Case Studies

RWE – Outsourced IT Training

Outsourced IT training from Floatdene Green provides a stable platform for RWE npower.

The acquisition of npower by German utility giant RWE resulted in a business transformation programme comprising many different projects, and ultimately impacting 12,000 staff in the UK. As a result of an outsourced training agreement with specialist training provider Floatdene Green, RWE npower has benefited from professional onsite training representation and a managed training service that has consistently delivered benefits to the wider programme.

RWE npower, formerly National Power, was originally formed as a result of the privatisation of the electricity industry in the 1990s and is now one of the UK’s leading power generators.

A huge operation with over 12,000 employees at 60 sites across the UK, it serves almost seven million customer accounts and produces more than 10% of the electricity used in England and Wales. It supplies electricity and gas to residential and business customers (under the npower brand), and operates and manages a portfolio of coal, oil and gas-fired power stations as well as various renewable energy interests.
RWE npower is part of the RWE Group, one of Europe’s leading utilities companies.

Over the past 4 years the Group has been focussing on consolidating its systems, policies and processes with best practice being sought and used across the whole business. RWE npower has embarked on a business transformation programme to help leverage recent growth and the new Group-wide economies of scale.

Balancing the need for uniformity across the Group with local needs was seen as critical. Derrick Johnstone, Floatdene Green’s Operations Director explains: “SAP was identified early on as the standard platform for the RWE Group resulting in a number of migration projects to bring together SAP, Oracle and several in house systems whilst ensuring that local country specific requirements were met. Each project needed a comprehensive training programme for users, and each training session had to be delivered by local trainers.”

From the outset, a need was identified for a specialist training provider to sit within the organisation and manage the projects from a people perspective. “We were looking for a company with a strong consultative approach, and who would be flexible and responsive to the requirements of the local business, whilst recognising the cross cultural issues and difficulties inherent in an organisation of our size and geographical scope” recalls Steve Primrose, KP1 Migration Project Manager.

Because of the numerous acquisitions and mergers, not only in the UK but across Europe, the group found its systems fragmented and inconsistent. Expertise around Group systems and processes mainly resided at the Group HQ in Germany, but with high numbers of users spread both functionally and geographically.

Due to the complex nature of the programme, a long term commitment was paramount to forge lasting relationships and allow the partnership to become embedded existence within the UK companies and in Europe where counter representation was essential.

“Like most large organisations, the procurement process was extensive, but our sustainable approach to training projects combined with our positive long term relationships with other clients were key factors in helping RWE npower wanting to work with us going forward, “ said Johnstone.

Training for the initial migrations was delivered using a Blended Learning Approach – comprising formal classroom training, workshops and e-Learning. A training needs analysis (TNA) was carried out to ensure that each user had a training curriculum tailored to their role. Floatdene Green’s professional SAP Trainers designed and delivered the training materials, as well as providing support to users. An online training portal was introduced to provide a single point of reference for all learning materials.

“We were very pleased with the vast amount of expertise and experience Floatdene brought to the project and they played a huge part in enabling the implementation to run smoothly and the project being a great success” commented Primrose. “Having Floatdene Green on site with us helped enormously and meant that any issues arising even after Go Live could be addressed quickly and efficiently.”

“The initial training project was a success, and we were able to build on this to develop the outsourced training service for future projects” agrees Johnstone. “We introduced an embedded Floatdene Green team of staff within RWE npower consisting of coordinators, and training managers who are able to provide on site support to the various projects, whilst also managing the business as usual training requirements. This has provided RWE npower with continuity across the various projects and the ability to deliver numerous concurrent training programmes to a widely distributed user population.”

“As one of the leading utilities companies in Europe, RWE npower have an ambitious change programme to deliver. The success of our relationship with RWE proves that by outsourcing training to a specialist provider such as Floatdene Green, organisations can be sure that high quality training is always the constant. ”