How Inchcape is using Atlassian Cloud to gain true visibility across initiatives, and support its accelerating global business.

Using the power of Jira to break down silos

By the time Paul Leon started implementing the vision of a centralized place for all initiatives some teams already had Jira and Confluence as tools to make agile projects happen. 

Paul understood that the solutions were valuable for individual local projects but knew that the potential of Atlassian Cloud was way beyond this, and believed that deploying the same tools with an enterprise and standardized vision could completely change the game.

"What we aimed for was to have a modern homogeneous cloud solution, enterprise-grade and for all Digital and Data Analytics. Atlassian Cloud offered all that", Paul Leon

He decided to build on these isolated experiences to make Jira and Confluence the standard IT platform for all teams and partnered with Atlassian Platinum Enterprise Solution Partner bit2bit Americas to do so.

They have designed an elegant solution that uses Jira Cloud as a central platform for all projects, integrates Confluence to generate a solid knowledge base across regions, and connects great marketplace apps seamlessly. 

The Structure app came into play to maximize the visibility, offering a centralized portfolio view in Jira, Tempo expanded resource planning and tracking capabilities, while eazyBi and Custom Charts took executive and operational reporting to a whole new level.

By taking advantage of the Atlassian Cloud streamline implementation, the team was able to deploy the vision, safely input all projects into Jira, and launch in less than eight weeks while working 100% remotely. 

Paul says that the ambition from the beginning was to make every project delivery aligned with the company's accounting structure and overlay regions and technology platforms, allowing for visibility in every dimension.

He tells that one immediate positive impact of the change was a truly integrated vision that allowed for time savings and reduction on duplicated activities due to now being able to quickly identify synergies and potential issues across different regions and technology platforms. 

"We now see all the projects in Jira, analyze the evolution, prepare the platforms and start building plans that are fully interlocked"

A centralized Atlassian platform empowering organizational change

Paul adds that resource optimization, time savings, and better capacity planning are great advantages of the centralized vision but not the most important aspect.

The biggest win is to be able to have the right tools to empower the mindset shift itself. 

According to him, the model has the potential to help deliver a deep cultural change, making it possible to approach digital transformation collaboratively. 

"We are using Atlassian right at the heart of our transformation for the request and demand basis as well as the delivery lifecycle"

Before embarking on this journey, when they acquired a business in a specific market, for example, and had to update the technology platform it would take a lot of effort and time to identify the best sequencing for the implementation, which solution would go where, and when, potential conflicts between local and global stacks, and finally guarantee that things would run smoothly.

Due to the flexibility of Jira’s workflows and the granularity of its permission schemes, Inchcape was able to configure a platform that allowed for standardization across projects, with the Inchcape way of delivery, shared templates, and a live collaborative knowledge base in Confluence.

They can watch initiatives by specific regions in Jira but also by technology platforms that run horizontally like Cloud and Security. This allows them to work collaboratively with platform owners to prepare the markets and solutions, anticipate potential conflicts and ensure that every team around the world is working on the same platforms.  

"Full visibility in Jira across the whole organization enables you to make better management judgment because you have greater ability to see all the moving parts", says Paul.

By having all the pieces of the jigsaw on the table, the teams can also work out together how to design and deliver the final picture, prioritizing programmes for customers, brand partners, and strategic objectives.

As everything connects, they can have full visibility from the global technology platform all the way to project activity execution, and also instrumentalize change on local teams, setting the path for more agile deliveries. 

"Using Jira and Confluence solutions as the standard, we could accelerate many steps, and significantly reduce the average time to implement initiatives from platform updates to completely new applications. " shares Paul.

Focusing on the value delivery for better service

Paving the way for corporate agility is one important benefit of the new way of working Inchcape is building across every region, but it is not the main focus for Inchcape. Paul reinforces everything is about value delivery: delivering the right initiatives at the right time.

Now, everyone can look at everything from a strategic point of view. They track where they are in real-time against the execution plan, against the strategic initiative, and across the globe. It is an effective way to manage expectations and control the demand, always with a value delivery perspective.

"It is a huge transformation. We are no longer siloed by platforms nor regions but following every dimension in Jira, and solving challenges as one global company ". Paul Leon - Digital Portfolio Director

Paul adds that Atlassian connects seamlessly with the culture and the future Inchcape is building where everybody works towards the same objectives. “We are now moving towards an open global community that is focused on delivering value and better experiences for our customers every day".