2.5 Billion Cross-Border Expansion Mistake by Target
10. September 2019
Less than two years after entering Canada, Target shocked the retail world by pulling out. After accumulating $2.5 billion in losses, the Minneapolis-based company shut down all of its 133 Canadian locations and laid off 17,600 employees. In a blog post, Brian Cornell, Target’s chairman and CEO, said the decision to exit Canada was the