Risk Management Issues in Programme Management
By Lola Bulow I’m sure all Project Managers will agree that good risk management goes beyond building a risk log and you’d be naïve to
Rail
Who We Are
The rail sector is essential for ensuring safe and sustainable transportation, both passenger and freight. At Alchemmy, we work with rail organisations (train operators, infrastructure providers and contractors) to address and resolve their most significant challenges. By offering expert guidance and working closely with rail professionals, we support initiatives that make a positive impact on society.
Our approach centres around getting the best out of people and ensuring the work is being done with them and not to them. We drive meaningful transformation and help rail organisations navigate complex scenarios with a dedication to empower teams and provide actionable insights. We create lasting, positive changes by getting the best out of people, data and technology, ensuring the rail sector has the tools and insights to deliver the best possible service.
What Challenges Do You Face?
Budget Pressures
A combination of inflation and funding cuts have created budget pressures for the sector, making budget management and value for money delivery more critical than ever before. This is driving hard prioritisation of funding allocation sometimes at the cost of quality and speed of delivery, adversely impacting the end customer
Demand for Asset Renewals
Much of the UK's transport infrastructure, is aging and in need of significant investment for maintenance and upgrades. The Victorian age rail infrastructure requires significant renewals and is particularly vulnerable to adverse weather conditions. Similarly, the road and bridges network has faced wear and tear and has been classed as ‘sub-standard’ by various assessments. Furthermore, growing passenger demand, especially for Rail, are making it harder to take assets offline for renewals.
Sustainability
With more frequent and extreme weather events on the horizon, the sector is facing a triple blow; how to reduce its considerable contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and meet the UK’s legally binding net zero target by 2050, how to protect its legacy infrastructure to maintain the safe and reliable operation of the railway, and how to plan for this increasing uncertainty whilst mitigating the financial repercussion on the sector.
Industrial Relations
Labour/pay disputes have led to significant strike action across the sector, leading to economic losses and inconvenience for the public. In 2022-23, there were 29 days of strike action which directly affected train operators and Network rail. Furthermore, disruption from strikes continue in the follow-on days, all of which collectively has a significant impact on the sectors productivity, leading to customer dissatisfaction and making it harder to deal with budget pressures.
Political Uncertainty
Lack of political direction, the balance between public/private ownership and the future of mega projects has created uncertainty and turmoil within the sector. The Plan for Rail (2021) and subsequently the draft Rail Reform (2024) provide some strategic direction by the incumbent Conservative Government, however neither of the two documents recommends/ strives for full public ownership, which is the Labour Party’s stated goal for rail. Similarly, with the cancellation of HS2 phase 2b, there remain questions over the value for money from HS2 and its future.
Our Capabilities
Business Analysis
User-centred analysis of people, process, data and technology, from strategic to operational levels, working seamlessly with complex stakeholder landscapes.
Governance & Reporting
Effective definition of governance and reporting mechanism across an organisation to enable suitable stakeholder involvement in key decisions, effective co-ordination and transparency.
Portfolio, Programme & Project Management
Organise enterprise change initiatives into logical programmes and deliver with excellence to help realise benefits within allocated timelines and budgets.
CxO Advisory & Digital Transformation
Helping c-suite clients at a cross-organisation level leverage the power of data and analytics to deliver better business insights and drive corporate transformations to deliver improved performance and operational effectiveness.
Operating Model Design
Execute strategy through Target Operating Model review, design and improvement, across People, Process, Technology and Data.
Data Excellence
Enable organisations to better leverage the power of data in their operations, by defining the data strategy, governance and driving adoption by the end users to deliver actionable insights to the business.
People & Change
Enable people to operate at higher maturity and serve the enterprise better. Leverage business change to help people identify, understand and adopt changes to the organisation.
Meet the Team
Rishabh Gadodia
Rishabh is a former Big-4 (PwC and EY) transformation leader focused on the Transport sector, with 13 years of experience working in India and the UK, leading digital transformation, operating model transformation, programme and project management and procurement excellence solutions. His clientele has included European Public sector, FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 organisations such as Network Rail, High Speed Railway 2, Easyjet, Dublin Airport, Lloyds Banking Group, the National Health Service, Walmart and Marks and Spencer.
Richard Sheircliff
Richard brings over 11 years of experience delivering major transformation programmes in the transport industry across rail and aviation. Richard has led transformations from strategy development through to implementation and benefits realisation. Richard has worked with the biggest rail and aviation infrastructure owners in the UK, Network Rail and Heathrow airport, and has worked closely with many of the UK’s train operators and airlines. Richard is adept at working in environments with complex stakeholder landscapes.
Get In Touch
Rou-Hui Wong
Adam Kearns
Gavin Nicol
Bherav Kakkad
Insights
Data is still the new oil
By Rishabh Gadodia What percentage of your smart phone’s features do you use? For the average person, it’s below 30% despite spending over 3.25 hours