Adam Kelly
O’Brien has joined Albany Beck’s Irish office after being responsible for the development of Delta Capita’s Irish business in the last six years.
O’Brien says: “I am eagerly anticipating this new chapter with Albany Beck and am excited to collaborate with the team to drive growth and expansion in the coming years.”
The wealth of expertise and experience that O’Brien brings to his new position as Albany Beck’s local Country Head in Ireland, will further expand the ability to successfully provide the complex and comprehensive migration and transformation programmes that are vital for the successful growth of clients’ businesses.
Albany Beck’s USP
With many years of specialist experience in directing the implementation of complex, strategic business and technology transformations and migrations across Europe and Asia, Thomas says: “Our tried and tested execution and delivery of change management on a global scale, with such good rigour and control, is Albany Beck’s unique selling point.”
One example of this was the multi-year $145m programme to merge two large financial firms from a technology and process perspective. “This involved complex integrations of the chief operating officer functions and all IT aspects of the combined organisations.”
Thomas adds that developing a comprehensive and thorough common governance framework to manage the day-to-day delivery of the programme achieved GBP10m of benefits to date. This framework has been adopted across further projects as ‘best practice’.
Ian Thomas
Scalable solutions
Kelly adds that they offer scalable, stress-free solutions: teams are effectively spun up or reduced based upon on-going analysis of the migration and transformation process. “Every change project has challenges, and it’s only when we’re in the intricacies of the programme, and unpicking elements, that the full complexities reveal themselves. Our consultants thrive on complexities and finding effective solutions to complicated problems for our clients.”
Albany Beck provides global, large-scale Change Management Solutions when implementing data, client, and cloud migrations. Kelly explains that data migrations involve identifying which data needs to move, developing the processes to move it securely between platforms, and carrying out the migration without impacting their client’s daily business performance.
He adds: “In the past, our cloud migrations have involved us moving client’s operations safely and smoothly to the cloud, using our expertise in Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud.”
We don’t just work closely with our client’s teams and then disappear at the end of the project. We go beyond this one-off solution to change management.
In one programme, Thomas explains that the client migration to new systems involved 300 external clients and 9000 accounts with significant global market positions. “Effectively delivering a seamless customer experience is crucial for our clients.”
Long term benefits for clients
With the launch of Albany Beck’s Change Management Solutions in the Irish financial market and the appointment of O’Brien as Country Lead, Kelly says that their consultancy firm offers long term benefits for their clients. “We don’t just work closely with our client’s teams and then disappear at the end of the project. We go beyond this one-off solution to change management.”
He adds that the company is passionate about building strong, confident relationships that create productive and sustainable teams. Embedding their consultants within teams, ensures they quickly respond to on-going needs.
Paul O'Brien
“Developing the team’s skills and knowledge throughout the project, means that when the initial change programme is finished, they have the necessary skills to maximise capabilities on a long-term basis.”
An important long-term benefit for clients is that Albany Beck offers them the opportunity to retain individual consultants after an agreed period. The director of a top-tier investment bank said: “The niche value proposition to us was the ability to retain high-performing individuals, at various levels, after an agreed period – therefore preventing the loss of IP and investment.”
Most importantly, it empowers Irish-based businesses to build workforce strength and resilience for the future.
There’s an abundance of exceptionally skilled and qualified talent in Ireland. This provides us with inspiring consultants, and we’ve been able to accelerate their expertise and experience across a multiplicity of high-demand skill areas.
Albany Beck’s future expansion plans in the Irish market
In launching Albany Beck’s Change Management Solutions in the Irish financial market, Kelly says: “There’s an abundance of exceptionally skilled and qualified talent in Ireland. This provides us with inspiring consultants, and we’ve been able to accelerate their expertise and experience across a multiplicity of high-demand skill areas. It allows us to create bespoke solutions for our client’s needs and provided exceptional standards throughout the change process.”
Albany Beck is already mandated by Irish clients to assist them in their immediate needs while addressing the talent shortage in the ever-evolving change and transformation space.
Kelly concludes: “We’re an ambitious company so you can expect to see further developments in the near future, playing our part in cementing Ireland’s position at the forefront of innovation, sustainability and change in global financial markets.”