Posted: September 2nd, 2015

Motorola Turns To Project Portfolio Managment

Motorola Turns To Project Portfolio Managment

Motorola lnc. is a large rrlultinational technology scaled down. Processes that were critical to the
company based in Schaumburg, lllinois, specializing company but poorly funded were candidates for
in broadband commu nications infrastrucgmh. , better support. After performing this exercise,
enterprise mobility, public safety solutions, high- ‘ Motorola hoped to automate many of the manage-
definition video, mobile devices, and a wide variety rnent tasks that it had classified as less complex, but
of other mobile technologies. Motorola earned $22 the sheer size of the company made automation
billion in revenue in 2009, with 53,000 employees challenging.
worldwide. Motorola has grown organically through Motorola has 1,800 information systems and 1,500
mergers and acquisitions, and consequently has information systems employees who are responsible
thousands of systems performing various functions for l,oOo projects per year. The company also
throughout the business. Motorola knew that if it outsources much ofits lT work to outside contrac-
could better manage its systems and its projects, it tors, further increasing the number of regular users
could drastically l.ower its operating costs. in today’s of its systems. Managing that many workers is
weakened economic climate, saving money and difficult and often leads to inefficiency. Many ofthe
V increasing efficiency have become more important company’s employees were working on similar
than ever. projects or compiling the same data sets, unaware
Motorola is organized into three major segments. that other groups within the company were doing
The Mobile Devices segment of the business designs, the same work. Motorola hoped to identify and
manufactures, sells, and services wireless handsets, eliminate these groups, also known as “redundant
including smartphones. Motorola expects to face silos” of activity within the company, both to cut
increasingly intense competition in this segment costs and increase productivity. Management also
from a growing number of challengers hoping to hoped to prioritize resource usage so that projects
j cash in on the smartphone craze. Motorola’s l-lome that were most valuable to the company received the
and Networks segment develops infrastructure and resources they needed to be successful first.
equipment used by cable television operators, wire- Motorola’s managers hoped to achieve their goals
less service providers, and other communications of automating processes and lowering operating
e providers, andits Enterprise Mobility Solutions seg- costs by adopting HP’s Project and Portfolio
merit develops and markets voice and data commu- Management Center software, or HP PPM. This soft-
nications products, wireless broadband systems, and ware helps managers compare proposals, projects,
a host of applications and devices to a variety of and operational activities against budgets and
enterprise Customers. T resource capacity levels. All ofthe information
Weak economic conditions had driven Motorola’s Motorola gathered from its process analysis is
numbers down across all major segments of the busi- located in a central location with HP PPM, which
ness. The company used the downturn-to review its also serves as the centralized source of other critical
business in depth to locate areas where it could information such as the amount of investment
become more efficient. Motorola first an.a’ly”‘/..ed each. dollars used by a process and the priorities of
of its business t‘u.nctions in terms of its importance business requests coming through Motorola’s
and value to the business. Then, it analyzed the com- systems. HP PPM,allows Motorola’s IT employees
plenty and cost ofthat function. For examp’le, engi- and managers quick: and easy access to any and all
neering at Motorola is very important to the corn~ data pertaining to the company’s business
pany’s success, and differentiates it from its processes.
competitors. Engineering is also one of Motorola’s HP PPM allows Motorola to govern its entire IT
most complicated and costly business functions. portfolio using a broad array of tools, including
Motorola repeated this analysis for all of its busi- objective prioritization; multiple levels of input,
ness functions, and then determined which areas review, and approval; and. real-time visibility into all
required adjustment. Processes that were not as areas of the business. HP PPM users have up-to-the-
critical to the company’s success, but were still minute data on resources, budgets, forecasts, costs,
highly complex and costly became candidates to be programs, projects, and overall IT demand. HP PPM