Microland successfully transformed the IT Infrastructure landscape through Strategic Cost and Performance Management for a Global Aviation Services Company

Overview

In the competitive landscape of global aviation services, optimization and innovation are paramount. The client, a prominent Global Aviation Services Company, operates in a highly dynamic environment, managing over 100,000 flights annually across 140 aircraft and handling more than 900,000 tons of cargo per year. In order to maintain its leadership position and facilitate growth, the client recognized the need to revamp their IT infrastructure landscape. This case study highlights how Microland's Strategic Cost and Performance Management (SCPM) framework empowered our client to optimize costs, enhance performance, and embrace digital transformation.

Business Challenge and Opportunity

Operating in an industry characterized by rapid flights, intricate cargo logistics, and demanding customer expectations, the client’s existing IT infrastructure faced the strains of managing a high volume of flights, aircraft, and cargo. The client embarked on an ambitious journey to expand its operations in the cargo space by acquiring small regional players in different countries. Each company had its unique setup, IT infrastructure, and processes, creating a complex web of disjointed systems that hindered efforts to create unified and efficient operations. The absence of a cohesive IT strategy resulted in fragmented systems, inhibiting agility and responsiveness. Moreover, escalating operational costs and an intensified vulnerability landscape underscored the critical need for a comprehensive overhaul. The client’s aspirations to digitally transform and enhance its competitive edge were impeded by these challenges, necessitating a strategic IT digital transformation.

Irregularities in IT and process integration during acquisitions further exacerbated the issues, disrupting crucial business operations and creating inefficiencies across the organization. Adding to the complexity was a distributed IT team struggling with cultural and regional differences leading to issues in communication and collaboration, making seamless integration a formidable task. The increased costs from redundant tools and technologies further strained their resources, making it crucial to find a solution that would streamline operations while reducing expenses. Additionally, the absence of a Disaster Recovery (DR) plan for critical business applications posed a significant technical and business continuity challenge.

Our client’s transformation journey was an all-encompassing, comprehensive 5-year engagement that started with a consulting-led approach using Microland’s SCPM framework, providing a comprehensive view of existing challenges, potential improvements, and a roadmap for digital transformation. The objective was to optimize costs by at least 30% while simultaneously reinforcing its IT infrastructure to support digital growth.

Microland Solution

Microland's SCPM framework, renowned for its systematic approach, was at the core of the client’s transformation journey.

1. Discover: Collaboratively, the client and Microland established the engagement's foundations, collecting data through the Microland Gold Standard Questionnaire that was pivotal in crafting a robust transformation strategy.
2. Validate: Data accuracy and normalization were meticulously validated, ensuring the integrity of insights derived from the assessment.
3. Analyze: Deep analysis led to the formulation of a comprehensive business case, outlining potential savings and improvements across the IT landscape.
4. Finalize: The refined business case was presented, aligning the client’s strategic objectives with the proposed transformation roadmap

Solution Implementation by Microland

• Cloud Infrastructure Assessment and Migration: Using the Now2Cloud Framework, we assessed the client’s cloud infrastructure. The outcome was a blueprint for a hybrid cloud environment, maximizing cost-efficiency and operational agility with the help of Microland’s Intelligeni CloudOps. The transition toward a cloud-centric digital transformation is currently underway, with the ongoing migration from the legacy Data Center to the Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This progressive shift is acting as a catalyst for dynamic change, laying the foundation for a future-oriented journey defined by innovation and operational efficiency driven by the cloud.
• Disaster Recovery Implementation: A Disaster Recovery environment on Azure Cloud was established, ensuring uninterrupted access to critical applications, significantly mitigating penalties for service interruptions. A significant improvement in business availability and continuity was achieved by establishing this robust DR environment for critical business applications which ensured compliance with security requirements, given the sensitivity of airline data.
• Vulnerability Remediation: During the initial phase of the engagement, Microland improved its security posture by eliminating over 90K vulnerabilities by patching infrastructure, securing admin credentials, controlling server access, and minimizing unauthorized server access.

Over a year of working together, the client and Microland teams teamed up to implement multiple transformation initiatives. The client's active engagement and transparency in sharing valuable business-related insights and Microland's technical expertise have made this success possible. This collaboration has not only led to successful results from transformation projects but also helped make ongoing operations stable and increase efficiency.

Business Value Delivered

Microland's SCPM framework played a pivotal role in propelling the client’s IT transformation, resulting in enhanced operational efficiency, improved customer support, and seamless project execution. The seamless management of servers and networks by Microland ensured improved uptime and reliability. The robust Disaster Recovery measures provided added resilience to the client’s business operations.

• Reduction in TCO: The client achieved a substantial 23% reduction in Total Cost of Ownership through technology rationalization and process standardization
• Infrastructure Availability: The cloud-based DR solution ensured an impressive 99.9% availability, ensuring business continuity, and minimizing service disruptions and downtimes.
• Vulnerability Reduction: In less than 12 months, the client’s vulnerabilities were slashed by 90%, significantly enhancing its security posture.

Client Testimonial

“Microland’s right shoring strategy has helped ASL Aviation Holdings reduce IT spend by 23%. We have successfully amalgamated our tools and IT systems. We have also streamlined our processes across group entities. Microland has done an excellent job in managing our global IT systems which ensures that our fleet is operational throughout the year. ASL views Microland as a trusted partner, recognizing their pivotal role in supporting our customers and helping ASL achieve its business objectives.”

- Ian Brennen, CIO of ASL Aviation Holdings