Retail giant sees workflow boost

Food and drinks giant Allied Domecq is using workflow software to get a better return on its IT investments.

The company, whose brands include Courvoisier, Teacher's whisky, Mumm champagne and Dunkin' Donuts, is using software from supplier Mercury that will also ensure it meets IT governance standards.

The software is automating the management and tracking of Allied Domecq's technology investments. It handles requests for equipment and products made by IT departments in 50 locations around the world.

'The software has taken away huge amounts of manual effort across the whole of global IT,' said Richard Goddard, Allied Domecq IT programmes and standards director.

'At the next shareholder meeting I expect we will be showing how we have spent more time on delivering solutions and shareholder value, and less time on administration.'

Goddard says the IT department was spending a lot of time carrying out manual check-ups and administrative tasks, with staff sometimes unable to stay up-to-date with the latest versions of cost proposals.

Three years ago Allied Domecq created the global IT business to provide an IT investment plan to the board once a year, and a way of tracking IT initiatives.

Allied Domecq installed the Mercury software five months ago, to improve and automate the manually intensive processes the company was using.

'We were using email, spreadsheets and so on,' said Goddard. 'In the past five months we have automated the existing demand management process, so it has workflows, is web-based and transparent. It is now completely self-service.'

The software has been configured to control the security authorisation and approval structure for progressing new IT investment requests, and maintains an audit trail for ongoing IT work.

Goddard says the software will also help produce audit trails required for regulatory compliance.

'We are looking at extending the software with an ITIL [information technology infrastructure library] module for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance,' he said. 'We are also looking at it for "break, fix and minor enhancement" jobs under five days.'