Conde Nast Publishing

Condé Nast is a global media company that produces some of the world’s leading print, digital, video and social brands. These include Vogue, GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Wired and Architectural Digest (AD), Condé Nast Traveler and La Cucina Italiana, among others.

Objective

To undertake IT audits in all 13 countries making recommendations to each local company. In addition to make recommendations to the global board on the way forward for IT

What we did

We travelled to each country, spending a week in each country to understand the current IT landscape in each country. They also undertook interviews with key staff in each country to understand the key issues with the current IT and IT needs for the future.

A report was developed for each country which included:

• Key issues
• Risk and Immediate actions needed
• Longer term recommendations

These were discussed and agreed with the heads of each country and the regional board member.

Finally a report was developed for the board making recommendations on what actions could be taken globally (sharing key technology developments to reduce costs and gain leverage of scale), use of common technologies (eg finance systems) to make consolidation of reporting simpler.

The Results

Reports were agreed with each country with each country manager agreeing to implement key recommendations. Our associate was asked to return to the Asia region to review progress after 6 months to ensure progress was being made in line with agreed actions.

Working with the Head of HR globally, we developed a Role Description for a Global CIO who was their hired to take responsibility for IT across the company.