Situation

WorldPay is a leading global provider of electronic payment processing solutions. With operations in more than 40 countries, it has pioneered online payments for small and medium sized businesses, processing millions of payments every day.

Formerly a part of the RBS Group, WorldPay came into existence on December 1st 2010 after it was acquired by two private equity houses. As a result, it faced the challenge of building its UK operations and constructing the physical, technical infrastructure it needed for its business from scratch.

A total of 149 skilled workers joined WorldPay from RBS Group as part of the acquisition. However, none of them had specific experience of building and managing large scale infrastructure, which meant that there was a sizeable gap in knowledge and expertise that needed filling before the project could begin.

As Chief Technology Officer, Erik Toivonen, had overall responsibility for this programme and explained:

“On day one, we had a blank space, no power and no data centres, equipment, processes or procedures in place to get us started. It quickly became clear to us that if we were going to hit the ground running, we’d need some external help.”

Solution

Having worked with RBS Group for nine years, Xceed Group had the requisite knowledge and experience and its consultants were quickly engaged to work on the data centre discovery phase. WorldPay selected an internal programme manager to run the data centre infrastructure build, looking to Xceed Group to provide subject matter expertise and support to fill in the knowledge gap.

"I've never considered Xceed Group’s team to be a vendor or supplier,” added Toivonen. “As far as I’m concerned, Xceed Group is a partner, and the way their consultants have worked alongside our team underlines that. For example, Jim Hennigan, a practice director at Xceed Group, has helped throughout the course of the project as part of our leadership team and has been wearing the WorldPay hat from day one.

“The entire team has been a great cultural fit throughout the process, and they’ve worked alongside us to give us everything from leadership advice to selection of hardware, strategy and day-to-day management of the project. It’s a partnership approach, and one of the keys to the success of our relationship has been Jim’s ability to sit as part of my leadership team and provide clear, succinct and strong input wherever it has been required."

Xceed Group was the first partner WorldPay engaged for the data centre discovery phase. It helped to write a number of complex RFIs, getting the suppliers down to three with ‘a very objective scoring process’ – and it drafted detailed RFPs covering everything from choosing a facility to every bit of kit in the building.

"Xceed Group understands the art of the possible and has a real can do approach, which has been invaluable," explained Toivonen. "For example, the first plan for the data centre selection was six months. I asked it if could be done in four and Xceed Group immediately said yes. They may have just done six months’ work in four months but they didn’t complain about it, and worked alongside us to ensure that it was delivered on schedule."

As a result, WorldPay went from having nothing through to a fully installed set-up within the space of four months. When you consider that this involved implementing over 200 miles of fibre, 40 miles of copper, 60,000 fibre terminations, 6 tonnes of storage and 926 KVA of power, all run remotely, it was a task that was easier said than done.

"Xceed Group played a critical role in helping to get us up and running, all in a very short space of time," continued Toivonen. "These guys were more than just arms and legs. They have the knowledge and were able to help us all the way on our infrastructure journey, from strategy and planning through to planning and execution.”

Conclusion

After four months, WorldPay and Xceed Group were able to deliver the complete physical data centre infrastructure, in record time.

"As we went on, we expanded Xceed Group’s role, and I think it’s fair to say that the early momentum we got from Xceed Group’s engagement is the reason we are where we are today.” Said Toivonen. “The company has been a constant and was instrumental in selecting and building our data centres. It’s telling that SunGard, our hosting provider, commented that they had never seen a data centre build done as quickly, or as well planned in their history. We went from a blank space with no power to caged and cabled within two months.”

Following the tremendous success of the initial implementation, WorldPay has expanded its relationship beyond infrastructure and continues to work with Xceed Group today. As part of its growing team WorldPay now uses a number of Xceed Group consultants, all of whom have relevant knowledge and experience with WorldPay’s partners and competitors, which is very useful to the company.

"Throughout the entirety of the project, Xceed Group’s consultants were honest, open, and they hit their deadlines and really became part of our team," concluded Toivonen. “The contacts and network of Xceed Board Director, Gary Stewart, have also been extremely helpful as he’s made useful introductions and given good support.”

“We have built a very high calibre permanent team but are delighted with the work that Xceed Group has been able to deliver and will continue to partner with them for the foreseeable future.”
 

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