Case study: ABB

IBIS Business Consultants Ltd first worked with ABB in 1999, in the run up to the now famous Year 2000 rollover. Six IBIS consultants were contracted to ABB in late autumn, and in teams of two they travelled the UK, visiting all the ABB sites and applying the various patches required for the Y2K compliance. This was completed ahead of schedule and ABB experienced no Y2K related problems.

In the Spring of 2001 ABB once again turned to IBIS Business Consultants Ltd to provide them with their support contractors whilst they underwent a major restructuring. Originally contracted for 3 months, IBIS provided over ten consultants based around the UK until October 2002, replacing all the disparate contract companies and agencies with whom ABB had once dealt.

“Working with IBIS made our lives much simpler”, says Steve Clements, Head of Group Processes and Information Systems (GPIS). “I know how robust their recruitment is, and how they invest in their people and this gave us the confidence to use them throughout our organisation. They have proved to be both effective, and flexible. When we were moving an entire office of 400 people from Stevenage to St Neots, IBIS was able to provide additional top quality personnel within a matter of days for what was a very short term resource shortfall. Since IBIS took over our contract work we have had letters of thanks from our users praising their support efforts.

“It has been a really valuable working relationship” says Greg Ackroyd, GPIS Support Manager. “IBIS automatically arranged holiday and training day cover, so I didn’t have to worry about manpower shortages, and if we needed additional people I made one phone call and everything was sorted out. We all had the confidence that they are all technically competent and fitted in our organisation.”