Softcat Enables McBride to enhance ITSM Strategy
Project at a Glance
Softcat worked with McBride, a global manufacturing organisation, to support its IT leadership team in evolving its service management and procurement strategies. With a strong ITIL-aligned foundation already in place, McBride sought to enhance user experience, introduce automation and align technology decisions with long-term business goals. Softcat reframed the engagement by focusing on requirements and stakeholder priorities first, delivering a structured discovery process, comprehensive requirements documentation and managed vendor engagement. This approach enabled McBride to make informed decisions with greater confidence, improve alignment across teams and adopt a repeatable framework for future strategic initiatives.
Challenge
McBride had established a robust ITIL-aligned service management framework and governance model, creating a strong foundation for future development. The organisation identified an opportunity to further evolve its tooling and technology strategy to better support improved user experience, automation and innovation. At the same time, the IT team sought a more structured and objective approach to procurement that would translate strategic vision into clear requirements, maintain control of decision making and align investments with long-term business priorities.
Critical Success Factors:
1
Clear, defensible requirements
A structured method for translating strategy and stakeholder sentiment into clear, defensible requirements.
2
Independent and objective procurement
An independent, unbiased procurement approach that avoided technology‑first decision making.
3
Strong stakeholder alignment
Strong stakeholder engagement to build alignment, confidence and internal buy‑in.
Solution
Softcat worked closely with McBride to reposition procurement as a strategic, requirements-led exercise. Through a structured discovery workshop, Softcat engaged stakeholders across IT and the wider business to capture priorities, challenges and ambitions, creating a clear and shared vision of success. This resulted in a comprehensive requirements and strategy document, which guided a fair and consistent vendor engagement process. Softcat managed supplier interactions, ensured standardised responses and acted as an independent advisor throughout, enabling McBride to evaluate solutions objectively and maintain full control over decision making.
- Strategy‑led, requirements‑first procurement focused on business outcomes.
- Deep stakeholder discovery translating sentiment into clear, market‑ready documentation.
- End‑to‑end vendor engagement and commercial management to reduce risk.
Results
The engagement delivered greater confidence for McBride’s IT leadership team through a structured, evidence-based decision-making process. Early stakeholder involvement fostered stronger organisational alignment and clarity around outcomes, while Softcat’s management of vendor engagement reduced operational burden and improved efficiency. The approach also created a repeatable framework for future initiatives, equipping McBride with a scalable method for gathering requirements, engaging stakeholders and making strategic technology decisions.
- Increased confidence through structured, evidence‑based decision making.
- Stronger stakeholder alignment and reduced internal friction.
- A repeatable framework for future strategic initiatives.
Softcat were able to narrow down the best options, kept them [Various Suppliers] honest and made sure they were informed enough to be able to answer the right questions.
Barry Akers-Donnelly
Head of Service Delivery, McBride