Rapid results: a new ITSM Platform in 54 days

SCS JV is a joint venture between Skanska, Costain and STRABAG. The organisation is focused on delivering 28 miles of tunnels for the HS2 London tunnels project, spanning from Euston to West Ruislip, and operates across 22 construction sites. Its IT Service Desk supports 2,100 SCS project staff and 4,000-6,000 supply-chain members across the project's lifecycle, handling approximately 1,000 tickets per month.

When Ivanti announced the end of life for Cherwell, SCS JV faced an urgent challenge. More than a service-management tool, Cherwell provided crucial identity and access management for the project, controlling who could see sensitive project data across 22 live construction sites. With more than 2,100 project staff and between 4,000 and 6,000 supply-chain users onboarded at different phases of delivery, any replacement platform had to replicate complex workflows, comply with HS2 governance requirements, and be delivered without operational disruption. SCS JV turned to Pink Elephant for vendor-neutral guidance on platform selection and to manage the transition. What followed was an exceptionally fast and collaborative delivery: a full enterprise ITSM platform implemented in just 54 days, far faster than the typical three-to-twelve-month industry timeframe.

SCS JV is a joint venture between Skanska, Costain and STRABAG, delivering 28 miles of tunnels for the HS2 London project from Euston to West Ruislip. Its IT Service Desk supports more than 2,100 SCS project staff and between 4,000 and 6,000 supply-chain users onboarded across the lifecycle of the programme, working from 22 active construction sites.

When Ivanti announced the end of life for Cherwell, the platform was doing far more than handling tickets. It controlled identity and access for sensitive HS2 project data, enforced strict governance, and ran bespoke workflows that could not simply be lifted into a generic replacement.

SCS JV needed a partner that could guide platform selection, replicate complex identity and access workflows, comply with HS2 governance and audit requirements, and deliver a full enterprise ITSM platform mid-project, at speed, without disrupting any of the 22 live sites.

We engaged with SCS JV as a vendor-neutral partner. After a formal tender that reviewed around 20 ITSM tools, the joint shortlist of four was narrowed to Ivanti Neurons as the platform best suited to the bespoke identity, access and governance needs.

To protect business continuity, we coordinated interim hosting for Cherwell through our partner network so the legacy system stayed operational until the new platform went live. A two-week workshop phase then defined the minimum viable product, producing a detailed blueprint covering workflows, identity and access, service requests and governance.

From there, disciplined project management and close collaboration with the SCS JV team delivered the full enterprise platform in just 54 days, far ahead of the typical three-to-twelve-month industry timeframe.

The speed of transition was a core part of it alongside the complexity of the access and identity piece. SCS needed a tool and a partner that could marry those things up.

Emily Lawrence, Pink Elephant

Despite the scale and complexity of the programme, SCS JV moved off Cherwell and onto Ivanti Neurons with full enterprise capability and no disruption to live operations.

• 54-day implementation of a full enterprise ITSM platform, far below the industry norm.
• 2,100 staff and up to 6,000 supply-chain users supported, with bespoke identity and access workflows replicated from day one.
• 22 active construction sites kept stable throughout the transition.
• 100% compliance maintained, meeting all HS2 governance and audit requirements without interruption.

Pink Elephant went above and beyond. They didn’t just say ‘we don’t host, so off you go’, they worked with their network to make it happen.

Kellie Hickman, IT Service Desk Manager, SCS JV