Managing Risk at the UK’s Largest Port Operator

It was the scale of the organisation which had led ABP to seek improvements in the way they managed risk. Our approach involved business transformation, learning innovation and digital experience to deliver a nationwide team with a single, highly visual tool, that was nominated for an MCA award in 2015.

The UK maritime industry has a long-held history of excellence. However, the role it has played in industrialisation and success as a country has not come without recognition that to continually improve is to continually adapt.

Yet, many ways of working remain established, legacy systems. The challenge now is to embrace the future of work through a digital transformation.

Associated British Ports has grown steadily to become the UK’s largest port operator. As part of this growth, their system for managing risk had been surpassed by the needs of the business. Our team recognised an opportunity for digital enablement at ABP – and proposed a SharePoint solution to replace their spreadsheet methods for risk management.

ABP had several objectives – but their main priorities were to make the system more intuitive, to broaden the input of risk and to embed risk management into the day-to-day workings of the organisation.

Our strategy was one of considered change, beginning with stakeholder engagement, followed by a phased implementation so the new ways of working could be introduced at a pace suited to the end users.

The implementation of a SharePoint solution provided highly visual, instant reporting at the user's required level of detail. In addition to our digital experience work, the project was supported by our learning innovation and business transformation consultants, who helped to collectively automate and simplify a complex approach.

Overall, the successful delivery of a risk management tool delivered granularity with ease of use and a highly visual user interface which is a departure from the previous figure-intensive spreadsheet process. The bespoke route resulted in it being less expensive, more effective and provided a shorter timescale for client ROI.