Client Synopsis
Hills HoldingsOrganisation Overview
Hills Holdings is a diversified manufacturing investment company specialising in the identification of opportunities in high growth markets and working hand in hand with recognised companies to realise their growth potential. Originally the inventor of the Aussie backyard icon, the Hills Hoist, Hills Holdings’ entrepreneurial flair now extends far beyond the backyard.
Its portfolio of businesses includes some of the most successful Australian companies such as Fielders, Korvest, Orrcon and Bailey. Its products and solutions have been incorporated into some of the most globally recognised projects in Australia including ANZ Stadium; Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre; Darwin Convention Centre and Sydney Harbour Bridge. Hills’ businesses operate in three distinct and focused market segments being building and industrial; lifestyle and sustainability; and electronics and communications. Together, they combine 32 businesses and 3000 dedicated staff across Australia and overseas.
Fragile to Agile Engagement
Hills Industries was about to embark on Project Primus, its most significant IT investment in decades, being the replacement of its two core systems i.e. Hills Commercial System (HCS) and a major upgrade to JD Edwards across all divisions. In preparation for this business-critical project, Hills initially secured the services of Fragile to Agile to assess its overall enterprise architecture and, more specifically, the solution architecture for Project Primus.
This assessment identified several material risks that needed to be addressed before the project could be executed with any degree of confidence. Hills suspended the project for three months whilst Fragile to Agile addressed these risks. The first part of this engagement was to facilitate an executive discussion on the desired operating model for Hills and decide whether process standardisation would be mandated across the portfolio of businesses or, alternatively, support specialisation.
Once Fragile to Agile had facilitated this decision, its enterprise architecture methodology provided a basis for making the decision tangible by translating the strategy into execution. A Business Capability Model was developed and used to determine how the conceptual operating model translated into practical decisions. Consequently, it provided a way of systematically considering where business units needed to be independent and where functions could be shared.
In parallel to developing the Business Capability Model, Fragile to Agile captured and communicated the business strategy in business outcome and capability terms and from this, developed architectural principles covering the key technology design layers for Project Primus to underpin these outcomes, namely:
- Integration Architecture;
- Construction Architecture;
- Data Architecture;
- Technical Security Architecture.
These principles were embedded in the RFP seeking an implementation partner for the project and were actively enforced during the project’s execution. The project was successfully implemented in 2013, on time and under budget.