Case Study: UK Ministry of Defence achieves streamlined shared business services with IBM

Ministry of Defence unlocks innovation with enterprise applications and analytics

The UK’s Ministry of Defence needed to simplify its complex shared services environment, as its Defence Business Services team was managing many disparate legacy systems and data sources across finance, procurement, HR, and reporting. The agency wanted to reduce maintenance overhead, lower costs, improve service quality, and create a more modern, cloud-ready operating model with support from IBM.

IBM helped the Ministry of Defence modernize its IT landscape with enterprise applications and analytics, including IBM Consulting, IBM Planning Analytics, and IBM Cognos Analytics. The program replaced four legacy systems with one enterprise application for contracting, purchasing and finance, improved data quality, and centralized management information into a single warehouse; as a result, IBM and the MoD reduced incidents and unplanned downtime, cut manual reporting, and saved hours for analysts while hitting key delivery targets on time.

Ministry of Defence

James Courtney-Holt

CIO Finance & Commercial Lead, Defence Business Services