Akshay Upadhye

Akshay Upadhye

London Area, United Kingdom
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Projects

  • DELIVERING CONTINUED PERFORMANCE DURING CHALLENGING ENVIRONMENT

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    A large regional newspaper publisher in the UK with turnover of around £200M and publishing around 100 print titles and more than 70 websites was facing challenge of declining subscriber base and month on month lower advertising revenues.

    Using technology as a key enabler, transform the business from being a print to digital newspaper company and improve the subscriber and advertising revenues to maintain a competitive edge as the preferred regional newspaper across all the titles it…

    A large regional newspaper publisher in the UK with turnover of around £200M and publishing around 100 print titles and more than 70 websites was facing challenge of declining subscriber base and month on month lower advertising revenues.

    Using technology as a key enabler, transform the business from being a print to digital newspaper company and improve the subscriber and advertising revenues to maintain a competitive edge as the preferred regional newspaper across all the titles it operated.

    Areas of impact included:

    1. Method – Engagement with business leaders to identify their key challenges and key competitors’ (e.g. Google, Facebook, Gumtree, Groupon and AutoTrader to name a few) offerings.

    2. Process – Facilitate design of a new operating model for the business on the principle of digital first. Weekly communication with all relevant stakeholders and employees; monthly communication with the supervisory board.

    3. Technology – Market research to find most optimum solutions and technology partners to deliver a fully operating new greenfield solution in less than 12 months.

    4. Delivery Style – Selected a prime technology partner to reduce IT spend on legacy systems by 40% and these savings were then used to fund the new greenfield digital platform.

    Applauded by the executive management team, delivered successfully a fully operational greenfield technology solution to support a proof of concept for a fully first of its kind digital newspaper. Secured positive feedback from the subscribers, local communities, local authorities and businesses resulting in continuous growth in the subscriber base and self-service advertising revenues.


    #cio #itleadership #digitaldisruption #digitaltransformation #digitalstrategy #businesstransformation #digitalinnovation #legacysystems

  • IMPLEMENT THE OPTIMUM INNOVATION / TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS

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    Global manufacturing organisation with 45,000 employees across 100+ countries and roughly €9B in revenue is changing their revenue model from being a product company to a services company. In order to transform their revenue model, it was important for their IT Services to adapt to the changing business needs.

    Starting with a quick 8-week assessment of their IT Function, I was subsequently in charge of implementing a new operating model for IT Service delivery to lay the foundation for…

    Global manufacturing organisation with 45,000 employees across 100+ countries and roughly €9B in revenue is changing their revenue model from being a product company to a services company. In order to transform their revenue model, it was important for their IT Services to adapt to the changing business needs.

    Starting with a quick 8-week assessment of their IT Function, I was subsequently in charge of implementing a new operating model for IT Service delivery to lay the foundation for Industry 4.0 and deliver a scalable / agile IT Operating model to support the vision.

    1. Method – Engaged senior leadership from business, IT and procurement and organised reference visits to help define “what good looks like”.
    2. Process – Facilitate identification of business-critical processes that had impact on top-line revenue and to ensure an efficient and reliable IT system that would avoid any commercial losses.
    3. Technology – Delivered an agile IT function that worked on the principle of pro-active monitoring of business-critical processes
    4. Delivery Style – Selected a project team, trained them and subsequently lead them to delivered €33M savings in one area alone with significantly improved IT Services.

    The project outcome and benefit were highly appreciated by the executive team since it delivered improved uptime of business-critical services reducing revenue loss of approximately €5M per annum. Also delivered net 30% savings in one area alone that had been proving challenging to the business and the savings helped self-fund implementation of optimum technology solutions over 18-month duration.


    #cio #itleadership #technologyinnovation #industry4 #itservicemanagement #digitalmanufacturing #lossprevention #agiletransformation #artificialintelligence

  • REDUCE COST AND IMPROVE CASH FLOW

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    A global media organisation with annual revenue of $650M and around 2500 staff has been in the phase of exponential growth over past 4 years and was facing challenges to manage their cash flow. Since technology was a major spend component, there was pressure to reduce unit cost and optimise the cash flow. The CFO and his finance team were looking for help to streamline their cash flow for Q4 2019 and beyond.

    The remit was for me to identify the quick wins to help reduce technology spend…

    A global media organisation with annual revenue of $650M and around 2500 staff has been in the phase of exponential growth over past 4 years and was facing challenges to manage their cash flow. Since technology was a major spend component, there was pressure to reduce unit cost and optimise the cash flow. The CFO and his finance team were looking for help to streamline their cash flow for Q4 2019 and beyond.

    The remit was for me to identify the quick wins to help reduce technology spend by 10% translating to c$3M without having to spend significant efforts and also negotiate new unit price and payment terms with key technology suppliers to improve the cash flow.

    My areas of impact in order to deliver the desired outcome benefits included:

    1. Technology – rationalise number of systems being used supported by a diligently planned business continuity.

    2. Process – Midterm contract review with key technology suppliers to reduce the unit cost and agree 90-day payment term.

    3. Method – Engagement with “C” level executives, procurement and technology colleagues to ensure proper co-ordination and alignment.

    4. Delivery Style – Set-up a project team and a structured governance model that realised over 35% savings on one of the top technologies spend supplier, 75% savings on key cloud components.


    Overall, as a result of my contribution, cash flow sustainability was achieved in line with strategy and operating requirement. 35% savings on one of the top technologies spend supplier, 75% savings on key cloud components, translating to attainment of the desired 10% cost savings realised within 4months timeline. Executive endorsed my contribution and approach to leadership and delivery within tight deadlines and complex contractual and regulatory operating environment.


    #CIO #costreduction #cashflowmanagement #businesscontinuity #leadership #operatingmodel #operationalefficiency

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